Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
Of course the government doesn't want a lockdown. But equally obviously, that could make it more - not less - likely that other mandatory restrictions will be brought in. To avoid a full lockdown. This time they have been explicit enough about keeping their options open on lesser restrictions. It's only a full lockdown that would be viewed as an undeniable political failure.
At the moment the signs seem positive, with the rate of positive tests (I wish they would stop calling it "cases", which is just plain wrong) falling, contrary to most expectations, for the second time in a couple of months.
Deaths as a proportion of positive tests have been rising, but that is probably manageable so long as infections don't start rising rapidly again. As always, "cases" are the key, regardless of moderate fluctuations in the death rate and hospitalisation rate per "case".
But the situation in Scotland at the moment should be a caution against thinking there's nothing to worry about any more.
What situation in Scotland are you talking about then, do you know something us residents up here don't know about?
John Swinney still in charge of education should be situation enough to worry anybody.
We know your obsessed by education but WTF has your post got to do with what was being discussed. Swinney is not causing deaths or hospitalisations.
The dissonance among our 'remainer' friends on here and elsewhere this morning is a sight to behold. Turns out being at the back of the queue gives you the last laugh as well. Next the demonisation of Biden begins.
Erm, isn't it mainly the Brexiteers telling us for months that Biden is gaga?
Dunno - I'm not a Brexiteer - however, it looks now like they have allies.
Right.
So what are you, out of idle curiosity? It's disconcerting when you have classified a post as tediously partisan, to be told that it doesn't even clear that low bar.
.@lemondefr reporting this morning that France's decision NOT to recall the French ambassador to the UK was intended as a deliberate snub to @BorisJohnson
There won't be another full lockdown unless hospitalisations as well as cases rise significantly and the vaccinations are still keeping hospitalisations down even if cases rise
Hospitalisations per day are currently running at about a quarter of the peak rate in January.
Essentially if cases double, and then double again, we'll be back where we were then.
.@lemondefr reporting this morning that France's decision NOT to recall the French ambassador to the UK was intended as a deliberate snub to @BorisJohnson
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
Europe needs France in NATO to contain Putin, whatever disagreements over how to contain China. In western Europe France and the UK are the main military powers
I see also he recently allowed anti-vax conspiracy theorist to use his lectern. Clearly he is trying to distance himself from his earlier "Get Vaxed" comments.
It’s ironic and tragic that in a move designed to counter growing Chinese power we have divided the democracies on the security council and thereby weakened us relative to the Chinese.
It’s a shame that they didn’t find a route in the Pacific that kept us united. Why couldn’t the Aussies have both types of submarines?
Well, the Attack class order was for 12 submarines. Australia are having enough trouble keeping their existing six Collins-class subs crewed. Reducing the Attack-class order would have had hefty penalties. Then you have the problem of maintaining two very different types of sub, with very different kit and equipment.
Also, NG and France's behaviour throughout this has not been that good IMO. It's not all Australia's fault.
Then you finally get the issue that the Attack-class didn't really meet their needs in the first place.
It’s harmful bullshit if that’s what you mean by “useful”.
Western democracies have fundamental values - freedom of speech, of assembly, of religion - that our forefathers fought and bled to secure. We must stick up for those values and not kowtow to an authoritarian dictatorship for a couple of brass farthings
What happens to those values of freedom of speech, of assembly and of religion when the representatives of our country get on the blower to Riyadh?
I once heard the PM described as “the man [sic] you hire to do the things that you don’t want to think about but know that they need to be done”. I’ve never been able to track it down again though!
In a perfect world we wouldn’t do deals with Saudi. But they are not an existential threat to us in the way that China could be. Sometimes your enemy’s enemy is your friend (in this case to counterpoint Iran) for geopolitical reasons. Regardless of how distasteful they may be.
And when they overstep even those weak limits - as with that guy in the Saudi embassy in Turkey - then they need to be slapped down
I'm not against the sort of realpolitik that you describe when it's *necessary*, though if so I should prefer it not to be accompanied about self-righteous outrage about our perceived opponents.
That said, I think "necessary" should be defined as being faced with existential threats. Assisting the Saudis to bomb Yemen back to medieval times and the edge of famine is not necessary and we shouldn't have been doing it. Similarly, I think we *should* condemn the treatment of Uighurs and the represion of women. The default should be freedom to express our views. Only if we face a sort of Stalin vs Hitler choice should we side with the lesser evil.
By the way, I don't dislike Johnson. But he is absolutely the last person I'd call if there was something unpleasant that needed someone to get on with doing quickly. That's not his style at all. But if I wanted a fraught situation calmed with some affable bluster and a few meaningless gestures. Then yes, absolutely.
To clarify my original quote was about the role of PM not the current incumbent (we are aligned on our views of him)
.@lemondefr reporting this morning that France's decision NOT to recall the French ambassador to the UK was intended as a deliberate snub to @BorisJohnson
There won't be another full lockdown unless hospitalisations as well as cases rise significantly and the vaccinations are still keeping hospitalisations down even if cases rise
Hospitalisations per day are currently running at about a quarter of the peak rate in January.
Essentially if cases double, and then double again, we'll be back where we were then.
@Chris Still waiting to hear what mince you were pontificating about re Scotland earlier.
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
Europe needs France in NATO to contain Putin, whatever disagreements over how to contain China. In western Europe France and the UK are the main military powers
The US is the key to Europe's defence with UK and French support
There won't be another full lockdown unless hospitalisations as well as cases rise significantly and the vaccinations are still keeping hospitalisations down even if cases rise
Hospitalisations per day are currently running at about a quarter of the peak rate in January.
Essentially if cases double, and then double again, we'll be back where we were then.
So basically we would need four times the current case rate this winter to even consider another lockdown
What a day to be going to France! It seems Johnson has chosen to alienate the EU and China and throw in his lot with a dysfunctional US and an insignificant Australia.
To describe him as the Frank Spencer of world politics flatters him
You're still really butthurt aren't you?
The EU without the UK is starting to look ever more like that French-German vanity project.
I'm not sure that the EU itself should be unduly worried. They have 27 (and rising) countries around them to trade with at very favourable terms. The CPTPP seems to be a fractured group of countries around the pacific rim, diametrically opposite to Europe, which would be extremely costly in time and money to operate everyday trade. Even their largest possible member (USA) can't make up its mind whether to be in it or not. It's no coincidence that Morrison/Johnson and Biden need to shore up their support before another impending Election, it could just be a massive PR event. I'm not surprised the French are annoyed, being reneged on dealwise by the Aussies.
There won't be another full lockdown unless hospitalisations as well as cases rise significantly and the vaccinations are still keeping hospitalisations down even if cases rise
Hospitalisations per day are currently running at about a quarter of the peak rate in January.
Essentially if cases double, and then double again, we'll be back where we were then.
So basically we would need four times the case rate of last January this winter to even consider another lockdown
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 18h Remember: the rapid contraction we are seeing in hospitalisations now reflects the drop in cases from two weeks ago to last week. Over the time since those now being hospitalised became cases, cases have fallen a further 25%. Big further hospitalisation drops are now baked in.
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
Europe needs France in NATO to contain Putin, whatever disagreements over how to contain China. In western Europe France and the UK are the main military powers
We coped handling the USSR without the French in NATO for years at a time.
Pretty sure we can handle Putin without France in NATO if we need to.
A balanced view would be that it should be lawful for anyone to use only one or the other, as it is ridiculous to create crimes without good reason, but that commercially the obvious choice for big outfits now is to use both. Market stalls in Barnsley can cash in on selling apples and bananas by the pound, those in Shoreditch can do the opposite.
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
Europe needs France in NATO to contain Putin, whatever disagreements over how to contain China. In western Europe France and the UK are the main military powers
The US is the key to Europe's defence with UK and French support
Provided the US still commits to maintain bases in Europe and that is not a given given recent US administrations.
Otherwise yes you need both France and the UK to maintain European security
Covid has shown up quite how sparse our weapons against disease are. The vaccines were later then we needed, even fat a brilliantly accelerated development. Therapeutic developments have been very disappointing.
I would like to see a Manhattan Project on therapeutics. The world needs to throw billions into development of drugs and strategies that will help keep people out of hospital from even 'normal' illnesses such as flu.
An issue is that vaccines have been seen to work and, in a couple of cases, vastly profitable. The sector will throw lots of money into vaccines. But vaccines are inevitable delayed; they need to be developed for each individual illness. Therapeutic drugs and techniques can help with many different illnesses that attack in similar ways.
I think you are wrong on the facts here. There was very good work done on therapeutics in the UK - I think it was called the REACT study - and among other improvements in care it lead to the use of Dexamethasone, which cut the fatality rate by one-third. You would expect that discovery would have save tens of thousands of lives during our Alpha wave.
There was also the improvements in supplying oxygen that came out of the ventilator challenge.
I can't find much to fault in the medical response. There is a question over whether challenge trials should be used to speed up the vaccine development process.
I'm not denying that there's been *some* progress in therapeutics - but also a lot of dead ends. However, we've got vaccines that are 80-90% effective against death. As far as I'm aware, the therapeutics we've developed during this crisis have been nowhere near as effective.
Edit: and I don't wish to cast shade on our medical response.
That’s the way therapeutic development works. You have a great idea. You test it empirically. 90% of them don’t work. You rinse and repeat.
Indeed, most young people quite reasonably won't understand imperial measurements.
Yes we can happily drink beer in pints, or drive in miles, but those are integer unit. No conversions necessary. There's no need to think about how many fluid ounces or gallons or firkins or whatever are related to pints.
You need to know how many pints are in a firkin if you are serving beer! (72, but 65 is a better estimate of saleable pints).
I tend to switch between metric and imperial, and if I had kids they would have learned about imperial as I use them. And the fact that a pound contains 16 ounces is a feature, not a bug. Customary measures are quite useful for everyday transactions, cooking, weighing and measuring people and familiar objects, etc. If I need precision or I'm doing any sort of tricky calculation I naturally use metric. The two systems can happily co-exist.
It is young people who have babies, and I have never yet heard a new one's weight given in kilos. Does it happen in trendier parts?
Just wanted to thank everyone (and particularly @Foxy) for their good wishes and help over Husband's travails.
After another lengthy night in A&E he did finally get a proper examination by an ENT specialist. He has a nasty infection but has had IV penicillin and is now, finally, home with a load more medicine to take. Still not able to eat but hopefully that will change soon.
The waiting was tiresome but not, frankly, the worst part. Medical need takes priority. It was the failure to deal with the issue the first and second time he was there which bothered us. In other circumstances a 2-day delay could be critical.
Anyway, back to a bit more normality I hope. On Monday I have to take one of the family cats to the cat hospital. The cost is eye watering. I may as well have a racehorse sleeping on my sofa. Still the speed and attention to detail which vets show is quite a contrast.
A balanced view would be that it should be lawful for anyone to use only one or the other, as it is ridiculous to create crimes without good reason, but that commercially the obvious choice for big outfits now is to use both. Market stalls in Barnsley can cash in on selling apples and bananas by the pound, those in Shoreditch can do the opposite.
The poll records 45/39 in favour across the public
I am rather surprised that 45% were in favour, I would not have put it as high
Dr. Foxy, New Zealand is isolated and has been far chummier with the Communists than they might wish to be.
As for Australia, the rising threat of China is something that must be accounted for. Sure, you can feed a crocodile, but appeasement does not work. Australia must be able to defend itself.
New Zealand is and has been a non-nuclear state for three decades - that's why ANZUS was suspended as NZ didn't want American nuclear submarines in its waters which is, I think, the main reason Auckland has been excluded from the AUKUS discussions.
NZ, like Australia, has significant trading links with China worth a lot to the NZ economy. Tourism from the mainland was growing strongly pre-pandemic as well.
In any case, are we seriously arguing China is a significant military threat to Australia and New Zealand? It may be more significant if, for instance, China did a deal with Fiji and established a military base at Suva or Nadi or some other island.
China shares a border with many other countries - Russia, India, Afghanistan and Vietnam to name but four. Are we offering them any kind of guarantee or support against Chinese military expansionism? I doubt it but again that's missing the point - China is achieving economically what the PLA couldn't do militarily. It effectively controls parts of Africa - Chinese funded infrastructure may be about getting access to resources but the local Governments aren't going to say no to improved road and rail links and the economic benefits they bring.
How has the West responded to China's economic imperialism (that's what it is)? Answer it hasn't. The thinking and the rhetoric remains trapped in the Cold War - a couple of nuclear submarines versus providing jobs and a better standard of living for thousands of impoverished people. I think we know what works.
My understanding is that it doesn’t really provide jobs for the locals - they fly in Chinese workers who live in a separate compound and build. (Based on an article I read about Tuvalu).
The “gift” is also structured as a loan - it’s all about intergovernmental power and influence
Infrastructure development might have been a better use of foreign aid money which has just been cut, of course. Apparently hard-headed soft power is only effective when directed from Beijing.
There are rules on how you use development aid. China’s investments are not aid.
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
Europe needs France in NATO to contain Putin, whatever disagreements over how to contain China. In western Europe France and the UK are the main military powers
We coped handling the USSR without the French in NATO for years at a time.
Pretty sure we can handle Putin without France in NATO if we need to.
France never left NATO, they withdrew from, and later rejoined, the Integrated Command Structure but they were still very much part of the alliance.
NATO fleg trivia: the flags outside NATO buildings go L-R in alphabetical order of the countries' names in French. Except the Netherlands who use their English name and the host nation which is always in the centre.
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
Europe needs France in NATO to contain Putin, whatever disagreements over how to contain China. In western Europe France and the UK are the main military powers
The US is the key to Europe's defence with UK and French support
Provided the US still commits to maintain bases in Europe and that is not a given given recent US administrations.
RAF Mildenhall is closing in 2027. Any plan that relies on the active long term engagement of the US isn't a plan.
Of course the government doesn't want a lockdown. But equally obviously, that could make it more - not less - likely that other mandatory restrictions will be brought in. To avoid a full lockdown. This time they have been explicit enough about keeping their options open on lesser restrictions. It's only a full lockdown that would be viewed as an undeniable political failure.
At the moment the signs seem positive, with the rate of positive tests (I wish they would stop calling it "cases", which is just plain wrong) falling, contrary to most expectations, for the second time in a couple of months.
Deaths as a proportion of positive tests have been rising, but that is probably manageable so long as infections don't start rising rapidly again. As always, "cases" are the key, regardless of moderate fluctuations in the death rate and hospitalisation rate per "case".
But the situation in Scotland at the moment should be a caution against thinking there's nothing to worry about any more.
What situation in Scotland are you talking about then, do you know something us residents up here don't know about?
John Swinney still in charge of education should be situation enough to worry anybody.
We know your obsessed by education but WTF has your post got to do with what was being discussed. Swinney is not causing deaths or hospitalisations.
It was what is called ‘a joke,’ Malc.
(BTW, that should be “you’re obsessed with education”.)
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
Europe needs France in NATO to contain Putin, whatever disagreements over how to contain China. In western Europe France and the UK are the main military powers
We coped handling the USSR without the French in NATO for years at a time.
Pretty sure we can handle Putin without France in NATO if we need to.
Only with a vast US military presence in Europe, Trump is more isolationist than Reagan was and Biden is less interested in Europe.
We could not handle Putin alone without French support if the US largely withdraws from Europe.
It needs France and the UK working together to protect European security
Brittany Ferry empty. Struggle to muster a football team.
Just seen dolphins. They interrupted my typing of this. I went all the way to Iceland previously to see that and clearly didn't need to.
There was one in the Thames Estuary the other day. Photo on one of the Canvey Island Facebook sites. Never saw them there in my youth. River was far too polluted 60 years ago
Indeed, most young people quite reasonably won't understand imperial measurements.
Yes we can happily drink beer in pints, or drive in miles, but those are integer unit. No conversions necessary. There's no need to think about how many fluid ounces or gallons or firkins or whatever are related to pints.
You need to know how many pints are in a firkin if you are serving beer! (72, but 65 is a better estimate of saleable pints).
I tend to switch between metric and imperial, and if I had kids they would have learned about imperial as I use them. And the fact that a pound contains 16 ounces is a feature, not a bug. Customary measures are quite useful for everyday transactions, cooking, weighing and measuring people and familiar objects, etc. If I need precision or I'm doing any sort of tricky calculation I naturally use metric. The two systems can happily co-exist.
It is young people who have babies, and I have never yet heard a new one's weight given in kilos. Does it happen in trendier parts?
Our babies weight was given to us and tracked for their first year in NHS visits on kilos.
Dr. Foxy, New Zealand is isolated and has been far chummier with the Communists than they might wish to be.
As for Australia, the rising threat of China is something that must be accounted for. Sure, you can feed a crocodile, but appeasement does not work. Australia must be able to defend itself.
New Zealand is and has been a non-nuclear state for three decades - that's why ANZUS was suspended as NZ didn't want American nuclear submarines in its waters which is, I think, the main reason Auckland has been excluded from the AUKUS discussions.
NZ, like Australia, has significant trading links with China worth a lot to the NZ economy. Tourism from the mainland was growing strongly pre-pandemic as well.
In any case, are we seriously arguing China is a significant military threat to Australia and New Zealand? It may be more significant if, for instance, China did a deal with Fiji and established a military base at Suva or Nadi or some other island.
China shares a border with many other countries - Russia, India, Afghanistan and Vietnam to name but four. Are we offering them any kind of guarantee or support against Chinese military expansionism? I doubt it but again that's missing the point - China is achieving economically what the PLA couldn't do militarily. It effectively controls parts of Africa - Chinese funded infrastructure may be about getting access to resources but the local Governments aren't going to say no to improved road and rail links and the economic benefits they bring.
How has the West responded to China's economic imperialism (that's what it is)? Answer it hasn't. The thinking and the rhetoric remains trapped in the Cold War - a couple of nuclear submarines versus providing jobs and a better standard of living for thousands of impoverished people. I think we know what works.
My understanding is that it doesn’t really provide jobs for the locals - they fly in Chinese workers who live in a separate compound and build. (Based on an article I read about Tuvalu).
The “gift” is also structured as a loan - it’s all about intergovernmental power and influence
Sure. China learned a lot from the "unequal treaties" of the 19th century, foreign concessions and extraterritorality. They are holding the whip now.
Of course. It’s ALWAYS the west’s fault. China is not a sophisticated enough nation to have any moral culpability for its actions. Don’t you think that is patronising and even slightly racist?
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
Europe needs France in NATO to contain Putin, whatever disagreements over how to contain China. In western Europe France and the UK are the main military powers
The US is the key to Europe's defence with UK and French support
Provided the US still commits to maintain bases in Europe and that is not a given given recent US administrations.
RAF Mildenhall is closing in 2027. Any plan that relies on the active long term engagement of the US isn't a plan.
Agreed. However, the French pique with a threat to leave the alliance will no doubt be very reassuring to their EU allies to the east. I have no doubt it will have been noted in the Baltic states in particular.
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
Europe needs France in NATO to contain Putin, whatever disagreements over how to contain China. In western Europe France and the UK are the main military powers
The US is the key to Europe's defence with UK and French support
Yes provided the US still commits to maintain bases in Europe and that is not a given given recent US administrations.
Otherwise yes you need both France and the UK to maintain European security
Then the EU need an agreement with the UK and Mark Rutte of the Netherlands was in Downing Street yesterday suggesting just that
Dr. Foxy, New Zealand is isolated and has been far chummier with the Communists than they might wish to be.
As for Australia, the rising threat of China is something that must be accounted for. Sure, you can feed a crocodile, but appeasement does not work. Australia must be able to defend itself.
New Zealand is and has been a non-nuclear state for three decades - that's why ANZUS was suspended as NZ didn't want American nuclear submarines in its waters which is, I think, the main reason Auckland has been excluded from the AUKUS discussions.
NZ, like Australia, has significant trading links with China worth a lot to the NZ economy. Tourism from the mainland was growing strongly pre-pandemic as well.
In any case, are we seriously arguing China is a significant military threat to Australia and New Zealand? It may be more significant if, for instance, China did a deal with Fiji and established a military base at Suva or Nadi or some other island.
China shares a border with many other countries - Russia, India, Afghanistan and Vietnam to name but four. Are we offering them any kind of guarantee or support against Chinese military expansionism? I doubt it but again that's missing the point - China is achieving economically what the PLA couldn't do militarily. It effectively controls parts of Africa - Chinese funded infrastructure may be about getting access to resources but the local Governments aren't going to say no to improved road and rail links and the economic benefits they bring.
How has the West responded to China's economic imperialism (that's what it is)? Answer it hasn't. The thinking and the rhetoric remains trapped in the Cold War - a couple of nuclear submarines versus providing jobs and a better standard of living for thousands of impoverished people. I think we know what works.
My understanding is that it doesn’t really provide jobs for the locals - they fly in Chinese workers who live in a separate compound and build. (Based on an article I read about Tuvalu).
The “gift” is also structured as a loan - it’s all about intergovernmental power and influence
Sure. China learned a lot from the "unequal treaties" of the 19th century, foreign concessions and extraterritorality. They are holding the whip now.
Of course. It’s ALWAYS the west’s fault. China is not a sophisticated enough nation to have any moral culpability for its actions. Don’t you think that is patronising and even slightly racist?
Revenge is a dish best served cold. Who was it said ‘Don’t get mad, get even.’
More anecdata concerning the disintegration of the NHS:
People with cancer forced to go private
In January this year, Steve Deeman in Nottinghamshire was looking at an eight-week delay to have the lesion on his forehead diagnosed. “It was suspicious looking and grew quite rapidly over the next few weeks,” said the 69-year-old retired teacher.
He was referred to a local hospital dermatology department in early March and was given a consultation appointment for May. “I decided I couldn’t wait that long and sought private medical care a few days later,” he said.
Deeman saw a specialist dermatologist who diagnosed the lesion as cancerous and it was removed the next day. His treatment so far has cost about £1,500 but further follow-ups have been recommended which could bring the total to £2,000. “I was fortunate in that I was able to afford treatment but there are a lot of people who wouldn’t be able to.”
When Fabien needed to have a decayed tooth removed in May, his dentist told him that he would have to wait up to three years to have it done on the NHS. In disbelief, the 27-year-old from Edinburgh rang 50 dental practices but without any luck. He had no choice but to go private. Having lost his job during the pandemic, he was on universal credit and had to borrow the £600 from his family.
If you've the means and knowhow to trade in shares then private healthcare groups are probably a good bet. As the latter piece goes on to say, quoting the director of a health think tank,
“There is a big risk that unless government provides adequate funding for the NHS, more and more people will be forced to pay privately, which in turn will undermine middle-class support for a tax-funded NHS.
“It’s not likely that we will end up with a US-style insurance system. But a two-tier system, where the NHS is a residual service for those without the means to pay is a possibility – ultimately these are political choices.”
Certainly there is likely to be a boom in the sector, both from the self pay private market and in terms of outsourcing of NHS work, which is a major source of income to private hospitals. That said the performance of Spire shares hasn't been great recently.
It is curious although the Spire price has been more influenced by take over speculation than anything else. What I find strange is that the private medical sector is not absolutely booming with significant new capital being raised and deployed. It is going to take a decade for the NHS to recover from the backlog now in place and many, many more are going to go private. If you are in pain from a hip or knee and being told to wait 2 or more years for a replacement it is an absolute no brainer if you can afford it. If you are working it even makes economic sense.
The free at the point of delivery service in the NHS has always kept this sector quite small in this country but it just seems inevitable that there is going to be a large expansion. I would expect some of the American players to invest.
The NHS has, of course, been an established fact of life for such a very long time that it simply doesn't occur to a lot of people who might benefit from going private to do so. Private hospitals are either not thought of at all, or bring to mind images of cosmetic vanity procedures and/or being something very exclusive for royalty and rich celebrities.
It takes time for such a mindset to change, but if comfortably off middle-aged and retired folk with reasonably deep pockets find themselves having to wait years for necessary surgery, then change it surely will.
There will be a lot more companies looking at private insurance for staff too, if we see waiting lists for routine treatment keeping people off work for weeks.
Problem is everybody fishing in the same pool of surgeons. Shorter waits for paying punters means even longer waits for Our Beloved NHS.
The trick is sweating the physical assets. Most suites are not used by the NHS at weekends so you can create additional capacity.
You skill need surgeons to be able to sweat the assets and those surgeons don't exist in the numbers you seem to think they do
It’s surgeons doing extra shifts at weekends. Often running several operations in parallel.
Dr. Foxy, New Zealand is isolated and has been far chummier with the Communists than they might wish to be.
As for Australia, the rising threat of China is something that must be accounted for. Sure, you can feed a crocodile, but appeasement does not work. Australia must be able to defend itself.
New Zealand is and has been a non-nuclear state for three decades - that's why ANZUS was suspended as NZ didn't want American nuclear submarines in its waters which is, I think, the main reason Auckland has been excluded from the AUKUS discussions.
NZ, like Australia, has significant trading links with China worth a lot to the NZ economy. Tourism from the mainland was growing strongly pre-pandemic as well.
In any case, are we seriously arguing China is a significant military threat to Australia and New Zealand? It may be more significant if, for instance, China did a deal with Fiji and established a military base at Suva or Nadi or some other island.
China shares a border with many other countries - Russia, India, Afghanistan and Vietnam to name but four. Are we offering them any kind of guarantee or support against Chinese military expansionism? I doubt it but again that's missing the point - China is achieving economically what the PLA couldn't do militarily. It effectively controls parts of Africa - Chinese funded infrastructure may be about getting access to resources but the local Governments aren't going to say no to improved road and rail links and the economic benefits they bring.
How has the West responded to China's economic imperialism (that's what it is)? Answer it hasn't. The thinking and the rhetoric remains trapped in the Cold War - a couple of nuclear submarines versus providing jobs and a better standard of living for thousands of impoverished people. I think we know what works.
My understanding is that it doesn’t really provide jobs for the locals - they fly in Chinese workers who live in a separate compound and build. (Based on an article I read about Tuvalu).
The “gift” is also structured as a loan - it’s all about intergovernmental power and influence
Sure. China learned a lot from the "unequal treaties" of the 19th century, foreign concessions and extraterritorality. They are holding the whip now.
Of course. It’s ALWAYS the west’s fault. China is not a sophisticated enough nation to have any moral culpability for its actions. Don’t you think that is patronising and even slightly racist?
That a very odd reading of what @foxy wrote. I think you need to examine your own prejudices.
Just wanted to thank everyone (and particularly @Foxy) for their good wishes and help over Husband's travails.
After another lengthy night in A&E he did finally get a proper examination by an ENT specialist. He has a nasty infection but has had IV penicillin and is now, finally, home with a load more medicine to take. Still not able to eat but hopefully that will change soon.
The waiting was tiresome but not, frankly, the worst part. Medical need takes priority. It was the failure to deal with the issue the first and second time he was there which bothered us. In other circumstances a 2-day delay could be critical.
Anyway, back to a bit more normality I hope. On Monday I have to take one of the family cats to the cat hospital. The cost is eye watering. I may as well have a racehorse sleeping on my sofa. Still the speed and attention to detail which vets show is quite a contrast.
I am so pleased for you both and the fact he needed IV penicillin affirms your concerns
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
Europe needs France in NATO to contain Putin, whatever disagreements over how to contain China. In western Europe France and the UK are the main military powers
The US is the key to Europe's defence with UK and French support
Yes provided the US still commits to maintain bases in Europe and that is not a given given recent US administrations.
Otherwise yes you need both France and the UK to maintain European security
Then the EU need an agreement with the UK and Mark Rutte of the Netherlands was in Downing Street yesterday suggesting just that
I imagine the general sense in the EU is that an agreement with the UK is something you can absolutely take to the bank.
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
Europe needs France in NATO to contain Putin, whatever disagreements over how to contain China. In western Europe France and the UK are the main military powers
We coped handling the USSR without the French in NATO for years at a time.
Pretty sure we can handle Putin without France in NATO if we need to.
Only with a vast US military presence in Europe, Trump is more isolationist than Reagan was and Biden is less interested in Europe.
We could not handle Putin alone without French support if the US largely withdraws from Europe.
It needs France and the UK working together to protect European security
Then the EU need to do a deal with us, hence Rutte visit to Boris yesterday
I think there is genuine worry by those who support the EU just how much this is going to damage not only France's reputation but the wider implications for the EU itself on security and defence
I have not heard a response to the crisis from any EU member, but if the EU was under threat it would be the US they would turn to, not their own non existent defence force
This is the biggest crisis the EU has faced and trying to blame AUKUS will not cut it
That's just nonsense. Conflating the EU and NATO is a cheap jibe which doesn't cut it any more.
Those members of the EU not in NATO (Ireland) and those members of NATO not in the EU (Iceland, Turkey) might see it differently.
I assume nothing about AUKUS changes the US commitment to the defence of western Europe from any aggression in the name of collective defence and security. Washington is still prepared to go to war to defend Riga, Vilnius and even Paris and to call this "the biggest crisis the EU has faced" is absurd hyperbole.
Certainly, compared with the Eurozone crisis of 2008-10, AUKUS is insignificant.
In defence terms it is and is anyone confident that NATO is relevant
The EU is not a military body and never has been. The embryonic WEU and the Franco-German corps were attempts to try to make a pan-European defence force but NATO is and has been a hugely successful alliance.
Is it "relevant"? The Conservatives, the Daily Mail and others keep banging on about the "threat" from Putin, Someone on here yesterday claimed the Russian Army was ready to sweep across Europe and could conquer the whole European landmass up to and including the Channel.
Not convinced and a couple of aircraft flying over the North Sea and a rusty old battleship sailing up the Channel don't exactly give me sleepless nights.
In any case, Putin isn't stupid enough to risk armageddon by trying to annex Estonia so for now NATO remains the primary guarantor of British defence. What AUKUS has done, arguably, is to raise tensions and create a new front line in the Pacific. Is an attempted Chinese invasion of Taiwan analogous to a Russian push into Estonia - it would seem so?
It's not even a solid policy of containment - it's a half-guarantee to a couple of places but, as I argued earlier, if you are serious about containing China (which we aren't), what about guarantees to India, Russia, Vietnam and Afghanistan (all of whom border China as does North Korea of course)?
It's analogous to the Ukraine - we aren't going to rush to Kiev's defence if Putin decides to move in. They aren't in NATO so we're not obliged.
I agree that Putin is not a threat nor do I think is China at present
However, it is clear Australia and the Trans-Pacific do see it as such and AUKUS is the nucleus of a wider cooperation agreement between all those countries in the area to deter China from any consideration of military involvement
Furthermore, there is a trade element in this as CPTPP expands to include the UK and the US, who are reopening talks cancelled by Trump, creating a consumer competitor for Chinese goods
I think it was @Foxy who said we should reduce our purchase of Chinese goods and he is correct on that
I would say that the reason that Putin is not a threat to the Baltic states and Eastern Europe (minus Ukraine) is that he is convinced that the Americans (and others) via NATO would fight.
This is another emerging split - the er... Russia Accommodating types in the EU are upset that the Americans are involved and see the whole thing as a problem between Russia and states that don't accept the reality of the situation.
I wonder what EU members Poland and the Baltics think about that. Not mentioning Slovakia, Hungary and Romania.
Just wanted to thank everyone (and particularly @Foxy) for their good wishes and help over Husband's travails.
After another lengthy night in A&E he did finally get a proper examination by an ENT specialist. He has a nasty infection but has had IV penicillin and is now, finally, home with a load more medicine to take. Still not able to eat but hopefully that will change soon.
The waiting was tiresome but not, frankly, the worst part. Medical need takes priority. It was the failure to deal with the issue the first and second time he was there which bothered us. In other circumstances a 2-day delay could be critical.
Anyway, back to a bit more normality I hope. On Monday I have to take one of the family cats to the cat hospital. The cost is eye watering. I may as well have a racehorse sleeping on my sofa. Still the speed and attention to detail which vets show is quite a contrast.
So glad to hear that.
On the offchance, my usual fall-back when really struggling with a bad throat is gargling soluble paracetamol, which I find sometimes gives enough relief for a period for something smooth and a glass of water afterwards.
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
Europe needs France in NATO to contain Putin, whatever disagreements over how to contain China. In western Europe France and the UK are the main military powers
The US is the key to Europe's defence with UK and French support
Yes provided the US still commits to maintain bases in Europe and that is not a given given recent US administrations.
Otherwise yes you need both France and the UK to maintain European security
Then the EU need an agreement with the UK and Mark Rutte of the Netherlands was in Downing Street yesterday suggesting just that
I imagine the general sense in the EU is that an agreement with the UK is something you can absolutely take to the bank.
I think taking the UK for granted is very unwise
However, it does seem the meeting yesterday is part of a general move by the EU to improve the relationship with the UK and that is to be welcomed
Indeed, most young people quite reasonably won't understand imperial measurements.
Yes we can happily drink beer in pints, or drive in miles, but those are integer unit. No conversions necessary. There's no need to think about how many fluid ounces or gallons or firkins or whatever are related to pints.
You need to know how many pints are in a firkin if you are serving beer! (72, but 65 is a better estimate of saleable pints).
I tend to switch between metric and imperial, and if I had kids they would have learned about imperial as I use them. And the fact that a pound contains 16 ounces is a feature, not a bug. Customary measures are quite useful for everyday transactions, cooking, weighing and measuring people and familiar objects, etc. If I need precision or I'm doing any sort of tricky calculation I naturally use metric. The two systems can happily co-exist.
It is young people who have babies, and I have never yet heard a new one's weight given in kilos. Does it happen in trendier parts?
Our babies weight was given to us and tracked for their first year in NHS visits on kilos.
I'm not sure how much the imperial/metric divide is the biggest worry in the UK at the moment. As an ex Science Teacher I would obviously prefer metric because the numbers are easy to manipulate, it was difficult enough getting my students to add/subtract in decimal, just imagine how difficult it is to teach 16 ounces to the pound and 14 pounds to the stone.
Having said that I like a pint of beer now and again. I think publicans have missed a trick there. If they sold beer in litres and half litres they'd make more money. Whiskey used to be sold in sixths of a gill (23.5ml), now it's 25ml.
Covid has shown up quite how sparse our weapons against disease are. The vaccines were later then we needed, even fat a brilliantly accelerated development. Therapeutic developments have been very disappointing.
I would like to see a Manhattan Project on therapeutics. The world needs to throw billions into development of drugs and strategies that will help keep people out of hospital from even 'normal' illnesses such as flu.
An issue is that vaccines have been seen to work and, in a couple of cases, vastly profitable. The sector will throw lots of money into vaccines. But vaccines are inevitable delayed; they need to be developed for each individual illness. Therapeutic drugs and techniques can help with many different illnesses that attack in similar ways.
The Manhattan Project is a really bad analogy. Apart from the huge sums spent on research every year in any event, the problem is not a singular one amenable to a brute force approach like that. While it's true that some agents will prove useful in multiple diseases, defining what those might be and why is still as much as hoc as it is systemic.
Fundamentally we just need a lot more knowledge - a project which industry, government and academia are already spending hundreds of billions on.
The Manhattan project is frequently used as shorthand for a "Crash Program to do X"
The interesting bit about the Manhattan project was that the basic answers - "We need need kilos of U235 and Pu239" - were already known. As were the list of possible ways to get there. There was surprisingly little abstract science innovation in the project. It was an engineering competition to see which methods worked the best, by trying them all in competition with each other.
The COVID treatment issue equivalent would be if we had micro grams of various treatments that probably work in the labs, but need tons. And don't have the methods to make tons.
We don't have that. What we need (and is happening) is alot of primary science to find the treatment methods and ideas. Once we have the treatments, the pharma industry will give us the tons in fairly short order.
Point taken from both NigelB and yourself. I did indeed mean it as the sense of a crash project.
One thing that surprised me is that the Manhattan Project wasn't even the most expensive single US project of the war. The B-29 Superfortress project cost $3 billion to develop and build; the Manhattan Project only cost $1.9 billion.
I'd argue the Manhattan Project was also much more effective: the B-29 didn't end the war. The nukes did - and probably with much less loss of life than if the war had continued.
(And before anyone says 'Enola Gay'! - problems with the B-29 meant there were plans to use modified Lancaster bombers to drop the nuclear bombs. - although the Lancaster was less well-suited to the task - https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/project-silverplate )
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
Europe needs France in NATO to contain Putin, whatever disagreements over how to contain China. In western Europe France and the UK are the main military powers
The US is the key to Europe's defence with UK and French support
Yes provided the US still commits to maintain bases in Europe and that is not a given given recent US administrations.
Otherwise yes you need both France and the UK to maintain European security
Then the EU need an agreement with the UK and Mark Rutte of the Netherlands was in Downing Street yesterday suggesting just that
I imagine the general sense in the EU is that an agreement with the UK is something you can absolutely take to the bank.
I think taking the UK for granted is very unwise
However, it does seem the meeting yesterday is part of a general move by the EU to improve the relationship with the UK and that is to be welcomed
At least we concur that taking it for granted that the UK would hold to an agreement would be unwise.
More anecdata concerning the disintegration of the NHS:
People with cancer forced to go private
In January this year, Steve Deeman in Nottinghamshire was looking at an eight-week delay to have the lesion on his forehead diagnosed. “It was suspicious looking and grew quite rapidly over the next few weeks,” said the 69-year-old retired teacher.
He was referred to a local hospital dermatology department in early March and was given a consultation appointment for May. “I decided I couldn’t wait that long and sought private medical care a few days later,” he said.
Deeman saw a specialist dermatologist who diagnosed the lesion as cancerous and it was removed the next day. His treatment so far has cost about £1,500 but further follow-ups have been recommended which could bring the total to £2,000. “I was fortunate in that I was able to afford treatment but there are a lot of people who wouldn’t be able to.”
When Fabien needed to have a decayed tooth removed in May, his dentist told him that he would have to wait up to three years to have it done on the NHS. In disbelief, the 27-year-old from Edinburgh rang 50 dental practices but without any luck. He had no choice but to go private. Having lost his job during the pandemic, he was on universal credit and had to borrow the £600 from his family.
If you've the means and knowhow to trade in shares then private healthcare groups are probably a good bet. As the latter piece goes on to say, quoting the director of a health think tank,
“There is a big risk that unless government provides adequate funding for the NHS, more and more people will be forced to pay privately, which in turn will undermine middle-class support for a tax-funded NHS.
“It’s not likely that we will end up with a US-style insurance system. But a two-tier system, where the NHS is a residual service for those without the means to pay is a possibility – ultimately these are political choices.”
Certainly there is likely to be a boom in the sector, both from the self pay private market and in terms of outsourcing of NHS work, which is a major source of income to private hospitals. That said the performance of Spire shares hasn't been great recently.
It is curious although the Spire price has been more influenced by take over speculation than anything else. What I find strange is that the private medical sector is not absolutely booming with significant new capital being raised and deployed. It is going to take a decade for the NHS to recover from the backlog now in place and many, many more are going to go private. If you are in pain from a hip or knee and being told to wait 2 or more years for a replacement it is an absolute no brainer if you can afford it. If you are working it even makes economic sense.
The free at the point of delivery service in the NHS has always kept this sector quite small in this country but it just seems inevitable that there is going to be a large expansion. I would expect some of the American players to invest.
The NHS has, of course, been an established fact of life for such a very long time that it simply doesn't occur to a lot of people who might benefit from going private to do so. Private hospitals are either not thought of at all, or bring to mind images of cosmetic vanity procedures and/or being something very exclusive for royalty and rich celebrities.
It takes time for such a mindset to change, but if comfortably off middle-aged and retired folk with reasonably deep pockets find themselves having to wait years for necessary surgery, then change it surely will.
There will be a lot more companies looking at private insurance for staff too, if we see waiting lists for routine treatment keeping people off work for weeks.
Problem is everybody fishing in the same pool of surgeons. Shorter waits for paying punters means even longer waits for Our Beloved NHS.
Which is why postgraduate surgical training needs to be the core of any NHS recovery plan*. Many surgical trainees have hardly operated in the last 18 months due to staff redeployment.
*it won't be...
Do surgeons, as happens with airline pilots, need to do minimum numbers of operations over time, to remain ‘current’ and work unsupervised?
A lot of airlines are struggling now, as they try and bring more planes back into service, that the pilots they furloughed need to have their licences re-validated.
Yes it is a part of annual appraisal, or the ARCP process in respect of Trainees. Many are currently failing on the numbers needed to get Specialist Registration.
In response to importing surgeons, that option has been closed off by Brexit. With a few exceptions (Australasia being one) it takes years for a foreign surgeon to be accredited as Specialist, even if competent ones are available. But wasn't the point of Brexit to stop foreign workers undermining sturdy British Yeoman's pay bargaining position?
Thanks for that, I had assumed there was probably some formal process in place.
Also a good point on validation of qualification for foreign-trained doctors. That process needs to be made much simpler if the hiring targets are to be met.
It takes 6-12 months for a foreign doctor to get over the hurdles for registration. That however (with very few exceptions) doesn't get them accredited as a Specialist for independent practice, which generally takes 5 or more years of supervised experience.
It would be better all round to train our own, who are currently not getting that supervision.
It has always struck me as completely insane, that we deliberately train less staff than then NHS requires. The NHS plans ahead for a few years - the numbers are pretty much known. But the number of places at University and in further training are lower. And not by a small margin, either.
Outsourcing training costs to poorer countries = economic imperialism. Send in the nuclear subs to stop this!
There is an almost comical irony in that for years lefties have promoted immigration of foreign quacks, ignoring that it depletes poorer countries' healthcare systems, while those on the right deplore immigration but revel in money saved.
There are also those on the right who like immigration for its own sake, and people on the left who are raging racists. All four categories can be found out in the wild.
As I pointed out the other day, In Peru, the reactionary overlords imported tons of Japanese labourers, in the 19th Cent.
They did this, not because of a love of Japanese culture, but because the revolting Peruvian peasants wanted enough money to live on to dig shit (literally - see guano).
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
Europe needs France in NATO to contain Putin, whatever disagreements over how to contain China. In western Europe France and the UK are the main military powers
I'm not sure that's true. We contained the Soviet Union whatever France did during the Cold War. And the Soviet Union was more of a military threat than Putin's Russia.
Indeed, most young people quite reasonably won't understand imperial measurements.
Yes we can happily drink beer in pints, or drive in miles, but those are integer unit. No conversions necessary. There's no need to think about how many fluid ounces or gallons or firkins or whatever are related to pints.
You need to know how many pints are in a firkin if you are serving beer! (72, but 65 is a better estimate of saleable pints).
I tend to switch between metric and imperial, and if I had kids they would have learned about imperial as I use them. And the fact that a pound contains 16 ounces is a feature, not a bug. Customary measures are quite useful for everyday transactions, cooking, weighing and measuring people and familiar objects, etc. If I need precision or I'm doing any sort of tricky calculation I naturally use metric. The two systems can happily co-exist.
It is young people who have babies, and I have never yet heard a new one's weight given in kilos. Does it happen in trendier parts?
Our babies weight was given to us and tracked for their first year in NHS visits on kilos.
I'm not sure how much the imperial/metric divide is the biggest worry in the UK at the moment. As an ex Science Teacher I would obviously prefer metric because the numbers are easy to manipulate, it was difficult enough getting my students to add/subtract in decimal, just imagine how difficult it is to teach 16 ounces to the pound and 14 pounds to the stone.
Having said that I like a pint of beer now and again. I think publicans have missed a trick there. If they sold beer in litres and half litres they'd make more money. Whiskey used to be sold in sixths of a gill (23.5ml), now it's 25ml.
But pint to .5 litre is rounding down, and nobody is going to start drinking beer in litres shirley?
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
Europe needs France in NATO to contain Putin, whatever disagreements over how to contain China. In western Europe France and the UK are the main military powers
The US is the key to Europe's defence with UK and French support
Yes provided the US still commits to maintain bases in Europe and that is not a given given recent US administrations.
Otherwise yes you need both France and the UK to maintain European security
Then the EU need an agreement with the UK and Mark Rutte of the Netherlands was in Downing Street yesterday suggesting just that
I imagine the general sense in the EU is that an agreement with the UK is something you can absolutely take to the bank.
I think taking the UK for granted is very unwise
However, it does seem the meeting yesterday is part of a general move by the EU to improve the relationship with the UK and that is to be welcomed
At least we concur that taking it for granted that the UK would hold to an agreement would be unwise.
I did not say that and you know I did not say that
Indeed, most young people quite reasonably won't understand imperial measurements.
Yes we can happily drink beer in pints, or drive in miles, but those are integer unit. No conversions necessary. There's no need to think about how many fluid ounces or gallons or firkins or whatever are related to pints.
You need to know how many pints are in a firkin if you are serving beer! (72, but 65 is a better estimate of saleable pints).
I tend to switch between metric and imperial, and if I had kids they would have learned about imperial as I use them. And the fact that a pound contains 16 ounces is a feature, not a bug. Customary measures are quite useful for everyday transactions, cooking, weighing and measuring people and familiar objects, etc. If I need precision or I'm doing any sort of tricky calculation I naturally use metric. The two systems can happily co-exist.
It is young people who have babies, and I have never yet heard a new one's weight given in kilos. Does it happen in trendier parts?
Our babies weight was given to us and tracked for their first year in NHS visits on kilos.
I'm not sure how much the imperial/metric divide is the biggest worry in the UK at the moment. As an ex Science Teacher I would obviously prefer metric because the numbers are easy to manipulate, it was difficult enough getting my students to add/subtract in decimal, just imagine how difficult it is to teach 16 ounces to the pound and 14 pounds to the stone.
Having said that I like a pint of beer now and again. I think publicans have missed a trick there. If they sold beer in litres and half litres they'd make more money. Whiskey used to be sold in sixths of a gill (23.5ml), now it's 25ml.
But pint to .5 litre is rounding down, and nobody is going to start drinking beer in litres shirley?
Well, we used to drink it by the quart, which is 1.14 litres (2dp).
Indeed, most young people quite reasonably won't understand imperial measurements.
Yes we can happily drink beer in pints, or drive in miles, but those are integer unit. No conversions necessary. There's no need to think about how many fluid ounces or gallons or firkins or whatever are related to pints.
You need to know how many pints are in a firkin if you are serving beer! (72, but 65 is a better estimate of saleable pints).
I tend to switch between metric and imperial, and if I had kids they would have learned about imperial as I use them. And the fact that a pound contains 16 ounces is a feature, not a bug. Customary measures are quite useful for everyday transactions, cooking, weighing and measuring people and familiar objects, etc. If I need precision or I'm doing any sort of tricky calculation I naturally use metric. The two systems can happily co-exist.
It is young people who have babies, and I have never yet heard a new one's weight given in kilos. Does it happen in trendier parts?
Our babies weight was given to us and tracked for their first year in NHS visits on kilos.
I'm not sure how much the imperial/metric divide is the biggest worry in the UK at the moment. As an ex Science Teacher I would obviously prefer metric because the numbers are easy to manipulate, it was difficult enough getting my students to add/subtract in decimal, just imagine how difficult it is to teach 16 ounces to the pound and 14 pounds to the stone.
Having said that I like a pint of beer now and again. I think publicans have missed a trick there. If they sold beer in litres and half litres they'd make more money. Whiskey used to be sold in sixths of a gill (23.5ml), now it's 25ml.
But pint to .5 litre is rounding down, and nobody is going to start drinking beer in litres shirley?
Winston's presence was forgotten for a moment. There was a deal table under the window where he and the old man could talk without fear of being overheard. It was horribly dangerous, but at any rate there was no telescreen in the room, a point he had made sure of as soon as he came in. "E could 'a drawed me off a pint,' grumbled the old man as he settled down behind a glass. 'A 'alf litre ain't enough. It don't satisfy. And a 'ole litre's too much. It starts my bladder running. Let alone the price.'
It’s ironic and tragic that in a move designed to counter growing Chinese power we have divided the democracies on the security council and thereby weakened us relative to the Chinese.
It’s a shame that they didn’t find a route in the Pacific that kept us united. Why couldn’t the Aussies have both types of submarines?
Well, the Attack class order was for 12 submarines. Australia are having enough trouble keeping their existing six Collins-class subs crewed. Reducing the Attack-class order would have had hefty penalties. Then you have the problem of maintaining two very different types of sub, with very different kit and equipment.
Also, NG and France's behaviour throughout this has not been that good IMO. It's not all Australia's fault.
Then you finally get the issue that the Attack-class didn't really meet their needs in the first place.
It’s harmful bullshit if that’s what you mean by “useful”.
Western democracies have fundamental values - freedom of speech, of assembly, of religion - that our forefathers fought and bled to secure. We must stick up for those values and not kowtow to an authoritarian dictatorship for a couple of brass farthings
What happens to those values of freedom of speech, of assembly and of religion when the representatives of our country get on the blower to Riyadh?
I once heard the PM described as “the man [sic] you hire to do the things that you don’t want to think about but know that they need to be done”. I’ve never been able to track it down again though!
In a perfect world we wouldn’t do deals with Saudi. But they are not an existential threat to us in the way that China could be. Sometimes your enemy’s enemy is your friend (in this case to counterpoint Iran) for geopolitical reasons. Regardless of how distasteful they may be.
And when they overstep even those weak limits - as with that guy in the Saudi embassy in Turkey - then they need to be slapped down
I'm not against the sort of realpolitik that you describe when it's *necessary*, though if so I should prefer it not to be accompanied about self-righteous outrage about our perceived opponents.
That said, I think "necessary" should be defined as being faced with existential threats. Assisting the Saudis to bomb Yemen back to medieval times and the edge of famine is not necessary and we shouldn't have been doing it. Similarly, I think we *should* condemn the treatment of Uighurs and the represion of women. The default should be freedom to express our views. Only if we face a sort of Stalin vs Hitler choice should we side with the lesser evil.
By the way, I don't dislike Johnson. But he is absolutely the last person I'd call if there was something unpleasant that needed someone to get on with doing quickly. That's not his style at all. But if I wanted a fraught situation calmed with some affable bluster and a few meaningless gestures. Then yes, absolutely.
I think Saudi vs Iran is a better contrast than Saudi vs China.
And between Saudi and current Iran, Saudi is by far the better option.
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
Europe needs France in NATO to contain Putin, whatever disagreements over how to contain China. In western Europe France and the UK are the main military powers
The US is the key to Europe's defence with UK and French support
Yes provided the US still commits to maintain bases in Europe and that is not a given given recent US administrations.
Otherwise yes you need both France and the UK to maintain European security
Then the EU need an agreement with the UK and Mark Rutte of the Netherlands was in Downing Street yesterday suggesting just that
I imagine the general sense in the EU is that an agreement with the UK is something you can absolutely take to the bank.
It may depend on whether the agreement turns out to be about the details of how to sell high quality UK sausages in Co Mayo or the defence of the western world via UK's membership of NATO.
The EU has a flag, currency, ECJs, anthems, parliaments, embassies, a central bank and overriding law making powers. But what will it bring to bear qua the EU if Russia steps into Estonia and how long will its structures survive?
Covid has shown up quite how sparse our weapons against disease are. The vaccines were later then we needed, even fat a brilliantly accelerated development. Therapeutic developments have been very disappointing.
I would like to see a Manhattan Project on therapeutics. The world needs to throw billions into development of drugs and strategies that will help keep people out of hospital from even 'normal' illnesses such as flu.
An issue is that vaccines have been seen to work and, in a couple of cases, vastly profitable. The sector will throw lots of money into vaccines. But vaccines are inevitable delayed; they need to be developed for each individual illness. Therapeutic drugs and techniques can help with many different illnesses that attack in similar ways.
The Manhattan Project is a really bad analogy. Apart from the huge sums spent on research every year in any event, the problem is not a singular one amenable to a brute force approach like that. While it's true that some agents will prove useful in multiple diseases, defining what those might be and why is still as much as hoc as it is systemic.
Fundamentally we just need a lot more knowledge - a project which industry, government and academia are already spending hundreds of billions on.
The Manhattan project is frequently used as shorthand for a "Crash Program to do X"
The interesting bit about the Manhattan project was that the basic answers - "We need need kilos of U235 and Pu239" - were already known. As were the list of possible ways to get there. There was surprisingly little abstract science innovation in the project. It was an engineering competition to see which methods worked the best, by trying them all in competition with each other.
The COVID treatment issue equivalent would be if we had micro grams of various treatments that probably work in the labs, but need tons. And don't have the methods to make tons.
We don't have that. What we need (and is happening) is alot of primary science to find the treatment methods and ideas. Once we have the treatments, the pharma industry will give us the tons in fairly short order.
Point taken from both NigelB and yourself. I did indeed mean it as the sense of a crash project.
One thing that surprised me is that the Manhattan Project wasn't even the most expensive single US project of the war. The B-29 Superfortress project cost $3 billion to develop and build; the Manhattan Project only cost $1.9 billion.
I'd argue the Manhattan Project was also much more effective: the B-29 didn't end the war. The nukes did - and probably with much less loss of life than if the war had continued.
(And before anyone says 'Enola Gay'! - problems with the B-29 meant there were plans to use modified Lancaster bombers to drop the nuclear bombs. - although the Lancaster was less well-suited to the task - https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/project-silverplate )
The B29s shut down what was left of Japanese maritime trade - see the forgotten aerial mining campaign.
The Lancaster nuke thing is one of those bits of history that don't make sense when you examine the reality. The Lancaster didn't have the range. The B29 was a vastly bigger plane, all round - for equivalent projects look at the the British 75 and 100 ton bomber projects (cancelled) ....
A Lancaster could have carried Little Boy. Fat Man would have been a problem (width). But it would have had very little range while doing so, and would have been flying very low, and very slow compare to the B29.
The RAF demanded and got B29s after the war, because of the performance issues.
More anecdata concerning the disintegration of the NHS:
People with cancer forced to go private
In January this year, Steve Deeman in Nottinghamshire was looking at an eight-week delay to have the lesion on his forehead diagnosed. “It was suspicious looking and grew quite rapidly over the next few weeks,” said the 69-year-old retired teacher.
He was referred to a local hospital dermatology department in early March and was given a consultation appointment for May. “I decided I couldn’t wait that long and sought private medical care a few days later,” he said.
Deeman saw a specialist dermatologist who diagnosed the lesion as cancerous and it was removed the next day. His treatment so far has cost about £1,500 but further follow-ups have been recommended which could bring the total to £2,000. “I was fortunate in that I was able to afford treatment but there are a lot of people who wouldn’t be able to.”
When Fabien needed to have a decayed tooth removed in May, his dentist told him that he would have to wait up to three years to have it done on the NHS. In disbelief, the 27-year-old from Edinburgh rang 50 dental practices but without any luck. He had no choice but to go private. Having lost his job during the pandemic, he was on universal credit and had to borrow the £600 from his family.
If you've the means and knowhow to trade in shares then private healthcare groups are probably a good bet. As the latter piece goes on to say, quoting the director of a health think tank,
“There is a big risk that unless government provides adequate funding for the NHS, more and more people will be forced to pay privately, which in turn will undermine middle-class support for a tax-funded NHS.
“It’s not likely that we will end up with a US-style insurance system. But a two-tier system, where the NHS is a residual service for those without the means to pay is a possibility – ultimately these are political choices.”
Certainly there is likely to be a boom in the sector, both from the self pay private market and in terms of outsourcing of NHS work, which is a major source of income to private hospitals. That said the performance of Spire shares hasn't been great recently.
It is curious although the Spire price has been more influenced by take over speculation than anything else. What I find strange is that the private medical sector is not absolutely booming with significant new capital being raised and deployed. It is going to take a decade for the NHS to recover from the backlog now in place and many, many more are going to go private. If you are in pain from a hip or knee and being told to wait 2 or more years for a replacement it is an absolute no brainer if you can afford it. If you are working it even makes economic sense.
The free at the point of delivery service in the NHS has always kept this sector quite small in this country but it just seems inevitable that there is going to be a large expansion. I would expect some of the American players to invest.
The NHS has, of course, been an established fact of life for such a very long time that it simply doesn't occur to a lot of people who might benefit from going private to do so. Private hospitals are either not thought of at all, or bring to mind images of cosmetic vanity procedures and/or being something very exclusive for royalty and rich celebrities.
It takes time for such a mindset to change, but if comfortably off middle-aged and retired folk with reasonably deep pockets find themselves having to wait years for necessary surgery, then change it surely will.
There will be a lot more companies looking at private insurance for staff too, if we see waiting lists for routine treatment keeping people off work for weeks.
Problem is everybody fishing in the same pool of surgeons. Shorter waits for paying punters means even longer waits for Our Beloved NHS.
Which is why postgraduate surgical training needs to be the core of any NHS recovery plan*. Many surgical trainees have hardly operated in the last 18 months due to staff redeployment.
*it won't be...
Do surgeons, as happens with airline pilots, need to do minimum numbers of operations over time, to remain ‘current’ and work unsupervised?
A lot of airlines are struggling now, as they try and bring more planes back into service, that the pilots they furloughed need to have their licences re-validated.
Yes it is a part of annual appraisal, or the ARCP process in respect of Trainees. Many are currently failing on the numbers needed to get Specialist Registration.
In response to importing surgeons, that option has been closed off by Brexit. With a few exceptions (Australasia being one) it takes years for a foreign surgeon to be accredited as Specialist, even if competent ones are available. But wasn't the point of Brexit to stop foreign workers undermining sturdy British Yeoman's pay bargaining position?
Thanks for that, I had assumed there was probably some formal process in place.
Also a good point on validation of qualification for foreign-trained doctors. That process needs to be made much simpler if the hiring targets are to be met.
It takes 6-12 months for a foreign doctor to get over the hurdles for registration. That however (with very few exceptions) doesn't get them accredited as a Specialist for independent practice, which generally takes 5 or more years of supervised experience.
It would be better all round to train our own, who are currently not getting that supervision.
It has always struck me as completely insane, that we deliberately train less staff than then NHS requires. The NHS plans ahead for a few years - the numbers are pretty much known. But the number of places at University and in further training are lower. And not by a small margin, either.
Outsourcing training costs to poorer countries = economic imperialism. Send in the nuclear subs to stop this!
There is an almost comical irony in that for years lefties have promoted immigration of foreign quacks, ignoring that it depletes poorer countries' healthcare systems, while those on the right deplore immigration but revel in money saved.
There are also those on the right who like immigration for its own sake, and people on the left who are raging racists. All four categories can be found out in the wild.
I'd better cancel myself after saying this but shirley 95%+ of people generally are against immigration, other things being equal, because home is home? If you are from not-the-UK what is actually the attraction of the UK? The weather, the cooking, the people? Wouldn't most people bite your arm off at the offer of UK wages in their own homeland?
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
Europe needs France in NATO to contain Putin, whatever disagreements over how to contain China. In western Europe France and the UK are the main military powers
I'm not sure that's true. We contained the Soviet Union whatever France did during the Cold War. And the Soviet Union was more of a military threat than Putin's Russia.
France is a nice to have, not an essential.
We only contained the Soviet Union with a big US military presence in Europe, that is no longer a given. In that case Franch support is essential to contain Putin.
Putin's Russia is more of a threat to us than the USSR was under Gorbachev for example
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
And that for the benefit of @kinabalu is why AUKUS and not FR/GER are the "chaps we can trust."
Ah hello, Philip. Thanks for the mention. I've done a Deep Think about this Aukus thing and I have a take for PB perusal which if you don't mind I'll post here in reply to your little jest.
Taken seriously, it's the platform for a new NATO in a world where China not the USSR is the bogeyman. But you get a truer picture (imo) by taking it less seriously. Boris Johnson is involved, remember.
French anger is directed at the US and Oz and the reason for this is we have little to do with what’s happening, which is all about the submarine deal. Australia was offered the nuclear option by America, said yes to that, therefore cancelled their order of lower tech ones from France. That's the essence of it.
Presented in isolation this could have looked bald and mercantile, the bad faith element prominent, so they decided to add gravitas by packaging it up as something with a strategic “Anglosphere” air to it. For which they needed us, they needed our name on the tombstone as it were, and lo we have “Aukus”. It’s not a treaty with obligations, merely a statement of intent between the 3 countries with lots of waffle about future co-operation and sharing. It’s like the Political Declaration in the Brexit talks, dressing and mood music only, as compared to the real meat and potatoes of the Withdrawal Agreement / submarine deal.
For the UK, in strictly rational terms, it’s nothing to get too excited about either way but for Boris Johnson it’s great. He knows what he's doing with this and he's scored a bit of a win. A fear about Brexit was we'd become irrelevant on the world stage. This makes us look important. Moreover, it pushes the buttons of those many English people – some of whom write columns and OpEds and all of whom have votes in general elections – who feel reassured and comfortable with a view of the world and its affairs whereby we are naturally aligned with the English speaking nations rather than with Europe. Or some of the English speaking nations, to be more accurate. If you want a quick instinctive feel for who these nations are they are those who James Bond had a soft spot for in the Fleming novels.
Of course the government doesn't want a lockdown. But equally obviously, that could make it more - not less - likely that other mandatory restrictions will be brought in. To avoid a full lockdown. This time they have been explicit enough about keeping their options open on lesser restrictions. It's only a full lockdown that would be viewed as an undeniable political failure.
At the moment the signs seem positive, with the rate of positive tests (I wish they would stop calling it "cases", which is just plain wrong) falling, contrary to most expectations, for the second time in a couple of months.
Deaths as a proportion of positive tests have been rising, but that is probably manageable so long as infections don't start rising rapidly again. As always, "cases" are the key, regardless of moderate fluctuations in the death rate and hospitalisation rate per "case".
But the situation in Scotland at the moment should be a caution against thinking there's nothing to worry about any more.
What situation in Scotland are you talking about then, do you know something us residents up here don't know about?
John Swinney still in charge of education should be situation enough to worry anybody.
We know your obsessed by education but WTF has your post got to do with what was being discussed. Swinney is not causing deaths or hospitalisations.
It was what is called ‘a joke,’ Malc.
(BTW, that should be “you’re obsessed with education”.)
Proved your point big time, that barsteward Swinney should be run out of town. PS: My humour meter was broken by the mince in the previous post, now repaired.
DVLA has now admitted it has lost youngest's application for a provisional licence for a aecond time. He's now filling in a third. 8 months since he turned 17 and first did it.
It’s ironic and tragic that in a move designed to counter growing Chinese power we have divided the democracies on the security council and thereby weakened us relative to the Chinese.
It’s a shame that they didn’t find a route in the Pacific that kept us united. Why couldn’t the Aussies have both types of submarines?
Well, the Attack class order was for 12 submarines. Australia are having enough trouble keeping their existing six Collins-class subs crewed. Reducing the Attack-class order would have had hefty penalties. Then you have the problem of maintaining two very different types of sub, with very different kit and equipment.
Also, NG and France's behaviour throughout this has not been that good IMO. It's not all Australia's fault.
Then you finally get the issue that the Attack-class didn't really meet their needs in the first place.
It’s harmful bullshit if that’s what you mean by “useful”.
Western democracies have fundamental values - freedom of speech, of assembly, of religion - that our forefathers fought and bled to secure. We must stick up for those values and not kowtow to an authoritarian dictatorship for a couple of brass farthings
What happens to those values of freedom of speech, of assembly and of religion when the representatives of our country get on the blower to Riyadh?
I once heard the PM described as “the man [sic] you hire to do the things that you don’t want to think about but know that they need to be done”. I’ve never been able to track it down again though!
In a perfect world we wouldn’t do deals with Saudi. But they are not an existential threat to us in the way that China could be. Sometimes your enemy’s enemy is your friend (in this case to counterpoint Iran) for geopolitical reasons. Regardless of how distasteful they may be.
And when they overstep even those weak limits - as with that guy in the Saudi embassy in Turkey - then they need to be slapped down
I'm not against the sort of realpolitik that you describe when it's *necessary*, though if so I should prefer it not to be accompanied about self-righteous outrage about our perceived opponents.
That said, I think "necessary" should be defined as being faced with existential threats. Assisting the Saudis to bomb Yemen back to medieval times and the edge of famine is not necessary and we shouldn't have been doing it. Similarly, I think we *should* condemn the treatment of Uighurs and the represion of women. The default should be freedom to express our views. Only if we face a sort of Stalin vs Hitler choice should we side with the lesser evil.
By the way, I don't dislike Johnson. But he is absolutely the last person I'd call if there was something unpleasant that needed someone to get on with doing quickly. That's not his style at all. But if I wanted a fraught situation calmed with some affable bluster and a few meaningless gestures. Then yes, absolutely.
I think Saudi vs Iran is a better contrast than Saudi vs China.
And between Saudi and current Iran, Saudi is by far the better option.
“If the definition of political courage is making big calls crisply and effectively, despite obvious risks and unknowable consequences, then it seems to me that President Biden and Prime Minister Johnson qualify right now. They’ve made calls recently that go beyond the usual mush of compromise and calculation and might even merit being called bold.”
“Biden braved the Blob and got out of Afghanistan. We will debate how he did so, and with what consequences, for quite some time. But he still did it. Obama tried and failed. Trump made a big song and dance and signed a surrender deal. But Biden actually got us out…”
“Equally this week, the sudden and surprise announcement that the UK, the US and Australia would form a new military and intelligence alliance in the Pacific, including new nuclear-powered submarines for Australia, was a bold signal to China that the US is not about to abandon that region, or its allies there. It came seemingly out of the blue, but had been in the works, apparently initiated by Australia, for some months.”
Indeed, most young people quite reasonably won't understand imperial measurements.
Yes we can happily drink beer in pints, or drive in miles, but those are integer unit. No conversions necessary. There's no need to think about how many fluid ounces or gallons or firkins or whatever are related to pints.
You need to know how many pints are in a firkin if you are serving beer! (72, but 65 is a better estimate of saleable pints).
I tend to switch between metric and imperial, and if I had kids they would have learned about imperial as I use them. And the fact that a pound contains 16 ounces is a feature, not a bug. Customary measures are quite useful for everyday transactions, cooking, weighing and measuring people and familiar objects, etc. If I need precision or I'm doing any sort of tricky calculation I naturally use metric. The two systems can happily co-exist.
It is young people who have babies, and I have never yet heard a new one's weight given in kilos. Does it happen in trendier parts?
Our babies weight was given to us and tracked for their first year in NHS visits on kilos.
I'm not sure how much the imperial/metric divide is the biggest worry in the UK at the moment. As an ex Science Teacher I would obviously prefer metric because the numbers are easy to manipulate, it was difficult enough getting my students to add/subtract in decimal, just imagine how difficult it is to teach 16 ounces to the pound and 14 pounds to the stone.
Having said that I like a pint of beer now and again. I think publicans have missed a trick there. If they sold beer in litres and half litres they'd make more money. Whiskey used to be sold in sixths of a gill (23.5ml), now it's 25ml.
Do we have any sense yet as to what this will actually involve?
I'd be surprised if it is more than winding back to the right of choice which system to use, and that the market will keep things done in metric behind the display.
Dr. Foxy, New Zealand is isolated and has been far chummier with the Communists than they might wish to be.
As for Australia, the rising threat of China is something that must be accounted for. Sure, you can feed a crocodile, but appeasement does not work. Australia must be able to defend itself.
New Zealand is and has been a non-nuclear state for three decades - that's why ANZUS was suspended as NZ didn't want American nuclear submarines in its waters which is, I think, the main reason Auckland has been excluded from the AUKUS discussions.
NZ, like Australia, has significant trading links with China worth a lot to the NZ economy. Tourism from the mainland was growing strongly pre-pandemic as well.
In any case, are we seriously arguing China is a significant military threat to Australia and New Zealand? It may be more significant if, for instance, China did a deal with Fiji and established a military base at Suva or Nadi or some other island.
China shares a border with many other countries - Russia, India, Afghanistan and Vietnam to name but four. Are we offering them any kind of guarantee or support against Chinese military expansionism? I doubt it but again that's missing the point - China is achieving economically what the PLA couldn't do militarily. It effectively controls parts of Africa - Chinese funded infrastructure may be about getting access to resources but the local Governments aren't going to say no to improved road and rail links and the economic benefits they bring.
How has the West responded to China's economic imperialism (that's what it is)? Answer it hasn't. The thinking and the rhetoric remains trapped in the Cold War - a couple of nuclear submarines versus providing jobs and a better standard of living for thousands of impoverished people. I think we know what works.
My understanding is that it doesn’t really provide jobs for the locals - they fly in Chinese workers who live in a separate compound and build. (Based on an article I read about Tuvalu).
The “gift” is also structured as a loan - it’s all about intergovernmental power and influence
Sure. China learned a lot from the "unequal treaties" of the 19th century, foreign concessions and extraterritorality. They are holding the whip now.
That's their propaganda nonsense, I don't know why we spout it. China never knew anything about unequal treatment before us? I'm sure you don't believe it would be an excuse even if it was, so I don't know why we should pretend their actions now are actually related to them, except for their bullcrap justifications.
DVLA has now admitted it has lost youngest's application for a provisional licence for a aecond time. He's now filling in a third. 8 months since he turned 17 and first did it.
Very frustrating. I presume they not have the facility for on-line applications?
For the UK, in strictly rational terms, it’s nothing to get too excited about either way but for Boris Johnson it’s great. He knows what he's doing with this and he's scored a bit of a win. A fear about Brexit was we'd become irrelevant on the world stage. This makes us look important. Moreover, it pushes the buttons of those many English people – some of whom write columns and OpEds and all of whom have votes in general elections – who feel reassured and comfortable with a view of the world and its affairs whereby we are naturally aligned with the English speaking nations rather than with Europe. Or some of the English speaking nations, to be more accurate. If you want a quick instinctive feel for who these nations are they are those who James Bond had a soft spot for in the Fleming novels.
What, exactly, are the UK's new obligations over and above existing treaty (NATO and FPDA) commitments? Does anybody know?
Indeed, most young people quite reasonably won't understand imperial measurements.
Yes we can happily drink beer in pints, or drive in miles, but those are integer unit. No conversions necessary. There's no need to think about how many fluid ounces or gallons or firkins or whatever are related to pints.
You need to know how many pints are in a firkin if you are serving beer! (72, but 65 is a better estimate of saleable pints).
I tend to switch between metric and imperial, and if I had kids they would have learned about imperial as I use them. And the fact that a pound contains 16 ounces is a feature, not a bug. Customary measures are quite useful for everyday transactions, cooking, weighing and measuring people and familiar objects, etc. If I need precision or I'm doing any sort of tricky calculation I naturally use metric. The two systems can happily co-exist.
It is young people who have babies, and I have never yet heard a new one's weight given in kilos. Does it happen in trendier parts?
Our babies weight was given to us and tracked for their first year in NHS visits on kilos.
Perhaps a niche complaint but I hate the word kilos. People who are that bloody keen on metric should be forced to say kilograms in full, and reflect on how SI is a kludge because grams are too small.
More anecdata concerning the disintegration of the NHS:
People with cancer forced to go private
In January this year, Steve Deeman in Nottinghamshire was looking at an eight-week delay to have the lesion on his forehead diagnosed. “It was suspicious looking and grew quite rapidly over the next few weeks,” said the 69-year-old retired teacher.
He was referred to a local hospital dermatology department in early March and was given a consultation appointment for May. “I decided I couldn’t wait that long and sought private medical care a few days later,” he said.
Deeman saw a specialist dermatologist who diagnosed the lesion as cancerous and it was removed the next day. His treatment so far has cost about £1,500 but further follow-ups have been recommended which could bring the total to £2,000. “I was fortunate in that I was able to afford treatment but there are a lot of people who wouldn’t be able to.”
When Fabien needed to have a decayed tooth removed in May, his dentist told him that he would have to wait up to three years to have it done on the NHS. In disbelief, the 27-year-old from Edinburgh rang 50 dental practices but without any luck. He had no choice but to go private. Having lost his job during the pandemic, he was on universal credit and had to borrow the £600 from his family.
If you've the means and knowhow to trade in shares then private healthcare groups are probably a good bet. As the latter piece goes on to say, quoting the director of a health think tank,
“There is a big risk that unless government provides adequate funding for the NHS, more and more people will be forced to pay privately, which in turn will undermine middle-class support for a tax-funded NHS.
“It’s not likely that we will end up with a US-style insurance system. But a two-tier system, where the NHS is a residual service for those without the means to pay is a possibility – ultimately these are political choices.”
Certainly there is likely to be a boom in the sector, both from the self pay private market and in terms of outsourcing of NHS work, which is a major source of income to private hospitals. That said the performance of Spire shares hasn't been great recently.
It is curious although the Spire price has been more influenced by take over speculation than anything else. What I find strange is that the private medical sector is not absolutely booming with significant new capital being raised and deployed. It is going to take a decade for the NHS to recover from the backlog now in place and many, many more are going to go private. If you are in pain from a hip or knee and being told to wait 2 or more years for a replacement it is an absolute no brainer if you can afford it. If you are working it even makes economic sense.
The free at the point of delivery service in the NHS has always kept this sector quite small in this country but it just seems inevitable that there is going to be a large expansion. I would expect some of the American players to invest.
The NHS has, of course, been an established fact of life for such a very long time that it simply doesn't occur to a lot of people who might benefit from going private to do so. Private hospitals are either not thought of at all, or bring to mind images of cosmetic vanity procedures and/or being something very exclusive for royalty and rich celebrities.
It takes time for such a mindset to change, but if comfortably off middle-aged and retired folk with reasonably deep pockets find themselves having to wait years for necessary surgery, then change it surely will.
There will be a lot more companies looking at private insurance for staff too, if we see waiting lists for routine treatment keeping people off work for weeks.
Problem is everybody fishing in the same pool of surgeons. Shorter waits for paying punters means even longer waits for Our Beloved NHS.
Which is why postgraduate surgical training needs to be the core of any NHS recovery plan*. Many surgical trainees have hardly operated in the last 18 months due to staff redeployment.
*it won't be...
Do surgeons, as happens with airline pilots, need to do minimum numbers of operations over time, to remain ‘current’ and work unsupervised?
A lot of airlines are struggling now, as they try and bring more planes back into service, that the pilots they furloughed need to have their licences re-validated.
Yes it is a part of annual appraisal, or the ARCP process in respect of Trainees. Many are currently failing on the numbers needed to get Specialist Registration.
In response to importing surgeons, that option has been closed off by Brexit. With a few exceptions (Australasia being one) it takes years for a foreign surgeon to be accredited as Specialist, even if competent ones are available. But wasn't the point of Brexit to stop foreign workers undermining sturdy British Yeoman's pay bargaining position?
Thanks for that, I had assumed there was probably some formal process in place.
Also a good point on validation of qualification for foreign-trained doctors. That process needs to be made much simpler if the hiring targets are to be met.
It takes 6-12 months for a foreign doctor to get over the hurdles for registration. That however (with very few exceptions) doesn't get them accredited as a Specialist for independent practice, which generally takes 5 or more years of supervised experience.
It would be better all round to train our own, who are currently not getting that supervision.
It has always struck me as completely insane, that we deliberately train less staff than then NHS requires. The NHS plans ahead for a few years - the numbers are pretty much known. But the number of places at University and in further training are lower. And not by a small margin, either.
Outsourcing training costs to poorer countries = economic imperialism. Send in the nuclear subs to stop this!
There is an almost comical irony in that for years lefties have promoted immigration of foreign quacks, ignoring that it depletes poorer countries' healthcare systems, while those on the right deplore immigration but revel in money saved.
There are also those on the right who like immigration for its own sake, and people on the left who are raging racists. All four categories can be found out in the wild.
I'd better cancel myself after saying this but shirley 95%+ of people generally are against immigration, other things being equal, because home is home? If you are from not-the-UK what is actually the attraction of the UK? The weather, the cooking, the people? Wouldn't most people bite your arm off at the offer of UK wages in their own homeland?
The attraction of the UK is especially evident when you go to the countries in question.
We complain about the police. In many such countries the police is simply the largest street gang. We complain about corrupt politicians. In many such countries... well, they've nicked everything.
Part of the issue in understanding this, is that the Left in the UK has given up on pride in what has been achieved. The NHS may be crappy, but it is infinitely better than the alternative of nothing. Labour conditions and laws are vastly better here etc. All this adds up to a place where the foundations for productive activity are much better.
What this means is that the same person working in the UK is much more productive than the same person working in developing country X.
Interestingly, when you compare many jobs (especially those with more than basic required skill) the productivity multipliers are the difference in wages. i.e. the UK job may *cost* 5x that in country X, but very often productivity in the UK is 5x (more or less) than you get in country X.
“If the definition of political courage is making big calls crisply and effectively, despite obvious risks and unknowable consequences, then it seems to me that President Biden and Prime Minister Johnson qualify right now. They’ve made calls recently that go beyond the usual mush of compromise and calculation and might even merit being called bold.”
“Biden braved the Blob and got out of Afghanistan. We will debate how he did so, and with what consequences, for quite some time. But he still did it. Obama tried and failed. Trump made a big song and dance and signed a surrender deal. But Biden actually got us out…”
“Equally this week, the sudden and surprise announcement that the UK, the US and Australia would form a new military and intelligence alliance in the Pacific, including new nuclear-powered submarines for Australia, was a bold signal to China that the US is not about to abandon that region, or its allies there. It came seemingly out of the blue, but had been in the works, apparently initiated by Australia, for some months.”
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
And that for the benefit of @kinabalu is why AUKUS and not FR/GER are the "chaps we can trust."
Ah hello, Philip. Thanks for the mention. I've done a Deep Think about this Aukus thing and I have a take for PB perusal which if you don't mind I'll post here in reply to your little jest.
Taken seriously, it's the platform for a new NATO in a world where China not the USSR is the bogeyman. But you get a truer picture (imo) by taking it less seriously. Boris Johnson is involved, remember.
French anger is directed at the US and Oz and the reason for this is we have little to do with what’s happening, which is all about the submarine deal. Australia was offered the nuclear option by America, said yes to that, therefore cancelled their order of lower tech ones from France. That's the essence of it.
Presented in isolation this could have looked bald and mercantile, the bad faith element prominent, so they decided to add gravitas by packaging it up as something with a strategic “Anglosphere” air to it. For which they needed us, they needed our name on the tombstone as it were, and lo we have “Aukus”. It’s not a treaty with obligations, merely a statement of intent between the 3 countries with lots of waffle about future co-operation and sharing. It’s like the Political Declaration in the Brexit talks, dressing and mood music only, as compared to the real meat and potatoes of the Withdrawal Agreement / submarine deal.
For the UK, in strictly rational terms, it’s nothing to get too excited about either way but for Boris Johnson it’s great. He knows what he's doing with this and he's scored a bit of a win. A fear about Brexit was we'd become irrelevant on the world stage. This makes us look important. Moreover, it pushes the buttons of those many English people – some of whom write columns and OpEds and all of whom have votes in general elections – who feel reassured and comfortable with a view of the world and its affairs whereby we are naturally aligned with the English speaking nations rather than with Europe. Or some of the English speaking nations, to be more accurate. If you want a quick instinctive feel for who these nations are they are those who James Bond had a soft spot for in the Fleming novels.
"Australia was offered the nuclear option by America,"
That makes it sound as though the US made the first moves on this. I'm unsure that's correct.
It might equally be: The deal with the French for the Attack class submarines was a fiscal and technological nightmare, and Australia realised they had to get out of it. Therefore they looked at their requirements and the emerging threats and realised only nuclear-powered boats would suit.
The horror of what so many Republican-dominated state governments have done — most recently in Texas — to restrict access to the ballot and undercut the honest and nonpartisan counting of ballots presents Democrats with only two options: Act uncompromisingly at the national level to ensure democracy everywhere, or accept that many states in our union will, in important ways, cease to be democratic.
It has buttons that allow you to filter out the whites or the men.
Very progressive.
and totally unsurprising. I am suprised you cant search for gay, lesbian transgender, non binary or any other non norm grouping tgat may crop up over time.
It will enable the BBC to claim that there is discrimination even when there isnt.
More interesting is lower down – that Boris's Cabinet is 2/3 privately-educated, up from 1/3 Theresa May's. And historically, even Boris is quite low.
I would have thought it a good idea to have well educated people in the Cabinet.... you are certainly more likely to be well educated in a private school.
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
And that for the benefit of @kinabalu is why AUKUS and not FR/GER are the "chaps we can trust."
Ah hello, Philip. Thanks for the mention. I've done a Deep Think about this Aukus thing and I have a take for PB perusal which if you don't mind I'll post here in reply to your little jest.
Taken seriously, it's the platform for a new NATO in a world where China not the USSR is the bogeyman. But you get a truer picture (imo) by taking it less seriously. Boris Johnson is involved, remember.
French anger is directed at the US and Oz and the reason for this is we have little to do with what’s happening, which is all about the submarine deal. Australia was offered the nuclear option by America, said yes to that, therefore cancelled their order of lower tech ones from France. That's the essence of it.
Presented in isolation this could have looked bald and mercantile, the bad faith element prominent, so they decided to add gravitas by packaging it up as something with a strategic “Anglosphere” air to it. For which they needed us, they needed our name on the tombstone as it were, and lo we have “Aukus”. It’s not a treaty with obligations, merely a statement of intent between the 3 countries with lots of waffle about future co-operation and sharing. It’s like the Political Declaration in the Brexit talks, dressing and mood music only, as compared to the real meat and potatoes of the Withdrawal Agreement / submarine deal.
For the UK, in strictly rational terms, it’s nothing to get too excited about either way but for Boris Johnson it’s great. He knows what he's doing with this and he's scored a bit of a win. A fear about Brexit was we'd become irrelevant on the world stage. This makes us look important. Moreover, it pushes the buttons of those many English people – some of whom write columns and OpEds and all of whom have votes in general elections – who feel reassured and comfortable with a view of the world and its affairs whereby we are naturally aligned with the English speaking nations rather than with Europe. Or some of the English speaking nations, to be more accurate. If you want a quick instinctive feel for who these nations are they are those who James Bond had a soft spot for in the Fleming novels.
I am sure you would take this position if the roles of France and the UK had been reversed.
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
And that for the benefit of @kinabalu is why AUKUS and not FR/GER are the "chaps we can trust."
Ah hello, Philip. Thanks for the mention. I've done a Deep Think about this Aukus thing and I have a take for PB perusal which if you don't mind I'll post here in reply to your little jest.
Taken seriously, it's the platform for a new NATO in a world where China not the USSR is the bogeyman. But you get a truer picture (imo) by taking it less seriously. Boris Johnson is involved, remember.
French anger is directed at the US and Oz and the reason for this is we have little to do with what’s happening, which is all about the submarine deal. Australia was offered the nuclear option by America, said yes to that, therefore cancelled their order of lower tech ones from France. That's the essence of it.
Presented in isolation this could have looked bald and mercantile, the bad faith element prominent, so they decided to add gravitas by packaging it up as something with a strategic “Anglosphere” air to it. For which they needed us, they needed our name on the tombstone as it were, and lo we have “Aukus”. It’s not a treaty with obligations, merely a statement of intent between the 3 countries with lots of waffle about future co-operation and sharing. It’s like the Political Declaration in the Brexit talks, dressing and mood music only, as compared to the real meat and potatoes of the Withdrawal Agreement / submarine deal.
For the UK, in strictly rational terms, it’s nothing to get too excited about either way but for Boris Johnson it’s great. He knows what he's doing with this and he's scored a bit of a win. A fear about Brexit was we'd become irrelevant on the world stage. This makes us look important. Moreover, it pushes the buttons of those many English people – some of whom write columns and OpEds and all of whom have votes in general elections – who feel reassured and comfortable with a view of the world and its affairs whereby we are naturally aligned with the English speaking nations rather than with Europe. Or some of the English speaking nations, to be more accurate. If you want a quick instinctive feel for who these nations are they are those who James Bond had a soft spot for in the Fleming novels.
Good post but you are not correct about UK in this
The US/UK nuclear subs are built under total confidentiality between both countries and each is integral to the whole.
UK is not a convenient addendum but absolutely integral to AUKUS without which the subs could not have been supplied to Australia
DVLA has now admitted it has lost youngest's application for a provisional licence for a aecond time. He's now filling in a third. 8 months since he turned 17 and first did it.
Very frustrating. I presume they not have the facility for on-line applications?
Nope. They've taken his passport for two periods too. Won't be doing that again. It has expired. Tbf. We gave them some leeway for the first as it was during lockdown in January. They sent £100 compensation, but that includes 2x £35 fees. So £30 net for 8 months behind in lessons!
Of course, in what we would late mediaeval times Chinese ships reached what we now call Australia. However, AIUI, they reached the north west and saw little to encourage them to settle.
They don't appear to have reached Aotearoa/New Zealand.
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
And that for the benefit of @kinabalu is why AUKUS and not FR/GER are the "chaps we can trust."
Ah hello, Philip. Thanks for the mention. I've done a Deep Think about this Aukus thing and I have a take for PB perusal which if you don't mind I'll post here in reply to your little jest.
Taken seriously, it's the platform for a new NATO in a world where China not the USSR is the bogeyman. But you get a truer picture (imo) by taking it less seriously. Boris Johnson is involved, remember.
French anger is directed at the US and Oz and the reason for this is we have little to do with what’s happening, which is all about the submarine deal. Australia was offered the nuclear option by America, said yes to that, therefore cancelled their order of lower tech ones from France. That's the essence of it.
Presented in isolation this could have looked bald and mercantile, the bad faith element prominent, so they decided to add gravitas by packaging it up as something with a strategic “Anglosphere” air to it. For which they needed us, they needed our name on the tombstone as it were, and lo we have “Aukus”. It’s not a treaty with obligations, merely a statement of intent between the 3 countries with lots of waffle about future co-operation and sharing. It’s like the Political Declaration in the Brexit talks, dressing and mood music only, as compared to the real meat and potatoes of the Withdrawal Agreement / submarine deal.
For the UK, in strictly rational terms, it’s nothing to get too excited about either way but for Boris Johnson it’s great. He knows what he's doing with this and he's scored a bit of a win. A fear about Brexit was we'd become irrelevant on the world stage. This makes us look important. Moreover, it pushes the buttons of those many English people – some of whom write columns and OpEds and all of whom have votes in general elections – who feel reassured and comfortable with a view of the world and its affairs whereby we are naturally aligned with the English speaking nations rather than with Europe. Or some of the English speaking nations, to be more accurate. If you want a quick instinctive feel for who these nations are they are those who James Bond had a soft spot for in the Fleming novels.
"Australia was offered the nuclear option by America,"
That makes it sound as though the US made the first moves on this. I'm unsure that's correct.
It might equally be: The deal with the French for the Attack class submarines was a fiscal and technological nightmare, and Australia realised they had to get out of it. Therefore they looked at their requirements and the emerging threats and realised only nuclear-powered boats would suit.
The French are not innocent in all of this.
Serious question: what does Australia get, apart from an excuse to break the financially ruinous French deal, from nuclear-powered submarines? Very long patrol times are great for nuclear weapons, which Australia does not have, and for intelligence-gathering, which Australia does not need. Am I missing something or is it simply about money and influence?
The imperial / metric debate is depressing. We're utter utter morons in this country - accepting that we need to use modern measures (metric) shared by the rest of the known universe. Yet still cling onto stupid like miles and pints and gallons.
Miles per bloody gallon! You don't buy fuel in gallons so why on earth we didn't convert to at least miles per litre measures I don't know. Personally I'd go full metric for everything. That pillock Worzel is likely to do the reverse and kill off "European" measures used by the entire world for some archaic crap that pretty much only we use.
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
And that for the benefit of @kinabalu is why AUKUS and not FR/GER are the "chaps we can trust."
Ah hello, Philip. Thanks for the mention. I've done a Deep Think about this Aukus thing and I have a take for PB perusal which if you don't mind I'll post here in reply to your little jest.
Taken seriously, it's the platform for a new NATO in a world where China not the USSR is the bogeyman. But you get a truer picture (imo) by taking it less seriously. Boris Johnson is involved, remember.
French anger is directed at the US and Oz and the reason for this is we have little to do with what’s happening, which is all about the submarine deal. Australia was offered the nuclear option by America, said yes to that, therefore cancelled their order of lower tech ones from France. That's the essence of it.
Presented in isolation this could have looked bald and mercantile, the bad faith element prominent, so they decided to add gravitas by packaging it up as something with a strategic “Anglosphere” air to it. For which they needed us, they needed our name on the tombstone as it were, and lo we have “Aukus”. It’s not a treaty with obligations, merely a statement of intent between the 3 countries with lots of waffle about future co-operation and sharing. It’s like the Political Declaration in the Brexit talks, dressing and mood music only, as compared to the real meat and potatoes of the Withdrawal Agreement / submarine deal.
For the UK, in strictly rational terms, it’s nothing to get too excited about either way but for Boris Johnson it’s great. He knows what he's doing with this and he's scored a bit of a win. A fear about Brexit was we'd become irrelevant on the world stage. This makes us look important. Moreover, it pushes the buttons of those many English people – some of whom write columns and OpEds and all of whom have votes in general elections – who feel reassured and comfortable with a view of the world and its affairs whereby we are naturally aligned with the English speaking nations rather than with Europe. Or some of the English speaking nations, to be more accurate. If you want a quick instinctive feel for who these nations are they are those who James Bond had a soft spot for in the Fleming novels.
"Australia was offered the nuclear option by America,"
That makes it sound as though the US made the first moves on this. I'm unsure that's correct.
It might equally be: The deal with the French for the Attack class submarines was a fiscal and technological nightmare, and Australia realised they had to get out of it. Therefore they looked at their requirements and the emerging threats and realised only nuclear-powered boats would suit.
The French are not innocent in all of this.
Yes. The Australians (some of them) have been talking about nuclear subs for years. This is because if you add up the requirements for submarines that come from the geographic issues, the answer to the question is go nuclear. This hasn't happened previously, due to cost and politics.
The French sub deal drove the cost of subs into the range where nuclear was possible cost wise (is that ironic?)
The Americans would love to increase the ordering rate for Virginia class boats, to reduce costs. I strongly suspect that the way this will go is that the machinery will be US (reactors, turbines etc) in Australian built hulls. See the UK and HMS Dreadnought - where people joked that the aft end of the sub was the "American Zone".
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
And that for the benefit of @kinabalu is why AUKUS and not FR/GER are the "chaps we can trust."
French anger is directed at the US and Oz and the reason for this is we have little to do with what’s happening, which is all about the submarine deal. Australia was offered the nuclear option by America, said yes to that, therefore cancelled their order of lower tech ones from France. That's the essence of it.
According to The Times (posted up thread) Australia approached the UK first over submarines because the French contract was well over budget and very late - it was the UK that suggested expanding it into a broader scope project and not just “a submarine deal”. The UK and Australia then worked through the US system to get it agreed.
The funny thing is that while Macron was strutting his stuff at the G7 in Cornwall with stories of “isolated Britain” the biggest strategic alliance in decades was being cooked up behind his back.
France doesn’t want any narrative to get out about post-Brexit Britain being other than isolated which is why they are pretending it had little to do with us.
DVLA has now admitted it has lost youngest's application for a provisional licence for a aecond time. He's now filling in a third. 8 months since he turned 17 and first did it.
Got my new licence in the post on Thursday, having applied online last Sunday.
Covid has shown up quite how sparse our weapons against disease are. The vaccines were later then we needed, even fat a brilliantly accelerated development. Therapeutic developments have been very disappointing.
I would like to see a Manhattan Project on therapeutics. The world needs to throw billions into development of drugs and strategies that will help keep people out of hospital from even 'normal' illnesses such as flu.
An issue is that vaccines have been seen to work and, in a couple of cases, vastly profitable. The sector will throw lots of money into vaccines. But vaccines are inevitable delayed; they need to be developed for each individual illness. Therapeutic drugs and techniques can help with many different illnesses that attack in similar ways.
The Manhattan Project is a really bad analogy. Apart from the huge sums spent on research every year in any event, the problem is not a singular one amenable to a brute force approach like that. While it's true that some agents will prove useful in multiple diseases, defining what those might be and why is still as much as hoc as it is systemic.
Fundamentally we just need a lot more knowledge - a project which industry, government and academia are already spending hundreds of billions on.
The Manhattan project is frequently used as shorthand for a "Crash Program to do X"
The interesting bit about the Manhattan project was that the basic answers - "We need need kilos of U235 and Pu239" - were already known. As were the list of possible ways to get there. There was surprisingly little abstract science innovation in the project. It was an engineering competition to see which methods worked the best, by trying them all in competition with each other.
The COVID treatment issue equivalent would be if we had micro grams of various treatments that probably work in the labs, but need tons. And don't have the methods to make tons.
We don't have that. What we need (and is happening) is alot of primary science to find the treatment methods and ideas. Once we have the treatments, the pharma industry will give us the tons in fairly short order.
Point taken from both NigelB and yourself. I did indeed mean it as the sense of a crash project.
One thing that surprised me is that the Manhattan Project wasn't even the most expensive single US project of the war. The B-29 Superfortress project cost $3 billion to develop and build; the Manhattan Project only cost $1.9 billion.
I'd argue the Manhattan Project was also much more effective: the B-29 didn't end the war. The nukes did - and probably with much less loss of life than if the war had continued.
(And before anyone says 'Enola Gay'! - problems with the B-29 meant there were plans to use modified Lancaster bombers to drop the nuclear bombs. - although the Lancaster was less well-suited to the task - https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/project-silverplate )
The B29s shut down what was left of Japanese maritime trade - see the forgotten aerial mining campaign.
The Lancaster nuke thing is one of those bits of history that don't make sense when you examine the reality. The Lancaster didn't have the range. The B29 was a vastly bigger plane, all round - for equivalent projects look at the the British 75 and 100 ton bomber projects (cancelled) ....
A Lancaster could have carried Little Boy. Fat Man would have been a problem (width). But it would have had very little range while doing so, and would have been flying very low, and very slow compare to the B29.
The RAF demanded and got B29s after the war, because of the performance issues.
Indeed, the Lancaster wasn't perfect for the job. But the US had massive problems getting the B-29 flying, yet alone the modified versions for carrying nukes. For every B-29 lost to enemy action, two more were lost due to engine, technical or other failures. They were far from sure in 1944 whether the bird could do it. The Lancaster was about the only other alternative they had.
Covid has shown up quite how sparse our weapons against disease are. The vaccines were later then we needed, even fat a brilliantly accelerated development. Therapeutic developments have been very disappointing.
I would like to see a Manhattan Project on therapeutics. The world needs to throw billions into development of drugs and strategies that will help keep people out of hospital from even 'normal' illnesses such as flu.
An issue is that vaccines have been seen to work and, in a couple of cases, vastly profitable. The sector will throw lots of money into vaccines. But vaccines are inevitable delayed; they need to be developed for each individual illness. Therapeutic drugs and techniques can help with many different illnesses that attack in similar ways.
The Manhattan Project is a really bad analogy. Apart from the huge sums spent on research every year in any event, the problem is not a singular one amenable to a brute force approach like that. While it's true that some agents will prove useful in multiple diseases, defining what those might be and why is still as much as hoc as it is systemic.
Fundamentally we just need a lot more knowledge - a project which industry, government and academia are already spending hundreds of billions on.
The Manhattan project is frequently used as shorthand for a "Crash Program to do X"
The interesting bit about the Manhattan project was that the basic answers - "We need need kilos of U235 and Pu239" - were already known. As were the list of possible ways to get there. There was surprisingly little abstract science innovation in the project. It was an engineering competition to see which methods worked the best, by trying them all in competition with each other.
The COVID treatment issue equivalent would be if we had micro grams of various treatments that probably work in the labs, but need tons. And don't have the methods to make tons.
We don't have that. What we need (and is happening) is alot of primary science to find the treatment methods and ideas. Once we have the treatments, the pharma industry will give us the tons in fairly short order.
Point taken from both NigelB and yourself. I did indeed mean it as the sense of a crash project.
One thing that surprised me is that the Manhattan Project wasn't even the most expensive single US project of the war. The B-29 Superfortress project cost $3 billion to develop and build; the Manhattan Project only cost $1.9 billion.
I'd argue the Manhattan Project was also much more effective: the B-29 didn't end the war. The nukes did - and probably with much less loss of life than if the war had continued.
(And before anyone says 'Enola Gay'! - problems with the B-29 meant there were plans to use modified Lancaster bombers to drop the nuclear bombs. - although the Lancaster was less well-suited to the task - https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/project-silverplate )
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
And that for the benefit of @kinabalu is why AUKUS and not FR/GER are the "chaps we can trust."
Ah hello, Philip. Thanks for the mention. I've done a Deep Think about this Aukus thing and I have a take for PB perusal which if you don't mind I'll post here in reply to your little jest.
Taken seriously, it's the platform for a new NATO in a world where China not the USSR is the bogeyman. But you get a truer picture (imo) by taking it less seriously. Boris Johnson is involved, remember.
French anger is directed at the US and Oz and the reason for this is we have little to do with what’s happening, which is all about the submarine deal. Australia was offered the nuclear option by America, said yes to that, therefore cancelled their order of lower tech ones from France. That's the essence of it.
Presented in isolation this could have looked bald and mercantile, the bad faith element prominent, so they decided to add gravitas by packaging it up as something with a strategic “Anglosphere” air to it. For which they needed us, they needed our name on the tombstone as it were, and lo we have “Aukus”. It’s not a treaty with obligations, merely a statement of intent between the 3 countries with lots of waffle about future co-operation and sharing. It’s like the Political Declaration in the Brexit talks, dressing and mood music only, as compared to the real meat and potatoes of the Withdrawal Agreement / submarine deal.
For the UK, in strictly rational terms, it’s nothing to get too excited about either way but for Boris Johnson it’s great. He knows what he's doing with this and he's scored a bit of a win. A fear about Brexit was we'd become irrelevant on the world stage. This makes us look important. Moreover, it pushes the buttons of those many English people – some of whom write columns and OpEds and all of whom have votes in general elections – who feel reassured and comfortable with a view of the world and its affairs whereby we are naturally aligned with the English speaking nations rather than with Europe. Or some of the English speaking nations, to be more accurate. If you want a quick instinctive feel for who these nations are they are those who James Bond had a soft spot for in the Fleming novels.
"Australia was offered the nuclear option by America,"
That makes it sound as though the US made the first moves on this. I'm unsure that's correct.
It might equally be: The deal with the French for the Attack class submarines was a fiscal and technological nightmare, and Australia realised they had to get out of it. Therefore they looked at their requirements and the emerging threats and realised only nuclear-powered boats would suit.
The French are not innocent in all of this.
Serious question: what does Australia get, apart from an excuse to break the financially ruinous French deal, from nuclear-powered submarines? Very long patrol times are great for nuclear weapons, which Australia does not have, and for intelligence-gathering, which Australia does not need. Am I missing something or is it simply about money and influence?
Getting to places. The whole region is vast. So you end up spending long, long times getting from port to patrol areas. Nuclear subs can transit much faster - a modern nuke can run silently at 20 knots*. As to intelligence gathering - that has been a requirement for Australian subs from way back.
*The US Navy stated that the Seawolf class was quieter at 20 knots, than the Improved Los Angeles class was at 5 knots.
Covid has shown up quite how sparse our weapons against disease are. The vaccines were later then we needed, even fat a brilliantly accelerated development. Therapeutic developments have been very disappointing.
I would like to see a Manhattan Project on therapeutics. The world needs to throw billions into development of drugs and strategies that will help keep people out of hospital from even 'normal' illnesses such as flu.
An issue is that vaccines have been seen to work and, in a couple of cases, vastly profitable. The sector will throw lots of money into vaccines. But vaccines are inevitable delayed; they need to be developed for each individual illness. Therapeutic drugs and techniques can help with many different illnesses that attack in similar ways.
The Manhattan Project is a really bad analogy. Apart from the huge sums spent on research every year in any event, the problem is not a singular one amenable to a brute force approach like that. While it's true that some agents will prove useful in multiple diseases, defining what those might be and why is still as much as hoc as it is systemic.
Fundamentally we just need a lot more knowledge - a project which industry, government and academia are already spending hundreds of billions on.
The Manhattan project is frequently used as shorthand for a "Crash Program to do X"
The interesting bit about the Manhattan project was that the basic answers - "We need need kilos of U235 and Pu239" - were already known. As were the list of possible ways to get there. There was surprisingly little abstract science innovation in the project. It was an engineering competition to see which methods worked the best, by trying them all in competition with each other.
The COVID treatment issue equivalent would be if we had micro grams of various treatments that probably work in the labs, but need tons. And don't have the methods to make tons.
We don't have that. What we need (and is happening) is alot of primary science to find the treatment methods and ideas. Once we have the treatments, the pharma industry will give us the tons in fairly short order.
Point taken from both NigelB and yourself. I did indeed mean it as the sense of a crash project.
One thing that surprised me is that the Manhattan Project wasn't even the most expensive single US project of the war. The B-29 Superfortress project cost $3 billion to develop and build; the Manhattan Project only cost $1.9 billion.
I'd argue the Manhattan Project was also much more effective: the B-29 didn't end the war. The nukes did - and probably with much less loss of life than if the war had continued.
(And before anyone says 'Enola Gay'! - problems with the B-29 meant there were plans to use modified Lancaster bombers to drop the nuclear bombs. - although the Lancaster was less well-suited to the task - https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/project-silverplate )
“If the definition of political courage is making big calls crisply and effectively, despite obvious risks and unknowable consequences, then it seems to me that President Biden and Prime Minister Johnson qualify right now. They’ve made calls recently that go beyond the usual mush of compromise and calculation and might even merit being called bold.”
“Biden braved the Blob and got out of Afghanistan. We will debate how he did so, and with what consequences, for quite some time. But he still did it. Obama tried and failed. Trump made a big song and dance and signed a surrender deal. But Biden actually got us out…”
“Equally this week, the sudden and surprise announcement that the UK, the US and Australia would form a new military and intelligence alliance in the Pacific, including new nuclear-powered submarines for Australia, was a bold signal to China that the US is not about to abandon that region, or its allies there. It came seemingly out of the blue, but had been in the works, apparently initiated by Australia, for some months.”
But as usual when he withdraws, he did it chaotically, incompetently, at the wrong moment leading to highly unfortunate consequences including people being unexpectedly completely screwed.
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
And that for the benefit of @kinabalu is why AUKUS and not FR/GER are the "chaps we can trust."
Ah hello, Philip. Thanks for the mention. I've done a Deep Think about this Aukus thing and I have a take for PB perusal which if you don't mind I'll post here in reply to your little jest.
Taken seriously, it's the platform for a new NATO in a world where China not the USSR is the bogeyman. But you get a truer picture (imo) by taking it less seriously. Boris Johnson is involved, remember.
French anger is directed at the US and Oz and the reason for this is we have little to do with what’s happening, which is all about the submarine deal. Australia was offered the nuclear option by America, said yes to that, therefore cancelled their order of lower tech ones from France. That's the essence of it.
Presented in isolation this could have looked bald and mercantile, the bad faith element prominent, so they decided to add gravitas by packaging it up as something with a strategic “Anglosphere” air to it. For which they needed us, they needed our name on the tombstone as it were, and lo we have “Aukus”. It’s not a treaty with obligations, merely a statement of intent between the 3 countries with lots of waffle about future co-operation and sharing. It’s like the Political Declaration in the Brexit talks, dressing and mood music only, as compared to the real meat and potatoes of the Withdrawal Agreement / submarine deal.
For the UK, in strictly rational terms, it’s nothing to get too excited about either way but for Boris Johnson it’s great. He knows what he's doing with this and he's scored a bit of a win. A fear about Brexit was we'd become irrelevant on the world stage. This makes us look important. Moreover, it pushes the buttons of those many English people – some of whom write columns and OpEds and all of whom have votes in general elections – who feel reassured and comfortable with a view of the world and its affairs whereby we are naturally aligned with the English speaking nations rather than with Europe. Or some of the English speaking nations, to be more accurate. If you want a quick instinctive feel for who these nations are they are those who James Bond had a soft spot for in the Fleming novels.
LOL.
For an Anglophobe like yourself that stream of nonsense possibly makes you sleep better at night.
However back here on Planet Earth that's just not true. And Britain and British technology is integral to all this.
The imperial / metric debate is depressing. We're utter utter morons in this country - accepting that we need to use modern measures (metric) shared by the rest of the known universe. Yet still cling onto stupid like miles and pints and gallons.
Miles per bloody gallon! You don't buy fuel in gallons so why on earth we didn't convert to at least miles per litre measures I don't know. Personally I'd go full metric for everything. That pillock Worzel is likely to do the reverse and kill off "European" measures used by the entire world for some archaic crap that pretty much only we use.
You don't count the United States - the world's superpower and our largest trading partner - as part of the known universe?
Covid has shown up quite how sparse our weapons against disease are. The vaccines were later then we needed, even fat a brilliantly accelerated development. Therapeutic developments have been very disappointing.
I would like to see a Manhattan Project on therapeutics. The world needs to throw billions into development of drugs and strategies that will help keep people out of hospital from even 'normal' illnesses such as flu.
An issue is that vaccines have been seen to work and, in a couple of cases, vastly profitable. The sector will throw lots of money into vaccines. But vaccines are inevitable delayed; they need to be developed for each individual illness. Therapeutic drugs and techniques can help with many different illnesses that attack in similar ways.
The Manhattan Project is a really bad analogy. Apart from the huge sums spent on research every year in any event, the problem is not a singular one amenable to a brute force approach like that. While it's true that some agents will prove useful in multiple diseases, defining what those might be and why is still as much as hoc as it is systemic.
Fundamentally we just need a lot more knowledge - a project which industry, government and academia are already spending hundreds of billions on.
The Manhattan project is frequently used as shorthand for a "Crash Program to do X"
The interesting bit about the Manhattan project was that the basic answers - "We need need kilos of U235 and Pu239" - were already known. As were the list of possible ways to get there. There was surprisingly little abstract science innovation in the project. It was an engineering competition to see which methods worked the best, by trying them all in competition with each other.
The COVID treatment issue equivalent would be if we had micro grams of various treatments that probably work in the labs, but need tons. And don't have the methods to make tons.
We don't have that. What we need (and is happening) is alot of primary science to find the treatment methods and ideas. Once we have the treatments, the pharma industry will give us the tons in fairly short order.
Point taken from both NigelB and yourself. I did indeed mean it as the sense of a crash project.
One thing that surprised me is that the Manhattan Project wasn't even the most expensive single US project of the war. The B-29 Superfortress project cost $3 billion to develop and build; the Manhattan Project only cost $1.9 billion.
I'd argue the Manhattan Project was also much more effective: the B-29 didn't end the war. The nukes did - and probably with much less loss of life than if the war had continued.
(And before anyone says 'Enola Gay'! - problems with the B-29 meant there were plans to use modified Lancaster bombers to drop the nuclear bombs. - although the Lancaster was less well-suited to the task - https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/project-silverplate )
The B29s shut down what was left of Japanese maritime trade - see the forgotten aerial mining campaign.
The Lancaster nuke thing is one of those bits of history that don't make sense when you examine the reality. The Lancaster didn't have the range. The B29 was a vastly bigger plane, all round - for equivalent projects look at the the British 75 and 100 ton bomber projects (cancelled) ....
A Lancaster could have carried Little Boy. Fat Man would have been a problem (width). But it would have had very little range while doing so, and would have been flying very low, and very slow compare to the B29.
The RAF demanded and got B29s after the war, because of the performance issues.
Indeed, the Lancaster wasn't perfect for the job. But the US had massive problems getting the B-29 flying, yet alone the modified versions for carrying nukes. For every B-29 lost to enemy action, two more were lost due to engine, technical or other failures. They were far from sure in 1944 whether the bird could do it. The Lancaster was about the only other alternative they had.
The other, real alternative was different engines for the B29. See the XB39 & B29D (aka B50).
There was serious consideration given to the XB-39 for Silverplate, IIRC.
EDIT: without aerial refuelling (multiple times), the Lancaster (or Lincoln) couldn't get from the islands to Japan.
Comments
And that for the benefit of @kinabalu is why AUKUS and not FR/GER are the "chaps we can trust."
.@lemondefr reporting this morning that France's decision NOT to recall the French ambassador to the UK was intended as a deliberate snub to @BorisJohnson
https://twitter.com/Mij_Europe/status/1439177072518238208?s=20
Especially since when Macron was strutting his stuff at the G7 in Cornwall les rosbifs were stitching him up something rotten behind the scenes....
Essentially if cases double, and then double again, we'll be back where we were then.
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1438121194000039936
I see also he recently allowed anti-vax conspiracy theorist to use his lectern. Clearly he is trying to distance himself from his earlier "Get Vaxed" comments.
@andrew_lilico
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18h
Remember: the rapid contraction we are seeing in hospitalisations now reflects the drop in cases from two weeks ago to last week. Over the time since those now being hospitalised became cases, cases have fallen a further 25%. Big further hospitalisation drops are now baked in.
Pretty sure we can handle Putin without France in NATO if we need to.
Otherwise yes you need both France and the UK to maintain European security
Just seen dolphins. They interrupted my typing of this. I went all the way to Iceland previously to see that and clearly didn't need to.
After another lengthy night in A&E he did finally get a proper examination by an ENT specialist. He has a nasty infection but has had IV penicillin and is now, finally, home with a load more medicine to take. Still not able to eat but hopefully that will change soon.
The waiting was tiresome but not, frankly, the worst part. Medical need takes priority. It was the failure to deal with the issue the first and second time he was there which bothered us. In other circumstances a 2-day delay could be critical.
Anyway, back to a bit more normality I hope. On Monday I have to take one of the family cats to the cat hospital. The cost is eye watering. I may as well have a racehorse sleeping on my sofa. Still the speed and attention to detail which vets show is quite a contrast.
I am rather surprised that 45% were in favour, I would not have put it as high
NATO fleg trivia: the flags outside NATO buildings go L-R in alphabetical order of the countries' names in French. Except the Netherlands who use their English name and the host nation which is always in the centre.
Oh yes, we're talking about the French. They could surrender to the fact they were not the best option there.
(BTW, that should be “you’re obsessed with education”.)
We could not handle Putin alone without French support if the US largely withdraws from Europe.
It needs France and the UK working together to protect European security
Never saw them there in my youth. River was far too polluted 60 years ago
It’s not pathetic to take a stance - I just hope it’s not too late
But we do need to increase supply.
I think you need to examine your own prejudices.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/france-recalls-ambassador-right-middle-lunch/620126/
On the offchance, my usual fall-back when really struggling with a bad throat is gargling soluble paracetamol, which I find sometimes gives enough relief for a period for something smooth and a glass of water afterwards.
However, it does seem the meeting yesterday is part of a general move by the EU to improve the relationship with the UK and that is to be welcomed
Having said that I like a pint of beer now and again. I think publicans have missed a trick there. If they sold beer in litres and half litres they'd make more money. Whiskey used to be sold in sixths of a gill (23.5ml), now it's 25ml.
One thing that surprised me is that the Manhattan Project wasn't even the most expensive single US project of the war. The B-29 Superfortress project cost $3 billion to develop and build; the Manhattan Project only cost $1.9 billion.
I'd argue the Manhattan Project was also much more effective: the B-29 didn't end the war. The nukes did - and probably with much less loss of life than if the war had continued.
(And before anyone says 'Enola Gay'! - problems with the B-29 meant there were plans to use modified Lancaster bombers to drop the nuclear bombs. - although the Lancaster was less well-suited to the task - https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/project-silverplate )
The F.D.A.’s day of lively debate revealed key questions about the evidence on boosters.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/17/health/booster-science-data.html
I'm due one in a couple of months, but beginning to wonder whether it is really necessary to be honest.
They did this, not because of a love of Japanese culture, but because the revolting Peruvian peasants wanted enough money to live on to dig shit (literally - see guano).
France is a nice to have, not an essential.
Winston's presence was forgotten for a moment. There was a deal table under the window where he and the old man could talk without fear of being overheard. It was horribly dangerous, but at any rate there was no telescreen in the room, a point he had made sure of as soon as he came in.
"E could 'a drawed me off a pint,' grumbled the old man as he settled down behind a glass. 'A 'alf litre ain't enough. It don't satisfy. And a 'ole litre's too much. It starts my bladder running. Let alone the price.'
And between Saudi and current Iran, Saudi is by far the better option.
The EU has a flag, currency, ECJs, anthems, parliaments, embassies, a central bank and overriding law making powers. But what will it bring to bear qua the EU if Russia steps into Estonia and how long will its structures survive?
https://twitter.com/georgeeaton/status/1439179450214715400?s=20
The Lancaster nuke thing is one of those bits of history that don't make sense when you examine the reality. The Lancaster didn't have the range. The B29 was a vastly bigger plane, all round - for equivalent projects look at the the British 75 and 100 ton bomber projects (cancelled) ....
A Lancaster could have carried Little Boy. Fat Man would have been a problem (width). But it would have had very little range while doing so, and would have been flying very low, and very slow compare to the B29.
The RAF demanded and got B29s after the war, because of the performance issues.
Putin's Russia is more of a threat to us than the USSR was under Gorbachev for example
Taken seriously, it's the platform for a new NATO in a world where China not the USSR is the bogeyman. But you get a truer picture (imo) by taking it less seriously. Boris Johnson is involved, remember.
French anger is directed at the US and Oz and the reason for this is we have little to do with what’s happening, which is all about the submarine deal. Australia was offered the nuclear option by America, said yes to that, therefore cancelled their order of lower tech ones from France. That's the essence of it.
Presented in isolation this could have looked bald and mercantile, the bad faith element prominent, so they decided to add gravitas by packaging it up as something with a strategic “Anglosphere” air to it. For which they needed us, they needed our name on the tombstone as it were, and lo we have “Aukus”. It’s not a treaty with obligations, merely a statement of intent between the 3 countries with lots of waffle about future co-operation and sharing. It’s like the Political Declaration in the Brexit talks, dressing and mood music only, as compared to the real meat and potatoes of the Withdrawal Agreement / submarine deal.
For the UK, in strictly rational terms, it’s nothing to get too excited about either way but for Boris Johnson it’s great. He knows what he's doing with this and he's scored a bit of a win. A fear about Brexit was we'd become irrelevant on the world stage. This makes us look important. Moreover, it pushes the buttons of those many English people – some of whom write columns and OpEds and all of whom have votes in general elections – who feel reassured and comfortable with a view of the world and its affairs whereby we are naturally aligned with the English speaking nations rather than with Europe. Or some of the English speaking nations, to be more accurate. If you want a quick instinctive feel for who these nations are they are those who James Bond had a soft spot for in the Fleming novels.
PS: My humour meter was broken by the mince in the previous post, now repaired.
“Biden braved the Blob and got out of Afghanistan. We will debate how he did so, and with what consequences, for quite some time. But he still did it. Obama tried and failed. Trump made a big song and dance and signed a surrender deal. But Biden actually got us out…”
“Equally this week, the sudden and surprise announcement that the UK, the US and Australia would form a new military and intelligence alliance in the Pacific, including new nuclear-powered submarines for Australia, was a bold signal to China that the US is not about to abandon that region, or its allies there. It came seemingly out of the blue, but had been in the works, apparently initiated by Australia, for some months.”
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-boldness-of-biden-and-boris-37e
I'd be surprised if it is more than winding back to the right of choice which system to use, and that the market will keep things done in metric behind the display.
We complain about the police. In many such countries the police is simply the largest street gang.
We complain about corrupt politicians. In many such countries... well, they've nicked everything.
Part of the issue in understanding this, is that the Left in the UK has given up on pride in what has been achieved. The NHS may be crappy, but it is infinitely better than the alternative of nothing. Labour conditions and laws are vastly better here etc. All this adds up to a place where the foundations for productive activity are much better.
What this means is that the same person working in the UK is much more productive than the same person working in developing country X.
Interestingly, when you compare many jobs (especially those with more than basic required skill) the productivity multipliers are the difference in wages. i.e. the UK job may *cost* 5x that in country X, but very often productivity in the UK is 5x (more or less) than you get in country X.
That makes it sound as though the US made the first moves on this. I'm unsure that's correct.
It might equally be: The deal with the French for the Attack class submarines was a fiscal and technological nightmare, and Australia realised they had to get out of it. Therefore they looked at their requirements and the emerging threats and realised only nuclear-powered boats would suit.
The French are not innocent in all of this.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/12/make-or-break-moment-our-democracy/
The US/UK nuclear subs are built under total confidentiality between both countries and each is integral to the whole.
UK is not a convenient addendum but absolutely integral to AUKUS without which the subs could not have been supplied to Australia
Tbf. We gave them some leeway for the first as it was during lockdown in January.
They sent £100 compensation, but that includes 2x £35 fees. So £30 net for 8 months behind in lessons!
Miles per bloody gallon! You don't buy fuel in gallons so why on earth we didn't convert to at least miles per litre measures I don't know. Personally I'd go full metric for everything. That pillock Worzel is likely to do the reverse and kill off "European" measures used by the entire world for some archaic crap that pretty much only we use.
The French sub deal drove the cost of subs into the range where nuclear was possible cost wise (is that ironic?)
The Americans would love to increase the ordering rate for Virginia class boats, to reduce costs. I strongly suspect that the way this will go is that the machinery will be US (reactors, turbines etc) in Australian built hulls. See the UK and HMS Dreadnought - where people joked that the aft end of the sub was the "American Zone".
The funny thing is that while Macron was strutting his stuff at the G7 in Cornwall with stories of “isolated Britain” the biggest strategic alliance in decades was being cooked up behind his back.
France doesn’t want any narrative to get out about post-Brexit Britain being other than isolated which is why they are pretending it had little to do with us.
https://twitter.com/INArteCarloDoss/status/1438944431734919175
*The US Navy stated that the Seawolf class was quieter at 20 knots, than the Improved Los Angeles class was at 5 knots.
But as usual when he withdraws, he did it chaotically, incompetently, at the wrong moment leading to highly unfortunate consequences including people being unexpectedly completely screwed.
For an Anglophobe like yourself that stream of nonsense possibly makes you sleep better at night.
However back here on Planet Earth that's just not true. And Britain and British technology is integral to all this.
There was serious consideration given to the XB-39 for Silverplate, IIRC.
EDIT: without aerial refuelling (multiple times), the Lancaster (or Lincoln) couldn't get from the islands to Japan.