politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Will UKIP overshadow Cameron’s big day?

First ..... again!

numbercruncher said:

Ok, according to SKY, this is Farage's big surprise... http://news.sky.com/story/1345219/conservative-party-donor-switches-to-ukip

Odd isn't it that these very rich and presumably very smart people like Paul Sykes and Arron Banks risk handing the next GE to Labour on a plate by transferring their allegiance to UKIP?

Alanbrooke said:

Brown having made a bit of a comeback in the Indyref, goes off on one showing he has learned nothing in the last 5 years.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/scottish-politics/brown-accuses-cameron-of-setting-trap-for-scots-voters.25475080

Brown obviously feels he needs to raise his profile as Scotland's Most Important Has-been, now Salmond has stepped down...

Although, you wonder why they bother, as neither will match Jeanette Krankie.

Not an MP? I'm disappointed, I must admit.

Innocent_Abroad said:

Jonathan said:

peter_from_putney said:

numbercruncher said:

Ok, according to SKY, this is Farage's big surprise... http://news.sky.com/story/1345219/conservative-party-donor-switches-to-ukip

Odd isn't it that these very rich and presumably very smart people like Paul Sykes and Arron Banks risk handing the next GE to Labour on a plate by transferring their allegiance to UKIP?

I know that this is impossible for you to understand, but maybe they don't like what the Tories have to offer, are not obsessed about Labour and feel that UKIP best represents their views.

Jonathan, I think you could profit by Googling "irony"...

If only that were the case.

UKIP are a party of gesture politics, where that gesture is the two-fingered salute.

Which is hardly a manifesto for governing the country. The paucity of policy was on show at Doncaster.

I suspect that come late 2015, when he has voted 95%+ of the time with the Conservatives, Douglas Carswell will be wondering "what was the point to it all?" As he fails to stop Ed Miliband from enacting a raft of legislation that makes his blood boil.

And Mark Reckless will be wondering the same, as he takes another forlorn trip down to the Job Centre to see if anybody wants to employ an arsehole....

FPT - What’s the antonym of: bounce?

DavidL said:

MarqueeMark said:

UKIP are a party of gesture politics, where that gesture is the two-fingered salute.

Which is hardly a manifesto for governing the country. The paucity of policy was on show at Doncaster.

I suspect that come late 2015, when he has voted 95%+ of the time with the Conservatives, Douglas Carswell will be wondering "what was the point to it all?" As he fails to stop Ed Miliband from enacting a raft of legislation that makes his blood boil.

And Mark Reckless will be wondering the same, as he takes another forlorn trip down to the Job Centre to see if anybody wants to employ an arsehole....

Quite.

Carswell will also note that Ed has no intention of attempting any renegotiation of powers with the EU, that the serious and obvious implications for the UK in an ever more integrated Eurozone is something that apparently passes him by and does not concern him and that any discussion of a possible referendum on membership will be met with derision.

But he will have been right won't he? The same as these loons have been "right" since 1992. And have done nothing but harm.

You seem a bit down this morning, David. Let me cheer you up by reminding us all of my prediction for the GE next May:

Con 35%, Lab 25%, UKIP 23%. SNP to poll more in Scotland than LDs do in the whole of Great Britain. (Dunno if Nick Palmer is still happy with my £20 to charity or not.)

I thought the top 3 issues for voters were recently identified as (in order):
1. The economy / public finances
2. Immigration
3. NHS

Dave would be a fruitloop to focus mainly on No3 - which is Labour's pet. OK to go on protective manoeuvres here and offer comfort on 'NHS safe with us'- but the core GE stuff must also be on 1 and 2.
Ozzy has set out clear blue water between the Tories and Labour on 1 - and needs to keep pushing and extending this lead and further undermine voter confidence in Labour economic competence. A bit of fearmongering about interest rates and ability to pay for anything when Ed N Ed wreck the economy all over again is on the cards.
On 2 - well this is a UKIP strength more than a Tory one. Still in need of some red meat from Dave.

Quite a clever trick, politically, if he can pull it off. Cameron intends to use one of his major strengths to pull the rug from under Labour's greatest strength, and therefore make it his own. By linking real increases in NHS funding to economic credibility, he can kill two birds with one stone and enhance his electability to swing voters.

Whether it's a good idea to pour yet more money into the bottomless pit of the NHS, at the expense of other deserving government departments, with no real notable improvement in national health outcomes, is another matter.

It's "brave" but the Tories cannot leave the NHS as an uncontested Labour fiefdom - what they have to do is shout from the rooftops that they are talking about NHS ENGLAND - and compare and contrast with Labour's NHS WALES - further reinforcing the EVEL point too.

For me the bigger picture is that the Tories appear hungry for power and are up for a fight - in contrast with Labour last week. Given the hill they have to climb, just as well.......

Interesting comment by Sir Tim Bell (ex PR guru to Mrs T) on R4 Today.

"We have moved from a deference society to a reference society".

By which he meant that in days before IT, people listened to and often accepted the views of politicians, commentators and the press (a top down society). Today opinions are formed on blogs, web-sites, Twitter, Facebook etc and so it has become a bottom up society which allows one-topic movements to grow and then perhaps die when their time has moved on.

So that is why politicians have become so disrespected (of course the expenses scandal did not help). So will we see a call for errant politicians "A la lanterne!"?

@Patrick
And your "jam" relies on having a functioning society.
Screw it up, and it will be on the kitchen floor sticky side down.

Casino_Royale said:

Quite a clever trick, politically, if he can pull it off. Cameron intends to use one of his major strengths to pull the rug from under Labour's greatest strength, and therefore make it his own. By linking real increases in NHS funding to economic credibility, he can kill two birds with one stone and enhance his electability to swing voters.

Whether it's a good idea to pour yet more money into the bottomless pit of the NHS, at the expense of other deserving government departments, with no real notable improvement in national health outcomes, is another matter.

If you don't increase the death rate, you won't sort out the deficit.

Casino_Royale said:

Quite a clever trick, politically, if he can pull it off. Cameron intends to use one of his major strengths to pull the rug from under Labour's greatest strength, and therefore make it his own. By linking real increases in NHS funding to economic credibility, he can kill two birds with one stone and enhance his electability to swing voters.

Aided an abetted by the useful idiot Burnham

@andyburnhammp: NHS facing huge funding pressures in 2015-20 Parliament. It is just not credible for Tories to make new promises without finding new money.

So Labour agree credibility on the NHS is intimately tied to economic credibility.

Oops

Patrick said:

A somewhat 'End of Days' article over at Zerohedge:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-30/if-something-rattles-ponzi-scheme-life-america-will-change-overnight

Thing is - it's right. And what's more, pretty much the same is true of us. What will happen to the UK when we stop being able to borrow vast amounts of money very cheaply? Answer: Things get ugly. Let's stop borrowing. Let's balance the books and slowly start to repay our debt. The one really hopeful thing for the UK vs USA is that we at least borrow long and don't have nearly the same pressure to keep rolling over short term bonds.

Lefties - read the article and engage critical thinking circuits. Your 'jam tomorrow' dreams depend on it getting this right. Everything does.

What's the US government's credit rating?

BTW this is not a critique of the article one way or the other. Part of me is quite taken with the idea of Marx's prophesy - capitalism collapsing under its own contradictions - being fulfilled in my lifetime.

To an outsider there's something not quite wholesome about UKIP and the Tories at the moment.......

Another Cash appears who has the same christian name as his slightly fruitcake father and is joining UKIP. Fruitcakery runs in families?


Guido's team turns honey trap and persuades a Tory minister to send pictures of his pen*s by phone. (Seriously!)

The aptly named Reckless defects to the fruitcakes and gets called 'a liar' by 'Michael Green' the most accomplished since Profumo.

Stuart Wheeler 'the Dealer' and Tory donor reveals himself as the man behind the defections to UKIP. (It must have been difficult getting him to out himself!)

Kenneth Clarke describes UKIPers as sad old men with pointless lives.

At which point Neil Hamilton shows up.......

......And all against the backdrop of what used to be called the 'Blue Rinse Hang 'em and flog 'em show'

peter_from_putney said:

numbercruncher said:

Ok, according to SKY, this is Farage's big surprise... http://news.sky.com/story/1345219/conservative-party-donor-switches-to-ukip

Odd isn't it that these very rich and presumably very smart people like Paul Sykes and Arron Banks risk handing the next GE to Labour on a plate by transferring their allegiance to UKIP?

Not really, the Con party isn't delivering what they want.

Patrick said:

Smarmeron said:

@Patrick
And your "jam" relies on having a functioning society.
Screw it up, and it will be on the kitchen floor sticky side down.

Are you suggesting that a functioning society is incompatible with a balanced budget?

THE big challenge for politiicans is to find a way to balance the books and somehow keep the whole shebang from going splat. I think the Tories have given this some thought - imperfect for sure, but it exists. It is clear Labour have not even started to consider the risk.

How do you know what Labour have or have not started to consider? It's a usual ploy for incoming governments to claim that now that they have "seen the books" there has to be an emergency budget and a pledge bonfire. And after all, Labour these days have no principles whatsoever. Only front benchers who take money from bookies "completely within the rules".

Monksfield said:

Not really, the Con party isn't delivering what they want.

And Labour will deliver even less

foxinsoxuk said:

Casino_Royale said:

Quite a clever trick, politically, if he can pull it off. Cameron intends to use one of his major strengths to pull the rug from under Labour's greatest strength, and therefore make it his own. By linking real increases in NHS funding to economic credibility, he can kill two birds with one stone and enhance his electability to swing voters.

Whether it's a good idea to pour yet more money into the bottomless pit of the NHS, at the expense of other deserving government departments, with no real notable improvement in national health outcomes, is another matter.

The reason that even ring-fenced spending is a tremendous strain on NHS budgets is straightforward and nothing to do with being "a bottomless pit". An 80 year old costs the NHS 9 times the cost of a 30 year old, and we are an ageing population.

We are also seeing many chickens coming home to roost from the destructive changes in postgraduate medical training carried out by Patricia Hewitt. There simply are not enough GPs being trained to deliver the services required in primary care. All too often GP Trainees are used to prop up hospital rotas rather than train for general practice.

The conversation on the NHS misses the only thing that really needs to be discussed: How do we ration demand? Do we restrict what is covered or do we charge co-payments? Simply pretending that everyone can have every bit of health care free, quickly and of the highest quality is just lying to the public.

Quite so. What do you think Labour's plan to merge health and social care is all about?

Scott_P said:

@PickardJE: Now Ukip announces obscure Tory donor switching sides. Reinforces a sense of diminishing returns from the defection announcements.

hopefully..... could still be a diversion with bigger fish to come later .... where's hugh's popcorn.

Scrapheap_as_was said:

Scott_P said:

@PickardJE: Now Ukip announces obscure Tory donor switching sides. Reinforces a sense of diminishing returns from the defection announcements.

hopefully..... could still be a diversion with bigger fish to come later .... where's hugh's popcorn.

Morning all,

If they don't have a MP to defect timed for Cameron's speech then it raises the question: why didn't UKIP hold Reckless back until Wednesday? Or, more conspiratorially, a defectee has pulled out at the last minute. Possible under threat from Boris.

foxinsoxuk said:

Casino_Royale said:

Quite a clever trick, politically, if he can pull it off. Cameron intends to use one of his major strengths to pull the rug from under Labour's greatest strength, and therefore make it his own. By linking real increases in NHS funding to economic credibility, he can kill two birds with one stone and enhance his electability to swing voters.

Whether it's a good idea to pour yet more money into the bottomless pit of the NHS, at the expense of other deserving government departments, with no real notable improvement in national health outcomes, is another matter.

The reason that even ring-fenced spending is a tremendous strain on NHS budgets is straightforward and nothing to do with being "a bottomless pit". An 80 year old costs the NHS 9 times the cost of a 30 year old, and we are an ageing population.

We are also seeing many chickens coming home to roost from the destructive changes in postgraduate medical training carried out by Patricia Hewitt. There simply are not enough GPs being trained to deliver the services required in primary care. All too often GP Trainees are used to prop up hospital rotas rather than train for general practice.

The conversation on the NHS misses the only thing that really needs to be discussed: How do we ration demand? Do we restrict what is covered or do we charge co-payments? Simply pretending that everyone can have every bit of health care free, quickly and of the highest quality is just lying to the public.

Absolutely right. We also have all sorts of special pleading from people understandably and rightly, concerned for their own loved ones, and by politicians, understandably with an eye to votes, supporting them.
In the CCG area where I live the decision has been made to stop funding all artificial fertilisation. No ifs, no buts. all of it. If a couple can’t get “her” pregnant, then the NHS can’t help. We haven’t had a “hard case” yet, but unquestionably we will do at some point.

Innocent_Abroad said:

Con 35%, Lab 25%, UKIP 23%. SNP to poll more in Scotland than LDs do in the whole of Great Britain. (Dunno if Nick Palmer is still happy with my £20 to charity or not.)

I missed this offer, Innocent - what was it?

Also haven't seen audreyanne confirm the bet she proposed - she suggested a bet that the Tories would be (I think) 8 points clear, I said yes, would she like £10 or £20, but I've not seen a reply yet (may have just missed it).

On topic, if Mr Cameron wants to fight the election on the NHS, that's absolutely fine with us. Bring it on!

Innocent_Abroad said:

foxinsoxuk said:

Casino_Royale said:

Quite a clever trick, politically, if he can pull it off. Cameron intends to use one of his major strengths to pull the rug from under Labour's greatest strength, and therefore make it his own. By linking real increases in NHS funding to economic credibility, he can kill two birds with one stone and enhance his electability to swing voters.

Whether it's a good idea to pour yet more money into the bottomless pit of the NHS, at the expense of other deserving government departments, with no real notable improvement in national health outcomes, is another matter.

The reason that even ring-fenced spending is a tremendous strain on NHS budgets is straightforward and nothing to do with being "a bottomless pit". An 80 year old costs the NHS 9 times the cost of a 30 year old, and we are an ageing population.

We are also seeing many chickens coming home to roost from the destructive changes in postgraduate medical training carried out by Patricia Hewitt. There simply are not enough GPs being trained to deliver the services required in primary care. All too often GP Trainees are used to prop up hospital rotas rather than train for general practice.

The conversation on the NHS misses the only thing that really needs to be discussed: How do we ration demand? Do we restrict what is covered or do we charge co-payments? Simply pretending that everyone can have every bit of health care free, quickly and of the highest quality is just lying to the public.

Quite so. What do you think Labour's plan to merge health and social care is all about?

It is probably a better way of managing the frail elderly outside acute hospitals in terms of cost, but high quality care in the social sector requires well trained and motivated staff. We see in the various scandals in the care home sector that private companies are perfectly capable of running their own mini Staffords.

Devolving budgets and supervision to local councils does have attractions (and is a policy that UKIP have copied from Labour, though Labour themselves have copied the majority of it from Norman Lambs work as minister) but also risks. Local councils can run very poor services if they are one party states such as Rotherham.

New politics...

Mr Banks, who has donated more than £250,000 to the Tories since David Cameron became leader in 2005, is to give a £100,000 cheque to UKIP leader Nigel Farage........Mr Farage said Mr Banks had also expressed an interest in standing as a candidate for UKIP in next year's general election.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29438653

NickPalmer said:

On topic, if Mr Cameron wants to fight the election on the NHS, that's absolutely fine with us. Bring it on!

No, he wants to fight it on who can credibly fund the NHS

Yes - the Tories will never "own" the NHS but they can significantly diminish Labour's lead on it - if they get to "they're both as bad as each other" it will be a significant win. I doubt they can do that in 7 months though......took me 3 years in a previous life.....

Plato said:

I agree - making your opponent's USP your own, is a high-wire act, but the rewards are huge if you can pull it off.

Tony stole the Tory's clothes by doing exactly that. He couldn't keep it up forever - but managed it long enough to get elected 3x.

I'm sure a few of us on here have done something similar in our professional lives - it's not impossible, just really hard.

Casino_Royale said:

Quite a clever trick, politically, if he can pull it off. Cameron intends to use one of his major strengths to pull the rug from under Labour's greatest strength, and therefore make it his own. By linking real increases in NHS funding to economic credibility, he can kill two birds with one stone and enhance his electability to swing voters.

Whether it's a good idea to pour yet more money into the bottomless pit of the NHS, at the expense of other deserving government departments, with no real notable improvement in national health outcomes, is another matter.

I gotta go play bridge, Nick - I'm offering £20 at evens on my prediction (just for you I'm breaking the habit of a lifetime). We might do better working this out another ay.

As Enoch Powell pointed out, the NHS is where infinite demand meets finite resources. It will ultimately defeat any Government in its current form. That said, Labour seem worst equipped to manage it, given that they will take irrational economic decisions to keep it in place in its current form.

All parties should take on board that the NHS is paid for by rich people. The more rich people we can extract taxes from, the more health carefree at the point of use we can have. Idiot Miliband's determination to drive away such people for petty politics needs to be pointed to as the real risk to the NHS.

MarqueeMark said:

As Enoch Powell pointed out, the NHS is where infinite demand meets finite resources.

Enoch talking rubbish (again). Nothing 'infinite' about demand on the NHS. Most people hate going to the doctor.

Socrates said:

Patrick said:

A somewhat 'End of Days' article over at Zerohedge:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-30/if-something-rattles-ponzi-scheme-life-america-will-change-overnight

Thing is - it's right. And what's more, pretty much the same is true of us. What will happen to the UK when we stop being able to borrow vast amounts of money very cheaply? Answer: Things get ugly. Let's stop borrowing. Let's balance the books and slowly start to repay our debt. The one really hopeful thing for the UK vs USA is that we at least borrow long and don't have nearly the same pressure to keep rolling over short term bonds.

Lefties - read the article and engage critical thinking circuits. Your 'jam tomorrow' dreams depend on it getting this right. Everything does.

No, it's not right. It's just part of ZeroHedge's permanently apocalyptic world view. It's reminiscent of early Christians always claiming the End of Days was just round the corner. We have genuinely concerning issues to face with government debt, and we need to address them, but it is not an imminent crisis. The US has already taken major action on this, going from this:

http://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2014/09/22/22-debt-chart2.w529.h352.png

to this:

http://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2014/09/22/22-debt-chart.w529.h352.png

The only sensible way to look at government debt is relative to ability to pay, i.e. GDP. The Zero Hedge article puts these numbers in absolute, nominal terms just to seem scary. But it's clearly just scaremongering.

The Zero Hedge article doesn't say anything about why the US might not be able to borrow money at a low interest rate. As the world's reserve currency it seems highly likely that they will continue to do so. Instability in China might be a seriously dark cloud on the horizon but this isn't mentioned.

Socrates

The only sensible way to look at government debt is relative to ability to pay, i.e. GDP. The Zero Hedge article puts these numbers in absolute, nominal terms just to seem scary. But it's clearly just scaremongering.

Hmmm..GDP is a very dangerous thing to celebrate if its growth is itself debt driven. I remember Gordon Brown standing at the dispatch box patting himself on the back quarter after quarter of growth - and failing utterly to understand that the growth was bought with debt not real productive growth. He bequeathed us a monster. Same for the USA. If the GDP growth is borrowed then what happens to GDP when the borrowing has to stop?

MonikerDiCanio said:

Roger said:

Casino

"Quite a clever trick, politically, if he can pull it off. Cameron intends to use one of his major strengths to pull the rug from under Labour's greatest strength, and therefore make it his own."

As an ex ad man I'm surprised Cameron doesn't understand that while Labour are the market leader in health any attention that Cameron gives it will inevitably help them not the Tories.

Salmond has managed to successfully portray the SNP as the defenders of the NHS at Labour's expense. Attacking an opponent's strength is often a good strategy.

The SNP promoted independence as the best way to defend the NHS from the Tories.

I am not sure that the Tories can pull off the same trick.

I suspect that the new car tax system could make the news today.

I spent most of yesterday evening and the last couple of hours trying to tax a vehicle that I unexpectedly need to use today. The online system either refuses to load, or crashes every few seconds. Try clicking apply here... https://www.gov.uk/tax-disc

Telephoning them just produces an answerphone message about maintenance, and advising to try again later.

Socrates said:

OldKingCole said:

foxinsoxuk said:

Casino_Royale said:

Quite a clever trick, politically, if he can pull it off. Cameron intends to use one of his major strengths to pull the rug from under Labour's greatest strength, and therefore make it his own. By linking real increases in NHS funding to economic credibility, he can kill two birds with one stone and enhance his electability to swing voters.

Whether it's a good idea to pour yet more money into the bottomless pit of the NHS, at the expense of other deserving government departments, with no real notable improvement in national health outcomes, is another matter.

The reason that even ring-fenced spending is a tremendous strain on NHS budgets is straightforward and nothing to do with being "a bottomless pit". An 80 year old costs the NHS 9 times the cost of a 30 year old, and we are an ageing population.

We are also seeing many chickens coming home to roost from the destructive changes in postgraduate medical training carried out by Patricia Hewitt. There simply are not enough GPs being trained to deliver the services required in primary care. All too often GP Trainees are used to prop up hospital rotas rather than train for general practice.

The conversation on the NHS misses the only thing that really needs to be discussed: How do we ration demand? Do we restrict what is covered or do we charge co-payments? Simply pretending that everyone can have every bit of health care free, quickly and of the highest quality is just lying to the public.

Absolutely right. We also have all sorts of special pleading from people understandably and rightly, concerned for their own loved ones, and by politicians, understandably with an eye to votes, supporting them.
In the CCG area where I live the decision has been made to stop funding all artificial fertilisation. No ifs, no buts. all of it. If a couple can’t get “her” pregnant, then the NHS can’t help. We haven’t had a “hard case” yet, but unquestionably we will do at some point.

I have to say this seems very wrong to me. Infertility is clearly a health issue and the innate drive to be a parent is one of humanity's most basic. It seems appalling that people can't get help in that area when we're still providing lung cancer treatment to chain smokers, liver transplants to alcoholics etc.

We probably need to move our entire welfare state to a contributory one.

Quite, Mr Socrates. Health economists grapple with sort of thing as a matter of course. How far should we expect people to accept responsibility for maintaining such good health as they can? Out of which budget does expenditure on suchn health promotion come?

F1: only a possibility, but this would seem incredible:
""Honda and McLaren want to hit the ground running. They want Alonso or Sebastian Vettel and it's possible both could wind up there."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/29422678

Eddie Jordan's mad as a box of frogs, but he called the move of Hamilton to Mercedes months ahead of time.

@MarqueeMark
Research into drugs is usually completed by private companies, and being private companies, their priorities are different from the population as a whole.
Two examples:-
Pushing anti daihorea drugs onto third world countries for use with infants and toddlers, knowing full well it increases dehydration.
Disparaging research into the cause of stomach ulcers until the patent on their non effective drug lapsed.
You can find many other examples where profit has come before welfare, the above were just off the top of my head.

Meanwhile, Brown apparently thinks it's a trap for Scottish MPs to be allowed to vote on their own income tax but not that of England...

"In a letter to his Constituency Labour Party in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, he wrote: "The Tory trap that we are in danger of falling into is to devolve all decisions on Scotland's income tax rates away from Westminster and then to deny Scotland representation in votes on budget decisions on income tax rates.""

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-29432379

I think it's nuts to give over full taxation powers. But there we are.

Jonathan said:

MarqueeMark said:

As Enoch Powell pointed out, the NHS is where infinite demand meets finite resources.

Enoch talking rubbish (again). Nothing 'infinite' about demand on the NHS. Most people hate going to the doctor.

There is an element of truth here, in that I will not get my hip replaced simply because it is free and no wait!

Rationing in the NHS has always been fairly covert, often under the mechanism of waiting lists and times. This is now unpopular but we do have rationing via NICE and rather Orwellian named "referal centres" (whose role is to not refer) and "patient access policies" ((which function to deny patients access to the hospital).

The sick are overwhelmingly poor, elderly or both and cannot be expected to pay for themselves; but the majority of those who pay for the service are generally healthy, in work and more affluent. It does need to be borne in mind that these are not a permanent division and the latter may be related to the first, or at risk of being poor sick and elderly themselves in time.

We need a system that is affordable, humane to the first category but also meets the needs of the latter.

The latter group are the people who want seven day access to urgent care for acute health issues and easily accessible elective surgery. The problem is that they can only get these at the expense of the first group, unless the total pool of funding and of skilled practitioners grows.

What we need is a system of "Speedy Boarding" where co-payments fund the extra costs of providing services out of hours. So GPs remain free if you want to see them 0830-1800, but cost £20 at weekends for example. For many of us the cost of the co-payment would be less than the cost of time off work. This is a fairly established business practice in many markets, so pubs transport and barbers all have cheap deals at off peak times. The NHS could and should do the same.