Reading around it seems Kemi is having a pretty decent post-budget media round for the last couple of days.
At the pub yesterday the message from non-political friends was that it's fundamentally unfair to put taxes up on working people to increase welfare/benefits. The Tories need to really go hard here and have an alternative plan that is fully costed that will show how to cut welfare and not raise taxes on working people. I think this is the opening that they can really make hay with.
She has to call out most of the last Tory administrations for doing the same, however.
Dividend taxes have been creeping up since Osborne. There is almost no fiscal incentive to set up a business now.
If she draws a line in the sand and makes the Tories an actual pro business, anti big-state party, she might just survive as leader till the next election
Now she’s on firmer ground, she should do a big setpiece mea culpa speech and contrast that against the fact that Starmer and Reeves can’t bring themselves to apologise for anything or admit their mistakes/that they’ve changed their mind.
There is a big trend towards the public liking their politicians to be a bit more human. The very antithesis of the interviews Starmer and Reeves were giving yesterday that were trying to robotically bend reality from their record and previous utterances.
She will never be able to turn the page fully on the record of the last government - it is simply too toxic to exorcise by just saying we got it wrong on quite a few things - but I think she’s got the capital to spend now on explicitly saying she’s learnt from it.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
It is not @Big_G_NorthWales. It is based upon science. It isn't a money issue. There has been a long debate on this for some time. It is an area where my wife (a doctor) has some knowledge and which I was involved in trials sometime ago as a volunteer. Firstly the simple test produces a lot of false positives and also some false negatives. This means you miss cancers, but worse there was then a lot of invasive treatment or test on men where in the vast majority of cases there was no cancer or the cancer did not need treating. Some outcomes resulted in impotency and incontinence.
PSA tests not only find a lot of false positives but also result in true positives where in fact no treatment would have been necessary as the cancer would have never caused harm. Many, many men die with prostate cancer not because of it and being completely unaware of it and unaffected by it (my grandfather for one). The positive test then results in unnecessary treatment, side effects (as above) and anxiety,
Sometime decisions are made for a good reason. The PSA tests should be limited to those with risk factors, otherwise the net effect is you may cause more harm than good.
Prostate cancer scanning is not the same as breast cancer scanning.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
The problem with it, iiuc, is that it would lead to a lot of unnecessary worry and further testing and treatment (much of it invasive) for men who either don't have the cancer or have a slow growing asymptomatic version that they'd be better off not knowing about. So when you balance all that, and the £££ cost, against the expected number of lives saved it's not such a great idea. Certainly not a no-brainer anyway.
You can always find excuses for not doing something but prostate screening for men seems the right thing to do
So, according to the Atlantic, Zelenskyy has confirmed that he won't give up land for peace. Putin has confirmed that he cannot do a deal with Ukraine because it does not have a legitimate government. It's all going swimmingly despite the deadline of Thanksgiving having come and gone.
The Europeans need to massively increase their support for Ukraine so it becomes possible to hold their ground and, ideally, even push the Russians back a bit. At the moment Putin thinks he can still grind Ukraine into defeat so he doesn't need a deal. There will not be one until he is disabused of that belief.
A serious US attempt to end the war would require leverage applied to both sides and some diligent skillful diplomacy performed quietly and in good faith. This isn't that on any level. It's been a farce and a waste of a lot of people's time (like Alaska was). Not sure it merited so much media attention given all the other things going on in the world.
Not just a waste of time but of lives as well.
If Witless hadn't told Trump to veto the Tomahawks, those Russian drone factories would be smouldering wrecks. And the apartment blocks they target would still be standing, their occupants not dead or maimed.
Yes. Although that's assuming Trump planned to do it. As opposed to one of those "might do this might do that ooo I'm powerful put it on the news" asides that he seems to specialise in.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is unquestionably a lot of misogyny in our society both historically and today but the difference in resource, research and treatment for breast cancer and prostate cancer is pretty hard to justify by any sane measure.
Not sure about that. Breast cancer affects women AND men - pro rata allowing for the different quantity of tissue, and the hormonal environmental differences, I suspect: but it's there.
Also - screening for females seems to stop at 71 (though you can ask for later checks). Not sure of the logic of that.
Edit: BC seems to affect women much earlier and with more speedily lethal effects, too, or so I understand it.
Breast cancer stats (looked up last week for my lectures next year):
Women 56,000 new cases a year in the UK Men 400 new cases a year in the UK.
The issues around prostate cancer screening is that screening isn't perfect. PSA, routinely used, has many false positives. Screening older men with a history in the family or specific mutations makes perfect sense.
Mammograms for women is a far better screen and I see no evidence that this is sexism in action.
(Note - breast cancer, like most cancers, comes in lots of different flavours. The most deadly, triple negative, is more common in younger women, hence that it can be more dangerous in younger women - there is a greater likelihood of it being triple negative. Its also the case that risk factors (specific BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations) that suggest a greater risk of prostate cancer are also a factor in breast cancer - see Anjolie Jolie, for example.)
Top 10 constituencies most affected by the Mansion Tax (the top 3 should go back to the Tories at the next GE as a result and Kemi should be able to celebrate holding Kensington and Chelsea and gaining Westminster from Labour at the local elections next year too).
1 Kensington and Bayswater 2 Cities of London and Westminster 3 Chelsea and Fulham 4 Hampstead and Highgate 5 Richmond Park 6 Battersea 7 Wimbledon 8 Finchley and Golders Green 9 Hammersmith and Chiswick 10 Runneymede and Weybridge
Epping Forest is 33rd and Brentwood and Ongar 38th
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
The problem with it, iiuc, is that it would lead to a lot of unnecessary worry and further testing and treatment (much of it invasive) for men who either don't have the cancer or have a slow growing asymptomatic version that they'd be better off not knowing about. So when you balance all that, and the £££ cost, against the expected number of lives saved it's not such a great idea. Certainly not a no-brainer anyway.
You can always find excuses for not doing something but prostate screening for men seems the right thing to do
Er, it's not like you to demand that SKS wastes money.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
The problem with it, iiuc, is that it would lead to a lot of unnecessary worry and further testing and treatment (much of it invasive) for men who either don't have the cancer or have a slow growing asymptomatic version that they'd be better off not knowing about. So when you balance all that, and the £££ cost, against the expected number of lives saved it's not such a great idea. Certainly not a no-brainer anyway.
You can always find excuses for not doing something but prostate screening for men seems the right thing to do
Er, it's not like you to demand that SKS wastes money.
I do not see prostate cancer screening as a waste of money
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is unquestionably a lot of misogyny in our society both historically and today but the difference in resource, research and treatment for breast cancer and prostate cancer is pretty hard to justify by any sane measure.
Not sure about that. Breast cancer affects women AND men - pro rata allowing for the different quantity of tissue, and the hormonal environmental differences, I suspect: but it's there.
Also - screening for females seems to stop at 71 (though you can ask for later checks). Not sure of the logic of that.
Edit: BC seems to affect women much earlier and with more speedily lethal effects, too, or so I understand it.
Breast cancer stats (looked up last week for my lectures next year):
Women 56,000 new cases a year in the UK Men 400 new cases a year in the UK.
The issues around prostate cancer screening is that screening isn't perfect. PSA, routinely used, has many false positives. Screening older men with a history in the family or specific mutations makes perfect sense.
Mammograms for women is a far better screen and I see no evidence that this is sexism in action.
(Note - breast cancer, like most cancers, comes in lots of different flavours. The most deadly, triple negative, is more common in younger women, hence that it can be more dangerous in younger women - there is a greater likelihood of it being triple negative. Its also the case that risk factors (specific BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations) that suggest a greater risk of prostate cancer are also a factor in breast cancer - see Anjolie Jolie, for example.)
Thanks - that M/F ratio does seem credible given the differences. Most interesting. Still not sure why they stop screening at 71 unless one asks.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
The problem with it, iiuc, is that it would lead to a lot of unnecessary worry and further testing and treatment (much of it invasive) for men who either don't have the cancer or have a slow growing asymptomatic version that they'd be better off not knowing about. So when you balance all that, and the £££ cost, against the expected number of lives saved it's not such a great idea. Certainly not a no-brainer anyway.
You can always find excuses for not doing something but prostate screening for men seems the right thing to do
It does instinctively feel the right thing to do, I agree. I'm just relaying my understanding of why they might decide to target it on just the high risk cohort. I don't think 'excuse' is quite fair. It's a genuine reason, I think.
If Cleverly is posting it expect an urgent question next week
No matter it is not a good look
It’s not, but it’s a bit double edged surely? If there wasn’t a black hole doesn’t that mean that things weren’t quite as bad as feared…
Far for me to defend Reeves (frankly, she’s indefensible now).
Truth matters and certainly on the face of it she has some questions to answer
Indeed, but I wouldn’t hold my breath about getting one!
To be fair it seems the OBR have records of their submissions so Reeves is likely to have to provide a response if the opposition parties latch onto this
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As others have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
Edit: I see it is the UK National Screening Committee making the recommendation. Well, surely they are precisely the group who should be assessing the pros and cons and making a recommendations?
Pedantically Stalin was also J V Dzhugashvili’s given (by himself) name.
His given name (in Russian) was Iosif, for which the diminutive is Soso, so Uncle Joe is Dyadya Soso. Not sure if it is as ironic in Russian as in English
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
The problem with it, iiuc, is that it would lead to a lot of unnecessary worry and further testing and treatment (much of it invasive) for men who either don't have the cancer or have a slow growing asymptomatic version that they'd be better off not knowing about. So when you balance all that, and the £££ cost, against the expected number of lives saved it's not such a great idea. Certainly not a no-brainer anyway.
You can always find excuses for not doing something but prostate screening for men seems the right thing to do
Er, it's not like you to demand that SKS wastes money.
I do not see prostate cancer screening as a waste of money
I was tested in 2020 and found to be clear
You weren't found to be clear - merely *probably* clear. You might have had an unnecessary op if it was a false positive, too.
You may not see it as a waste, but the medics are concerned about it.
I had a recent visit to the doctor with a potential symptom - got poked and prodded, and blood tested including PSA: but that was in the very different context of a possible symptom. (I was fine. At least for now!).
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is unquestionably a lot of misogyny in our society both historically and today but the difference in resource, research and treatment for breast cancer and prostate cancer is pretty hard to justify by any sane measure.
Not sure about that. Breast cancer affects women AND men - pro rata allowing for the different quantity of tissue, and the hormonal environmental differences, I suspect: but it's there.
Also - screening for females seems to stop at 71 (though you can ask for later checks). Not sure of the logic of that.
Edit: BC seems to affect women much earlier and with more speedily lethal effects, too, or so I understand it.
A woman’s risk of breast cancer increases with age. Women over 71 are thus at a higher risk of breast cancer. If you are a woman over 71 or know one, do remember this and get any symptoms checked out. Breast cancer can affect younger women and breast cancer in younger women can be particularly serious, so it does have a younger age profile than prostate cancer, but it is mostly still a disease of older ages.
So, why does mass screening stop at 71? Because at that age, a woman is more likely to die of something else, so the benefits of breast screening are more limited. (Breast screening generally has very marginal benefits.) If you’re going to die of a heart attack at 80, there is no benefit to detecting a cancer that would kill you at 82.
Men can get breast cancer, but it’s very very very very rare.
That was handy. It is rather good. No idea how accurate, but looked about right for some I know. If anything it is probably underestimating.
Has 4 properties listed in my postcode -- should be 6, possibly 7 so an underestimate seems likely
Yep as I said I thought the same. My post code has none, whereas there are 3 but they are borderline. There are 10 on my street. I think there should be more. One road I know of about 30 and all should qualify. The map says 18. I'm still very impressed with what they have done though.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
Top 10 constituencies most affected by the Mansion Tax (the top 3 should go back to the Tories at the next GE as a result and Kemi should be able to celebrate holding Kensington and Chelsea and gaining Westminster from Labour at the local elections next year too).
1 Kensington and Bayswater 2 Cities of London and Westminster 3 Chelsea and Fulham 4 Hampstead and Highgate 5 Richmond Park 6 Battersea 7 Wimbledon 8 Finchley and Golders Green 9 Hammersmith and Chiswick 10 Runneymede and Weybridge
Epping Forest is 33rd and Brentwood and Ongar 38th
I am in the #4 constituency. The map says there are 12 “mansions” on my street. I suspect my ward will go Green in the elections next year!
What the very nice map shows is that this is a tax on (rich) Londoners.
I'll be paying this. Still, mustn't grumble. I've been surprised in recent budgets how me and people like me have escaped attention given how tight the public finances are.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
Yes but... would you rather screening is based on scientific evidence, or emotion?
They played a chunk of an interview with Kemi on Today (approx 6.50am) from a long form with Nick Robinson. She was very engaging, humorous and came across very well. I thought she dealt with his questioning about her budget response tone perfectly.
If the Tories can resist the idiocy of replacing with Jenrick if results in May aren’t perfect and she gets the chance to really build her profile with the electorate then I think she has a chance of beating reform.
I think by the next election people will like the no nonsense attitude and I think her attacks on Reform in the clip are the approach to take.
Other opinions are of course available.
I am minded to agree. Its taken time for her to find her feet but there have been positive signs recently. At the same time the gloss is coming off Farage more than a bit and he's not getting any younger. Hopefully, by the next election, the populists will have lost some ground back to the centre. I'd wish the same thing to happen between the Greens and Labour too but that is looking less likely right now. The polling for Reeves was truly awful (although no worse than she deserves).
The challenge for Badenoch (and Stride) is putting in the hard graft to build a really coherent alternative.
Kemi has just shown that, when on form, she can be a brilliant attack dog. She is good at arguing for and articulating ‘values’, but she’s less good at being clear and precise about what that looks like in practice.
“Reforming welfare” and “shrinking the state” is exactly right, but you need to have a serious conversation about how you build an economy and a growth agenda that works for people around that. And that includes serious Tory blind spots like property, NIMBYism, and pensions - things that I’m still far from convinced the Tories have the appetite to seriously look at (the stamp duty thing is a start to generate the conversation re downsizing; but needs more thought and it’s the easiest of easy wins to sell to the faithful).
The Tories are slowly moving into a space that I can get on board with; but much more work is needed, and Badenoch needs to really seize this moment and mature as a politician into someone who looks, talks and thinks like a serious reforming leader. What I will say, is that I think they’d be stupid to remove her as leader right now.
Mel Stride comes across well too I think. I hadn’t heard him before this week, he looks like someone who’d play the Chancellor in a film
Decent old style Conservative, not of the Jenrick tendency.
Top 10 constituencies most affected by the Mansion Tax (the top 3 should go back to the Tories at the next GE as a result and Kemi should be able to celebrate holding Kensington and Chelsea and gaining Westminster from Labour at the local elections next year too).
1 Kensington and Bayswater 2 Cities of London and Westminster 3 Chelsea and Fulham 4 Hampstead and Highgate 5 Richmond Park 6 Battersea 7 Wimbledon 8 Finchley and Golders Green 9 Hammersmith and Chiswick 10 Runneymede and Weybridge
Epping Forest is 33rd and Brentwood and Ongar 38th
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
The problem with it, iiuc, is that it would lead to a lot of unnecessary worry and further testing and treatment (much of it invasive) for men who either don't have the cancer or have a slow growing asymptomatic version that they'd be better off not knowing about. So when you balance all that, and the £££ cost, against the expected number of lives saved it's not such a great idea. Certainly not a no-brainer anyway.
You can always find excuses for not doing something but prostate screening for men seems the right thing to do
It does instinctively feel the right thing to do, I agree. I'm just relaying my understanding of why they might decide to target it on just the high risk cohort. I don't think 'excuse' is quite fair. It's a genuine reason, I think.
Some of you reading this are men aged 70. If you are, you probably already have cancerous tissue in your prostate. That’s the problem here. It is very common to get cancerous tissue in the prostate, but for most of us, this won’t grow enough to be a problem before we die of something else. The difficult thing is to work out which prostate cancers are a problem. Prostate cancer does develop into a significant disease for many men, but there are many men for whom the screening will detect something that isn’t going to cause them problems.
If you have symptoms you are worried about, go see a doctor. If you are any high risk and concerned, talk to your doctor, but screening for the whole population may not be recommended because it is insufficiently specific.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
It is, but that’s because most people don’t understand how cancer works or how screening works!
Reading around it seems Kemi is having a pretty decent post-budget media round for the last couple of days.
At the pub yesterday the message from non-political friends was that it's fundamentally unfair to put taxes up on working people to increase welfare/benefits. The Tories need to really go hard here and have an alternative plan that is fully costed that will show how to cut welfare and not raise taxes on working people. I think this is the opening that they can really make hay with.
She has to call out most of the last Tory administrations for doing the same, however.
Dividend taxes have been creeping up since Osborne. There is almost no fiscal incentive to set up a business now.
If she draws a line in the sand and makes the Tories an actual pro business, anti big-state party, she might just survive as leader till the next election
Tax advantages shouldn't be the reason somebody sets up a business.
They absolutely should be part of it.
Setting up a business is incredibly risky. Something that no-one in the public sector ever appreciates. Not many in the current Govt seem to, either.
The private sector ENTIRELY funds the public sector. Without the risk takers, there would be no public sector. If you stop rewarding risk here, the risk takers will go elsewhere.
If Cleverly is posting it expect an urgent question next week
No matter it is not a good look
It’s not, but it’s a bit double edged surely? If there wasn’t a black hole doesn’t that mean that things weren’t quite as bad as feared…
Far for me to defend Reeves (frankly, she’s indefensible now).
Truth matters and certainly on the face of it she has some questions to answer
Indeed, but I wouldn’t hold my breath about getting one!
To be fair it seems the OBR have records of their submissions so Reeves is likely to have to provide a response if the opposition parties latch onto this
The plot of OBR deficit forecasts over time probably looks like a cross-section of the Lake District...
It would be interesting to see a plot of forecast vs actual over time.
Reading around it seems Kemi is having a pretty decent post-budget media round for the last couple of days.
At the pub yesterday the message from non-political friends was that it's fundamentally unfair to put taxes up on working people to increase welfare/benefits. The Tories need to really go hard here and have an alternative plan that is fully costed that will show how to cut welfare and not raise taxes on working people. I think this is the opening that they can really make hay with.
She has to call out most of the last Tory administrations for doing the same, however.
Dividend taxes have been creeping up since Osborne. There is almost no fiscal incentive to set up a business now.
If she draws a line in the sand and makes the Tories an actual pro business, anti big-state party, she might just survive as leader till the next election
Now she’s on firmer ground, she should do a big setpiece mea culpa speech and contrast that against the fact that Starmer and Reeves can’t bring themselves to apologise for anything or admit their mistakes/that they’ve changed their mind.
There is a big trend towards the public liking their politicians to be a bit more human. The very antithesis of the interviews Starmer and Reeves were giving yesterday that were trying to robotically bend reality from their record and previous utterances.
She will never be able to turn the page fully on the record of the last government - it is simply too toxic to exorcise by just saying we got it wrong on quite a few things - but I think she’s got the capital to spend now on explicitly saying she’s learnt from it.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
It might be widely held, but it probably wouldn't be correct. Sometimes one should listen to experts because doing what our gut tells us is sometimes not the right thing and may do more harm.
As a consequence of doing the tests some lives may be saved, but others might be lost eg through sepsis. Many will go through invasive tests unnecessarily. Many will suffer stress and anxiety unnecessarily. Many will become impotent and/or incontinent unnecessarily. Many of these men will not have had cancer in the first place or had cancer that was never going to do them any harm.
You have to weigh up the pros and cons and that is what we employ scientists/doctors to do and not some random person in the street or on the internet.
PS Noticed I got a like from Foxy for my previous post. A thumbs up from a professional.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
You may well be right.
However.
Just because a view is widely-held doesn't make it true. In this case, the boffins who have looked at this have said that, if you do blanket testing, the harm from treating the false positives is greater than the good from the true positives picked up early.
It's the problem with democracy- how do you balance the will of the people with hard-edged reality? Good persuasive skills by Team Reality help, and it's a while since we have seen that.
But those pushing untruths have an easier time of it, because their arguments aren't constrained by needing to be true- just by leading to their desired conclusion. And the explicit realisation of that seems to me to be relatively recent, and a cause of many of our current problems.
Top 10 constituencies most affected by the Mansion Tax (the top 3 should go back to the Tories at the next GE as a result and Kemi should be able to celebrate holding Kensington and Chelsea and gaining Westminster from Labour at the local elections next year too).
1 Kensington and Bayswater 2 Cities of London and Westminster 3 Chelsea and Fulham 4 Hampstead and Highgate 5 Richmond Park 6 Battersea 7 Wimbledon 8 Finchley and Golders Green 9 Hammersmith and Chiswick 10 Runneymede and Weybridge
Epping Forest is 33rd and Brentwood and Ongar 38th
I am in the #4 constituency. The map says there are 12 “mansions” on my street. I suspect my ward will go Green in the elections next year!
What the very nice map shows is that this is a tax on (rich) Londoners.
I'll be paying this. Still, mustn't grumble. I've been surprised in recent budgets how me and people like me have escaped attention given how tight the public finances are.
The semidetached house I am in has been split into two maisonettes. I own one and will not be affected, but the house as a whole would probably count as a mansion if I bought out downstairs, or they bought me out. (I cannot afford to do that.)
Strange to think that in 1988 West Virginia voted for Dukakis and California for George HW Bush. Bill Clinton twice won West Virginia too. Reflects how the Republicans have become a more white working class party since and the Democrats more upper middle class
The most striking thing in the USA is how nearly all states have flipped over the decades, with the Southern heartlands flipping Republican and the Republicans losing New England, California etc. In 1948 the Dems won nearly the entire of the Midwest and West, including Texas.
The US is highly polarised, but those poles shift over time.
Yes, see also the 1976 presidential election. Then Ford won California, Washington state, Oregon, New Jersey, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Illinois and Virginia. Carter won Texas, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, the Deep South, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Wisconsin etc. Indeed Ford won most of the states Harris won in 2024 and Carter won most of the states Trump won https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_United_States_presidential_election
There used to be a lot of Southern Democrats until LBJ strong armed them into passing civil rights legislation. Nixon and his successors made a pitch for the southern racist vote, and the rest is history.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is unquestionably a lot of misogyny in our society both historically and today but the difference in resource, research and treatment for breast cancer and prostate cancer is pretty hard to justify by any sane measure.
Not sure about that. Breast cancer affects women AND men - pro rata allowing for the different quantity of tissue, and the hormonal environmental differences, I suspect: but it's there.
Also - screening for females seems to stop at 71 (though you can ask for later checks). Not sure of the logic of that.
Edit: BC seems to affect women much earlier and with more speedily lethal effects, too, or so I understand it.
A woman’s risk of breast cancer increases with age. Women over 71 are thus at a higher risk of breast cancer. If you are a woman over 71 or know one, do remember this and get any symptoms checked out. Breast cancer can affect younger women and breast cancer in younger women can be particularly serious, so it does have a younger age profile than prostate cancer, but it is mostly still a disease of older ages.
So, why does mass screening stop at 71? Because at that age, a woman is more likely to die of something else, so the benefits of breast screening are more limited. (Breast screening generally has very marginal benefits.) If you’re going to die of a heart attack at 80, there is no benefit to detecting a cancer that would kill you at 82.
Men can get breast cancer, but it’s very very very very rare.
Many thanks - very good to have the explanation. Will pass this on to Mrs C but she probably knows all this already!
Reading around it seems Kemi is having a pretty decent post-budget media round for the last couple of days.
At the pub yesterday the message from non-political friends was that it's fundamentally unfair to put taxes up on working people to increase welfare/benefits. The Tories need to really go hard here and have an alternative plan that is fully costed that will show how to cut welfare and not raise taxes on working people. I think this is the opening that they can really make hay with.
She has to call out most of the last Tory administrations for doing the same, however.
Dividend taxes have been creeping up since Osborne. There is almost no fiscal incentive to set up a business now.
If she draws a line in the sand and makes the Tories an actual pro business, anti big-state party, she might just survive as leader till the next election
Tax advantages shouldn't be the reason somebody sets up a business.
They absolutely should be part of it.
Setting up a business is incredibly risky. Something that no-one in the public sector ever appreciates. Not many in the current Govt seem to, either.
The private sector ENTIRELY funds the public sector. Without the risk takers, there would be no public sector. If you stop rewarding risk here, the risk takers will go elsewhere.
Without the public sector, none of that private sector activity would happen either, of course.
Top 10 constituencies most affected by the Mansion Tax (the top 3 should go back to the Tories at the next GE as a result and Kemi should be able to celebrate holding Kensington and Chelsea and gaining Westminster from Labour at the local elections next year too).
1 Kensington and Bayswater 2 Cities of London and Westminster 3 Chelsea and Fulham 4 Hampstead and Highgate 5 Richmond Park 6 Battersea 7 Wimbledon 8 Finchley and Golders Green 9 Hammersmith and Chiswick 10 Runneymede and Weybridge
Epping Forest is 33rd and Brentwood and Ongar 38th
I am in the #4 constituency. The map says there are 12 “mansions” on my street. I suspect my ward will go Green in the elections next year!
What the very nice map shows is that this is a tax on (rich) Londoners.
I'll be paying this. Still, mustn't grumble. I've been surprised in recent budgets how me and people like me have escaped attention given how tight the public finances are.
You know, you could always donate more of your wealth to HMRC. Theres a form for it, I believe.
They played a chunk of an interview with Kemi on Today (approx 6.50am) from a long form with Nick Robinson. She was very engaging, humorous and came across very well. I thought she dealt with his questioning about her budget response tone perfectly.
If the Tories can resist the idiocy of replacing with Jenrick if results in May aren’t perfect and she gets the chance to really build her profile with the electorate then I think she has a chance of beating reform.
I think by the next election people will like the no nonsense attitude and I think her attacks on Reform in the clip are the approach to take.
Other opinions are of course available.
I am minded to agree. Its taken time for her to find her feet but there have been positive signs recently. At the same time the gloss is coming off Farage more than a bit and he's not getting any younger. Hopefully, by the next election, the populists will have lost some ground back to the centre. I'd wish the same thing to happen between the Greens and Labour too but that is looking less likely right now. The polling for Reeves was truly awful (although no worse than she deserves).
The challenge for Badenoch (and Stride) is putting in the hard graft to build a really coherent alternative.
Kemi has just shown that, when on form, she can be a brilliant attack dog. She is good at arguing for and articulating ‘values’, but she’s less good at being clear and precise about what that looks like in practice.
“Reforming welfare” and “shrinking the state” is exactly right, but you need to have a serious conversation about how you build an economy and a growth agenda that works for people around that. And that includes serious Tory blind spots like property, NIMBYism, and pensions - things that I’m still far from convinced the Tories have the appetite to seriously look at (the stamp duty thing is a start to generate the conversation re downsizing; but needs more thought and it’s the easiest of easy wins to sell to the faithful).
The Tories are slowly moving into a space that I can get on board with; but much more work is needed, and Badenoch needs to really seize this moment and mature as a politician into someone who looks, talks and thinks like a serious reforming leader. What I will say, is that I think they’d be stupid to remove her as leader right now.
Mel Stride comes across well too I think. I hadn’t heard him before this week, he looks like someone who’d play the Chancellor in a film
Decent old style Conservative, not of the Jenrick tendency.
Problem is his name sounds a bit spivvy*. Agreed, he came over well.
*Also sounds like Smell Stride with the knighthood
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
I don't know the evidence of this specific case, but as a principle the decision around screening has to be a finely balanced one based on science not politics.
If the probability of a given group having a given disease do not exceed a certain level, for example, the incidence of false positives can be far in excess of the number of correct diagnoses. Even if the screening has a high accuracy level.
I think the public health issue is about targeting. Checking men who are susceptible to prostate cancer or have indicators saves lives - everyone agrees in that. Screening everyone results on the other hand results in a low percentage of lives saved,. As an individual with no symptoms would I want to get checked out anyway? Absolutely I would.
Reading around it seems Kemi is having a pretty decent post-budget media round for the last couple of days.
At the pub yesterday the message from non-political friends was that it's fundamentally unfair to put taxes up on working people to increase welfare/benefits. The Tories need to really go hard here and have an alternative plan that is fully costed that will show how to cut welfare and not raise taxes on working people. I think this is the opening that they can really make hay with.
She has to call out most of the last Tory administrations for doing the same, however.
Dividend taxes have been creeping up since Osborne. There is almost no fiscal incentive to set up a business now.
If she draws a line in the sand and makes the Tories an actual pro business, anti big-state party, she might just survive as leader till the next election
Tax advantages shouldn't be the reason somebody sets up a business.
They absolutely should be part of it.
Setting up a business is incredibly risky. Something that no-one in the public sector ever appreciates. Not many in the current Govt seem to, either.
The private sector ENTIRELY funds the public sector. Without the risk takers, there would be no public sector. If you stop rewarding risk here, the risk takers will go elsewhere.
Without the public sector, none of that private sector activity would happen either, of course.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges If Rachel Reeves knowingly and publicly misrepresented the state of the national finances in the run up to the Budget, surely that represents very serious market manipulation.
Dan Hodges and his PB fans should head to Ladbrokes, Corals or Betfred who offer 9/2 against Rachel Reeves leaving in what remains of 2025. Next year is 1/2 favourite.
Top 10 constituencies most affected by the Mansion Tax (the top 3 should go back to the Tories at the next GE as a result and Kemi should be able to celebrate holding Kensington and Chelsea and gaining Westminster from Labour at the local elections next year too).
1 Kensington and Bayswater 2 Cities of London and Westminster 3 Chelsea and Fulham 4 Hampstead and Highgate 5 Richmond Park 6 Battersea 7 Wimbledon 8 Finchley and Golders Green 9 Hammersmith and Chiswick 10 Runneymede and Weybridge
Epping Forest is 33rd and Brentwood and Ongar 38th
I am in the #4 constituency. The map says there are 12 “mansions” on my street. I suspect my ward will go Green in the elections next year!
What the very nice map shows is that this is a tax on (rich) Londoners.
A cheery thought that the neighbours' refurbishment might push them over the threshold, as I listen to the sound of East European builders bouncing rubble off the side of my house and digging out a basement with a mini-digger.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is unquestionably a lot of misogyny in our society both historically and today but the difference in resource, research and treatment for breast cancer and prostate cancer is pretty hard to justify by any sane measure.
Not sure about that. Breast cancer affects women AND men - pro rata allowing for the different quantity of tissue, and the hormonal environmental differences, I suspect: but it's there.
Also - screening for females seems to stop at 71 (though you can ask for later checks). Not sure of the logic of that.
Edit: BC seems to affect women much earlier and with more speedily lethal effects, too, or so I understand it.
Breast cancer stats (looked up last week for my lectures next year):
Women 56,000 new cases a year in the UK Men 400 new cases a year in the UK.
The issues around prostate cancer screening is that screening isn't perfect. PSA, routinely used, has many false positives. Screening older men with a history in the family or specific mutations makes perfect sense.
Mammograms for women is a far better screen and I see no evidence that this is sexism in action.
(Note - breast cancer, like most cancers, comes in lots of different flavours. The most deadly, triple negative, is more common in younger women, hence that it can be more dangerous in younger women - there is a greater likelihood of it being triple negative. Its also the case that risk factors (specific BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations) that suggest a greater risk of prostate cancer are also a factor in breast cancer - see Anjolie Jolie, for example.)
Thanks - that M/F ratio does seem credible given the differences. Most interesting. Still not sure why they stop screening at 71 unless one asks.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
It is not @Big_G_NorthWales. It is based upon science. It isn't a money issue. There has been a long debate on this for some time. It is an area where my wife (a doctor) has some knowledge and which I was involved in trials sometime ago as a volunteer. Firstly the simple test produces a lot of false positives and also some false negatives. This means you miss cancers, but worse there was then a lot of invasive treatment or test on men where in the vast majority of cases there was no cancer or the cancer did not need treating. Some outcomes resulted in impotency and incontinence.
PSA tests not only find a lot of false positives but also result in true positives where in fact no treatment would have been necessary as the cancer would have never caused harm. Many, many men die with prostate cancer not because of it and being completely unaware of it and unaffected by it (my grandfather for one). The positive test then results in unnecessary treatment, side effects (as above) and anxiety,
Sometime decisions are made for a good reason. The PSA tests should be limited to those with risk factors, otherwise the net effect is you may cause more harm than good.
Prostate cancer scanning is not the same as breast cancer scanning.
There are legitimate debates too as to whether breast cancer screening is effective.
A moment to be controversial which I try not to be but it's Friday morning....
It's been enlightening to see the turn in sentiment on Badenoch among some on here in the past few weeks. Not so long ago, she was widely derided and the expectation was she would be ousted and replaced by Jenrick, Lam or Cleverly but of late she seems to be gaining some favour among the, let's call them, "anti-Left" majority...
I think we possibly underestimate the advantage of actually having a decent number of MPs in the Commons ? That was disguised post election by the fact that no Tory could get a hearing straight after getting kicked out of government.
Now that Labour have in turn developed a record (which disappoints quite a number of people), semi-cogent attacks on their policies get a hearing. And it's Badenoch rather than Farage who gets a weekly airing at PMQs.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
I would be amazed if the proportion of the population who understands the false positives was very high.
Quick quiz question for you:
- A disease effects 0.1% of the population - We have a test that is 99% accurate. That is the accuracy for both those with the disease and those without it. - We decide to screen the entire population
If you test positive, what is the probability of you having the disease?
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
Yes but... would you rather screening is based on scientific evidence, or emotion?
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
It is, but that’s because most people don’t understand how cancer works or how screening works!
Prostate Cancer Research Chief Executive deeply disappointed with the decision meaning far too many men will be found too late and especially at risk are black men
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is unquestionably a lot of misogyny in our society both historically and today but the difference in resource, research and treatment for breast cancer and prostate cancer is pretty hard to justify by any sane measure.
Not sure about that. Breast cancer affects women AND men - pro rata allowing for the different quantity of tissue, and the hormonal environmental differences, I suspect: but it's there.
Also - screening for females seems to stop at 71 (though you can ask for later checks). Not sure of the logic of that.
Edit: BC seems to affect women much earlier and with more speedily lethal effects, too, or so I understand it.
Breast cancer stats (looked up last week for my lectures next year):
Women 56,000 new cases a year in the UK Men 400 new cases a year in the UK.
The issues around prostate cancer screening is that screening isn't perfect. PSA, routinely used, has many false positives. Screening older men with a history in the family or specific mutations makes perfect sense.
Mammograms for women is a far better screen and I see no evidence that this is sexism in action.
(Note - breast cancer, like most cancers, comes in lots of different flavours. The most deadly, triple negative, is more common in younger women, hence that it can be more dangerous in younger women - there is a greater likelihood of it being triple negative. Its also the case that risk factors (specific BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations) that suggest a greater risk of prostate cancer are also a factor in breast cancer - see Anjolie Jolie, for example.)
Thanks - that M/F ratio does seem credible given the differences. Most interesting. Still not sure why they stop screening at 71 unless one asks.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is unquestionably a lot of misogyny in our society both historically and today but the difference in resource, research and treatment for breast cancer and prostate cancer is pretty hard to justify by any sane measure.
Not sure about that. Breast cancer affects women AND men - pro rata allowing for the different quantity of tissue, and the hormonal environmental differences, I suspect: but it's there.
Also - screening for females seems to stop at 71 (though you can ask for later checks). Not sure of the logic of that.
Edit: BC seems to affect women much earlier and with more speedily lethal effects, too, or so I understand it.
A woman’s risk of breast cancer increases with age. Women over 71 are thus at a higher risk of breast cancer. If you are a woman over 71 or know one, do remember this and get any symptoms checked out. Breast cancer can affect younger women and breast cancer in younger women can be particularly serious, so it does have a younger age profile than prostate cancer, but it is mostly still a disease of older ages.
So, why does mass screening stop at 71? Because at that age, a woman is more likely to die of something else, so the benefits of breast screening are more limited. (Breast screening generally has very marginal benefits.) If you’re going to die of a heart attack at 80, there is no benefit to detecting a cancer that would kill you at 82.
Men can get breast cancer, but it’s very very very very rare.
Male friend of mine had breast cancer. Thankfully fully recovered.
On the day he got his diagnosis confirmed, he got a call from his sister. She had also had breast cancer confirmed - on the very same day.
Reading around it seems Kemi is having a pretty decent post-budget media round for the last couple of days.
At the pub yesterday the message from non-political friends was that it's fundamentally unfair to put taxes up on working people to increase welfare/benefits. The Tories need to really go hard here and have an alternative plan that is fully costed that will show how to cut welfare and not raise taxes on working people. I think this is the opening that they can really make hay with.
She has to call out most of the last Tory administrations for doing the same, however.
Dividend taxes have been creeping up since Osborne. There is almost no fiscal incentive to set up a business now.
If she draws a line in the sand and makes the Tories an actual pro business, anti big-state party, she might just survive as leader till the next election
Tax advantages shouldn't be the reason somebody sets up a business.
They absolutely should be part of it.
Setting up a business is incredibly risky. Something that no-one in the public sector ever appreciates. Not many in the current Govt seem to, either.
The private sector ENTIRELY funds the public sector. Without the risk takers, there would be no public sector. If you stop rewarding risk here, the risk takers will go elsewhere.
The sectors are more of a symbiotic whole, I'd say. That one creates and the other absorbs is reductive and misleading.
But anway, my point is if you're mainly in business for the tax breaks that's unlikely to be the sort of enterprise on which the prosperity of a nation can be built.
Which doesn't mean tax or regs should be punitive of course. That helps nobody. We need those animal spirits. Agree with you there.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is unquestionably a lot of misogyny in our society both historically and today but the difference in resource, research and treatment for breast cancer and prostate cancer is pretty hard to justify by any sane measure.
Not sure about that. Breast cancer affects women AND men - pro rata allowing for the different quantity of tissue, and the hormonal environmental differences, I suspect: but it's there.
Also - screening for females seems to stop at 71 (though you can ask for later checks). Not sure of the logic of that.
Edit: BC seems to affect women much earlier and with more speedily lethal effects, too, or so I understand it.
Breast cancer stats (looked up last week for my lectures next year):
Women 56,000 new cases a year in the UK Men 400 new cases a year in the UK.
The issues around prostate cancer screening is that screening isn't perfect. PSA, routinely used, has many false positives. Screening older men with a history in the family or specific mutations makes perfect sense.
Mammograms for women is a far better screen and I see no evidence that this is sexism in action.
(Note - breast cancer, like most cancers, comes in lots of different flavours. The most deadly, triple negative, is more common in younger women, hence that it can be more dangerous in younger women - there is a greater likelihood of it being triple negative. Its also the case that risk factors (specific BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations) that suggest a greater risk of prostate cancer are also a factor in breast cancer - see Anjolie Jolie, for example.)
Thanks - that M/F ratio does seem credible given the differences. Most interesting. Still not sure why they stop screening at 71 unless one asks.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
I don't know the evidence of this specific case, but as a principle the decision around screening has to be a finely balanced one based on science not politics.
If the probability of a given group having a given disease do not exceed a certain level, for example, the incidence of false positives can be far in excess of the number of correct diagnoses. Even if the screening has a high accuracy level.
I think the public health issue is about targeting. Checking men who are susceptible to prostate cancer or have indicators saves lives - everyone agrees in that. Screening everyone results on the other hand results in a low percentage of lives saved,. As an individual with no symptoms would I want to get checked out anyway? Absolutely I would.
But you should only want to get checked out by tests with good sensitivity and specificity.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
Yes but... would you rather screening is based on scientific evidence, or emotion?
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
It is, but that’s because most people don’t understand how cancer works or how screening works!
Prostate Cancer Research Chief Executive deeply disappointed with the decision meaning far too many men will be found too late and especially at risk are black men
Seems to be a DT bash Streeting job complete with poll. Who paid for the screening? What was the question? Can't see ...
Prsesumably the question didn't ask "... but the screening might be wrong and you could end up impotent/incontinent, so do you still feelelucky?"
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
It is not @Big_G_NorthWales. It is based upon science. It isn't a money issue. There has been a long debate on this for some time. It is an area where my wife (a doctor) has some knowledge and which I was involved in trials sometime ago as a volunteer. Firstly the simple test produces a lot of false positives and also some false negatives. This means you miss cancers, but worse there was then a lot of invasive treatment or test on men where in the vast majority of cases there was no cancer or the cancer did not need treating. Some outcomes resulted in impotency and incontinence.
PSA tests not only find a lot of false positives but also result in true positives where in fact no treatment would have been necessary as the cancer would have never caused harm. Many, many men die with prostate cancer not because of it and being completely unaware of it and unaffected by it (my grandfather for one). The positive test then results in unnecessary treatment, side effects (as above) and anxiety,
Sometime decisions are made for a good reason. The PSA tests should be limited to those with risk factors, otherwise the net effect is you may cause more harm than good.
Prostate cancer scanning is not the same as breast cancer scanning.
There are legitimate debates too as to whether breast cancer screening is effective.
It looks as if the effectiveness of prostate screening is poor.
My wife had a lucky escape (if you can call that luck). On her very first routine scan (at 50) she was called back. The reason she was called back was in fact benign, BUT the original scan did not pick up a cancer (I'm out of my depth here, but it was not a common one and was more difficult to detect), which was picked up on further investigation. We/She decided to have a mastectomy to be on the safe(r) side. 66 now and going strong.
So the screening was a complete failure. It picked up a non cancer (I assume most recalls are non cancers) and missed a cancer. The end result was a win though.
Top 10 constituencies most affected by the Mansion Tax (the top 3 should go back to the Tories at the next GE as a result and Kemi should be able to celebrate holding Kensington and Chelsea and gaining Westminster from Labour at the local elections next year too).
1 Kensington and Bayswater 2 Cities of London and Westminster 3 Chelsea and Fulham 4 Hampstead and Highgate 5 Richmond Park 6 Battersea 7 Wimbledon 8 Finchley and Golders Green 9 Hammersmith and Chiswick 10 Runneymede and Weybridge
Epping Forest is 33rd and Brentwood and Ongar 38th
I am in the #4 constituency. The map says there are 12 “mansions” on my street. I suspect my ward will go Green in the elections next year!
What the very nice map shows is that this is a tax on (rich) Londoners.
I'll be paying this. Still, mustn't grumble. I've been surprised in recent budgets how me and people like me have escaped attention given how tight the public finances are.
You know, you could always donate more of your wealth to HMRC. Theres a form for it, I believe.
That would be charity. A great nation like ours shouldn't be dependent on charity.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
Yes but... would you rather screening is based on scientific evidence, or emotion?
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
It is, but that’s because most people don’t understand how cancer works or how screening works!
Prostate Cancer Research Chief Executive deeply disappointed with the decision meaning far too many men will be found too late and especially at risk are black men
Seems to be a DT bash Streeting job complete with poll. Who paid for the screening? What was the question? Can't see ...
Prsesumably the question didn't ask "... but the screening might be wrong and you could end up impotent/incontinent, so do you still feelelucky?"
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
Yes but... would you rather screening is based on scientific evidence, or emotion?
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
It is, but that’s because most people don’t understand how cancer works or how screening works!
Prostate Cancer Research Chief Executive deeply disappointed with the decision meaning far too many men will be found too late and especially at risk are black men
Seems to be a DT bash Streeting job complete with poll. Who paid for the screening? What was the question? Can't see ...
Prsesumably the question didn't ask "... but the screening might be wrong and you could end up impotent/incontinent, so do you still feelelucky?"
My comments are entirely from Sky reporting
Nothing to do with any other media
Thanks - we'll see how it develops.
Still - it's not like Tories to demand unnecessary public spending which would lead to still more public spending, just because.
Strange to think that in 1988 West Virginia voted for Dukakis and California for George HW Bush. Bill Clinton twice won West Virginia too. Reflects how the Republicans have become a more white working class party since and the Democrats more upper middle class
The most striking thing in the USA is how nearly all states have flipped over the decades, with the Southern heartlands flipping Republican and the Republicans losing New England, California etc. In 1948 the Dems won nearly the entire of the Midwest and West, including Texas.
The US is highly polarised, but those poles shift over time.
Is that because the parties have flipped? Lincoln was a Republican, George Wallace was a Democrat. In the early sixties southern Democrats were right wing and Nelson Rockefeller seemed reasonably reasonable. Eisenhower nowadays seems like a centrist Democrat.
I've never tracked the history of that in detail; it's in my window of shadow in the 30 years before I was born.
I'm sure there will be about 6 Letters from America if I look at the archives.
Read Master of the Senate by Robert Caro. Perhaps the ultimate political biography.
It will get you up to speed. And no political geek can really call themselves such without reading at least one Caro book.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
Yes but... would you rather screening is based on scientific evidence, or emotion?
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
It is, but that’s because most people don’t understand how cancer works or how screening works!
Prostate Cancer Research Chief Executive deeply disappointed with the decision meaning far too many men will be found too late and especially at risk are black men
Seems to be a DT bash Streeting job complete with poll. Who paid for the screening? What was the question? Can't see ...
Prsesumably the question didn't ask "... but the screening might be wrong and you could end up impotent/incontinent, so do you still feelelucky?"
The thing that puzzles me is the "unnecessary surgery" angle. So they are saying that because they can't judged the severity of the prostate issue, they *have to* go ahead with surgery, which has significant risky downsides?
Can't find the quote but I think Denning liked juries precisely because of their occasionally perverse decisions. I suspect he would have approved of the Clive Ponting decision, which was technically wrong but morally right.
Denning was responsible for a few perverse decisions of his own, as I recall.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is unquestionably a lot of misogyny in our society both historically and today but the difference in resource, research and treatment for breast cancer and prostate cancer is pretty hard to justify by any sane measure.
Not sure about that. Breast cancer affects women AND men - pro rata allowing for the different quantity of tissue, and the hormonal environmental differences, I suspect: but it's there.
Also - screening for females seems to stop at 71 (though you can ask for later checks). Not sure of the logic of that.
Edit: BC seems to affect women much earlier and with more speedily lethal effects, too, or so I understand it.
Breast cancer stats (looked up last week for my lectures next year):
Women 56,000 new cases a year in the UK Men 400 new cases a year in the UK.
The issues around prostate cancer screening is that screening isn't perfect. PSA, routinely used, has many false positives. Screening older men with a history in the family or specific mutations makes perfect sense.
Mammograms for women is a far better screen and I see no evidence that this is sexism in action.
(Note - breast cancer, like most cancers, comes in lots of different flavours. The most deadly, triple negative, is more common in younger women, hence that it can be more dangerous in younger women - there is a greater likelihood of it being triple negative. Its also the case that risk factors (specific BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations) that suggest a greater risk of prostate cancer are also a factor in breast cancer - see Anjolie Jolie, for example.)
Thanks - that M/F ratio does seem credible given the differences. Most interesting. Still not sure why they stop screening at 71 unless one asks.
Its not quite as simple as that. Most breast cancers are driven to some extent by oestrogen (up to 70-80%) and oestrogen and progesterone are elevated in women c.f to men (before the menopause). I haven't looked at the data in full but it might be that breast cancer in men is more likely triple negative (@bondezou may know more).
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
Yes but... would you rather screening is based on scientific evidence, or emotion?
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
It is, but that’s because most people don’t understand how cancer works or how screening works!
Prostate Cancer Research Chief Executive deeply disappointed with the decision meaning far too many men will be found too late and especially at risk are black men
Seems to be a DT bash Streeting job complete with poll. Who paid for the screening? What was the question? Can't see ...
Prsesumably the question didn't ask "... but the screening might be wrong and you could end up impotent/incontinent, so do you still feelelucky?"
My comments are entirely from Sky reporting
Nothing to do with any other media
But as was shown on Saturday your comments from Sky reporting were very wrong verging on the mendacious.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
It is not @Big_G_NorthWales. It is based upon science. It isn't a money issue. There has been a long debate on this for some time. It is an area where my wife (a doctor) has some knowledge and which I was involved in trials sometime ago as a volunteer. Firstly the simple test produces a lot of false positives and also some false negatives. This means you miss cancers, but worse there was then a lot of invasive treatment or test on men where in the vast majority of cases there was no cancer or the cancer did not need treating. Some outcomes resulted in impotency and incontinence.
PSA tests not only find a lot of false positives but also result in true positives where in fact no treatment would have been necessary as the cancer would have never caused harm. Many, many men die with prostate cancer not because of it and being completely unaware of it and unaffected by it (my grandfather for one). The positive test then results in unnecessary treatment, side effects (as above) and anxiety,
Sometime decisions are made for a good reason. The PSA tests should be limited to those with risk factors, otherwise the net effect is you may cause more harm than good.
Prostate cancer scanning is not the same as breast cancer scanning.
There are legitimate debates too as to whether breast cancer screening is effective.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is unquestionably a lot of misogyny in our society both historically and today but the difference in resource, research and treatment for breast cancer and prostate cancer is pretty hard to justify by any sane measure.
Not sure about that. Breast cancer affects women AND men - pro rata allowing for the different quantity of tissue, and the hormonal environmental differences, I suspect: but it's there.
Also - screening for females seems to stop at 71 (though you can ask for later checks). Not sure of the logic of that.
Edit: BC seems to affect women much earlier and with more speedily lethal effects, too, or so I understand it.
According to Cancer UK between 11,200 and 11,500 women die of breast cancer each year in the UK. 12, 200 men die of prostate cancer. Are you seriously suggesting that the latter gets the same priority?
Very interesting, makes sense given the mood music from the medics (including the one who gave me a PSA test, but that was (a) as part of several other tests, and (b) explicitly stated to be unreliable on its own).
Hmm, so if one's blood relatives had breast cancer it would be a good idea to be screened. That is pretty consistent with what @turbotubbs was saying earlier.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is a rational argument for that, not sure if I agree with it or whether it is medically correct, but it's basically that it's a slow cancer, treatment can be unpleasant and you'll die of something else first.
It's that early diagnosis is (at least up until now) highly imprecise, and mass screening would likely lead to a lot of unnecessary and unpleasant treatment. The answer is, of course, to greatly improve diagnosis techniques. (Which is slowly happening.)
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
I would be amazed if the proportion of the population who understands the false positives was very high.
Quick quiz question for you:
- A disease effects 0.1% of the population - We have a test that is 99% accurate. That is the accuracy for both those with the disease and those without it. - We decide to screen the entire population
If you test positive, what is the probability of you having the disease?
I remember playing with these at the time of Covid. I am guessing 10%?
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is unquestionably a lot of misogyny in our society both historically and today but the difference in resource, research and treatment for breast cancer and prostate cancer is pretty hard to justify by any sane measure.
Not sure about that. Breast cancer affects women AND men - pro rata allowing for the different quantity of tissue, and the hormonal environmental differences, I suspect: but it's there.
Also - screening for females seems to stop at 71 (though you can ask for later checks). Not sure of the logic of that.
Edit: BC seems to affect women much earlier and with more speedily lethal effects, too, or so I understand it.
According to Cancer UK between 11,200 and 11,500 women die of breast cancer each year in the UK. 12, 200 men die of prostate cancer. Are you seriously suggesting that the latter gets the same priority?
Not at all - just pointing out that it's not a sex distinction. (And I've seen posters warning men about the possibility.)
But also noting the screeing for females stops at 71 - which turns out to be on the same logic as the recommendation not to screen for prostate en masse, as shown in the further discussion on PB.
PS: assuming that that "12," before the 200 is an error!
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
You may well be right.
However.
Just because a view is widely-held doesn't make it true. In this case, the boffins who have looked at this have said that, if you do blanket testing, the harm from treating the false positives is greater than the good from the true positives picked up early.
It's the problem with democracy- how do you balance the will of the people with hard-edged reality? Good persuasive skills by Team Reality help, and it's a while since we have seen that.
But those pushing untruths have an easier time of it, because their arguments aren't constrained by needing to be true- just by leading to their desired conclusion. And the explicit realisation of that seems to me to be relatively recent, and a cause of many of our current problems.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
I don't know the evidence of this specific case, but as a principle the decision around screening has to be a finely balanced one based on science not politics.
If the probability of a given group having a given disease do not exceed a certain level, for example, the incidence of false positives can be far in excess of the number of correct diagnoses. Even if the screening has a high accuracy level.
I think the public health issue is about targeting. Checking men who are susceptible to prostate cancer or have indicators saves lives - everyone agrees in that. Screening everyone results on the other hand results in a low percentage of lives saved,. As an individual with no symptoms would I want to get checked out anyway? Absolutely I would.
But you should only want to get checked out by tests with good sensitivity and specificity.
Is the test simple and non-invasive? If it shows positive is that reliable? Would I then be able to be treated for it?
I'd need a Yes for these questions. Otherwise, in the absence of symptoms, I'd pass.
But people are different of course. That's just me.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is unquestionably a lot of misogyny in our society both historically and today but the difference in resource, research and treatment for breast cancer and prostate cancer is pretty hard to justify by any sane measure.
Not sure about that. Breast cancer affects women AND men - pro rata allowing for the different quantity of tissue, and the hormonal environmental differences, I suspect: but it's there.
Also - screening for females seems to stop at 71 (though you can ask for later checks). Not sure of the logic of that.
Edit: BC seems to affect women much earlier and with more speedily lethal effects, too, or so I understand it.
According to Cancer UK between 11,200 and 11,500 women die of breast cancer each year in the UK. 12, 200 men die of prostate cancer. Are you seriously suggesting that the latter gets the same priority?
Its not about the priority - its about how good the available screening is. That should always be the question. I'd be more in favour of better awareness of warning signs and getting men to actively engage with healthcare.
Arguably treating early stage breast cancer is one of the easiest things to do - surgery to remove the cancerous tissue and any nearby suspicious lymph nodes. Not so easy for the prostate - the danger of incontinence, loss of sexual function etc is high. You want to be sure before you mess with it.
Now in some ideal world a quick blood test would be 100 % accurate and we would get all cancers early stage and no-one need die (assuming appropriate surgery was possible). I think we will get closer to that over time- learning how to spot the markers in peripheral blood of a nascent tumour. But we are not there yet, psa is a poor test and so is the DRE (think finger in the bum, chaps).
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
Yes but... would you rather screening is based on scientific evidence, or emotion?
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
It is, but that’s because most people don’t understand how cancer works or how screening works!
Prostate Cancer Research Chief Executive deeply disappointed with the decision meaning far too many men will be found too late and especially at risk are black men
Seems to be a DT bash Streeting job complete with poll. Who paid for the screening? What was the question? Can't see ...
Prsesumably the question didn't ask "... but the screening might be wrong and you could end up impotent/incontinent, so do you still feelelucky?"
My comments are entirely from Sky reporting
Nothing to do with any other media
But as was shown on Saturday your comments from Sky reporting were very wrong verging on the mendacious.
And I apologized but that doesn't count in your book then
And are you suggesting Sky that todays comments are not accurate
You do seem to like having a go at me when I try to contribute to this forum honestly and with interesting news
Maybe you would prefer me to be silent as that is the impression you leave
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
The problem with it, iiuc, is that it would lead to a lot of unnecessary worry and further testing and treatment (much of it invasive) for men who either don't have the cancer or have a slow growing asymptomatic version that they'd be better off not knowing about. So when you balance all that, and the £££ cost, against the expected number of lives saved it's not such a great idea. Certainly not a no-brainer anyway.
You can always find excuses for not doing something but prostate screening for men seems the right thing to do
It's really not; but it ought to be.
The key is to put the sort of research effort into it that was done in previous decades for breast cancer.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is unquestionably a lot of misogyny in our society both historically and today but the difference in resource, research and treatment for breast cancer and prostate cancer is pretty hard to justify by any sane measure.
Not sure about that. Breast cancer affects women AND men - pro rata allowing for the different quantity of tissue, and the hormonal environmental differences, I suspect: but it's there.
Also - screening for females seems to stop at 71 (though you can ask for later checks). Not sure of the logic of that.
Edit: BC seems to affect women much earlier and with more speedily lethal effects, too, or so I understand it.
Breast cancer stats (looked up last week for my lectures next year):
Women 56,000 new cases a year in the UK Men 400 new cases a year in the UK.
The issues around prostate cancer screening is that screening isn't perfect. PSA, routinely used, has many false positives. Screening older men with a history in the family or specific mutations makes perfect sense.
Mammograms for women is a far better screen and I see no evidence that this is sexism in action.
(Note - breast cancer, like most cancers, comes in lots of different flavours. The most deadly, triple negative, is more common in younger women, hence that it can be more dangerous in younger women - there is a greater likelihood of it being triple negative. Its also the case that risk factors (specific BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations) that suggest a greater risk of prostate cancer are also a factor in breast cancer - see Anjolie Jolie, for example.)
Thanks - that M/F ratio does seem credible given the differences. Most interesting. Still not sure why they stop screening at 71 unless one asks.
Its not quite as simple as that. Most breast cancers are driven to some extent by oestrogen (up to 70-80%) and oestrogen and progesterone are elevated in women c.f to men (before the menopause). I haven't looked at the data in full but it might be that breast cancer in men is more likely triple negative (@bondezou may know more).
Thanks, I did have the hormonal differences in mind, but hadn't thought about the different *types*.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is a rational argument for that, not sure if I agree with it or whether it is medically correct, but it's basically that it's a slow cancer, treatment can be unpleasant and you'll die of something else first.
It's that early diagnosis is (at least up until now) highly imprecise, and mass screening would likely lead to a lot of unnecessary and unpleasant treatment. The answer is, of course, to greatly improve diagnosis techniques. (Which is slowly happening.)
Yes, mass PC screening now might fail cost/benefit but in the future that will probably change.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
The problem with it, iiuc, is that it would lead to a lot of unnecessary worry and further testing and treatment (much of it invasive) for men who either don't have the cancer or have a slow growing asymptomatic version that they'd be better off not knowing about. So when you balance all that, and the £££ cost, against the expected number of lives saved it's not such a great idea. Certainly not a no-brainer anyway.
You can always find excuses for not doing something but prostate screening for men seems the right thing to do
Er, it's not like you to demand that SKS wastes money.
I do not see prostate cancer screening as a waste of money
I was tested in 2020 and found to be clear
Which was pointless.
The point of screening is to identify people who need treatment and avoid sending people for treatment who don’t need it. The problem with PSA is that it fails the latter criterion.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
The problem with it, iiuc, is that it would lead to a lot of unnecessary worry and further testing and treatment (much of it invasive) for men who either don't have the cancer or have a slow growing asymptomatic version that they'd be better off not knowing about. So when you balance all that, and the £££ cost, against the expected number of lives saved it's not such a great idea. Certainly not a no-brainer anyway.
You can always find excuses for not doing something but prostate screening for men seems the right thing to do
Er, it's not like you to demand that SKS wastes money.
I do not see prostate cancer screening as a waste of money
I was tested in 2020 and found to be clear
Which was pointless.
The point of screening is to identify people who need treatment and avoid sending people for treatment who don’t need it. The problem with PSA is that it fails the latter criterion.
If people test positive but it is not worth them getting treatment currently, then wouldn't further regular testing and scans be appropriate instead?
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
The problem with it, iiuc, is that it would lead to a lot of unnecessary worry and further testing and treatment (much of it invasive) for men who either don't have the cancer or have a slow growing asymptomatic version that they'd be better off not knowing about. So when you balance all that, and the £££ cost, against the expected number of lives saved it's not such a great idea. Certainly not a no-brainer anyway.
You can always find excuses for not doing something but prostate screening for men seems the right thing to do
Er, it's not like you to demand that SKS wastes money.
I do not see prostate cancer screening as a waste of money
I was tested in 2020 and found to be clear
Which was pointless.
The point of screening is to identify people who need treatment and avoid sending people for treatment who don’t need it. The problem with PSA is that it fails the latter criterion.
If Cleverly is posting it expect an urgent question next week
No matter it is not a good look
It’s not, but it’s a bit double edged surely? If there wasn’t a black hole doesn’t that mean that things weren’t quite as bad as feared…
Far for me to defend Reeves (frankly, she’s indefensible now).
Truth matters and certainly on the face of it she has some questions to answer
Indeed, but I wouldn’t hold my breath about getting one!
To be fair it seems the OBR have records of their submissions so Reeves is likely to have to provide a response if the opposition parties latch onto this
The plot of OBR deficit forecasts over time probably looks like a cross-section of the Lake District...
It would be interesting to see a plot of forecast vs actual over time.
The case for having large fiscal headroom (and Reeves should have been far more honest about making it) is that it renders most changes in OBR forecasts irrelevant as far as the debt markets are concerned.
The critiques of the OBR are seriously overblown, The only reason they have influence is that Chancellors have got into the habit of chancing their arm on the accuracy of forecasts for their own policy outcomes.
What’s that about IIhan Omar marrying her brother?!
Its a longstanding slur by the alt-right. Omar's husband is really her brother brought to the USA as a fake marriage.
I figured out that from googling, but it’s just so implausible
"They're eating cats and dogs."
Wasn’t there something like a couple of cats had gone missing from a house that some immigrants lived next to?
Ie no evidence for the accusation but some sort of event that they could build on
There was a Facebook post where someone claimed their neighbour said that her daughter's friend's cat went missing and it was then discovered that the Haitians next door had eaten it. The neighbour was tracked down by the media and said that, no, it wasn't her daughter's friend, it was just a rumour she had heard from a friend of a friend. So, it was just people on social media repeating an "urban myth".
Fair enough… so may be one step up from “completely made up” but not much to go on. I can’t even see an urban myth to underpin the Omar thing…
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is unquestionably a lot of misogyny in our society both historically and today but the difference in resource, research and treatment for breast cancer and prostate cancer is pretty hard to justify by any sane measure.
Not sure about that. Breast cancer affects women AND men - pro rata allowing for the different quantity of tissue, and the hormonal environmental differences, I suspect: but it's there.
Also - screening for females seems to stop at 71 (though you can ask for later checks). Not sure of the logic of that.
Edit: BC seems to affect women much earlier and with more speedily lethal effects, too, or so I understand it.
According to Cancer UK between 11,200 and 11,500 women die of breast cancer each year in the UK. 12, 200 men die of prostate cancer. Are you seriously suggesting that the latter gets the same priority?
Its not about the priority - its about how good the available screening is. That should always be the question. I'd be more in favour of better awareness of warning signs and getting men to actively engage with healthcare.
Arguably treating early stage breast cancer is one of the easiest things to do - surgery to remove the cancerous tissue and any nearby suspicious lymph nodes. Not so easy for the prostate - the danger of incontinence, loss of sexual function etc is high. You want to be sure before you mess with it.
Now in some ideal world a quick blood test would be 100 % accurate and we would get all cancers early stage and no-one need die (assuming appropriate surgery was possible). I think we will get closer to that over time- learning how to spot the markers in peripheral blood of a nascent tumour. But we are not there yet, psa is a poor test and so is the DRE (think finger in the bum, chaps).
I had a DRE in 2016. I still remember it quite vividly.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is unquestionably a lot of misogyny in our society both historically and today but the difference in resource, research and treatment for breast cancer and prostate cancer is pretty hard to justify by any sane measure.
Not sure about that. Breast cancer affects women AND men - pro rata allowing for the different quantity of tissue, and the hormonal environmental differences, I suspect: but it's there.
Also - screening for females seems to stop at 71 (though you can ask for later checks). Not sure of the logic of that.
Edit: BC seems to affect women much earlier and with more speedily lethal effects, too, or so I understand it.
According to Cancer UK between 11,200 and 11,500 women die of breast cancer each year in the UK. 12, 200 men die of prostate cancer. Are you seriously suggesting that the latter gets the same priority?
Its not about the priority - its about how good the available screening is. That should always be the question. I'd be more in favour of better awareness of warning signs and getting men to actively engage with healthcare.
Arguably treating early stage breast cancer is one of the easiest things to do - surgery to remove the cancerous tissue and any nearby suspicious lymph nodes. Not so easy for the prostate - the danger of incontinence, loss of sexual function etc is high. You want to be sure before you mess with it.
Now in some ideal world a quick blood test would be 100 % accurate and we would get all cancers early stage and no-one need die (assuming appropriate surgery was possible). I think we will get closer to that over time- learning how to spot the markers in peripheral blood of a nascent tumour. But we are not there yet, psa is a poor test and so is the DRE (think finger in the bum, chaps).
I had a DRE in 2016. I still remember it quite vividly.
Long story, but the first one I had was at a time I also needed to do a urine flow test (so you drink loads, wait until you are bursting to go, and then see how strong the flow is...). I was happily waiting for that point to arrive when the consultant called me in for a chat and also did the DRE. I almost ran out to go to the flow test. Never have I needed a pee so much!
For those that don't know - that's the Simon Jenkins who boasted that when he was involved with rail and London transport boards, he repeatedly blocked temporary line closures for maintenance/upgrades.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is unquestionably a lot of misogyny in our society both historically and today but the difference in resource, research and treatment for breast cancer and prostate cancer is pretty hard to justify by any sane measure.
Not sure about that. Breast cancer affects women AND men - pro rata allowing for the different quantity of tissue, and the hormonal environmental differences, I suspect: but it's there.
Also - screening for females seems to stop at 71 (though you can ask for later checks). Not sure of the logic of that.
Edit: BC seems to affect women much earlier and with more speedily lethal effects, too, or so I understand it.
According to Cancer UK between 11,200 and 11,500 women die of breast cancer each year in the UK. 12, 200 men die of prostate cancer. Are you seriously suggesting that the latter gets the same priority?
It doesn't.
But the real disparity is what has been spent on research over the last couple if decades.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is unquestionably a lot of misogyny in our society both historically and today but the difference in resource, research and treatment for breast cancer and prostate cancer is pretty hard to justify by any sane measure.
Not sure about that. Breast cancer affects women AND men - pro rata allowing for the different quantity of tissue, and the hormonal environmental differences, I suspect: but it's there.
Also - screening for females seems to stop at 71 (though you can ask for later checks). Not sure of the logic of that.
Edit: BC seems to affect women much earlier and with more speedily lethal effects, too, or so I understand it.
According to Cancer UK between 11,200 and 11,500 women die of breast cancer each year in the UK. 12, 200 men die of prostate cancer. Are you seriously suggesting that the latter gets the same priority?
Its not about the priority - its about how good the available screening is. That should always be the question. I'd be more in favour of better awareness of warning signs and getting men to actively engage with healthcare.
Arguably treating early stage breast cancer is one of the easiest things to do - surgery to remove the cancerous tissue and any nearby suspicious lymph nodes. Not so easy for the prostate - the danger of incontinence, loss of sexual function etc is high. You want to be sure before you mess with it.
Now in some ideal world a quick blood test would be 100 % accurate and we would get all cancers early stage and no-one need die (assuming appropriate surgery was possible). I think we will get closer to that over time- learning how to spot the markers in peripheral blood of a nascent tumour. But we are not there yet, psa is a poor test and so is the DRE (think finger in the bum, chaps).
I had a DRE in 2016. I still remember it quite vividly.
Probably less invasive than a rectal endoscopy, unless the scar is psychological.
Especially for those of us familiar with rodding drains.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is a rational argument for that, not sure if I agree with it or whether it is medically correct, but it's basically that it's a slow cancer, treatment can be unpleasant and you'll die of something else first.
Quite. I had a chat with my GP about testing for prostrate cancer and she assured me that if I have it, I'll almost certainly die with it than of it. Quite a relief. I now don't give it a second thought.
The damage to the the Soyuz pad at Baikonur is confirmed.
This is the only pad the Russians currently have to launch to ISS. This means crew rotations blocked, but more importantly (perhaps) Progress cargo craft can't be sent to the station. The ISS can only be refuelled by Progress. Which means that after a while ISS will run out of fuel for attitude control related matters (It's a bit complicated with gyroscopes and de saturation, but that's the size of it)
To fix the pad, they would need to -
1) build a new service structure under the pad 2) Take a service structure from a mothballed pad 3) Convert/reactivate another pad - would ned to include work for Progress and the Suyuz spacecraft.
1) Will take a long, long time. SpaceX they are not. Years 2) Not been done before. It's a huge piece of equipment - might well need to be cut into sections, moved, rebuilt. 3) Again, will take a long, long time. Experience with Russian space tech and other Russian stuff is that the Russian approach to "moth balling" is "leave it to rust".
So no launches to the space station for months. Possibly years.
Which means a growing problem for the ISS - and a humiliation for Putin, incoming.
Is there a way to refuel ISS from a US or European pad (eg launch Progress from there)?
I am not an expert, but a space station lacking the ability to control altitude sounds… concerning…
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
I would be amazed if the proportion of the population who understands the false positives was very high.
Quick quiz question for you:
- A disease effects 0.1% of the population - We have a test that is 99% accurate. That is the accuracy for both those with the disease and those without it. - We decide to screen the entire population
If you test positive, what is the probability of you having the disease?
Yes, that’s the classic example that illustrates the point, for those able to understand it. Since Leondoofus isn’t with us, it’s worth just setting out the maths:
In a population of 10000, 10 people have it and 9990 don’t.
Of the ten people that have it, barring a slim chance, they all test positive.
Out of the 9990 who don’t have it, nearly 100 test, falsely, positive,
Therefore the positive test results will identify the 10 who have it and another nearly 100 who don’t.
I don't know the science on prostate cancer; however, if it's not the big deal that charities make it out to be, it would be good if politicians started calling out the scare-mongering.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
The problem with it, iiuc, is that it would lead to a lot of unnecessary worry and further testing and treatment (much of it invasive) for men who either don't have the cancer or have a slow growing asymptomatic version that they'd be better off not knowing about. So when you balance all that, and the £££ cost, against the expected number of lives saved it's not such a great idea. Certainly not a no-brainer anyway.
You can always find excuses for not doing something but prostate screening for men seems the right thing to do
Er, it's not like you to demand that SKS wastes money.
I do not see prostate cancer screening as a waste of money
I was tested in 2020 and found to be clear
Which was pointless.
The point of screening is to identify people who need treatment and avoid sending people for treatment who don’t need it. The problem with PSA is that it fails the latter criterion.
It was not pointless
It was a great relief
I get a check every year, the point being that it establishes a benchmark of what is normal for you. If you are 0.6 each year and then suddenly 2 then it triggers an investigation. It is far better to look at the sequence than a single test, and that really could help treatment.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Not recommended by NICE?
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As other's have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
I expect my view is quite widely held not just on here but in the outside world
I would be amazed if the proportion of the population who understands the false positives was very high.
Quick quiz question for you:
- A disease effects 0.1% of the population - We have a test that is 99% accurate. That is the accuracy for both those with the disease and those without it. - We decide to screen the entire population
If you test positive, what is the probability of you having the disease?
I remember playing with these at the time of Covid. I am guessing 10%?
Close enough! It's a 9% chance you have the disease after having been diagnosed with it.
I don't know the science on prostate cancer; however, if it's not the big deal that charities make it out to be, it would be good if politicians started calling out the scare-mongering.
Problem with that is your opener "I don't know the science on prostate cancer" - this applies to almost ALL politicians as they are almost all non-scientists.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
The problem with it, iiuc, is that it would lead to a lot of unnecessary worry and further testing and treatment (much of it invasive) for men who either don't have the cancer or have a slow growing asymptomatic version that they'd be better off not knowing about. So when you balance all that, and the £££ cost, against the expected number of lives saved it's not such a great idea. Certainly not a no-brainer anyway.
You can always find excuses for not doing something but prostate screening for men seems the right thing to do
Er, it's not like you to demand that SKS wastes money.
I do not see prostate cancer screening as a waste of money
I was tested in 2020 and found to be clear
Which was pointless.
The point of screening is to identify people who need treatment and avoid sending people for treatment who don’t need it. The problem with PSA is that it fails the latter criterion.
It was not pointless
It was a great relief
Testing you for a thousand diseases and conditions that you don’t have might be hugely relieving, but it would also be a complete waste of public money.
Comments
No matter it is not a good look
There is a big trend towards the public liking their politicians to be a bit more human. The very antithesis of the interviews Starmer and Reeves were giving yesterday that were trying to robotically bend reality from their record and previous utterances.
She will never be able to turn the page fully on the record of the last government - it is simply too toxic to exorcise by just saying we got it wrong on quite a few things - but I think she’s got the capital to spend now on explicitly saying she’s learnt from it.
PSA tests not only find a lot of false positives but also result in true positives where in fact no treatment would have been necessary as the cancer would have never caused harm. Many, many men die with prostate cancer not because of it and being completely unaware of it and unaffected by it (my grandfather for one). The positive test then results in unnecessary treatment, side effects (as above) and anxiety,
Sometime decisions are made for a good reason. The PSA tests should be limited to those with risk factors, otherwise the net effect is you may cause more harm than good.
Prostate cancer scanning is not the same as breast cancer scanning.
Women 56,000 new cases a year in the UK
Men 400 new cases a year in the UK.
The issues around prostate cancer screening is that screening isn't perfect. PSA, routinely used, has many false positives. Screening older men with a history in the family or specific mutations makes perfect sense.
Mammograms for women is a far better screen and I see no evidence that this is sexism in action.
(Note - breast cancer, like most cancers, comes in lots of different flavours. The most deadly, triple negative, is more common in younger women, hence that it can be more dangerous in younger women - there is a greater likelihood of it being triple negative. Its also the case that risk factors (specific BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations) that suggest a greater risk of prostate cancer are also a factor in breast cancer - see Anjolie Jolie, for example.)
Far for me to defend Reeves (frankly, she’s indefensible now).
What the very nice map shows is that this is a tax on (rich) Londoners.
I was tested in 2020 and found to be clear
If so, I think I would rather accept their recommendations rather than (with respect) some random bloke on the internet who feels it is "frankly unacceptable".
As others have said, false positives mean that screening is not always the right approach.
Edit: I see it is the UK National Screening Committee making the recommendation. Well, surely they are precisely the group who should be assessing the pros and cons and making a recommendations?
You may not see it as a waste, but the medics are concerned about it.
I had a recent visit to the doctor with a potential symptom - got poked and prodded, and blood tested including PSA: but that was in the very different context of a possible symptom. (I was fine. At least for now!).
So, why does mass screening stop at 71? Because at that age, a woman is more likely to die of something else, so the benefits of breast screening are more limited. (Breast screening generally has very marginal benefits.) If you’re going to die of a heart attack at 80, there is no benefit to detecting a cancer that would kill you at 82.
Men can get breast cancer, but it’s very very very very rare.
If you have symptoms you are worried about, go see a doctor. If you are any high risk and concerned, talk to your doctor, but screening for the whole population may not be recommended because it is insufficiently specific.
Setting up a business is incredibly risky. Something that no-one in the public sector ever appreciates. Not many in the current Govt seem to, either.
The private sector ENTIRELY funds the public sector. Without the risk takers, there would be no public sector. If you stop rewarding risk here, the risk takers will go elsewhere.
It would be interesting to see a plot of forecast vs actual over time.
As a consequence of doing the tests some lives may be saved, but others might be lost eg through sepsis. Many will go through invasive tests unnecessarily. Many will suffer stress and anxiety unnecessarily. Many will become impotent and/or incontinent unnecessarily. Many of these men will not have had cancer in the first place or had cancer that was never going to do them any harm.
You have to weigh up the pros and cons and that is what we employ scientists/doctors to do and not some random person in the street or on the internet.
PS Noticed I got a like from Foxy for my previous post. A thumbs up from a professional.
However.
Just because a view is widely-held doesn't make it true. In this case, the boffins who have looked at this have said that, if you do blanket testing, the harm from treating the false positives is greater than the good from the true positives picked up early.
It's the problem with democracy- how do you balance the will of the people with hard-edged reality? Good persuasive skills by Team Reality help, and it's a while since we have seen that.
But those pushing untruths have an easier time of it, because their arguments aren't constrained by needing to be true- just by leading to their desired conclusion. And the explicit realisation of that seems to me to be relatively recent, and a cause of many of our current problems.
Nixon and his successors made a pitch for the southern racist vote, and the rest is history.
*Also sounds like Smell Stride with the knighthood
For example:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4582264/
It looks as if the effectiveness of prostate screening is poor.
That was disguised post election by the fact that no Tory could get a hearing straight after getting kicked out of government.
Now that Labour have in turn developed a record (which disappoints quite a number of people), semi-cogent attacks on their policies get a hearing. And it's Badenoch rather than Farage who gets a weekly airing at PMQs.
Quick quiz question for you:
- A disease effects 0.1% of the population
- We have a test that is 99% accurate. That is the accuracy for both those with the disease and those without it.
- We decide to screen the entire population
If you test positive, what is the probability of you having the disease?
On the day he got his diagnosis confirmed, he got a call from his sister. She had also had breast cancer confirmed - on the very same day.
Now THAT is rare!
But anway, my point is if you're mainly in business for the tax breaks that's unlikely to be the sort of enterprise on which the prosperity of a nation can be built.
Which doesn't mean tax or regs should be punitive of course. That helps nobody. We need those animal spirits. Agree with you there.
Prsesumably the question didn't ask "... but the screening might be wrong and you could end up impotent/incontinent, so do you still feelelucky?"
So the screening was a complete failure. It picked up a non cancer (I assume most recalls are non cancers) and missed a cancer. The end result was a win though.
Nothing to do with any other media
Still - it's not like Tories to demand unnecessary public spending which would lead to still more public spending, just because.
Perhaps the ultimate political biography.
It will get you up to speed. And no political geek can really call themselves such without reading at least one Caro book.
The recommendation afaics is that screening be done for certain subgroups with higher risk.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/clykgr941ddt
So literally "ignorance is better"?
Hmm, so if one's blood relatives had breast cancer it would be a good idea to be screened. That is pretty consistent with what @turbotubbs was saying earlier.
The answer is, of course, to greatly improve diagnosis techniques. (Which is slowly happening.)
But also noting the screeing for females stops at 71 - which turns out to be on the same logic as the recommendation not to screen for prostate en masse, as shown in the further discussion on PB.
PS: assuming that that "12," before the 200 is an error!
If it shows positive is that reliable?
Would I then be able to be treated for it?
I'd need a Yes for these questions. Otherwise, in the absence of symptoms, I'd pass.
But people are different of course. That's just me.
Arguably treating early stage breast cancer is one of the easiest things to do - surgery to remove the cancerous tissue and any nearby suspicious lymph nodes. Not so easy for the prostate - the danger of incontinence, loss of sexual function etc is high. You want to be sure before you mess with it.
Now in some ideal world a quick blood test would be 100 % accurate and we would get all cancers early stage and no-one need die (assuming appropriate surgery was possible). I think we will get closer to that over time- learning how to spot the markers in peripheral blood of a nascent tumour. But we are not there yet, psa is a poor test and so is the DRE (think finger in the bum, chaps).
And are you suggesting Sky that todays comments are not accurate
You do seem to like having a go at me when I try to contribute to this forum honestly and with interesting news
Maybe you would prefer me to be silent as that is the impression you leave
Surprised you haven't mentioned beer and curry
The key is to put the sort of research effort into it that was done in previous decades for breast cancer.
David Lammy is right to slash the use of juries – it’s an open-and-shut case - Simon Jenkins
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/28/david-lammy-jury-trials-justice-system
The point of screening is to identify people who need treatment and avoid sending people for treatment who don’t need it. The problem with PSA is that it fails the latter criterion.
It was a great relief
The critiques of the OBR are seriously overblown, The only reason they have influence is that Chancellors have got into the habit of chancing their arm on the accuracy of forecasts for their own policy outcomes.
But the real disparity is what has been spent on research over the last couple if decades.
Everything follows from that.
Especially for those of us familiar with rodding drains.
I am not an expert, but a space station lacking the ability to control altitude sounds… concerning…
In a population of 10000, 10 people have it and 9990 don’t.
Of the ten people that have it, barring a slim chance, they all test positive.
Out of the 9990 who don’t have it, nearly 100 test, falsely, positive,
Therefore the positive test results will identify the 10 who have it and another nearly 100 who don’t.
(Or the AEP.)
"What Truss is absolutely not doing, insist sources close to the project, is selling a timeshare scheme"
beautiful stuff
https://bsky.app/profile/dmk1793.bsky.social/post/3m6oycxqlrk2f