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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Jeremy Hunt
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Sioni Sais: Jeremy Hunt is obviously a black hole.
Another kind of hole also comes to mind.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by Rocinante:
The Tory attack on the NHS is deliberate, strategic and long in the planning. They hate the NHS and they want to destroy it. It prolongs the lives of poor people, FFS!
That long-term NHS destruction agenda in full:
1940s: Tory election manifesto calls for a national health service
1950s: NHS exists
1960s: NHS exists
1970s: NHS exists
1980s: NHS exists
1990s: NHS exists
2000s: Tories not in power
2010s: NHS exists
Useless Tories, eh?
Well of course the NHS "exists", though you might wonder what that means when it's actually, for example, Virgin Care operating under the NHS logo. Obviously the NHS can't be privatised at a stroke - it's the one thing that might actually raise the British out of their dormouse-like apathy and into political action. Instead, it's done bit by bit. The last Labour government got some well deserved criticism for this when it was found that by the time they left power, about £7bn of NHS money went to private contracts. But in barely 3 years since the Health and Social Care Act came into force in April 2013, a further £5.5bn worth of NHS contracts have been awarded to private providers. (Source) Privatisation is clearly accelerating, and will continue to do so under the current regime.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
He subsequently said that it didn't express his views (because obviously just because you've coauthored something that doesn't mean it has anything to do with your views).
And he is proving that it does, in fact, represent his views.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by Rocinante:
The Tory attack on the NHS is deliberate, strategic and long in the planning. They hate the NHS and they want to destroy it. It prolongs the lives of poor people, FFS!
That long-term NHS destruction agenda in full:
1940s: Tory election manifesto calls for a national health service
1950s: NHS exists
1960s: NHS exists
1970s: NHS exists
1980s: NHS exists
1990s: NHS exists
2000s: Tories not in power
2010s: NHS exists
Useless Tories, eh?
Well of course the NHS "exists", though you might wonder what that means when it's actually, for example, Virgin Care operating under the NHS logo. Obviously the NHS can't be privatised at a stroke - it's the one thing that might actually raise the British out of their dormouse-like apathy and into political action. Instead, it's done bit by bit. The last Labour government got some well deserved criticism for this when it was found that by the time they left power, about £7bn of NHS money went to private contracts. But in barely 3 years since the Health and Social Care Act came into force in April 2013, a further £5.5bn worth of NHS contracts have been awarded to private providers. (Source) Privatisation is clearly accelerating, and will continue to do so under the current regime.
How's the water,
froggies?
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
I would like to continue to be treated by doctors and other health professionals to whom the idea of medicine as a service, as part of the fabric of society as well as a technical, medico-scientific exercise, is important.
I expect you will be. Jeremy Hunt can try to impose contracts, but he can't force people to think what he thinks, and people don't usually go into nursing or NHS work for the money. The medical staff I've met in the past few years have been overworked, sometimes harassed and disillusioned, but still genuinely kind people who have that essential humanity and motivation to help that brought them into the profession in the first place.
I suspect that the target of the Tory "reforms" aren't the motives of individual doctors, nor even the management. They want to reform the NHS to provide increased profits for their chums running medical related businesses.
Doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals will still enter the profession motivated to help others, they will just be working in an environment where the questions of how much treatment will cost will be increasingly dominant - and where anything to cut costs will be taken (including reducing the staffing levels, using less experienced/less qualified staff where possible etc).
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by Rocinante:
The Tory attack on the NHS is deliberate, strategic and long in the planning. They hate the NHS and they want to destroy it. It prolongs the lives of poor people, FFS!
That long-term NHS destruction agenda in full:
1940s: Tory election manifesto calls for a national health service
1950s: NHS exists
1960s: NHS exists
1970s: NHS exists
1980s: NHS exists
1990s: NHS exists
2000s: Tories not in power
2010s: NHS exists
Useless Tories, eh?
I'm so tired of this Tory-apologist bollocks. I am so angry at the moment. Let's just tackle this one. As others have pointed out there's a lot going on unseen. The NHS is not a single organisation at all and it is being systematically undermined. New Labour did some amazing things with the NHS but they also let in private providers in a way that left it vulnerable, very vulnerable. However let's just cover some history (last 30 years or so).
By 1997 The NHS was in a desparate state. Crumbling buildings, not enough nurses, paid appallingly and the horrific junior doctor shifts.
From 2000 onwards, the NHS had massive investment. Dr's contracts sorted. Amazing outcomes were seen, with the fastest improving cancer survival in Europe - and if trends had continued (data not fully back yet) by 2012, we would have over-taken France for heart attack survival despite paying around a 1/3 less for healthcare (as share of GDP) than our neighbours across the Channel. Oh and highest ever patient satisfaction levels. Then there's what's happened since 2010...
Yes, the Tories are trying to destroy the NHS, all but it's wonderful brand-name. They'll keep that, that's worth a lot of money.
So, please stop this simplistic, patronising nonsense. THIS IS WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OUR HEALTH SERVICE.
![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
Posts: 2150 | From: Zog, obviously! Straight past Alpha Centauri, 2nd planet on the left... | Registered: Dec 2003
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Useless Tories, eh?
Hold on now, Tories aren't at all useless. They could save a lot of trees on bonfire night.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Useless Tories, eh?
Hold on now, Tories aren't at all useless. They could save a lot of trees on bonfire night.
Too much time between now and Bonfire Night.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals will still enter the profession motivated to help others, they will just be working in an environment where the questions of how much treatment will cost will be increasingly dominant - and where anything to cut costs will be taken (including reducing the staffing levels, using less experienced/less qualified staff where possible etc).
That's been ongoing for years already surely, not just because of the Conservatives.
The problem is that there isn't enough money to go round. They could save quite a lot by scrapping HS2, for starters, but unfortunately Labour committed to that so they're contractually obliged to go ahead with it (or such is my understanding).
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
The problem is that there isn't enough money to go round. They could save quite a lot by scrapping HS2, for starters, but unfortunately Labour committed to that so they're contractually obliged to go ahead with it (or such is my understanding).
If the government can screw public sector employess* terms of employment by unilaterally changing contracts why can't it change commercial contracts on the same basis?
*except themselves. Looks like another MPs, especially committee chairs, are to get an above the 1% pay rise.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
They don't have to accept it. They could always donate their pay rises to charity, right?
I won't hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
The problem is that there isn't enough money to go round.
The problem is not that there's not enough money to go around - it's what it's spent on. And increasingly, it's spent on people who are already well off, either by not taxing them when other people are, or by giving them extra when other people don't get that.
So by eliminating 40% pension relief, you get another £7bn in taxes. Investment income is taxed at a lower rate than earned income, which favours the rich. Most low and middle income people pay a marginal rate (including NIC) which is almost the same as rich people do - include the taper for tax credits, and the marginal rates rise up to 70-80%.
That both the tax system and the public expenditure favour the wealthy over the poor is not a big surprise, but up until now most people have been content with the crumbs. But rather than making do with a smaller cake and leaving those crumbs, we're faced with an empty plate because they're damned if they're going to go hungry.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
And Osborne has reduced corporation tax year-on-year...
The public sector is being squeezed beyond what it can take - all in the name of an economic 'theory' that has been completely and totally discredited both theoretically and historically.
quote:
Blyth, Mark (2013-03-27). Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea (p. 179). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
The natural histories of these episodes demonstrate quite clearly that economies do not “self-heal” once “the bust” has run its course. Austerity was tried, and tried again— its application was not wanting— and it simply didn’t work. In fact, its repeated application made things worse, not better, and it was only when states stopped pursuing austerity that they began to recover.
Healthcare is indeed a bottomless pit of demand but let anyone tell you that is the real problem right now. There would be enough money if there was just the political will.
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
Posts: 2150 | From: Zog, obviously! Straight past Alpha Centauri, 2nd planet on the left... | Registered: Dec 2003
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
It gets good at about 4:42, but remember—some country's been going to the poorhouse in an automobile for a while.
85 years and nothing's changed, Will.
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
I noticed this news item today. What seems to be missed by the politicians and the journalists is that these policies result in people dying, people who do not need to die.
They are all remorseful when someone from the forces is killed because of government policies, but when ordinary people die because of government policies, they are silent.
My loathing and hatred of Jeremy "what a complete knobhead" Hunt is not just because he is wrong. It is because he is wrong and it is killing people. It is in real danger of killing people who I care about.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Frankenstein
Shipmate
# 16198
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Posted
If I needed a reason for not voting Tory, it would be Jeremy Hunt!
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It is better to travel in hope than to arrive?
Posts: 267 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2011
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Rocinante
Shipmate
# 18541
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Posted
The incessant cuts to local authority budgets are another prong of the pincer movement on the NHS: on the one hand, pissing off the doctors so that many of them leave (2 of my acquaintance have left for Australia in the last year) on the other, slashing elderly care in the community so that delayed discharges cause the whole delicately-balanced system to seize up. (The Tories have correctly identified this as the easiest way to fuck up the NHS.) Then Hunt or whichever other orifice comes after him will be able to say "this state-owned health service is useless, we'll have to bring in our chums from the private sector to run it properly." In fact, they'll get their chums in the media to beg them to bring in their other chums. Things won't improve of course, but they'll make sure that the process of privatisation is irreversible so they won't care.
Posts: 384 | From: UK | Registered: Jan 2016
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Frankenstein
Shipmate
# 16198
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
You are a vile, unprincipled, pile of shit.
You slagged off teachers as education fuckwit, and now you are slagging off junior doctors as health fuckwit.
Please die.
My sentiments exactly!!!
But does this make us good Christians? ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
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It is better to travel in hope than to arrive?
Posts: 267 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2011
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Frankenstein:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
You are a vile, unprincipled, pile of shit.
You slagged off teachers as education fuckwit, and now you are slagging off junior doctors as health fuckwit.
Please die.
My sentiments exactly!!!
But does this make us good Christians?
Yes. Because standing up against injustice is Christian. It might not make us nice people.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Frankenstein:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
You slagged off teachers as education fuckwit, and now you are slagging off junior doctors as health fuckwit.
My sentiments exactly!!!
When did Jeremy Hunt hold an education brief?
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Alwyn
Shipmate
# 4380
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
The problem is that there isn't enough money to go round.
The problem is not that there's not enough money to go around - it's what it's spent on. [...]
Indeed. If this graph is accurate, the UK spends a lower proportion of its GDP on health care than (among others) Norway, Greece, Portugal, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands. The King's Fund reported recently that NHS is in a "financial crisis" and are predicting an end-of year debt of £2.3 billion - and 53% of trust financial directors said that care in their area got worse in the last year.
[ 20. February 2016, 11:59: Message edited by: Alwyn ]
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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
Posts: 849 | From: UK | Registered: Apr 2003
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by Frankenstein:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
You slagged off teachers as education fuckwit, and now you are slagging off junior doctors as health fuckwit.
My sentiments exactly!!!
When did Jeremy Hunt hold an education brief?
I think he probably didn't. I think I got this wrong, and confused one Tory fuck with Gove, another Tory fuck.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Hedgerow Priest
Shipmate
# 13905
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Posted
Not posted on this site for years, so I would like to break my silence, to declare and pronounce that Mr Hunt is a public health hazard, we really need him to resign, and we need to support the junior doctors. Why did Britain elect the Tories?, are we really such knobheads with amnesia about the 1980s?
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"Where is the Love"
Saint Fergy de Pea
Posts: 362 | From: London | Registered: Jul 2008
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hedgerow Priest:
Why did Britain elect the Tories?, are we really such knobheads with amnesia about the 1980s?
Welcome back. I remember the 1980s, and that is one reason my politics changed quite significantly during that time.
This government is so much worse than that one. I think Mrs Thatcher is probably turning in her grave. And I have no love for her.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
quote:
Originally posted by Hedgerow Priest:
Why did Britain elect the Tories?, are we really such knobheads with amnesia about the 1980s?
Welcome back. I remember the 1980s, and that is one reason my politics changed quite significantly during that time.
This government is so much worse than that one. I think Mrs Thatcher is probably turning in her grave. And I have no love for her.
In those days there was a genuine breadth of opinion in the Conservative Party. There really were honest compassionate people in the party then, and many opposed Thatcher who in turn moderated the views of ideologues like Norman Tebbit and Keith Joseph.
It's different now. Greed has taken over and as in the USA, aided by the press and corporate power, they have put economic interests over those of man. I don't know if it's any consolation but the end-game is that economic power is going to shift east within three decades and the West will be a shithole.
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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The Phantom Flan Flinger
Shipmate
# 8891
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
They don't have to accept it. They could always donate their pay rises to charity, right?
I won't hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
They could, but that's a bit of a straw man.
The money will still come out of the public purse, and go into MPs pockets.
Where it goes after that is not relevant.
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http://www.faith-hope-and-confusion.com/
Posts: 1020 | From: Leicester, England | Registered: Dec 2004
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
There is a difference in the understanding of language between the two sides, especially of the meaning of "fairness".
To one side, what is not fair is that there are people who are left out of society, who are struggling for homes, for warmth, for food, and who are punished for this while others have more money than anyone sane knows what to do with.
To the other side, what is not fair is that anyone should be made to give up their money to anyone else, however much anyone else may need it, because it is the needy person's fault that they need it.
I was going to try to write that evenhandedly, but then decided that that would be false.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
There is a difference in the understanding of language between the two sides, especially of the meaning of "fairness".
To one side, what is not fair is that there are people who are left out of society, who are struggling for homes, for warmth, for food, and who are punished for this while others have more money than anyone sane knows what to do with.
To the other side, what is not fair is that anyone should be made to give up their money to anyone else, however much anyone else may need it, because it is the needy person's fault that they need it.
I was going to try to write that evenhandedly, but then decided that that would be false.
Not a bad summary, but being fair, I don't think that all right-wing people think that it's the needy person's fault that they're needy. I suppose Osborne's distinction between shirkers and workers suggests fault.
But there are right-wing people who genuinely seem to believe that inequality actually incentivizes people at all levels, and is therefore beneficial to society. And also that top-down economic direction in the long run makes things worse.
[ 24. March 2016, 11:56: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
There is a difference in the understanding of language between the two sides, especially of the meaning of "fairness".
To one side, what is not fair is that there are people who are left out of society, who are struggling for homes, for warmth, for food, and who are punished for this while others have more money than anyone sane knows what to do with.
To the other side, what is not fair is that anyone should be made to give up their money to anyone else, however much anyone else may need it, because it is the needy person's fault that they need it.
I was going to try to write that evenhandedly, but then decided that that would be false.
I think that's a really good summary. In my experience often Lefties and Righties end up talking past each other as L's declare it's NOT RIGHT that children go to bed hungry and R's say it's NOT RIGHT that anyone forces me to do something about it. Which is the greater wrong?
Most of my right-leaning friends are at the front of the queue to give freely from what they have...
But for me, that's not the end of the argument, because I don't think that some having LOTS and LOTS and others having so little is a natural phenomenon or simply the result of some being prepared to work hard and others not at all. Our huge wealth inequalities (in microcosm in our country and on the full-scale across our world at large) are the result of specific factors. Of course work should be rewarded and people have a right to decide to work for something and enjoy it when they get it. But it's nowhere near that simple.
The bigger factors are things like access to natural resources and who picks up the bigger costs. In the UK in particular, but also in most of the world, if you own land, you're already winning. But who says I own this piece of land? Because I inherited it, or because I bought it off someone else? But why did that person own it...? etc. etc. In the race of life, it's a very staggered start.
I also think that, if you look at the great wealth owners, it's often because they have exploited natural resources, such as oil. Surely, if oil belongs to anyone in a country, it belongs to everyone? But what actually happens is the companies who extract it pay peanuts in access rights and then for the most part, it's the rest of the world who pays the price of the pollution at the end of the day. If you're doubting this, have a look at how Fracking rights are being handed out.
Coupled to that is an economic-political system that means wealth allows access to power that has been used to concentrate wealth and so the cycle goes on.
It is not simply a case of taking "MY MONEY" off me. It is the case that I benefit from all that a modern society provides: security, legal system, infrastructure etc. etc. and so I should pay towards it. Tax is the means to do so. Moreover, our economic system is concentrating wealth and to argue therefore that it's morally unacceptable to redress that process is a flawed argument in my view. YMMV.
In other news, Jeremy Hunt has disappeared and the BMA has upped the ante. There is a full walk-out of junior doctors slated for the end of next month. Hospitals are planning on how to run the hospital with consultants only. (I was in one such meeting today).
Two things to say:
1) It will be safe. There will be plenty of senior doctors providing care and in a major incident, we'll all go back to work. Elective work will be cancelled to have enough doctors to cover emergencies.
2) It will be quite funny: Most consultants are gonna struggle to take blood and find the stationery...
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
Posts: 2150 | From: Zog, obviously! Straight past Alpha Centauri, 2nd planet on the left... | Registered: Dec 2003
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
alienfromzog: It is the case that I benefit from all that a modern society provides: security, legal system, infrastructure etc. etc.
A monetary system.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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