Re: The Tories
 

It would be hoped that the Barnet formula would be ditched, but we will wait and see.
Scottish MP's should not be allowed to vote on issues which do not affect those North of the border.....well unless English MP's get a say on Scottish policy.

The votes cast for the SNP party amount to something like 5% of the electorate of the UK.....in fact UKIP got the vote of 13% of the electorate, but have only one seat in the Commons

Re: The Tories
 

Well Eric you would have to be here to understand the open animosity......regardless of where they will be in ten years time, they are being an irritation right now.

Re: The Tories
 

We've been through it all. In the '95 Quebec referendum, only about 50,000 votes separated the "Yes" side from the "No" side. Quebec is recognized as a "Distinct Society". There has been devolution ... almost revolution.

October Crisis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We've had the Bloc and the Pequistes ... I don't think I have to be there to understand what's going on. Been there; seen it; got the hat and the t-shirt.;) ... in both official languages.

Re: The Tories
 

Well with the greatest respect Eric, you have been through something like it, you have seen something like it.......but it isn't the same.
No more than I can say I understand what you are talking about when you talk about the issues with Quebec...they may have similarities, but they are not the same.

Re: The Tories
 

Let's face it, this was a surprise even for the Tories.

They probably didn't want to be in power at the end of the election anymore than anyone else did.

The polls we saw expecting a hung Government?

No, Labour and the rest wanted these folk back in power, why?

Because to get the economy and a chance of the books being sorted needs the swingeing effects they will have to put in power, they may succeed in turning the Country around but if they do it they will be the most unpopular Government ever, thus making them unelectable in the future.

They think they've won?

Look at the bosses face when he came back from the Queen, did that really look like a guy that had won or someone that was stuck with a job he doesn't want?

Re: The Tories
 

I refer the honorable gentleman to the pictures (scroll through them) of the ecstatic Labour voters celebrating in Blackburn ;)

VIDEO: Kate Hollern becomes MP as Labour hold Blackburn (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Re: The Tories
 

Always look on the bright side :rolleyes:- the tory win increases the risk of a revolution.

Homeless hungry people 'lose it' when they have nothing left to lose.

There will be plenty of jobs available as security guards for the rich, and those are 24 hour, not zero hour, jobs.

Re: The Tories
 

they look so similar to jack straws campaign photos but i cant quite figure out why

Re: The Tories
 

Margaret, you speak as if there is a lot of difference between the parties......and we know that this is no longer true.
The days of a party with a conscience for social responsibility are long gone....socialism is dead and has been for a long time.
The poverty you speak of is not the same poverty that you and I knew when we were growing up.....when there was no help unless you went on the Parish.
Today's poverty is a different animal altogether.
It would not matter which party got into government....none are interested in the common man, the worker. These days the politicians sitting rarely have a background of real working life, most have had a privileged upbringing, with a public school,education, most are the offspring of wealthy families.....which is the main reason why they do not understand or even care about the likes of you and me...we are just means to an end....And prior to getting,our vote they can promise us anything.....they know that once elected we can do burger all about what they do!

Re: The Tories
 

Mps are under more scrutiny these days.

it wasn't that long ago MPs were given respect and pretty much dictated how any interviews went or what questions were asked

these days their lives are exposed both career and personal.Although this should be a good thing it has somehow given MPs the security in knowing that they can do almost anything they like and after a few outbursts on twitter or Facebook they can resume unscathed

20 years ago if a MP was caught defrauding the people of this country for personal gain especially in an illegal and criminal manner they would have to step down or be fired

these days we have a government that tells us how to behave despite a majority of them belonging in prison for fraud or at least probation and loss of job

people may ask why i dislike MPs so much

well i wouldnt let the local theif tell me how to live so why should i listen to MPs when they try to

Re: The Tories
 

I've just receives this months edition of beano,it's says the Tories won :eek:

How they managed to find that many folk who haven't experienced the rise in the cost of living for the last 5 years is beyond me.....


...Anyhow,back to the chores for me :(

Re: The Tories
 

Perhaps they wouldn't have won IF slack arses had gone out to vote?

Re: The Tories
 

Perhaps even the slack arses would vote, if there was a party worth the effort?

Re: The Tories
 

There hasn't been a party worth voting for, for years, but at least if you make the effort to go to the polls you can share in the shame of the political shambles rather than sit on the side lines pretending it's everyone else's fault.

Re: The Tories
 

Agree, but i can understand people being that brassed off they can't be arsed.end of the day the Partys aint arsed about us.

Re: The Tories
 

Perhaps,who knows what could of happened.
What I do know is,all those who voted for them can't blame everyone else when it's voting time again as they are 'complicit' in their ways (for putting them in power).

You may not be a fan of my opinions...

Attachment 48693



..But I think we both know politics is all BS.

Re: The Tories
 

seems to be a lot of labour voters crying about how voting UKIP kept the Tories in power so staying true to form people are blaming each other rather than blaming the MP's that let their actions make people vote for someone else

so far since the election iv had 3 people i know whinge about the tories been in power just after declaring they didnt vote

Re: The Tories
 

Well those 3 Accyman should have nothing to whinge about if they could not be bothered to vote.

Re: The Tories
 

I voted, but so what if people that didn't whinge? its a bit sanctimonious saying they got no right to moan. imho. anyone daft enough to think "ANY" of the parties give a toss about em needs to see a shrink.:D

Re: The Tories
 

have to agree to disagree on that one mate lol

i know folk who are absolutely livid that their benefit has been cut and they are been hit by the bedroom tax

not livid enough to put their joint out , get off their arse and try to do something about it but livid enough to let everyone else make an effort so that they might get labour back in power so they can have their full rent benefit back.

i saw an old lady using 2 walking sticks making her way to cast her vote so it does kinda irk me a touch when some 30 odd year old dope head whinges about their benefit been cut and then states they couldnt be bothered to vote

mind you under tory rule one of those walking sticks may be claimed back by government

i did my bit but sadly my team lost

Re: The Tories
 

I thinks it's call a suicide pass;)

Re: The Tories
 

I have, in the past withheld my vote....It is my choice to do that especially when I feel there is no party worthy of my vote.....I also think that I have the right to express an opinion...whether I voted or not.
On the times when I have withheld my vote, I have still schlepped along to the polling station to write something appropriate on the ballot paper.
I do not slavishly follow one party....I am one of those people who think about the impact of my vote.
I voted last time for a man that I thought had the interests of our town at the heart of what he was doing. Someone who knew what life was like in our neck of the woods....someone who would perhaps represent us well.
I found out that this man is more interested in climbing up the political ladder than representing what his constituents want.
Needless to say, this man did not get my vote this year.....and won't ever get my vote again regardless of what happens in the world of politics.

Re: The Tories
 

no one especially me is saying you have to vote i am saying that if you dont take part you should keep your gob shut about it until you are prepared to take part and not leave it to everyone else to do

why should someone who voted even entertain or listen to someone who couldn't be bothered to take a few mins out of a 5 year period to do something as simple as put a cross in a box or in some cases spoil teh ballot paper in protest.

there are valid reasons for someone not voting but " cant be arsed " dosnt quite cut it especially if they want to moan about the results

my choice didnt win either but thats democracy for you.

A lot of people died for our democracy the least we can do is use it to the best we can

Re: The Tories
 

Democracy is about having a choice.
I agree that 'can't be arsed' is not an option....Especially if those who can't be arsed are expecting to be supported financially.
Apathy is not an excuse either.
The political parties are in some way to blame for the lack of engagement with the electorate...The politicians are so far removed from the realities, and people cannot see that their cross in the box makes any difference to what happens( I am really cynical about the difference my voting or not voting makes, and I consider myself politically engaged)....so they lose interest.
It is no good telling these people that men and women fought and died for them to have this as a right.....it wasn't in their lifetime and seems to have little relevance.

Re: The Tories
 

I agree with Accyman wholeheartedly. The electoral system may be flawed but at the moment it is the only way the man in the street can try to make a difference. Apathy is all too rife these days.

Re: The Tories
 

The problem is that the man in the street feels that his vote makes no difference.
He votes on the information he has and the politicians do what they want once they have his vote.....and the man in the street can do nothing at all about this.....certainly not until the next election...The other problem is that the parties all seem the same, there is very little between them. Years ago if you were working class or a working man, you would never think of voting anything other than Labour, because they looked out for the working man.
Now, no-one looks out for the working man.
It isn't apathy if you feel that your vote will make no difference.

Re: The Tories
 

i knew voting against labour was urinating into the wind around here as the saying sort of goes but i still went and did it.At least when the next occasion comes up when our MP lets us down and people start bitching about it i can say i tried.

he wont loose sleep over loosing my vote but i very well cant go around saying he helped deny us our democratic say over a referendum if i cant be bothered to use my democratic right at election time.

i dont dislike people who dont vote i just dont want to hear them whinge about election results.If as many people voted as there are posting pictures crying about a tory victory on Facebook the election turnout would have probably been double

Re: The Tories
 

But he did deny you your democratic right to have a say on Europe.
Not only that he implied the electorate hadn't enough brains to reason out and decide the values of being in or out of the EU....isn't that just a bit patronising and presumptuous?
I think that is offensive.....but I don't suppose he cares, but he should.

I don't reckon he will be losing any sleep over my lost vote either, because my vote doesn't matter.....well not until he is just one vote short.

Re: The Tories
 

iv heard they are thinking of bringing in an app for mobile phones to use when voting so more people can vote

im sure someone somewhere once said elections will end up like x-factor one day

also very open to fraud the election machines got tampered with in America and although not a phone app it was still software and if not written correctly software can be very vulnerable to tampering

Re: The Tories
 

Never work in a million years, if people cant be arsed to vote now, they sure as hell aint gonna pay to do so.:D

Re: The Tories
 

Margaret, I don't think it is any different today, regarding the status of politicians, than it was 70years ago. In the general election of 1945, Accrington elected Walter Scott-Elliot who was recruited by the Labour Party to be their candidate. He was from a aristocratic Scottish family, educated at Eton, married to a Austrian Baroness, and a very wealthy Scottish landowner. A far cry from the working class of Accrington, but a big winner for the labour party

Re: The Tories
 

Irene, I was talking of the difference between parties as much as the difference between actual politicians.....and although I wasn't around 70 years ago I have been alive long enough to see the change in politicians, with the rise in career politicians, those who have never worked on a shop floor....a mine or an iron works....a real job with a wage packet attached to it

Today's politicians are focused on obtaining a seat in the Palace of Westminster, they will represent any constituency, whether they know anything about it(problems, needs, privations) regardless.
How can you represent a place with heart and passion if you haven't(or don't) live there?

But the main aim of the current bunch...all parties, is to make a nice little nest egg for yourself. Make contacts, gain directorships...so that once your political career comes to an end you can still live the life to which you have grown accustomed.
NO politician ever leaves office poor.

And before someone tells me that my post indicates the politics of envy...I will tell them that I had a very long, happy and satisfying career...doing what I loved and at the same time helping my local community.

I came from a very financially poor family, at a time just after the war when there was no help, no welfare state(or at least one that was just in its infancy) so I understand poverty from a practical standpoint.
I understand that you can only have what you can pay for........the Labour party did not understand that.....it spent money it didn't have and left a debt to be cleaned up by others. This in my book, is unforgivable. It could not be trusted with the finances of this country and so it didn't get elected.

I didn't vote for the Tories.....but cast my vote with the hope that it would prevent the Labour candidate from keeping this constituency...and in that I failed. Am I bitter ? No just disappointed that the people of our town failed to remember the jibes made at them by this man.

Re: The Tories
 

Margaret, I fully understand where you are coming from. In fact nearly everyone in those days rowed in the same boat. I just think it would be a rarity to get someone in Westminster, who had come up from the shop floor.

Re: The Tories
 

And that, Irene, in a nutshell, is why politicians are so divorced from life....the life that the rest of us lead.

Re: The Tories
 

NHS sell-out: Tories sign largest privatisation deal in history worth £780MILLION - Mirror Online Read that and weep you sad gets that voted Tory.:(http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015...n_7272956.html

Re: The Tories
 

dont forget to thank labour for putting forward an unelectable leader

it was as though labour didnt want to gain power

Re: The Tories
 

To be honest mate i dont think that made a blind bit of difference. The whole lot of em were unelectable by not listening to the grass roots, in my view. Cameron promised a referendum no-one in the shadow cabinet seemed to reckon it was a good idea or what 95% of the public wanted.:rolleyes: To me thats called "Arrogance"

Re: The Tories
 

Cashy if things are still free at the point of service does it really matter if there is some commercial enterprise in provision of care?
And of course you are going to say 'YES' there is.
Many hospitals struggle to provide adequate service/ levels of care because of targets brought in by governments...targets which have absolutely nothing to do with clinical care......the kind of care delivered on a 'need' basis.

All governments of every persuasion have meddled with the NHS.....mainly to the detriment of care services.

Circle Health took over the running of Hinchinbrooke Hospital. (and before someone tells me Circle health returned this hospital to NHS status...but not before they had turned around a failing hospital) This was a small run down hospital. The management and the running of this hospital were turned over to people who had medical knowledge...the doctors and nurses.
They were involved in the administration of the hospital and the morale of the nurses improved, the care standards improved, sickness levels went down because the staff were involved in making this a success...and they wanted the best for their community.
The CQC slated this hospital and said it was performing very poorly...this was all a political ploy and the CQC had to back track and gave the hospital good ratings.

Now, I don't know about you,but I want a well run hospital if ever I am in need of medical care...and I don't care who provides this effectively...if the great leviathan that is the NHS cannot do it safely, but private enterprise can then that is how it has to be.

Over the last two years I have seen a lot of the inside of various hospitals and I can tell you things have not got better. This is not because money has not been spent on the NHS, it is because money is spent on the wrong things...the priorities are wrong.
Until they stop tinkering around at the edges and take real decisive action then things will not change

Re: The Tories
 

Aye but private enterprise has no place at all in the NHS as far as i'm concerned, all that concerns them is profit. I think its more if they wanted to do it better then yes, but all they are concerned wi as far as i'm concerned is conning the public.

Re: The Tories
 

So if you needed a hip replacement and the surgeon said 'we can't do it at RBH...But I can do it at Gisburn Park..a private hospital(but at no cost to you) are you saying you would turn it down?

It makes no sense to have facilities standing idle when they can be tendered out to be used by the NHS to the clinical benefit of patients.
My daughter needed a CT scan and on the day it was to be done they were inundated with emergencies(which would have meant either a very long wait in the department or re scheduling the appointment..?Instead she was given the choice of having this done at Beardwood.....they had slts vacant and we were not being asked to stump up for this service..so what do you think we chose?
Beardwood, of course.
Their spare capacity is tendered out to the NHS which means that emergencies are dealt with on a clinical need basis, but scheduled appointments are not disrupted.
Isn't that the best of both worlds?

When you are being asked to either pay for services upfront, or have secondary medical insurance then that is the time to be worried

Re: The Tories
 

No not at all Margaret, I'm referring to the other things, not the actual medical side,

Re: The Tories
 

Cashy, the Mail quote is from 12 March 2015, haven't heard about it from any Labour Shadow Cabinet or any of their stalwart supporters, in fact haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else, not even the BBC - more Mirror crap perhaps?

Re: The Tories
 

New Labour started privatisation in 1999(they said it was to create 'choice and competition'). In 13 years they privatised 4.3%, in 5 years the ConDems privatised another 1.7%.
So there's not a lot of difference in them, is there?

Remember who gave the GP's a 30% rise on condition they stopped providing night and weekend cover? The economics of madness(or incompetence). How much does night and weekend cover cost the NHS, if you can get it? That's why A&E is overwhelmed.

Don't forget your GP surgery is a private company, the partners own the practice, claim from the NHS and the profit they make is theirs(on top of their private patients). Your dentist is a private company, claims for its NHS patients(if it takes any) keeps the profits and gives a much better service to its private patients but charges them a fortune.


Still can't see why a non profit organisation(the NHS) can't do it cheaper than a private company- inefficiency, incompetence, over staffed, too many empire builders,paying over the odds for materials, equipment and medicines?

Re: The Tories
 

What other things Cashy?
GP services?
These were shot to pieces by the last labour government who gave the GP's new contracts which allowed them to opt out of provision of out of hours services.
This has been disastrous for patients, has led to the pressure on the Accident and Emergency departments.
Out of hours services were provided by expensive commercial companies....who had no commitment to patients well being.
The other issue which concerned me greatly while I was still working was the introduction of PFI.
Balfour Beattie were responsible for building the new part of the RBH......this was done to make the community feel that they were getting a spanking new facility.
What wasn't explained was that the hospital would be shackled into a huge debt.....that all work needed in the hospital would only be done by Balfour Beattie at premium charges rather than the 'in house'plumbers, electricians, engineers.
I was told recently that it cost something like £250 for a light bulb to be changed by Balfour Beattie.
This is a huge cost which could have been better spent employing nurses and people to care for those who need looking after.
Labour did this to the NHS.....so be under no illusion that the NHS would be any safer in their hands.
Also the articles that you cited are Labour biased newspapers....so they are not going to be complimentary in any way about anything that government by anyone other than Labour are doing.

Re: The Tories
 

Gordon, I think I might have answered why the NHS cannot do it cheaper...they are shackled into massive debt which they have no power to reduce.....a debt which was promoted by a labour goverment.

Re: The Tories
 

I am not a Tory, I did not vote Tory..but I worked in the NHS for almost 30 years......and have recently been at the sharp end of the NHS as my daughter has been in and out of hospital for the last two years......so I am speaking from experience...both as an insider and the family of a user.

Re: The Tories
 

Am well aware of the damage the last Labour Government did. in fact the Blair government stopped me voting Labour fer the first time in me life, and i sure as hell slagged em fer it. But they aint in power any more simple as, So now its Torys that are decimating it n i will slag them fer it. If were gonna go back in history then the only fact we have an NHS is down to a Labour Government, but that to me is not the way to go. Its slag who's damaging it now, simple as.;)

Re: The Tories
 

i have said this before so will keep it short as possible

under labour and the conservatives the NHS will happily buy a pair of insoles for the podiatry department for say around £11 per pair and scalpels etc needed in the same department for much more than they are worth

i know for fact this happens as i used to be in a relationship with someone who worked for a company who sold podiatry equipment to the NHS. The NHS was her biggest customer and responsible for her many sales bonuses that she got.

all of the items she sold to the NHS could have been purchased by the NHS or even myself our yourself for half the price if not cheaper from the companies ebay shop

i have no idea why the NHS dosnt buy them from the same company at the much reduced price nor can i not understand why when the NHS is purchasing thousands upon thousands of things from a company on a regular basis that they dont get a discount that is cheaper than what you or I can buy them at from the very same company

its not just politics that is crippling our NHS is the severe mismanagement of NHS money or very shady backroom deals that allow the NHS to pay highly inflated prices,,

maybe im just plain wrong and someone at the NHS hasnt heard of ebay or the internet and thought to look for the item they need at a much cheaper price.

just to clarify in case people think the item the NHS pays for it is better quality or something ....It isnt its the exact same item , packaging the whole kaboom.The only difference is that the NHS pay twice if not more for the item

different NHS trusts around the country will pay a different price to the same company as it relates to the person of that trusts ability to negotiate but none pay the same or less than the ebay price or amazon they all pay more

Re: The Tories
 

When I was working I was involved in the Product User Group and I used to go to meetings where procurement of items was discussed and at that time, I know that we used to source items from different suppliers and we used to play companies off against one another to get better deals.
Obviously,I can't say what happens now as I have been out of the NHS for 12 years.
Shaving just a few pence off items that were used in their thousands meant a real saving.

Re: The Tories
 

Damage that was done then has been cumulative.....and it is difficult to restore the situation that was caused by the change in GP contracts and the PFI because these both have really deep and damaging long term effects.
All political parties need to stop using the NHS as a football and something to slag each other off for.
The general public also need to be educated to,take more responsibility for their own health.....not everything in life can be cured with a pill.

Re: The Tories
 

my understanding is that these companies the NHS get quotes from go to the same conferences and go out socializing together after the conference day is over.Here is where they get each other drunk in the hope that lips become loose and contacts , prices etc are slipped out

as far as i could make out from what i was told the NHS gets visited by reps from medical companies and yes the NHS procurement team will negotiate a price but that will only be between a small number of reps from a small number of companies

what they wont do is look outside the box or indeed directly at the company selling to them and simply purchase the items they require at a much lower price

there is something severely wrong when a company can sell something for lets say £10 to the NHS that a person sat at home can buy for £5 from the exact same company from the exact same warehouse

it seems to me that when selling to the NHS prices are over inflated because its government footing the bill.The worrying part is that i can figure out how to buy things cheaper yet people employed and entrusted with NHS money cant

Re: The Tories
 

Well, it didn't use to be like that.
I used to see reps, I used to go out to companies to see their products and I was involved in brokering deals.....I would bring samples back to the Group and we would determine which was best value.
This was because at the time our unit had a budget and I tried my best to stay in the budget.
We didn't use agency staff either, we had a bank of our own nurses who knew the ward and the patients..this was by far the most effective use of resources.

Re: The Tories
 

lol i can only say it as i saw it but my then partner would travel the country visiting various NHS trusts leaving samples when needed but the majority of visits were just checking in on them and seeing if they wanted anything else or making sure they were happy with the product and not thinking of going to a rival company

conferences would be held where they would have a stall and people from the NHS and private sector would visit these stalls or stands to view upcoming products etc

the NHS as far as i am aware didnt go out looking for better deals they quite happily say and waited for the deals to come to them

like i said earlier its not just politics that is destroying our NHS its the high wastage of money and although it means yet another pen pusher there should be an independent body asking why money is been wasted in the way i have highlighted and most likely many other aspects.

were not taking about an odd fiver here and there on just one item alone hundreds of thousands of fivers are been wasted

Re: The Tories
 

PFI- between 1997 and 2008 90% of all hospital construction was funded by PFI.
The NHS now owes £80 billion and is paying over £2 billion in annual repayments. By 2017/8 the repayments are expected to rise to £10 billion as they are linked to inflation and the maintenance cost, set by and carried out by the PFI suppliers. Total cost £301 billion on 30 year contracts!
Some trusts will have paid up to 12 times what the hospital cost by the time they've finished, including maintenance.
If I offered you a £15,000 car on HP and told you the total cost would be £180,000 would you snatch my hand off? Especially if you were left with a 30 year old car?

The Labour Gov could have borrowed the money quite cheaply but that would have showed on the balance sheet, PFI didn't(And the cupboard was still bare as that note said).
The ConDems carried on and it looks like the Tories will.

It's a sin!

In the meantime some already rich investors are guaranteed to get much richer over the next 30 years.

Until some very hard men(and women) are given a free hand to sort the NHS out from top to bottom things will continue to get worse and more and more of our taxes will vanish into the mouth of a deteriorating service.

But no Government has had, or will have, the gonads to allow that.

Re: The Tories
 

Just a small point Cashy but an important one. The White Paper that created the NHS was drawn up by the Minister of Health in 1944 and was implemented in '47 or thereabouts by the Labour Government.
However, the Minister of Health in 1944 was a Tory - this is a matter of record.
So even though it was a coalition government in '44 one can argue that the NHS was the creation of the Tory Party

Re: The Tories
 

This video of a programme made by the BBC for the 60th anniversary of the NHS is worth watching .

It shows what can be done when there are politicians with principles , fire in their bellies and a deep concern for the poor .

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ywP8wjfOx4

Re: The Tories
 

Yes, but where are those politicians now JCB....It seems to me that most politicians ask not what they can do for us, but what they can do for themselves.

And I agree with Gordon, that until someone with the cojones tackles the root cause of problems (rather than just tinkering round the does and offering the sound bites that seem to show the electorate that they are concerned about the health of the NHS) then things are not going to improve.
What would I like to see that would make a vast difference.
I would like to see the debt to the providers of PFI wiped out. I would like to see a return to in house provision of support services.
I would like to see the use of agency nurses and doctors strictly curtailed.....maybe even stopped altogether....unless of course the services were at a much lower(more reasonable) cost.
I would like to see suppliers of consumables to the NHS have their prices capped at a profit of say 10%.
I would like to see GP's having to provide a continuity of care and doing their own practices weekend and evening cover.....it is not beyond the brains of the practice managers to work out a fair and equitable rota for such a development. It might cause howls of protest from GP's but it would relieve the pressure on A&E departments and would be safer for patients to have someone who knows their history looking after them.
I would like to see patients who book an appointment with a GP fined if they miss that appointment without just cause(death or hospital admission being just cause)
Am I going to live long enough to see any of this?
I really really doubt it

Re: The Tories
 

perhaps if MPs had to use the nhs and wait like the public do to get treatment or diagnosed they may look after the NHS a little better..

Re: The Tories
 

Wicked man! Doing that to poor ol' Cashy! :D

Re: The Tories
 

If PFI had not been introduced there would be a great deal more money for the running of the NHS. Am I correct in thinking that it was Labour who introduced PFI?
I cannot understand why hospitals have to use Agency staff rather than employ staff as it much more expensive to use Agency staff?

Re: The Tories
 

Unfortunately , Margaret , they are an extinct species .

The longest serving Labour leader ( 1935-1955 ) , Clement Attlee , was the greatest Prime Minister ( 1945-1951 ) of my lifetime .

In difficult times he presided over a Government whose achievements were to make this country more just and fairer than at any time in its history .

He wouldn't stand a chance if he were to put up for Labour leader today .

The press would have a field day with this left-wing socialist .

He had no flair . He had no charisma . He was no good at public relations .

But what he did have was a steely determination based on the traditional values of the Labour Party to pursue policies which were unashamedly Socialist . The 1945 Labour manifesto said : " The Labour Party is a Socialist Party, and proud of it. Its ultimate purpose at home is the establishment of the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain - free, democratic, efficient, progressive, public-spirited, its material resources organised in the service of the British people. "

When the electorate returned a Conservative Government in 1951 , Labour still succeeded in gaining 48.8% of the national vote compared to the 44.3% achieved by the Conservatives .

Ever since Socialism within the Labour Party has been in decline .


Labour Prime Ministers , Harold Wilson , Jim Callaghan , Tony Blair , Gordon Brown , have been more concerned about getting Labour into power with little concern about what to do when in power . The result has been Conservative Labour Governments devoid of traditional Labour Party values and policies .

I see no possibility of the Labour Party being resurrected . New Labour , call it what you will , is here to stay , so we had better get used to it .

I don't like to say that , but it just happens to be the case .

Re: The Tories
 

As I understand it, the NHS has different budgets for agency staff and full time staff, and as stupid as it seems, they can`t/won`t transfer some of the budget for agency staff to the budget for full time staff.

Re: The Tories
 

The PFI was government backed legalised extortion that put money into the pockets of large and influential companies....and it was the New Labour party that thought this was a good idea because it allowed for the building of facilities without them appearing on the 'lending' balance sheet......making it look like there was no debt involved when the debt was undefined.
Would you take on a mortgage that you didn't know how much you were going to required to pay back...and being told that you could only have your house repairs done at extortionate costs by the mortgage lender? No of course you wouldn't.
And that is why Labour should never again hold the purse strings of this country.

Re: The Tories
 

If you think the Blair/Brown government didn't do something similar you're in for a shock.

Re: The Tories
 

If yeh read the thread properly you would be.:rolleyes:

Re: The Tories
 

Interesting fact I picked up a couple of days ago-

A typical NHS Trust Fund employs 4.5 times as many managers, administrators and support staff per nurse as a private Trust Fund does. How's that for efficiency?

Having been in both I know which I'd prefer!

Re: The Tories
 

I've been retired 15 years thus can't comment on current practices. However, my experiences of various NHS Estate Departments, due to our being an approved provider and/or installer of equipment for several decades, it was a sad fact that time management of NHS In-House tradesmen wasn't considered important. For example a scheduled contract issued by senior management would stipulate date of commencement of job to last five days working in conjunction with in-house employees The reality would be that the finish date could take anything up to another two weeks because in-house employees would down tools whenever the NHS foreman/manager was called away; ditto the in-house brickie wouldn't carry on when his labourer went to collect his wages and vice versa. Unbelievably, we had one contract where the NHS in-house workers had only laid a course of seven bricks in one day due to mis-management interruptions !! Not one thought given to the fact that the public were paying for NHS employees to stand idle.