BBC Radio 4: "At 1pm Mark Mardell asks whether democracy has had its day".
China would agree there are better alternatives. While I think it essential all systems have to continually justify themselves, I find the swiftness of some in the face of pretty recent events to give up on democracy saddening and a little petty.
BBC Radio 4: "At 1pm Mark Mardell asks whether democracy has had its day".
The problem is as history proves without democracy if you have a government, dictator or absolute monarch who ignore the will of the people the end result is a revolution or civil war
I'll scream the next time someone says Rudd's majority is a barrier to her being leader. If she becomes leader, one of her colleagues will step aside and allow her to be selected for a safe seat. Nick Soames maybe.
Where will the extra money come from? France spends more on health than we do.
The majority of the difference between the UK and France in terms of paying for health care comes from private health insurance paid by employers and employees. 85% of French citizens have some form of additional private insurance over and above what they pay to the Government. This accounts for about 23% of all health spending.
It's always amazing that the debate on the NHS is always presented as its the NHS as it is now or it's a US style free for all privatised system. Yet no one ever suggests looking at models in much of Europe that seem to work.
The NHS doesn't seem to be sustainable in its current form long term - but no government would have the guts to move towards the sort of socialised insurance models that exist in many other nations and generally work quite well. The NHS isn't free - someone has to pay for it.
Agree entirely. I disagree with those on the right in the UK who try to claim the US system is better. They are, in my opinion, simply wrong. But there are many systems in Europe and around the world that are better because they are not tied to one model of both finance and distribution of services. Large parts of the French system are provided by private companies working within strict guidelines on costs and service provision. The system works. It only seems to be in the UK that we are so blinded by the NHS religion that we cannot develop a better system.
Absolutely agree. The US system is as broken as the British system unless you have a “Cadillac” policy, the whole thing is held to ransom by the drug companies and lawyers - the average doctor pays something like $250k a year in professional indemnity insurance premiums.
One political advantage of my idea to increase private insurance among the working, is that is might have some effect on the religious worship of the NHS and open people’s minds to the idea of alternate ways of doing things. Anyone who’s lived abroad will know that the NHS isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
It's not already in crisis? Makes A Change. Dr foxinsox has said he's not the worst health secretary we've had, so he might handle it ok.
I don't think Hunt particularly bad, but the stretch on resources term prospects of medicine in the UK.
The average GP gets an average £90 000 a year, comfortably in the top 10% of earners and just under 4 times the average UK salary.
There are far more things to be worried about than medics.
Yet, GP's have very poor morale and either quit or go There is much that could be done to improve morale and often quite cheaply. I am not agitating for a pay rise.
GPs are amongst the top earners in the UK with the most holiday, I have little time for complaints from them.
Having spent a lifetime in and around the NHS and now being a (far too frequent) patient ..... not that bad really....... I agree with Dr Fox. Most ..... pretty well all ..... nce even if the necessity wasn’t!
Well the only way to cut down on demand in the NHS eally looking to that yet
I’ve been waiting for years to see a Chancellor ght.
That takes us towards the disastrous US system, which we truly must do everything to avoid.
If we had the US system all healthcare treatment would require having an insurance policy unless you were elderly in which case you would get Medicare or very poor in which case you might get Medicaid.
You mean the most expensive system in the World?
I was not advocating the US model, more the French or Australian model.
Though the best US healthcare for those who can afford it is much better than that provided in the NHS.
Where will the extra money come from? France spends more on health than we do.
In France taking out government provided health insurance is compulsory for employees and the government refunds 70% of the costs of most GP visits and 100% for serious complaints. You can also take out private health insurance on top of that.
We have NICs; they have compulsory insurance. Their way is more expensive.
Yes and NICs were originally supposed to fund healthcare
The NHS crisis is not so much financial as demographic. Older people have much greater health needs and Britain continues to get older. NHS services will need to be cut or charges will need to be introduced or other public services will need to be cut or tax will need to go up. Or, more likely, a combination of all of these.
Ditto the pensions crisis. Ours is a rapidly ageing world (Sub-Saharan Africa excepted).
State euthanasia of the unborn child may be a factor: Some people may get public-pensions from the practice but most of the populus will inevitably suffer*. Are you happy?
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
BBC Radio 4: "At 1pm Mark Mardell asks whether democracy has had its day".
China would agree there are better alternatives. While I think it essential all systems have to continually justify themselves, I find the swiftness of some in the face of pretty recent events to give up on democracy saddening and a little petty.
It's only just occurred to some people that in a democracy, sometimes your side loses.
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
I wonder how much higher the unemployment rate would be, or the rate of underemployment.
I'll scream the next time someone says Rudd's majority is a barrier to her being leader. If she becomes leader, one of her colleagues will step aside and allow her to be selected for a safe seat. Nick Soames maybe.
Tory rules prevent Amber Rudd doing a chicken run like that.
She’d be only allowed to switch seats if her seat is substantially altered by boundary changes.
I'll scream the next time someone says Rudd's majority is a barrier to her being leader. If she becomes leader, one of her colleagues will step aside and allow her to be selected for a safe seat. Nick Soames maybe.
Tory rules prevent Amber Rudd doing a chicken run like that.
She’d be only allowed to switch seats if her seat is substantially altered by boundary changes.
She shouldn't worry about it. If she doesn't retain her seat she could be PM from the Lords.
Where will the extra money come from? France spends more on health than we do.
The majority of the difference between the UK and France in terms of paying for health care comes from private health insurance paid by employers and employees. 85% of French citizens have some form of additional private insurance over and above what they pay to the Government. This accounts for about 23% of all health spending.
It's always amazing that the debate on the NHS is always presented as its the NHS as it is now or it's a US style free for all privatised system. Yet no one ever suggests looking at models in much of Europe that seem to work.
The NHS doesn't seem to be sustainable in its current form long term - but no government would have the guts to move towards the sort of socialised insurance models that exist in many other nations and generally work quite well. The NHS isn't free - someone has to pay for it.
Agree entirely. I disagree with those on the right in the UK who try to claim the US system is better. They are, in my opinion, simply wrong. But there are many systems in Europe and around the world that are better because they are not tied to one model of both finance and distribution of services. Large parts of the French system are provided by private companies working within strict guidelines on costs and service provision. The system works. It only seems to be in the UK that we are so blinded by the NHS religion that we cannot develop a better system.
Absolutely agree. The US system is as broken as the British system unless you have a “Cadillac” policy, the whole thing is held to ransom by the drug companies and lawyers - the average doctor pays something like $250k a year in professional indemnity insurance premiums.
One political advantage of my idea to increase private insurance among the working, is that is might have some effect on the religious worship of the NHS and open people’s minds to the idea of alternate ways of doing things. Anyone who’s lived abroad will know that the NHS isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
One effect is likely to occur is that the working (and Labour inclined) young will have less incentive to suport an NHS that mostly serves Tory voting pensioners. Such is the way the tectonic plates of politics shift when the age divide becomes the faultline rather than social class.
Private medicine in the UK is very restricted in range though. It would be a major shift to have comprehensive private hospitals.
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
How’s about the wages of county council chief execs, NHS trust directors and university vice-chancellors by comparison?
We should care more about those we pay from public funds, than those who contribute massively to the Exchequer.
One effect is likely to occur is that the working (and Labour inclined) young will have less incentive to suport an NHS that mostly serves Tory voting pensioners. Such is the way the tectonic plates of politics shift when the age divide becomes the faultline rather than social class.
Private medicine in the UK is very restricted in range though. It would be a major shift to have comprehensive private hospitals.
The main barrier to that being that, as soon as it is suggested, the fanatics on one side scream about destroying the NHS whist the fanatics on the other start trying to water down Government oversight. Both sides are equally bad - although there are far more of the former than the latter - and both ensure we will continue with a very substandard health system.
I'll scream the next time someone says Rudd's majority is a barrier to her being leader. If she becomes leader, one of her colleagues will step aside and allow her to be selected for a safe seat. Nick Soames maybe.
Tory rules prevent Amber Rudd doing a chicken run like that.
She’d be only allowed to switch seats if her seat is substantially altered by boundary changes.
Rules shmules. We weren't supposed to have a general election this year, but that didn't prove much of a barrier to Mrs May engineering one. The Tories could easily bend or change the rules to make allowance for this special case.
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
Disappointed that Corbyn has started borrowing more from Trump. All this talk of Elites of which Corbyn has been part for years.
I'll scream the next time someone says Rudd's majority is a barrier to her being leader. If she becomes leader, one of her colleagues will step aside and allow her to be selected for a safe seat. Nick Soames maybe.
Tory rules prevent Amber Rudd doing a chicken run like that.
She’d be only allowed to switch seats if her seat is substantially altered by boundary changes.
Rules shmules. We weren't supposed to have a general election this year, but that didn't prove much of a barrier to Mrs May engineering one. The Tories could easily bend or change the rules to make allowance for this special case.
Mrs May stuck to the rules to have an election this year.
OT Many thanks for two recent tips here. I can't remember who gave them, but thanks.
Next German Chancellor: I got on Jens Spahn early yesterday at 50s. Now 7 on Betfair. Next Russian President: I got lots on Putin at 1.06. Still available at 1.05.
fingers cross Merkel will go, my bank balance would be pleased...
Doubt it. The Spahn bet was an excellent trading bet but AFAIK the only person supporting Spahn is the deputy leader of the FDP. Even Spahn isn't trying for it. Betfair has a lot of punters who would like Merkel to go and bet on any rumour that she might.
Indeed, I have not-Merkel at about 15/1.
Crunch talks with the SPD start in a week, plus the SPD's own vote.
I'll scream the next time someone says Rudd's majority is a barrier to her being leader. If she becomes leader, one of her colleagues will step aside and allow her to be selected for a safe seat. Nick Soames maybe.
Tory rules prevent Amber Rudd doing a chicken run like that.
She’d be only allowed to switch seats if her seat is substantially altered by boundary changes.
Rules shmules. We weren't supposed to have a general election this year, but that didn't prove much of a barrier to Mrs May engineering one. The Tories could easily bend or change the rules to make allowance for this special case.
Mrs May stuck to the rules to have an election this year.
She stuck to the rule that let the government change the rules is what she did
The NHS crisis is not so much financial as demographic. Older people have much greater health needs and Britain continues to get older. NHS services will need to be cut or charges will need to be introduced or other public services will need to be cut or tax will need to go up. Or, more likely, a combination of all of these.
A top surgeon told me that something like 70% of NHS spending is spent on people who are in the last six months of their life. This applies whether people are living until an average age of 70 or an average age of 90.
This means that as the average age of those dying has increased, NHS spending on those dying (the bulk of spending) has been push back in time. Now the average age of dying has stopped increasing this element of spending will stop being deferred.
However, there is a question about whether spending most on those dying would be better spent on preventing illness amongst the younger people who have many years still left to live - assuming you can tell those who are within the last six months of life.
I'll scream the next time someone says Rudd's majority is a barrier to her being leader. If she becomes leader, one of her colleagues will step aside and allow her to be selected for a safe seat. Nick Soames maybe.
Tory rules prevent Amber Rudd doing a chicken run like that.
She’d be only allowed to switch seats if her seat is substantially altered by boundary changes.
Rules shmules. We weren't supposed to have a general election this year, but that didn't prove much of a barrier to Mrs May engineering one. The Tories could easily bend or change the rules to make allowance for this special case.
The GE did not involve bending or changing the rules. I don't know what the Tory rules say and how that would be a barrier to Rudd trying to switch to safer seat in that scenario, but if they don't allow it, that would not be the same as the GE, as the Fixed Terms Act has clear rules on permitting an early election and those were followed.
I'll scream the next time someone says Rudd's majority is a barrier to her being leader. If she becomes leader, one of her colleagues will step aside and allow her to be selected for a safe seat. Nick Soames maybe.
Tory rules prevent Amber Rudd doing a chicken run like that.
She’d be only allowed to switch seats if her seat is substantially altered by boundary changes.
Rules shmules. We weren't supposed to have a general election this year, but that didn't prove much of a barrier to Mrs May engineering one. The Tories could easily bend or change the rules to make allowance for this special case.
The Labour party voted with the government to have an election.
The NHS crisis is not so much financial as demographic. Older people have much greater health needs and Britain continues to get older. NHS services will need to be cut or charges will need to be introduced or other public services will need to be cut or tax will need to go up. Or, more likely, a combination of all of these.
A top surgeon told me that something like 70% of NHS spending is spent on people who are in the last six months of their life. This applies whether people are living until an average age of 70 or an average age of 90.
This means that as the average age of those dying has increased, NHS spending on those dying (the bulk of spending) has been push back in time. Now the average age of dying has stopped increasing this element of spending will stop being deferred.
However, there is a question about whether spending most on those dying would be better spent on preventing illness amongst the younger people who have many years still left to live - assuming you can tell those who are within the last six months of life.
"A top surgeon told me that something like 70% of NHS spending is spent on people who are in the last six months of their life."
I think I'm going to need a source for that, Bob.
10% of the NHS budget is attributable to diabetes, i.e. a chronic condition not (particularly) associated with those close to death.
The NHS crisis is not so much financial as demographic. Older people have much greater health needs and Britain continues to get older. NHS services will need to be cut or charges will need to be introduced or other public services will need to be cut or tax will need to go up. Or, more likely, a combination of all of these.
Ditto the pensions crisis. Ours is a rapidly ageing world (Sub-Saharan Africa excepted).
When my parents were born there were only 2 billion people in the world and now there are approaching 8 billion. Poor people have shorter life expectancy and are more likely to need medical care more often and earlier. Our problem isn't so much an ageing world as an overpopulated one with the fastest population growth in the most deprived nations on the planet leading to potential upheaval and mass migration flows.
That of course is humanity's challenge. And it has impacts on the planet too - would climate change be such a big issue if there were only 2 billion humans consuming resources?
Where will the extra money come from? France spends more on health than we do.
The majority of the difference between the UK and France in terms of paying for health care comes from private health insurance paid by employers and employees. 85% of French citizens have some form of additional private insurance over and above what they pay to the Government. This accounts for about 23% of all health spending.
It's always amazing that the debate on the NHS is always presented as its the NHS as it is now or it's a US style free for all privatised system. Yet no one ever suggests looking at models in much of Europe that seem to work.
The NHS doesn't seem to be sustainable in its current form long term - but no government would have the guts to move towards the sort of socialised insurance models that exist in many other nations and generally work quite well. The NHS isn't free - someone has to pay for it.
Agree entirely. I disagree with those on the right in the UK who try to claim the US system is better. They are, in my opinion, simply wrong. But there are many systems in Europe and around the world that are better because they are not tied to one model of both finance and distribution of services. Large parts of the French system are provided by private companies working within strict guidelines on costs and service provision. The system works. It only seems to be in the UK that we are so blinded by the NHS religion that we cannot develop a better system.
Like so many other parts of our creaking country, the NHS suffers because it is impossible to take a long-term view of it. What we need is a consensus around how it should develop and be funded. But we will never get it, because every four or five years we have a FPTP election which is decided in 100 or so constituencies where certain kinds of swing voter hold sway. Politically, there is just no way that the NHS can ever be reformed so that it looks a lot more like the very high-standard health services you see in many parts of mainland Europe.
It was 67 years ago today when my uncle Frank told me that if I stood on the corner of Spencer Street and Gower Street in Oldham I would see a man go by with as many noses as days left in the year.
I ran outside, very excited, to see this extraordinary man. I saw many men with one nose but after a couple of hours standing in the cold I came back home disappointed to be greeted by laughter by everyone including my parents and grandparents. I've never forgotten it.
I'll scream the next time someone says Rudd's majority is a barrier to her being leader. If she becomes leader, one of her colleagues will step aside and allow her to be selected for a safe seat. Nick Soames maybe.
Tory rules prevent Amber Rudd doing a chicken run like that.
She’d be only allowed to switch seats if her seat is substantially altered by boundary changes.
Rules shmules. We weren't supposed to have a general election this year, but that didn't prove much of a barrier to Mrs May engineering one. The Tories could easily bend or change the rules to make allowance for this special case.
The GE did not involve bending or changing the rules. I don't know what the Tory rules say and how that would be a barrier to Rudd trying to switch to safer seat in that scenario, but if they don't allow it, that would not be the same as the GE, as the Fixed Terms Act has clear rules on permitting an early election and those were followed.
Yes they were followed, but right up until May made her announcement, most commentators, on here and elsewhere, were sceptical that anyone would abuse the law in that way in order to call an early general election. And anyway, that's a law; the Tory Party rules are just that: rules. I'm sure people in Rudd's camp are in talks with the party mandarins to find a way of getting her out of Hastings, either by changing the rules (which I can't imagine anyone in the party opposing) or finding a loophole.
Where will the extra money come from? France spends more on health than we do.
The majority of the difference between the UK and France in terms of paying for health care comes from private health insurance paid by employers and employees. 85% of French citizens have some form of additional private insurance over and above what they pay to the Government. This accounts for about 23% of all health spending.
It's always amazing that the debate on the NHS is always presented as its the NHS as it is now or it's a US style free for all privatised system. Yet no one ever suggests looking at models in much of Europe that seem to work.
The NHS doesn't seem to be sustainable in its current form long term - but no government would have the guts to move towards the sort of socialised insurance models that exist in many other nations and generally work quite well. The NHS isn't free - someone has to pay for it.
Agree entirely. I disagree with those on the right in the UK who try to claim the US system is better. They are, in my opinion, simply wrong. But there are many systems in Europe and around the world that are better because they are not tied to one model of both finance and distribution of services. Large parts of the French system are provided by private companies working within strict guidelines on costs and service provision. The system works. It only seems to be in the UK that we are so blinded by the NHS religion that we cannot develop a better system.
Like so many other parts of our creaking country, the NHS suffers because it is impossible to take a long-term view of it. What we need is a consensus around how it should develop and be funded. But we will never get it, because every four or five years we have a FPTP election which is decided in 100 or so constituencies where certain kinds of swing voter hold sway. Politically, there is just no way that the NHS can ever be reformed so that it looks a lot more like the very high-standard health services you see in many parts of mainland Europe.
A depressing thought, but accurate. And every now and then they'll make noises about consensus, but these things take years to sort out anyway, and an election is up, or could be up at any time, and its back to partisan nonsense.
I'll scream the next time someone says Rudd's majority is a barrier to her being leader. If she becomes leader, one of her colleagues will step aside and allow her to be selected for a safe seat. Nick Soames maybe.
Tory rules prevent Amber Rudd doing a chicken run like that.
She’d be only allowed to switch seats if her seat is substantially altered by boundary changes.
Rules shmules. We weren't supposed to have a general election this year, but that didn't prove much of a barrier to Mrs May engineering one. The Tories could easily bend or change the rules to make allowance for this special case.
Mrs May stuck to the rules to have an election this year.
She stuck to the rule that let the government change the rules is what she did
Ok, what specific rule is that, and which particular rule did she change? Link in both cases, please.
I'll scream the next time someone says Rudd's majority is a barrier to her being leader. If she becomes leader, one of her colleagues will step aside and allow her to be selected for a safe seat. Nick Soames maybe.
Tory rules prevent Amber Rudd doing a chicken run like that.
She’d be only allowed to switch seats if her seat is substantially altered by boundary changes.
Rules shmules. We weren't supposed to have a general election this year, but that didn't prove much of a barrier to Mrs May engineering one. The Tories could easily bend or change the rules to make allowance for this special case.
The GE did not involve bending or changing the rules. I don't know what the Tory rules say and how that would be a barrier to Rudd trying to switch to safer seat in that scenario, but if they don't allow it, that would not be the same as the GE, as the Fixed Terms Act has clear rules on permitting an early election and those were followed.
Yes they were followed, but right up until May made her announcement, most commentators, on here and elsewhere, were sceptical that anyone would abuse the law in that way in order to call an early general election..
I certainly take your point about the Tories probably being able to find a way to change things in their own rules if they wanted, but I still have take issue with your characterisation of the early GE. The law was not abused, it was followed. And since the opposition voted for it, they certainly could not credibly complain about May's reasoning for calling for an early GE (that is, that she thought she would win big) since they backed having it too (admittedly the politics of saying no would have been tricky to handle).
A lot of people were skeptical that she would call for an early GE, or that she should call for one, but the law permitted an early GE if 2/3 of house vote for it, and they did, there was no abuse of the law involved.
It would be bad look for Rudd though to become leader, and then be shown to be so frit in her own seat that she jumped ship.
Where will the extra money come from? France spends more on health than we do.
The majority of the difference between the UK and France in terms of paying for health care comes from private health insurance paid by employers and employees. 85% of French citizens have some form of additional private insurance over and above what they pay to the Government. This accounts for about 23% of all health spending.
Well worth it for a much better health system and most people would be fine with it.
It was 67 years ago today when my uncle Frank told me that if I stood on the corner of Spencer Street and Gower Street in Oldham I would see a man go by with as many noses as days left in the year.
I ran outside, very excited, to see this extraordinary man. I saw many men with one nose but after a couple of hours standing in the cold I came back home disappointed to be greeted by laughter by everyone including my parents and grandparents. I've never forgotten it.
Where will the extra money come from? France spends more on health than we do.
The majority of the difference between the UK and France in terms of paying for health care comes from private health insurance paid by employers and employees. 85% of French citizens have some form of additional private insurance over and above what they pay to the Government. This accounts for about 23% of all health spending.
It's always amazing that the debate on the NHS is always presented as its the NHS as it is now or it's a US style free for all privatised system. Yet no one ever suggests looking at models in much of Europe that seem to work.
The NHS doesn't seem to be sustainable in its current form long term - but no government would have the guts to move towards the sort of socialised insurance models that exist in many other nations and generally work quite well. The NHS isn't free - someone has to pay for it.
Agree entirely. I disagree with those on the right in the UK who try to claim the US system is better. They are, in my opinion, simply wrong. But there are many systems in Europe and around the world that are better because they are not tied to one model of both finance and distribution of services. Large parts of the French system are provided by private companies working within strict guidelines on costs and service provision. The system works. It only seems to be in the UK that we are so blinded by the NHS religion that we cannot develop a better system.
Absolutely agree. The US system is as broken as the British system unless you have a “Cadillac” policy, the whole thing is held to ransom by the drug companies and lawyers - the average doctor pays something like $250k a year in professional indemnity insurance premiums.
One political advantage of my idea to increase private insurance among the working, is that is might have some effect on the religious worship of the NHS and open people’s minds to the idea of alternate ways of doing things. Anyone who’s lived abroad will know that the NHS isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
There is a tension in the UK between those who want local general hospitals so patients get treated locally and those who want specialist hospitals to which patients have to travel further. It is claimed the specialist hospitals will provide higher quality care at lower cost.
Local MPS resist closure of the l;ocal general hospital on the assumption that their constituents don't want to travel further away to get better quality treatment. Constituents care less about the cost because they don't face a bill themselves other than through general taxation.
The NHS crisis is not so much financial as demographic. Older people have much greater health needs and Britain continues to get older. NHS services will need to be cut or charges will need to be introduced or other public services will need to be cut or tax will need to go up. Or, more likely, a combination of all of these.
Ditto the pensions crisis. Ours is a rapidly ageing world (Sub-Saharan Africa excepted).
When my parents were born there were only 2 billion people in the world and now there are approaching 8 billion. Poor people have shorter life expectancy and are more likely to need medical care more often and earlier. Our problem isn't so much an ageing world as an overpopulated one with the fastest population growth in the most deprived nations on the planet leading to potential upheaval and mass migration flows.
That of course is humanity's challenge. And it has impacts on the planet too - would climate change be such a big issue if there were only 2 billion humans consuming resources?
Related to this, here's an interesting piece on the universe consequences of foreign aid reducing the impacts of famine etc on Africa.
Where will the extra money come from? France spends more on health than we do.
The majority of the difference between the UK and France in terms of paying for health care comes from private health insurance paid by employers and employees. 85% of French citizens have some form of additional private insurance over and above what they pay to the Government. This accounts for about 23% of all health spending.
It's always amazing that the debate on the NHS is always presented as its the NHS as it is now or it's a US style free for all privatised system. Yet no one ever suggests looking at models in much of Europe that seem to work.
The NHS doesn't seem to be sustainable in its current form long term - but no government would have the guts to move towards the sort of socialised insurance models that exist in many other nations and generally work quite well. The NHS isn't free - someone has to pay for it.
Agree entirely. I disagree with those on the right in the UK who try to claim the US system is better. They are, in my opinion, simply wrong. But there are many systems in Europe and around the world that are better because they are not tied to one model of both finance and distribution of services. Large parts of the French system are provided by private companies working within strict guidelines on costs and service provision. The system works. It only seems to be in the UK that we are so blinded by the NHS religion that we cannot develop a better system.
Like so many other parts of our creaking country, the NHS suffers because it is impossible to take a long-term view of it. What we need is a consensus around how it should develop and be funded. But we will never get it, because every four or five years we have a FPTP election which is decided in 100 or so constituencies where certain kinds of swing voter hold sway. Politically, there is just no way that the NHS can ever be reformed so that it looks a lot more like the very high-standard health services you see in many parts of mainland Europe.
A depressing thought, but accurate. And every now and then they'll make noises about consensus, but these things take years to sort out anyway, and an election is up, or could be up at any time, and its back to partisan nonsense.
We saw it with funding dementia care in both 2010 and in June - Death taxes and Dementia Taxes. Pathetic and hugely damaging. Our political system does not allow for long-termism.
It's always amazing that the debate on the NHS is always presented as its the NHS as it is now or it's a US style free for all privatised system. Yet no one ever suggests looking at models in much of Europe that seem to work.
The NHS doesn't seem to be sustainable in its current form long term - but no government would have the guts to move towards the sort of socialised insurance models that exist in many other nations and generally work quite well. The NHS isn't free - someone has to pay for it.
Agree entirely. I disagree with those on the right in the UK who try to claim the US system is better. They are, in my opinion, simply wrong. But there are many systems in Europe and around the world that are better because they are not tied to one model of both finance and distribution of services. Large parts of the French system are provided by private companies working within strict guidelines on costs and service provision. The system works. It only seems to be in the UK that we are so blinded by the NHS religion that we cannot develop a better system.
Absolutely agree. The US system is as broken as the British system unless you have a “Cadillac” policy, the whole thing is held to ransom by the drug companies and lawyers - the average doctor pays something like $250k a year in professional indemnity insurance premiums.
One political advantage of my idea to increase private insurance among the working, is that is might have some effect on the religious worship of the NHS and open people’s minds to the idea of alternate ways of doing things. Anyone who’s lived abroad will know that the NHS isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
One effect is likely to occur is that the working (and Labour inclined) young will have less incentive to suport an NHS that mostly serves Tory voting pensioners. Such is the way the tectonic plates of politics shift when the age divide becomes the faultline rather than social class.
Private medicine in the UK is very restricted in range though. It would be a major shift to have comprehensive private hospitals.
I think it will take an awfully long time before the Labour-supporting young give up on the idea of the NHS!
I’m not too sure there would be the demand for private general hospitals, except in half a dozen larger cities. What’s more likely is more private wards attached to NHS hospitals, with the private companies renting facilities and capital equipment out of hours providing extra income for the NHS, and expansion of small private clinics offering GP and outpatient treatment.
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
The NHS crisis is not so much financial as demographic. Older people have much greater health needs and Britain continues to get older. NHS services will need to be cut or charges will need to be introduced or other public services will need to be cut or tax will need to go up. Or, more likely, a combination of all of these.
A top surgeon told me that something like 70% of NHS spending is spent on people who are in the last six months of their life. This applies whether people are living until an average age of 70 or an average age of 90.
This means that as the average age of those dying has increased, NHS spending on those dying (the bulk of spending) has been push back in time. Now the average age of dying has stopped increasing this element of spending will stop being deferred.
However, there is a question about whether spending most on those dying would be better spent on preventing illness amongst the younger people who have many years still left to live - assuming you can tell those who are within the last six months of life.
"A top surgeon told me that something like 70% of NHS spending is spent on people who are in the last six months of their life."
I think I'm going to need a source for that, Bob.
10% of the NHS budget is attributable to diabetes, i.e. a chronic condition not (particularly) associated with those close to death.
The source was the head surgeon at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford.
I'll scream the next time someone says Rudd's majority is a barrier to her being leader. If she becomes leader, one of her colleagues will step aside and allow her to be selected for a safe seat. Nick Soames maybe.
Tory rules prevent Amber Rudd doing a chicken run like that.
She’d be only allowed to switch seats if her seat is substantially altered by boundary changes.
Rules shmules. We weren't supposed to have a general election this year, but that didn't prove much of a barrier to Mrs May engineering one. The Tories could easily bend or change the rules to make allowance for this special case.
The GE did not involve bending or changing the rules. I don't know what the Tory rules say and how that would be a barrier to Rudd trying to switch to safer seat in that scenario, but if they don't allow it, that would not be the same as the GE, as the Fixed Terms Act has clear rules on permitting an early election and those were followed.
Yes they were followed, but right up until May made her announcement, most commentators, on here and elsewhere, were sceptical that anyone would abuse the law in that way in order to call an early general election..
I certainly take your point about the Tories probably being able to find a way to change things in their own rules if they wanted, but I still have take issue with your characterisation of the early GE. The law was not abused, it was followed.
This is disingenuous. Go back and read PB and other forums if your memory is weak. The law was not intended to be used in the way that May used it, and most people doubted that she (or anyone else) would try such a manoeuvre.
It would be bad look for Rudd though to become leader, and then be shown to be so frit in her own seat that she jumped ship.
I think people would understand the situation alright - she can hardly go campaigning around the country if she needs to be campaigning in her constituency.
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
One in a million, it is all well fixed with their cronies and majority of shareholder shave no say. You could as easily say policy in Scotland is down to voters when reality is the same , they count for nothing unless they luckily coincide with the 86% other opinion.
Where will the extra money come from? France spends more on health than we do.
It's always amazing that the debate on the NHS is always presented as its the NHS as it is now or it's a US style free for all privatised system. Yet no one ever suggests looking at models in much of Europe that seem to work.
The NHS doesn't seem to be sustainable in its current form long term - but no government would have the guts to move towards the sort of socialised insurance models that exist in many other nations and generally work quite well. The NHS isn't free - someone has to pay for it.
Agree entirely. I disagree with those on the right in the UK who try to claim the US system is better. They are, in my opinion, simply wrong. But there are many systems in Europe and around the world that are better because they are not tied to one model of both finance and distribution of services. Large parts of the French system are provided by private companies working within strict guidelines on costs and service provision. The system works. It only seems to be in the UK that we are so blinded by the NHS religion that we cannot develop a better system.
Like so many other parts of our creaking country, the NHS suffers because it is impossible to take a long-term view of it. What we need is a consensus around how it should develop and be funded. But we will never get it, because every four or five years we have a FPTP election which is decided in 100 or so constituencies where certain kinds of swing voter hold sway. Politically, there is just no way that the NHS can ever be reformed so that it looks a lot more like the very high-standard health services you see in many parts of mainland Europe.
A depressing thought, but accurate. And every now and then they'll make noises about consensus, but these things take years to sort out anyway, and an election is up, or could be up at any time, and its back to partisan nonsense.
We saw it with funding dementia care in both 2010 and in June - Death taxes and Dementia Taxes. Pathetic and hugely damaging. Our political system does not allow for long-termism.
Agree completely. Some sort of cross between public and private provision, payment and delivery that’s seen in most developed counties is what I’d go for, if only to stop health becoming the perennial political issue that it is in the UK and US.
If Mrs May is bold (yes, I know), the opening of a Royal Commission on the future of health and social care would be a great starting point.
I'll scream the next time someone says Rudd's majority is a barrier to her being leader. If she becomes leader, one of her colleagues will step aside and allow her to be selected for a safe seat. Nick Soames maybe.
Tory rules prevent Amber Rudd doing a chicken run like that.
She’d be only allowed to switch seats if her seat is substantially altered by boundary changes.
Rules shmules. We weren't supposed to have a general election this year, but that didn't prove much of a barrier to Mrs May engineering one. The Tories could easily bend or change the rules to make allowance for this special case.
The GE did not involve bending or changing the rules. I don't know what the Tory rules say and how that would be a barrier to Rudd trying to switch to safer seat in that scenario, but if they don't allow it, that would not be the same as the GE, as the Fixed Terms Act has clear rules on permitting an early election and those were followed.
Yes they were followed, but right up until May made her announcement, most commentators, on here and elsewhere, were sceptical that anyone would abuse the law in that way in order to call an early general election..
I certainly take your point about the Tories probably being able to find a way to change things in their own rules if they wanted, but I still have take issue with your characterisation of the early GE. The law was not abused, it was followed.
This is disingenuous. Go back and read PB and other forums if your memory is weak. The law was not intended to be used in the way that May used it, and most people doubted that she (or anyone else) would try such a manoeuvre.
It would be bad look for Rudd though to become leader, and then be shown to be so frit in her own seat that she jumped ship.
I think people would understand the situation alright - she can hardly go campaigning around the country if she needs to be campaigning in her constituency.
The only reason for the FTPA in the first place, was that Nick Clegg wanted to prevent Cameron from going to the Palace before 2015.
It was 67 years ago today when my uncle Frank told me that if I stood on the corner of Spencer Street and Gower Street in Oldham I would see a man go by with as many noses as days left in the year.
I ran outside, very excited, to see this extraordinary man. I saw many men with one nose but after a couple of hours standing in the cold I came back home disappointed to be greeted by laughter by everyone including my parents and grandparents. I've never forgotten it.
Magnificent!
My father once sent out a rather naive young assistant to get a verbal agreement stamp, and he spent three hours looking for one. But I think your Uncle Frank's is better.
This is disingenuous. Go back and read PB and other forums if your memory is weak. The law was not intended to be used in the way that May used it, and most people doubted that she (or anyone else) would try such a manoeuvre.
It would be bad look for Rudd though to become leader, and then be shown to be so frit in her own seat that she jumped ship.
I think people would understand the situation alright - she can hardly go campaigning around the country if she needs to be campaigning in her constituency.
I don't see how it is disingenuous in the slightest and I am insulted at the suggestion. For the record I disagreed with May's decision to call for an early GE. I thought it the wrong time for one, and her reason for changing her mind on calling for an early one was flimsy to say the least, it was for partisan advantage. But it is factually the case the law was not abused, and you are simply incorrect if you say that it was.
Section 2(1) of the Act states 'An early general election is to take place if a) the house of commons passes a motion in the form set out in subsection 2, and b) if the motion is passed on a division, the number of members who vote in favour of the motion is a number to or greater than two thirds of the Numbers of seats in the house (including vacant seats)'
That's what it says. If the house wants an early GE, it can vote to have it. And you call me disingenuous for accurately pointing out that the Act permits exactly what May did? I recall quite clearly that many many people did not like what was quite blatantly the real reason for the calling of the vote - giant poll leads for the Tories - but the law does not say you cannot use that as a reason to call for one, so 'the law wasn't meant to be used in that way' is just bullshit reasoning. The law doesn't saw they need to provide a reason. They should have had a better one, but when 522 MPs for vs 13 against follow the provisions of the Act to call an early GE, calling the law abused is ridiculous.
If you want to claim the spirit of the law was not followed, that's one thing, but even that is a stretch, since the spirit of the law was that if the commons thinks it is a good idea to have an early GE, it should have the power to call for one. Given parliamentary sovereignty, it is up to them, and they said, 'that's fine, Mrs May'. Including the opposition.
As for Rudd, some people would understand that, but the other reaction could be 'if she is worthy of leading the country, she should be able to win her constituency even if she cannot spend every day there campaigning'. PMs don't have to do all the campaigning themselves either, these things should be more team efforts.
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
As I recall it didn't stop him being paid though.
And even if shareholder votes were binding in practice as Malcolm says there is the issue that most really big companies are in practice owned by other big companies so there is always the potential for a stitch up.
- he is highly competent and experienced, and equipped to chair cabinet committees - he previously ran the Cabinet Office, very effectively, during the Cameron administration - he is knowledgeable about Europe, having previously been Europe Minister - he is in the middle ground on Europe, neither strong Remainer nor strong Leaver - having a Peer would avoid creating a successor threat to T May, and making the leadership candidates jealous
It was 67 years ago today when my uncle Frank told me that if I stood on the corner of Spencer Street and Gower Street in Oldham I would see a man go by with as many noses as days left in the year.
I ran outside, very excited, to see this extraordinary man. I saw many men with one nose but after a couple of hours standing in the cold I came back home disappointed to be greeted by laughter by everyone including my parents and grandparents. I've never forgotten it.
Magnificent!
My father once sent out a rather naive young assistant to get a verbal agreement stamp, and he spent three hours looking for one. But I think your Uncle Frank's is better.
Happy New Year.
The military are the experts at the wild goose chase, sending new recruits out for a long weight, three copies of Form ID 10 T, a hundred feet of flight line, a bucket of prop wash and a tin of striped paint, among lots of other things. https://forums.flyer.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=98359
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
The 'shareholders' being in effect the executives of the big City institutions who control the block votes of shares their institutions hold in the pensions etc of ordinary people.
Said executives having a vested interest in other executives getting continual large pay rises.
Time for such decisions to be voted on by individual shareholders only ?
It's always amazing that the debate on the NHS is always presented as its the NHS as it is now or it's a US style free for all privatised system. Yet no one ever suggests looking at models in much of Europe that seem to work.
The NHS doesn't seem to be sustainable in its current form long term - but no government would have the guts to move towards the sort of socialised insurance models that exist in many other nations and generally work quite well. The NHS isn't free - someone has to pay for it.
Agree entirely. I disagree with those on the right in the UK who try to claim the US system is better. They are, in my opinion, simply wrong. But there are many systems in Europe and around the world that are better because they are not tied to one model of both finance and distribution of services. Large parts of the French system are provided by private companies working within strict guidelines on costs and service provision. The system works. It only seems to be in the UK that we are so blinded by the NHS religion that we cannot develop a better system.
Absolutely agree. The
One political advantage of my idea to increase private insurance among the working, is that is might have some effect on the religious worship of the NHS and open people’s minds to the idea of alternate ways of doing things. Anyone who’s lived abroad will know that the NHS isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
One effect is likely to occur is that the working (and Labour inclined) young will have less incentive to suport an NHS that mostly serves Tory voting pensioners. Such is the way the tectonic plates of politics shift when the age divide becomes the faultline rather than social class.
Private medicine in the UK is very restricted in range though. It would be a major shift to have comprehensive private hospitals.
I think it will take an awfully long time before the Labour-supporting young give up on the idea of the NHS!
I’m not too sure there would be the demand for private general hospitals, except in half a dozen larger cities. What’s more likely is more private wards attached to NHS hospitals, with the private companies renting facilities and capital equipment out of hours providing extra income for the NHS, and expansion of small private clinics offering GP and outpatient treatment.
Yes, I agree that the rivate sector would continue and expand as a parasite on the NHS rather than an alternative. A sort of NHS Speedy Boarding plus, where customers revert to State funding when the money runs out.
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
Because the p in plc stands for private, of course.
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
One in a million, it is all well fixed with their cronies and majority of shareholder shave no say. You could as easily say policy in Scotland is down to voters when reality is the same , they count for nothing unless they luckily coincide with the 86% other opinion.
If a company is underperforming shareholders will react on executive pay just as if voters are sufficiently disillusioned in Scotland other parties will emerge to replace the current ones
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
As I recall it didn't stop him being paid though.
And even if shareholder votes were binding in practice as Malcolm says there is the issue that most really big companies are in practice owned by other big companies so there is always the potential for a stitch up.
Even those big companies want companies they are invested in to be profitable
I think it will take an awfully long time before the Labour-supporting young give up on the idea of the NHS!
I’m not too sure there would be the demand for private general hospitals, except in half a dozen larger cities. What’s more likely is more private wards attached to NHS hospitals, with the private companies renting facilities and capital equipment out of hours providing extra income for the NHS, and expansion of small private clinics offering GP and outpatient treatment.
Yes, I agree that the rivate sector would continue and expand as a parasite on the NHS rather than an alternative. A sort of NHS Speedy Boarding plus, where customers revert to State funding when the money runs out.
Your psychologist's fees must be huge! Trot-on....
Where will the extra money come from? France spends more on health than we do.
The majority of the difference between the UK and France in terms of paying for health care comes from private health insurance paid by employers and employees. 85% of French citizens have some form of additional private insurance over and above what they pay to the Government. This accounts for about 23% of all health spending.
Well worth it for a much better health system and most people would be fine with it.
Absolutely. People object to inefficiency and waste - they expect the same levels of customer service and product from a government system as they do from a chop or private company from which they buy a service. Just look at mobile phones. People are willing to pay very large sums of money for something that they perceive as a value product. If paying more money meant a better service then there would be far fewer objections particularly if it were in a hypothecated form such as an insurance where you know the money you pay goes specifically to that service.
But as Blair and Brown showed, throwing large sums of extra money at an inefficient and failing service does not make it any less inefficient or failing.
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
The 'shareholders' being in effect the executives of the big City institutions who control the block votes of shares their institutions hold in the pensions etc of ordinary people.
Said executives having a vested interest in other executives getting continual large pay rises.
Time for such decisions to be voted on by individual shareholders only ?
I would not have a problem with more powers for individual shareholders but a maximum wage as well as a minimum wage as Melenchon advocated in France in May would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut and effectively see socialism replace capitalism
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
Because the p in plc stands for private, of course.
They are private companies just publicly listed on the stock exchange or in which the public can buy shares
Where will the extra money come from? France spends more on health than we do.
The majority of the difference between the UK and France in terms of paying for health care comes from private health insurance paid by employers and employees. 85% of French citizens have some form of additional private insurance over and above what they pay to the Government. This accounts for about 23% of all health spending.
Well worth it for a much better health system and most people would be fine with it.
There's a positive note to end on - we can hope so.
Agree entirely. I disagree with those on the right in the UK who try to claim the US system is better. They are, in my opinion, simply wrong. But there are many systems in Europe and around the world that are better because they are not tied to one model of both finance and distribution of services. Large parts of the French system are provided by private companies working within strict guidelines on costs and service provision. The system works. It only seems to be in the UK that we are so blinded by the NHS religion that we cannot develop a better system.
Absolutely agree. The
One political advantage of my idea to increase private insurance among the working, is that is might have some effect on the religious worship of the NHS and open people’s minds to the idea of alternate ways of doing things. Anyone who’s lived abroad will know that the NHS isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
One effect is likely to occur is that the working (and Labour inclined) young will have less incentive to suport an NHS that mostly serves Tory voting pensioners. Such is the way the tectonic plates of politics shift when the age divide becomes the faultline rather than social class.
Private medicine in the UK is very restricted in range though. It would be a major shift to have comprehensive private hospitals.
I think it will take an awfully long time before the Labour-supporting young give up on the idea of the NHS!
I’m not too sure there would be the demand for private general hospitals, except in half a dozen larger cities. What’s more likely is more private wards attached to NHS hospitals, with the private companies renting facilities and capital equipment out of hours providing extra income for the NHS, and expansion of small private clinics offering GP and outpatient treatment.
Yes, I agree that the rivate sector would continue and expand as a parasite on the NHS rather than an alternative. A sort of NHS Speedy Boarding plus, where customers revert to State funding when the money runs out.
Not at all, it would free up the NHS for those who need it, provide income for the NHS and go someway to ending the national scandal of equipment being idle for half the hours in the week while people wait months for operations. The private sector will happily schedule operations for 9pm or 6am if that’s what suits their customer.
Where will the extra money come from? France spends more on health than we do.
The majority of the difference between the UK and France in terms of paying for health care comes from private health insurance paid by employers and employees. 85% of French citizens have some form of additional private insurance over and above what they pay to the Government. This accounts for about 23% of all health spending.
It's always amazing that the debate on the NHS is always presented as its the NHS as it is now or it's a US style free for all privatised system. Yet no one ever suggests looking at models in much of Europe that seem to work.
The NHS doesn't seem to be sustainable in its current form long term - but no government would have the guts to move towards the sort of socialised insurance models that exist in many other nations and generally work quite well. The NHS isn't free - someone has to pay for it.
Agree entirely. I disagree with those on the right in the UK who try to claim the US system is better. They are, in my opinion, simply wrong. But there are many systems in Europe and around the world that are better because they are not tied to one model of both finance and distribution of services. Large parts of the French system are provided by private companies working within strict guidelines on costs and service provision. The system works. It only seems to be in the UK that we are so blinded by the NHS religion that we cannot develop a better system.
Like so many other parts of our creaking country, the NHS suffers because it is impossible to take a long-term view of it. What we need is a consensus around how it should develop and be funded. But we will never get it, because every four or five years we have a FPTP election which is decided in 100 or so constituencies where certain kinds of swing voter hold sway. Politically, there is just no way that the NHS can ever be reformed so that it looks a lot more like the very high-standard health services you see in many parts of mainland Europe.
Sorry but trying to tie the problems of the NHS to our voting system just because you have a bee in your bonnet about the latter is frankly crass and stupid. The problem with the health service lies not with the voters nor with the electoral system. It lies with the vested interests and the religion that has been built up around a system that was already unfit for purpose as soon as it came into existence.
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
The 'shareholders' being in effect the executives of the big City institutions who control the block votes of shares their institutions hold in the pensions etc of ordinary people.
Said executives having a vested interest in other executives getting continual large pay rises.
Time for such decisions to be voted on by individual shareholders only ?
I would not have a problem with more powers for individual shareholders but a maximum wage as well as a minimum wage as Melenchon advocated in France in May would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut and effectively see socialism replace capitalism
Laws such as used in Nordic countries whereby they must pay the lowest paid get a minimum % of the CEO renumeration seems to work well. It means much better pay at bottom and lower sensible pay at the top as they cannot indulge in untrammelled greed and take all the money as the Tories do here.
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
One in a million, it is all well fixed with their cronies and majority of shareholder shave no say. You could as easily say policy in Scotland is down to voters when reality is the same , they count for nothing unless they luckily coincide with the 86% other opinion.
If a company is underperforming shareholders will react on executive pay just as if voters are sufficiently disillusioned in Scotland other parties will emerge to replace the current ones
You don't get the point , ie the majority decide, just as the elite have the majority of the votes in shares , in Westminster Scotland has a minority vote and hey presto results are exactly the same, the small guy can never win.
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
Because the p in plc stands for private, of course.
They are private companies just publicly listed on the stock exchange or in which the public can buy shares
Legally speaking you are wrong. A private company is a company where shares can only be bought by arrangement with the other shareholders. A public company is a company where anyone can buy shares (as long as they have the money obviously).
I think you may be getting mixed up between the public and private sector, which is a slightly different concept. All public and private companies are in the private sector, but that does not mean they are all private companies.
And yes, other companies do want companies they own to be profitable, but they are also far too prone to assuming that only a handful of people can do the job they hold, which is one cause of wage inflation.
Finally on your other post re the Army, I think the best one was the worker of Kerr Stuart and Company in Stoke in the 1920s who was sent to the machine shop for a long stand.
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
Because the p in plc stands for private, of course.
They are private companies just publicly listed on the stock exchange or in which the public can buy shares
Legally speaking you are wrong. A private company is a company where shares can only be bought by arrangement with the other shareholders. A public company is a company where anyone can buy shares (as long as they have the money obviously).
I think you may be getting mixed up between the public and private sector, which is a slightly different concept. All public and private companies are in the private sector, but that does not mean they are all private companies.
And yes, other companies do want companies they own to be profitable, but they are also far too prone to assuming that only a handful of people can do the job they hold, which is one cause of wage inflation.
Finally on your other post re the Army, I think the best one was the worker of Kerr Stuart and Company in Stoke in the 1920s who was sent to the machine shop for a long stand.
Are plcs nationalised companies? No. They are owned not by the state but by private institutions or individuals.
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
The 'shareholders' being in effect the executives of the big City institutions who control the block votes of shares their institutions hold in the pensions etc of ordinary people.
Said executives having a vested interest in other executives getting continual large pay rises.
Time for such decisions to be voted on by individual shareholders only ?
I would not have a problem with more powers for individual shareholders but a maximum wage as well as a minimum wage as Melenchon advocated in France in May would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut and effectively see socialism replace capitalism
Laws such as used in Nordic countries whereby they must pay the lowest paid get a minimum % of the CEO renumeration seems to work well. It means much better pay at bottom and lower sensible pay at the top as they cannot indulge in untrammelled greed and take all the money as the Tories do here.
I agree! Too much money is paid to those at the top who do very little other than agree with the recommendations that those (who are paid much less) have suggested is the way forward. (Here I reflect on my experience working for a FTSE100 company).
Without checking the thread I can't be sure but may I be one of the first to wish all the best for 2018. Here in Melbourne (the bigger one on the other side of the world) we have just celebrated it with a massive fireworks display. I'm sure London will do us proud when I get up for breakfast, unless Brexit has put paid to that of course! (Aaargh, my New Years resolution not to moan about that 'event' didn't last an hour!!)
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
The 'shareholders' being in effect the executives of the big City institutions who control the block votes of shares their institutions hold in the pensions etc of ordinary people.
Said executives having a vested interest in other executives getting continual large pay rises.
Time for such decisions to be voted on by individual shareholders only ?
I would not have a problem with more powers for individual shareholders but a maximum wage as well as a minimum wage as Melenchon advocated in France in May would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut and effectively see socialism replace capitalism
Laws such as used in Nordic countries whereby they must pay the lowest paid get a minimum % of the CEO renumeration seems to work well. It means much better pay at bottom and lower sensible pay at the top as they cannot indulge in untrammelled greed and take all the money as the Tories do here.
There may be some merit in that but a better system reflects the value added of each worker no matter their position
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
Because the p in plc stands for private, of course.
They are private companies just publicly listed on the stock exchange or in which the public can buy shares
Legally speaking you are wrong. A private company is a company where shares can only be bought by arrangement with the other shareholders. A public company is a company where anyone can buy shares (as long as they have the money obviously).
I think you may be getting mixed up between the public and private sector, which is a slightly different concept. All public and private companies are in the private sector, but that does not mean they are all private companies.
And yes, other companies do want companies they own to be profitable, but they are also far too prone to assuming that only a handful of people can do the job they hold, which is one cause of wage inflation.
Finally on your other post re the Army, I think the best one was the worker of Kerr Stuart and Company in Stoke in the 1920s who was sent to the machine shop for a long stand.
Are plcs nationalised companies? No. They are owned not by the state but by private institutions or individuals.
Yes but that is not the definition of a public company. That is a state company, which is in the public sector.
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
One in a million, it is all well fixed with their cronies and majority of shareholder shave no say. You could as easily say policy in Scotland is down to voters when reality is the same , they count for nothing unless they luckily coincide with the 86% other opinion.
If a company is underperforming shareholders will react on executive pay just as if voters are sufficiently disillusioned in Scotland other parties will emerge to replace the current ones
You don't get the point , ie the majority decide, just as the elite have the majority of the votes in shares , in Westminster Scotland has a minority vote and hey presto results are exactly the same, the small guy can never win.
Scotland has its own Parliament which decides most Scottish domestic policy and also about 10% of Westminster MPs too
But as Blair and Brown showed, throwing large sums of extra money at an inefficient and failing service does not make it any less inefficient or failing.
I think that's factually incorrect. I'm sure that there was wastage, as in any large increase of funding, and I'd accept that PFI contracts committed too much money to private investors in the headlong rush to get early results. But the impact on waiting times was enormous, and people did notice. When I was first elected, two-year waiting times for non-urgent surgery like hip replacements were common. By 2010, the norm was 18 weeks. People have always usually felt that the service was OK once they got it, but the waiting period was barely tolerable - and is becoming so again.
That doesn't mean the system is perfect, or that another system isn't worth considering. But it overstates the gloom to think that additional finance didn't help.
Are plcs nationalised companies? No. They are owned not by the state but by private institutions or individuals.
There's some recent PLCs that have been nationalised.
I wonder if you can think of any.
The state took the primary stake in RBS when it bailed it out and is gradually returning it to the private sector, it was not set up as a nationalised company nor is it intended for the state to have a permanent stake in it.
Post bailout of course the state did set RBS executives pay
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
Because the p in plc stands for private, of course.
They are private companies just publicly listed on the stock exchange or in which the public can buy shares
Legally speaking you are wrong. A private company is a company where shares can only be bought by arrangement with the other shareholders. A public company is a company where anyone can buy shares (as long as they have the money obviously).
I think you may be getting mixed up between the public and private sector, which is a slightly different concept. All public and private companies are in the private sector, but that does not mean they are all private companies.
And yes, other companies do want companies they own to be profitable, but they are also far too prone to assuming that only a handful of people can do the job they hold, which is one cause of wage inflation.
Finally on your other post re the Army, I think the best one was the worker of Kerr Stuart and Company in Stoke in the 1920s who was sent to the machine shop for a long stand.
Are plcs nationalised companies? No. They are owned not by the state but by private institutions or individuals.
Yes but that is not the definition of a public company. That is a state company, which is in the public sector.
Yes and plc companies are not in the public sector so it is up to shareholders not the state to set their executives pay
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
The 'shareholders' being in effect the executives of the big City institutions who control the block votes of shares their institutions hold in the pensions etc of ordinary people.
Said executives having a vested interest in other executives getting continual large pay rises.
Time for such decisions to be voted on by individual shareholders only ?
I would not have a problem with more powers for individual shareholders but a maximum wage as well as a minimum wage as Melenchon advocated in France in May would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut and effectively see socialism replace capitalism
Laws such as used in Nordic countries whereby they must pay the lowest paid get a minimum % of the CEO renumeration seems to work well. It means much better pay at bottom and lower sensible pay at the top as they cannot indulge in untrammelled greed and take all the money as the Tories do here.
I agree! Too much money is paid to those at the top who do very little other than agree with the recommendations that those (who are paid much less) have suggested is the way forward. (Here I reflect on my experience working for a FTSE100 company).
Without checking the thread I can't be sure but may I be one of the first to wish all the best for 2018. Here in Melbourne (the bigger one on the other side of the world) we have just celebrated it with a massive fireworks display. I'm sure London will do us proud when I get up for breakfast, unless Brexit has put paid to that of course! (Aaargh, my New Years resolution not to moan about that 'event' didn't last an hour!!)
Happy New Year to you , as ever Edinburgh will be the top event of course.
Yes but that is not the definition of a public company. That is a state company, which is in the public sector.
As someone who has spent most of the last 20 years setting up company formations and buyout, you're right, and HYUFD is wrong.
He's getting confused with publicly traded companies and privately traded companies.
Does the state own plcs in normal circumstances? No. So my original point that it is up to shareholders not the state to set executive pay in them holds absolutely true.
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
The 'shareholders' being in effect the executives of the big City institutions who control the block votes of shares their institutions hold in the pensions etc of ordinary people.
Said executives having a vested interest in other executives getting continual large pay rises.
Time for such decisions to be voted on by individual shareholders only ?
I would not have a problem with more powers for individual shareholders but a maximum wage as well as a minimum wage as Melenchon advocated in France in May would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut and effectively see socialism replace capitalism
Laws such as used in Nordic countries whereby they must pay the lowest paid get a minimum % of the CEO renumeration seems to work well. It means much better pay at bottom and lower sensible pay at the top as they cannot indulge in untrammelled greed and take all the money as the Tories do here.
There may be some merit in that but a better system reflects the value added of each worker no matter their position
Do you know a worse system than the rapacious one practiced in UK, Nordic ones may not be perfect but they are miles better than what we have and fairer.
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
The 'shareholders' being in effect the executives of the big City institutions who control the block votes of shares their institutions hold in the pensions etc of ordinary people.
Said executives having a vested interest in other executives getting continual large pay rises.
Time for such decisions to be voted on by individual shareholders only ?
I would not have a problem with more powers for individual shareholders but a maximum wage as well as a minimum wage as Melenchon advocated in France in May would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut and effectively see socialism replace capitalism
Laws such as used in Nordic countries whereby they must pay the lowest paid get a minimum % of the CEO renumeration seems to work well. It means much better pay at bottom and lower sensible pay at the top as they cannot indulge in untrammelled greed and take all the money as the Tories do here.
There may be some merit in that but a better system reflects the value added of each worker no matter their position
Do you know a worse system than the rapacious one practiced in UK, Nordic ones may not be perfect but they are miles better than what we have and fairer.
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
The 'shareholders' being in effect the executives of the big City institutions who control the block votes of shares their institutions hold in the pensions etc of ordinary people.
Said executives having a vested interest in other executives getting continual large pay rises.
Time for such decisions to be voted on by individual shareholders only ?
I would not have a problem with more powers for individual shareholders but a maximum wage as well as a minimum wage as Melenchon advocated in France in May would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut and effectively see socialism replace capitalism
Laws such as used in Nordic countries whereby they must pay the lowest paid get a minimum % of the CEO renumeration seems to work well. It means much better pay at bottom and lower sensible pay at the top as they cannot indulge in untrammelled greed and take all the money as the Tories do here.
There may be some merit in that but a better system reflects the value added of each worker no matter their position
Do you know a worse system than the rapacious one practiced in UK, Nordic ones may not be perfect but they are miles better than what we have and fairer.
But in practice will simply result in outsourcing the lowest paid jobs within a company, or widespread replacement of labour with capital.
Where will the extra money come from? France spends more on health than we do.
The majority of the difference between the UK and France in terms of paying for health care comes from private health insurance paid by employers and employees. 85% of French citizens have some form of additional private insurance over and above what they pay to the Government. This accounts for about 23% of all health spending.
It's always amazing that the debate on the NHS is always presented as its the NHS as it is now or it's a US style free for all privatised system. Yet no one ever suggests looking at models in much of Europe that seem to work.
The NHS doesn't seem to be sustainable in its current form long term - but no government would have the guts to move towards the sort of socialised insurance models that exist in many other nations and generally work quite well. The NHS isn't free - someone has to pay for it.
Agree entirely. I disagree with those on the right in the UK who try to claim the US system is better. They are, in my opinion, simply wrong. But there are many systems in Europe and around the world that are better because they are not tied to one model of both finance and distribution of services. Large parts of the French system are provided by private companies working within strict guidelines on costs and service provision. The system works. It only seems to be in the UK that we are so blinded by the NHS religion that we cannot develop a better system.
Like so many other parts of our creaking country, the NHS suffers because it is impossible to take a long-term view of it. What we need is a consensus around how it should develop and be funded. But we will never get it, because every four or five years we have a FPTP election which is decided in 100 or so constituencies where certain kinds of swing voter hold sway. Politically, there is just no way that the NHS can ever be reformed so that it looks a lot more like the very high-standard health services you see in many parts of mainland Europe.
A depressing thought, but accurate. And every now and then they'll make noises about consensus, but these things take years to sort out anyway, and an election is up, or could be up at any time, and its back to partisan nonsense.
We saw it with funding dementia care in both 2010 and in June - Death taxes and Dementia Taxes. Pathetic and hugely damaging. Our political system does not allow for long-termism.
I think you need to question the voters on this one rather than the system.
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
The 'shareholders' being in effect the executives of the big City institutions who control the block votes of shares their institutions hold in the pensions etc of ordinary people.
Said executives having a vested interest in other executives getting continual large pay rises.
Time for such decisions to be voted on by individual shareholders only ?
I would not have a problem with more powers for individual shareholders but a maximum wage as well as a minimum wage as Melenchon advocated in France in May would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut and effectively see socialism replace capitalism
Laws such as used in Nordic countries whereby they must pay the lowest paid get a minimum % of the CEO renumeration seems to work well. It means much better pay at bottom and lower sensible pay at the top as they cannot indulge in untrammelled greed and take all the money as the Tories do here.
There may be some merit in that but a better system reflects the value added of each worker no matter their position
Do you know a worse system than the rapacious one practiced in UK, Nordic ones may not be perfect but they are miles better than what we have and fairer.
What precisely do you see as bad? 'Rapacious' is a strong word. In what way are Nordic systems fairer?
Where will the extra money come from? France spends more on health than we do.
The majority of the difference between the UK and France in terms of paying for health care comes from private health insurance paid by employers and employees. 85% of French citizens have some form of additional private insurance over and above what they pay to the Government. This accounts for about 23% of all health spending.
It's always amazing that the debate on the NHS is always presented as its the NHS as it is now or it's a US style free for all privatised system. Yet no one ever suggests looking at models in much of Europe that seem to work.
The NHS doesn't seem to be sustainable in its current form long term - but no government would have the guts to move towards the sort of socialised insurance models that exist in many other nations and generally work quite well. The NHS isn't free - someone has to pay for it.
Agree entirely. I disagree with those on the right in the UK who try to claim the US system is better. They are, in my opinion, simply wrong. But there are many systems in Europe and around the world that are better because they are not tied to one model of both finance and distribution of services. Large parts of the French system are provided by private companies working within strict guidelines on costs and service provision. The system works. It only seems to be in the UK that we are so blinded by the NHS religion that we cannot develop a better system.
Like so many other parts of our creaking country, the NHS suffers because it is impossible to take a long-term view of it. What we need is a consensus around how it should Europe.
A depressing thought, but accurate. And every now and then they'll make noises about consensus, but these things take years to sort out anyway, and an election is up, or could be up at any time, and its back to partisan nonsense.
We saw it with funding dementia care in both 2010 and in June - Death taxes and Dementia Taxes. Pathetic and hugely damaging. Our political system does not allow for long-termism.
I think you need to question the voters on this one rather than the system.
There is a reason most developed countries fund dementia care through social insurance
There was a report last year by the IFS which looked at healthcare spending in various developed countries. This included analysis of end of life costs.
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
Because the p in plc stands for private, of course.
They are private companies just publicly listed on the stock exchange or in which the public can buy shares
Legally speaking you are wrong. A private company is a company where shares can only be bought by arrangement with the other shareholders. A public company is a company where anyone can buy shares (as long as they have the money obviously).
I think you may be getting mixed up between the public and private sector, which is a slightly different concept. All public and private companies are in the private sector, but that does not mean they are all private companies.
And yes, other companies do want companies they own to be profitable, but they are also far too prone to assuming that only a handful of people can do the job they hold, which is one cause of wage inflation.
Finally on your other post re the Army, I think the best one was the worker of Kerr Stuart and Company in Stoke in the 1920s who was sent to the machine shop for a long stand.
Are plcs nationalised companies? No. They are owned not by the state but by private institutions or individuals.
Yes but that is not the definition of a public company. That is a state company, which is in the public sector.
Yes and plc companies are not in the public sector so it is up to shareholders not the state to set their executives pay
Just admit you made a mistake and move on. It’s easier than making that hole deeper.
I have my doubts about digital-photography - having spent almost two years with a Scitex OEM - but surely, twenty-years onwards Al-Beeb can tell the difference? Please: If anyone knows this man please contact the appropriate people (and not Auntie-Failure).
But as Blair and Brown showed, throwing large sums of extra money at an inefficient and failing service does not make it any less inefficient or failing.
I think that's factually incorrect. I'm sure that there was wastage, as in any large increase of funding, and I'd accept that PFI contracts committed too much money to private investors in the headlong rush to get early results. But the impact on waiting times was enormous, and people did notice. When I was first elected, two-year waiting times for non-urgent surgery like hip replacements were common. By 2010, the norm was 18 weeks. People have always usually felt that the service was OK once they got it, but the waiting period was barely tolerable - and is becoming so again.
That doesn't mean the system is perfect, or that another system isn't worth considering. But it overstates the gloom to think that additional finance didn't help.
It completely failed to change the poor medical outcomes statistics.
It was 67 years ago today when my uncle Frank told me that if I stood on the corner of Spencer Street and Gower Street in Oldham I would see a man go by with as many noses as days left in the year.
I ran outside, very excited, to see this extraordinary man. I saw many men with one nose but after a couple of hours standing in the cold I came back home disappointed to be greeted by laughter by everyone including my parents and grandparents. I've never forgotten it.
Magnificent!
My father once sent out a rather naive young assistant to get a verbal agreement stamp, and he spent three hours looking for one. But I think your Uncle Frank's is better.
Happy New Year.
A tin of elbow grease was the fav when I had a summer job with the fitters....
But reality was even better. One of my student colleagues was given the task of putting a screed on a floor - and literally painted himself into a corner. Everybody in the factory came to have a laugh at him, as he waited for it to dry.....
The failings of the Liberal Elite policies of both parties over the last 20 years
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
FTSE 100 ceos pay is down to shareholders to approve not the government as they are private companies and sometimes they don't approve it as Sir Martin Sorrell discovered
The 'shareholders' being in effect the executives of the big City institutions who control the block votes of shares their institutions hold in the pensions etc of ordinary people.
Said executives having a vested interest in other executives getting continual large pay rises.
Time for such decisions to be voted on by individual shareholders only ?
I would not have a problem with more powers for individual shareholders but a maximum wage as well as a minimum wage as Melenchon advocated in France in May would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut and effectively see socialism replace capitalism
Laws such as used in Nordic countries whereby they must pay the lowest paid get a minimum % of the CEO renumeration seems to work well. It means much better pay at bottom and lower sensible pay at the top as they cannot indulge in untrammelled greed and take all the money as the Tories do here.
There may be some merit in that but a better system reflects the value added of each worker no matter their position
Do you know a worse system than the rapacious one practiced in UK, Nordic ones may not be perfect but they are miles better than what we have and fairer.
So the low paid workers will be on big money as well then. Your point is, it is not the salary that is in question it is whether it is all taken by the greedy Executives at the expense of those that make the company.
Comments
One political advantage of my idea to increase private insurance among the working, is that is might have some effect on the religious worship of the NHS and open people’s minds to the idea of alternate ways of doing things. Anyone who’s lived abroad will know that the NHS isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
* Ofcourse: Correlation =/= causation....
The disparity in pay between those at the top and bottom of the earnings ladder is revealed by analysis showing the national minimum wage would be £5.24 an hour higher if it had risen at the same rate as a FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay over the last two decades. Minimum Wage would be £26k per annum
She’d be only allowed to switch seats if her seat is substantially altered by boundary changes.
Private medicine in the UK is very restricted in range though. It would be a major shift to have comprehensive private hospitals.
We should care more about those we pay from public funds, than those who contribute massively to the Exchequer.
Crunch talks with the SPD start in a week, plus the SPD's own vote.
This means that as the average age of those dying has increased, NHS spending on those dying (the bulk of spending) has been push back in time. Now the average age of dying has stopped increasing this element of spending will stop being deferred.
However, there is a question about whether spending most on those dying would be better spent on preventing illness amongst the younger people who have many years still left to live - assuming you can tell those who are within the last six months of life.
I think I'm going to need a source for that, Bob.
10% of the NHS budget is attributable to diabetes, i.e. a chronic condition not (particularly) associated with those close to death.
That of course is humanity's challenge. And it has impacts on the planet too - would climate change be such a big issue if there were only 2 billion humans consuming resources?
I ran outside, very excited, to see this extraordinary man. I saw many men with one nose but after a couple of hours standing in the cold I came back home disappointed to be greeted by laughter by everyone including my parents and grandparents. I've never forgotten it.
A lot of people were skeptical that she would call for an early GE, or that she should call for one, but the law permitted an early GE if 2/3 of house vote for it, and they did, there was no abuse of the law involved.
It would be bad look for Rudd though to become leader, and then be shown to be so frit in her own seat that she jumped ship.
Local MPS resist closure of the l;ocal general hospital on the assumption that their constituents don't want to travel further away to get better quality treatment. Constituents care less about the cost because they don't face a bill themselves other than through general taxation.
http://africaunauthorised.com/?p=1311
I’m not too sure there would be the demand for private general hospitals, except in half a dozen larger cities. What’s more likely is more private wards attached to NHS hospitals, with the private companies renting facilities and capital equipment out of hours providing extra income for the NHS, and expansion of small private clinics offering GP and outpatient treatment.
The source was the head surgeon at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford.
If Mrs May is bold (yes, I know), the opening of a Royal Commission on the future of health and social care would be a great starting point.
My father once sent out a rather naive young assistant to get a verbal agreement stamp, and he spent three hours looking for one. But I think your Uncle Frank's is better.
Happy New Year.
Section 2(1) of the Act states 'An early general election is to take place if a) the house of commons passes a motion in the form set out in subsection 2, and b) if the motion is passed on a division, the number of members who vote in favour of the motion is a number to or greater than two thirds of the Numbers of seats in the house (including vacant seats)'
That's what it says. If the house wants an early GE, it can vote to have it. And you call me disingenuous for accurately pointing out that the Act permits exactly what May did? I recall quite clearly that many many people did not like what was quite blatantly the real reason for the calling of the vote - giant poll leads for the Tories - but the law does not say you cannot use that as a reason to call for one, so 'the law wasn't meant to be used in that way' is just bullshit reasoning. The law doesn't saw they need to provide a reason. They should have had a better one, but when 522 MPs for vs 13 against follow the provisions of the Act to call an early GE, calling the law abused is ridiculous.
If you want to claim the spirit of the law was not followed, that's one thing, but even that is a stretch, since the spirit of the law was that if the commons thinks it is a good idea to have an early GE, it should have the power to call for one. Given parliamentary sovereignty, it is up to them, and they said, 'that's fine, Mrs May'. Including the opposition.
As for Rudd, some people would understand that, but the other reaction could be 'if she is worthy of leading the country, she should be able to win her constituency even if she cannot spend every day there campaigning'. PMs don't have to do all the campaigning themselves either, these things should be more team efforts.
And even if shareholder votes were binding in practice as Malcolm says there is the issue that most really big companies are in practice owned by other big companies so there is always the potential for a stitch up.
- he is highly competent and experienced, and equipped to chair cabinet committees
- he previously ran the Cabinet Office, very effectively, during the Cameron administration
- he is knowledgeable about Europe, having previously been Europe Minister
- he is in the middle ground on Europe, neither strong Remainer nor strong Leaver
- having a Peer would avoid creating a successor threat to T May, and making the leadership candidates jealous
https://forums.flyer.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=98359
Happy New Year to all PBers!
Said executives having a vested interest in other executives getting continual large pay rises.
Time for such decisions to be voted on by individual shareholders only ?
But as Blair and Brown showed, throwing large sums of extra money at an inefficient and failing service does not make it any less inefficient or failing.
Good day all.
I think you may be getting mixed up between the public and private sector, which is a slightly different concept. All public and private companies are in the private sector, but that does not mean they are all private companies.
And yes, other companies do want companies they own to be profitable, but they are also far too prone to assuming that only a handful of people can do the job they hold, which is one cause of wage inflation.
Finally on your other post re the Army, I think the best one was the worker of Kerr Stuart and Company in Stoke in the 1920s who was sent to the machine shop for a long stand.
Without checking the thread I can't be sure but may I be one of the first to wish all the best for 2018. Here in Melbourne (the bigger one on the other side of the world) we have just celebrated it with a massive fireworks display. I'm sure London will do us proud when I get up for breakfast, unless Brexit has put paid to that of course! (Aaargh, my New Years resolution not to moan about that 'event' didn't last an hour!!)
I wonder if you can think of any.
That doesn't mean the system is perfect, or that another system isn't worth considering. But it overstates the gloom to think that additional finance didn't help.
He's getting confused with publicly traded companies and privately traded companies.
Post bailout of course the state did set RBS executives pay
http://swedishmarketeconomy.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/martin-lundstedt-take-over-volvo.html?m=1
The report is available:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-5890.2016.12127/full
It suggests that costs of last year of life medical spend are only 5-10% of the total medical spend.
I have my doubts about digital-photography - having spent almost two years with a Scitex OEM - but surely, twenty-years onwards Al-Beeb can tell the difference? Please: If anyone knows this man please contact the appropriate people (and not Auntie-Failure).
NEW THREAD
But reality was even better. One of my student colleagues was given the task of putting a screed on a floor - and literally painted himself into a corner. Everybody in the factory came to have a laugh at him, as he waited for it to dry.....