While clearly UKIP provides much sport, this little tweet has been overlooked.
Kendall, Wollaston, and Lamb's proposal for a tripartite approach to the NHS has cold water poured on it by May. She never misses an opportunity to make a mistake.
TBH I don’t blame her. For one thing - I don’t see that a cross party working group is the right way to deal with such a political issue. For another - she has rather a lot on keeping her party together and delivering Brexit and can hardly afford to invest political capital in another charged policy area.
In any case, I doubt if the Labour leadership would be interested in any cross-party agreement.
Exactly. They have too much vested in using the NHS as their chief weapon.
Wouldn't a better prime minister realise this and be able to trap Labour into supporting something that falls a long way short of what the Corbynistas are expecting?
I think the plan is to call for a genuine and serious cross-party solution on health and social care and then watch Labour either agree (which neutralises their attack line) or disagree (which looks like they’re overplaying their hand).
Thinking about this Wollaston thing, I assume many people on here have read the superlative Thinking Fast and Slow.
Daniel Kahneman has an interesting idea about working with people one has disagreements with. In academia, as in politics and life in general, it's easy to get into arguments where one seeks to be 'the winner'. As a result, you seek to argue about the things you disagree, and to prove that you are right. And, of course, as is demonstrated constantly on this board, no-one ever changes their mind.
His idea is that you seek out someone with whom you disagree, and you set out to write a paper with them. And the goal of this paper, is to chronicle all you agree on. So, in the case of a paper on the NHS, it might not have solutions - or may only have limited ones - but it would have an agreement on what the problems are and what constitutes success.
I quite like Thornberry. I also like Angela Rayner. What I have seen of her. She may crash and burn but give her a chance. Jess Phillips, Stella Creasey. They both have potential. My impression - and it is only an impression - is that there are some potentially good female MPs amongst the junior ranks in Labour. The same might also be said of the Tories.
But they need to be tested and trained and mentored. Putting them forward as the new Messiah is catastrophic for them: too much exposure too soon, too many basic mistakes and not enough time for them to do the hard thinking about what it is they want to do and, much more importantly, how to get to whatever goal they have in mind.
The successful politicians of the past had a much longer and more extensive apprenticeship - though I appreciate that Cameron was one of the exceptions - and I think the lack of such an apprenticeship shows. They make some basic political errors and do not appear to have learned even the basics of how to deal with even the most minor of tough questions let alone more difficult stuff. (Example no. 1 - Tulip Siddiq unable to deflect a pretty easy and basic question and going all nasty and personal instead.)
And a more experienced version of Cameron might not have made his eventually disastrous renegotiation blunder....
While clearly UKIP provides much sport, this little tweet has been overlooked.
Kendall, Wollaston, and Lamb's proposal for a tripartite approach to the NHS has cold water poured on it by May. She never misses an opportunity to make a mistake.
TBH I don’t blame her. For one thing - I don’t see that a cross party working group is the right way to deal with such a political issue. For another - she has rather a lot on keeping her party together and delivering Brexit and can hardly afford to invest political capital in another charged policy area.
Additionally can Liz Kendall deliver the Labour Party...
The problem is that these cross-party things very rarely work, unless it's on a specific, narrow issue with no obvious room for politicisation.
So, you could see a cross party working party on the best way to deal with drug addiction, or on mental health issues. But you're not going to get something working on the NHS, because someone will have to "betray" their party.
There must be a play for May here. Not sure ignoring it completely was the best course of action.
Let's say you have a Royal Commission that says "The NHS needs £30 billion per annum extra funding." It wouldn't take the NHS out of politics. There would be
a) a huge political fight on whose budget got cut/what taxes got raised to pay for it, that would essentially be no different to today;
b) a medical profession saying "We are the experts. It needs to be £50 billion..."
c) a Labour Party that would offer that £50 billion.
We would be no further forward in terms of taking the NHS out of politics. You never will. It is the most political thing in Britain.
We need to look carefully at why the UK is one of only a handful of Western countries where health is a major political issue. (The USA is the other major one). Pretty much everywhere else, health just happens.
Thinking about this Wollaston thing, I assume many people on here have read the superlative Thinking Fast and Slow.
Daniel Kahneman has an interesting idea about working with people one has disagreements with. In academia, as in politics and life in general, it's easy to get into arguments where one seeks to be 'the winner'. As a result, you seek to argue about the things you disagree, and to prove that you are right. And, of course, as is demonstrated constantly on this board, no-one ever changes their mind.
His idea is that you seek out someone with whom you disagree, and you set out to write a paper with them. And the goal of this paper, is to chronicle all you agree on. So, in the case of a paper on the NHS, it might not have solutions - or may only have limited ones - but it would have an agreement on what the problems are and what constitutes success.
I always thought it a very interesting idea.
It is - but any such effort would likely founder on the imperatives of the next election.
I do agree that a more. i listed abojective would be far more likely to succeed. Until we live in a resource unlimited utopia, 'taking healthcare out of politics' is just another slogan. Taking some of the politics out of healthcare might be another matter.
What I do find very frustrating about the current Labour Party is the way that Corbynistas try to present the choice for the future in simplistic binary terms: its either the hard left of Corbyn or the "right wing" Blairites.
The fact is that there is an alternative to both: namely, a return to the mainstream, the Labour of Attlee and Wilson and Smith. A rejection of both factions which captured the Labour Party since the death of John Smith in 1994.True Labour.
Corbyn will not win a general election because he cannot capture the marginals of Middle England -the Middle England that can be won by mainstream True Labour.
After Corbyn is gone, yes there should be a female leader but it should be a woman who represents mainstream Labour. That rules out Diane Abbott. It rules out the nonentity who wont be friends with Tories. It rules out Angela Rayner too because she is like a character out of a Catherine Tate sketch. I cannot visualise her outside Number Ten as a representative of main stream Labour.
I can visualise Emily Thornberry outside Number Ten however. She is a clever woman. She tags along with Corbyn for tactical reasons, but she is no hard left Corbynite, nor is she a Blairite. She is mainstream Labour and she would win a general election. Momentum would not be pleased at a return to mainstreamism. Eventually she would have to crush Momentum, but the choice is there for Labour. Either the hard left Corbynistas with their threats of violence, their self indulgence and their extremism, forever in opposition, or power to bring about change by a return to pre Blairite mainstreamism.
Guess I'm a pretty poor progressive in still having doubts about gay marriage - it does seem to be that what was a passionate debate less than 5 years ago has now become accepted to the point of dissenters being ostracised.
Presumably all the people who passionately opposed it on the grounds of not wanting to change the definition of marriage now passionately support it for the same reason
I think the truth is, a big chunk of people don't understand same sex relationships and/or why they would want to get married, but don't really care, and that group of people was largely against then and in favour now.
There was a chunk of religious voters who supported civil partnerships but not gay marriage, although now gay marriages can be performed in civil ceremonies but churches, mosques, synagogues and temples are still exempt from having to perform them in practical terms there is little difference
What I do find very frustrating about the current Labour Party is the way that Corbynistas try to present the choice for the future in simplistic binary terms: its either the hard left of Corbyn or the "right wing" Blairites.
The fact is that there is an alternative to both: namely, a return to the mainstream, the Labour of Attlee and Wilson and Smith. A rejection of both factions which captured the Labour Party since the death of John Smith in 1994.True Labour.
Corbyn will not win a general election because he cannot capture the marginals of Middle England -the Middle England that can be won by mainstream True Labour.
After Corbyn is gone, yes there should be a female leader but it should be a woman who represents mainstream Labour. That rules out Diane Abbott. It rules out the nonentity who wont be friends with Tories. It rules out Angela Rayner too because she is like a character out of a Catherine Tate sketch. I cannot visualise her outside Number Ten as a representative of main stream Labour.
I can visualise Emily Thornberry outside Number Ten however. She is a clever woman. She tags along with Corbyn for tactical reasons, but she is no hard left Corbynite, nor is she a Blairite. She is mainstream Labour and she would win a general election. Momentum would not be pleased at a return to mainstreamism. Eventually she would have to crush Momentum, but the choice is there for Labour. Either the hard left Corbynistas with their threats of violence, their self indulgence and their extremism, forever in opposition, or power to bring about change by a return to pre Blairite mainstreamism.
Which?
Rayner: "And I think: well, you look down at me at your peril, mate. Because I’ll just eat you alive.’"
Later he pricks my interest by saying, “I probably shouldn’t say this” before telling me: “In one sense I feel sorry for Theresa May. She genuinely thinks her defining mission is to deliver Brexit.”
Actually Blair believes she could do “something different”: that she could become the “nation’s explainer and educator” on what the different Brexit options would mean. Does he know her to be a good explainer and educator? He hums for a moment, then says, “I think not, probably.”
Thinking about this Wollaston thing, I assume many people on here have read the superlative Thinking Fast and Slow.
Daniel Kahneman has an interesting idea about working with people one has disagreements with. In academia, as in politics and life in general, it's easy to get into arguments where one seeks to be 'the winner'. As a result, you seek to argue about the things you disagree, and to prove that you are right. And, of course, as is demonstrated constantly on this board, no-one ever changes their mind.
His idea is that you seek out someone with whom you disagree, and you set out to write a paper with them. And the goal of this paper, is to chronicle all you agree on. So, in the case of a paper on the NHS, it might not have solutions - or may only have limited ones - but it would have an agreement on what the problems are and what constitutes success.
I always thought it a very interesting idea.
The NHS is the most political issue out there, involving as it does amongst other things, the size and involvement of the State and private enterprise.
There is no way there could or should be collaboration between parties about it because the conclusion could not be to have it a bit pregnant.
While clearly UKIP provides much sport, this little tweet has been overlooked.
Kendall, Wollaston, and Lamb's proposal for a tripartite approach to the NHS has cold water poured on it by May. She never misses an opportunity to make a mistake.
TBH I don’t blame her. For one thing - I don’t see that a cross party working group is the right way to deal with such a political issue. For another - she has rather a lot on keeping her party together and delivering Brexit and can hardly afford to invest political capital in another charged policy area.
In any case, I doubt if the Labour leadership would be interested in any cross-party agreement.
Exactly. They have too much vested in using the NHS as their chief weapon.
Wouldn't a better prime minister realise this and be able to trap Labour into supporting something that falls a long way short of what the Corbynistas are expecting?
I think the plan is to call for a genuine and serious cross-party solution on health and social care and then watch Labour either agree (which neutralises their attack line) or disagree (which looks like they’re overplaying their hand).
It might possibly work if you had a Coalition Govt. (excluding the current notion of a Con-DUP Coalition Govt.) 2010 might have been a good time to set it up - Cameron and Clegg make an offer to Labour "to sort it out for a generation". They could probably have sold it. Ed Miliband might even have gone for it. But even "Honest Ed" wasn't exactly shy about his "weaponising" the NHS.
But when as now you have essentially two big political blocs, represented by two parties, Labour are always going to say "why should we work with you to neutralise our attack line?" If Labour hasn't got the NHS - what has it got?
What I do find very frustrating about the current Labour Party is the way that Corbynistas try to present the choice for the future in simplistic binary terms: its either the hard left of Corbyn or the "right wing" Blairites.
The fact is that there is an alternative to both: namely, a return to the mainstream, the Labour of Attlee and Wilson and Smith. A rejection of both factions which captured the Labour Party since the death of John Smith in 1994.True Labour.
Corbyn will not win a general election because he cannot capture the marginals of Middle England -the Middle England that can be won by mainstream True Labour.
After Corbyn is gone, yes there should be a female leader but it should be a woman who represents mainstream Labour. That rules out Diane Abbott. It rules out the nonentity who wont be friends with Tories. It rules out Angela Rayner too because she is like a character out of a Catherine Tate sketch. I cannot visualise her outside Number Ten as a representative of main stream Labour.
I can visualise Emily Thornberry outside Number Ten however. She is a clever woman. She tags along with Corbyn for tactical reasons, but she is no hard left Corbynite, nor is she a Blairite. She is mainstream Labour and she would win a general election. Momentum would not be pleased at a return to mainstreamism. Eventually she would have to crush Momentum, but the choice is there for Labour. Either the hard left Corbynistas with their threats of violence, their self indulgence and their extremism, forever in opposition, or power to bring about change by a return to pre Blairite mainstreamism.
Which?
Rayner: "And I think: well, you look down at me at your peril, mate. Because I’ll just eat you alive.’"
What I do find very frustrating about the current Labour Party is the way that Corbynistas try to present the choice for the future in simplistic binary terms: its either the hard left of Corbyn or the "right wing" Blairites.
The fact is that there is an alternative to both: namely, a return to the mainstream, the Labour of Attlee and Wilson and Smith. A rejection of both factions which captured the Labour Party since the death of John Smith in 1994.True Labour.
Corbyn will not win a general election because he cannot capture the marginals of Middle England -the Middle England that can be won by mainstream True Labour.
After Corbyn is gone, yes there should be a female leader but it should be a woman who represents mainstream Labour. That rules out Diane Abbott. It rules out the nonentity who wont be friends with Tories. It rules out Angela Rayner too because she is like a character out of a Catherine Tate sketch. I cannot visualise her outside Number Ten as a representative of main stream Labour.
I can visualise Emily Thornberry outside Number Ten however. She is a clever woman. She tags along with Corbyn for tactical reasons, but she is no hard left Corbynite, nor is she a Blairite. She is mainstream Labour and she would win a general election. Momentum would not be pleased at a return to mainstreamism. Eventually she would have to crush Momentum, but the choice is there for Labour. Either the hard left Corbynistas with their threats of violence, their self indulgence and their extremism, forever in opposition, or power to bring about change by a return to pre Blairite mainstreamism.
Which?
Rayner: "And I think: well, you look down at me at your peril, mate. Because I’ll just eat you alive.’"
Later he pricks my interest by saying, “I probably shouldn’t say this” before telling me: “In one sense I feel sorry for Theresa May. She genuinely thinks her defining mission is to deliver Brexit.”
Actually Blair believes she could do “something different”: that she could become the “nation’s explainer and educator” on what the different Brexit options would mean. Does he know her to be a good explainer and educator? He hums for a moment, then says, “I think not, probably.”
I probably shouldn’t say this. In one sense I feel sorry for Tony Blair. He genuinely thinks his defining mission is to deliver peace in the Middle East.
There should be a word for people you've never heard of until they resign.
I'd also apply it to those I've never heard of until they pass away and it's big news. I always feel my late education in reading obituaries and tributes is tinged with a sense of loss for failing to have come across them or appreciate their achievements while they were still with us.
I'm increasingly talking up Thornberry. Trusted by the nutters (for now at least) and a blood and thunder kind of politician that seems to be in at the moment. Having her accede to the throne when there is a vacancy would be so much better than Rayner or Long-Wotzit.
Thinking about this Wollaston thing, I assume many people on here have read the superlative Thinking Fast and Slow.
Daniel Kahneman has an interesting idea about working with people one has disagreements with. In academia, as in politics and life in general, it's easy to get into arguments where one seeks to be 'the winner'. As a result, you seek to argue about the things you disagree, and to prove that you are right. And, of course, as is demonstrated constantly on this board, no-one ever changes their mind.
His idea is that you seek out someone with whom you disagree, and you set out to write a paper with them. And the goal of this paper, is to chronicle all you agree on. So, in the case of a paper on the NHS, it might not have solutions - or may only have limited ones - but it would have an agreement on what the problems are and what constitutes success.
I always thought it a very interesting idea.
That's what I suggested the other day... and got shouted down
While clearly UKIP provides much sport, this little tweet has been overlooked.
Kendall, Wollaston, and Lamb's proposal for a tripartite approach to the NHS has cold water poured on it by May. She never misses an opportunity to make a mistake.
TBH I don’t blame her. For one thing - I don’t see that a cross party working group is the right way to deal with such a political issue. For another - she has rather a lot on keeping her party together and delivering Brexit and can hardly afford to invest political capital in another charged policy area.
Additionally can Liz Kendall deliver the Labour Party...
The problem is that these cross-party things very rarely work, unless it's on a specific, narrow issue with no obvious room for politicisation.
So, you could see a cross party working party on the best way to deal with drug addiction, or on mental health issues. But you're not going to get something working on the NHS, because someone will have to "betray" their party.
There must be a play for May here. Not sure ignoring it completely was the best course of action.
Let's say you have a Royal Commission that says "The NHS needs £30 billion per annum extra funding." It wouldn't take the NHS out of politics. There would be
a) a huge political fight on whose budget got cut/what taxes got raised to pay for it, that would essentially be no different to today;
b) a medical profession saying "We are the experts. It needs to be £50 billion..."
c) a Labour Party that would offer that £50 billion.
We would be no further forward in terms of taking the NHS out of politics. You never will. It is the most political thing in Britain.
We need to look carefully at why the UK is one of only a handful of Western countries where health is a major political issue. (The USA is the other major one). Pretty much everywhere else, health just happens.
because it's the only worth while thing the left has delivered. So it's totemic
While clearly UKIP provides much sport, this little tweet has been overlooked.
Kendall, Wollaston, and Lamb's proposal for a tripartite approach to the NHS has cold water poured on it by May. She never misses an opportunity to make a mistake.
TBH I don’t blame her. For one thing - I don’t see that a cross party working group is the right way to deal with such a political issue. For another - she has rather a lot on keeping her party together and delivering Brexit and can hardly afford to invest political capital in another charged policy area.
Additionally can Liz Kendall deliver the Labour Party...
The problem is that these cross-party things very rarely work, unless it's on a specific, narrow issue with no obvious room for politicisation.
So, you could see a cross party working party on the best way to deal with drug addiction, or on mental health issues. But you're not going to get something working on the NHS, because someone will have to "betray" their party.
There must be a play for May here. Not sure ignoring it completely was the best course of action.
Let's say you have a Royal Commission that says "The NHS needs £30 billion per annum extra funding." It wouldn't take the NHS out of politics. There would be
a) a huge political fight on whose budget got cut/what taxes got raised to pay for it, that would essentially be no different to today;
b) a medical profession saying "We are the experts. It needs to be £50 billion..."
c) a Labour Party that would offer that £50 billion.
We would be no further forward in terms of taking the NHS out of politics. You never will. It is the most political thing in Britain.
We need to look carefully at why the UK is one of only a handful of Western countries where health is a major political issue. (The USA is the other major one). Pretty much everywhere else, health just happens.
But typically other western countries spend around 1% of GDP more per annum than we do. I'd guess such an increase over here would paper over the cracks for a while... The US spends way more, so it's hardly surprising it's an issue there too.
There should be a word for people you've never heard of until they resign.
Proper Charlie [Falkener]s
You might be the one poster who can sympathise with this, but my father called me Charlie (because, apparently, I was a proper Charlie) throughout my childhood and teenage years. None of my names are Charles.
Thinking about this Wollaston thing, I assume many people on here have read the superlative Thinking Fast and Slow.
Daniel Kahneman has an interesting idea about working with people one has disagreements with. In academia, as in politics and life in general, it's easy to get into arguments where one seeks to be 'the winner'. As a result, you seek to argue about the things you disagree, and to prove that you are right. And, of course, as is demonstrated constantly on this board, no-one ever changes their mind.
His idea is that you seek out someone with whom you disagree, and you set out to write a paper with them. And the goal of this paper, is to chronicle all you agree on. So, in the case of a paper on the NHS, it might not have solutions - or may only have limited ones - but it would have an agreement on what the problems are and what constitutes success.
I always thought it a very interesting idea.
And most of the time people are 90% in agreement yet screaming past each other about 5e last 10%. A cross-party working group that can articulate and document that on which they all agree would be a great starting point in the health and social care debate.
There should be a word for people you've never heard of until they resign.
Proper Charlie [Falkener]s
You might be the one poster who can sympathise with this, but my father called me Charlie (because, apparently, I was a proper Charlie) throughout my childhood and teenage years. None of my names are Charles.
Oh dear, I fear that might not have been a wise morsel to throw to the ravening PB hordes.
There should be a word for people you've never heard of until they resign.
Proper Charlie [Falkener]s
You might be the one poster who can sympathise with this, but my father called me Charlie (because, apparently, I was a proper Charlie) throughout my childhood and teenage years. None of my names are Charles.
When I was growing up there was someone who used to call me Chuckie. But I couldn't tell him where to go because he was important to my father.
While clearly UKIP provides much sport, this little tweet has been overlooked.
Kendall, Wollaston, and Lamb's proposal for a tripartite approach to the NHS has cold water poured on it by May. She never misses an opportunity to make a mistake.
TBH I don’t blame her. For one thing - I don’t see that a cross party working group is the right way to deal with such a political issue. For another - she has rather a lot on keeping her party together and delivering Brexit and can hardly afford to invest political capital in another charged policy area.
Additionally can Liz Kendall deliver the Labour Party...
The problem is that these cross-party things very rarely work, unless it's on a specific, narrow issue with no obvious room for politicisation.
So, you could see a cross party working party on the best way to deal with drug addiction, or on mental health issues. But you're not going to get something working on the NHS, because someone will have to "betray" their party.
There must be a play for May here. Not sure ignoring it completely was the best course of action.
Let's say you have a Royal Commission that says "The NHS needs £30 billion per annum extra funding." It wouldn't take the NHS out of politics. There would be
a) a huge political fight on whose budget got cut/what taxes got raised to pay for it, that would essentially be no different to today;
b) a medical profession saying "We are the experts. It needs to be £50 billion..."
c) a Labour Party that would offer that £50 billion.
We would be no further forward in terms of taking the NHS out of politics. You never will. It is the most political thing in Britain.
We need to look carefully at why the UK is one of only a handful of Western countries where health is a major political issue. (The USA is the other major one). Pretty much everywhere else, health just happens.
But typically other western countries spend around 1% of GDP more per annum than we do. I'd guess such an increase over here would paper over the cracks for a while... The US spends way more, so it's hardly surprising it's an issue there too.
The Netherlands also puts a lot into Social Care. I rather like this scheeme, esp the Dusseldorf bus stop:
There should be a word for people you've never heard of until they resign.
Proper Charlie [Falkener]s
You might be the one poster who can sympathise with this, but my father called me Charlie (because, apparently, I was a proper Charlie) throughout my childhood and teenage years. None of my names are Charles.
Oh dear, I fear that might not have been a wise morsel to throw to the ravening PB hordes.
I don't think I've been sparse with such morsels in the past. And in any case, so far as the ravening PB hordes are concerned it's like throwing cakes at a bear.
TBH I don’t blame her. For one thing - I don’t see that a cross party working group is the right way to deal with such a political issue. For another - she has rather a lot on keeping her party together and delivering Brexit and can hardly afford to invest political capital in another charged policy area.
Additionally can Liz Kendall deliver the Labour Party...
The problem is that these cross-party things very rarely work, unless it's on a specific, narrow issue with no obvious room for politicisation.
So, you could see a cross party working party on the best way to deal with drug addiction, or on mental health issues. But you're not going to get something working on the NHS, because someone will have to "betray" their party.
There must be a play for May here. Not sure ignoring it completely was the best course of action.
Let's say you have a Royal Commission that says "The NHS needs £30 billion per annum extra funding." It wouldn't take the NHS out of politics. There would be
a) a huge political fight on whose budget got cut/what taxes got raised to pay for it, that would essentially be no different to today;
b) a medical profession saying "We are the experts. It needs to be £50 billion..."
c) a Labour Party that would offer that £50 billion.
We would be no further forward in terms of taking the NHS out of politics. You never will. It is the most political thing in Britain.
We need to look carefully at why the UK is one of only a handful of Western countries where health is a major political issue. (The USA is the other major one). Pretty much everywhere else, health just happens.
But typically other western countries spend around 1% of GDP more per annum than we do. I'd guess such an increase over here would paper over the cracks for a while... The US spends way more, so it's hardly surprising it's an issue there too.
But that extra 1% usually includes far more private spending, which is precisely one of the issues here. Any suggestion that we could increase the amount spent on health by increasing private expenditure on health brings some people out in hives.
I do think May should have tried to get some sort of cross-party consensus going. If it failed because Labour wouldn't play ball well she could have said that.
TBH I don’t blame her. For one thing - I don’t see that a cross party working group is the right way to deal with such a political issue. For another - she has rather a lot on keeping her party together and delivering Brexit and can hardly afford to invest political capital in another charged policy area.
Additionally can Liz Kendall deliver the Labour Party...
The problem is that these cross-party things very rarely work, unless it's on a specific, narrow issue with no obvious room for politicisation.
So, you could see a cross party working party on the best way to deal with drug addiction, or on mental health issues. But you're not going to get something working on the NHS, because someone will have to "betray" their party.
There must be a play for May here. Not sure ignoring it completely was the best course of action.
Let's say you have a Royal Commission that says "The NHS needs £30 billion per annum extra funding." It wouldn't take the NHS out of politics. There would be
a) a huge political fight on whose budget got cut/what taxes got raised to pay for it, that would essentially be no different to today;
b) a medical profession saying "We are the experts. It needs to be £50 billion..."
c) a Labour Party that would offer that £50 billion.
We would be no further forward in terms of taking the NHS out of politics. You never will. It is the most political thing in Britain.
We need to look carefully at why the UK is one of only a handful of Western countries where health is a major political issue. (The USA is the other major one). Pretty much everywhere else, health just happens.
because it's the only worth while thing the left has delivered. So it's totemic
I think that Labour might overplay their hand here. I think Hunt understands that huge changes are needed and is trying to build a consensus as to the way forward. Labour have to choose to either engage with the discussion or accept that only Conservatives will have input and will be whipped hard (ooh er!) to vote through whatever emerges from those discussions.
My personal view - we should reverse the benefit-in-kind taxation arrangements on employer-provided health insurance. Everyone who can afford to go private should be encouraged to do so. We also need to get a lot better at billing foreigners who turn up sick, we are not running an International Health Service.
There should be a word for people you've never heard of until they resign.
Proper Charlie [Falkener]s
You might be the one poster who can sympathise with this, but my father called me Charlie (because, apparently, I was a proper Charlie) throughout my childhood and teenage years. None of my names are Charles.
Oh dear, I fear that might not have been a wise morsel to throw to the ravening PB hordes.
I don't think I've been sparse with such morsels in the past. And in any case, so far as the ravening PB hordes are concerned it's like throwing cakes at a bear.
If you knew the nickname I was given at university, I'd never hear the end of it.
The ONS has nothing more recent than its 2015 Health Accounts, but it's of interest in and of itself, because it's the first time the UK used the SHA2011 categories (which are used by all EU countries and most OECD countries). This means we can compare apples to pommes with more confidence than previously.
We spend around 9.9% of GDP on healthcare. That's above the median for OECD countries (I like the HA because it accounts for out-of-pocket health spending and private healthcare as well). About 80% of that expenditure is via the NHS.
In terms of comparison with our peers, the EU range is from 11.1% GDP (Germany) down to 6.3% for Latvia. We're 13th out of the set of {EU, OECD} countries (35 in total). If we were to match German levels of funding, we'd need to find an additional £22 billion (based on UK 2016 GDP).
Assuming we all agree that the US health system is not to be copied, to match the #2 OECD country (Japan), we'd have to give the NHS around £24 billion.
TBH I don’t blame her. For one thing - I don’t see that a cross party working group is the right way to deal with such a political issue. For another - she has rather a lot on keeping her party together and delivering Brexit and can hardly afford to invest political capital in another charged policy area.
Additionally can Liz Kendall deliver the Labour Party...
The problem is that these cross-party things very rarely work, unless it's on a specific, narrow issue with no obvious room for politicisation.
So, you could see a cross party working party on the best way to deal with drug addiction, or on mental health issues. But you're not going to get something working on the NHS, because someone will have to "betray" their party.
There must be a play for May here. Not sure ignoring it completely was the best course of action.
Let's say you have a Royal Commission that says "The NHS needs £30 billion per annum extra funding." It wouldn't take the NHS out of politics. There would be
a) a huge political fight on whose budget got cut/what taxes got raised to pay for it, that would essentially be no different to today;
b) a medical profession saying "We are the experts. It needs to be £50 billion..."
c) a Labour Party that would offer that £50 billion.
We would be no further forward in terms of taking the NHS out of politics. You never will. It is the most political thing in Britain.
We need to look carefully at why the UK is one of only a handful of Western countries where health is a major political issue. (The USA is the other major one). Pretty much everywhere else, health just happens.
But typically other western countries spend around 1% of GDP more per annum than we do. I'd guess such an increase over here would paper over the cracks for a while... The US spends way more, so it's hardly surprising it's an issue there too.
The Netherlands also puts a lot into Social Care. I rather like this scheeme, esp the Dusseldorf bus stop:
That’s a really interesting article (having eventually been able to read it). IMO it’s clear that there’s a need for a national conversation around health and social care, and that the conversation needs to be held well away from the party politics that attaches perjoratively negative labels to any proposed solutions.
TBH I don’t blame her. For one thing - I don’t see that a cross party working group is the right way to deal with such a political issue. For another - she has rather a lot on keeping her party together and delivering Brexit and can hardly afford to invest political capital in another charged policy area.
Additionally can Liz Kendall deliver the Labour Party...
The problem is that these cross-party things very rarely work, unless it's on a specific, narrow issue with no obvious room for politicisation.
So, you could see a cross party working party on the best way to deal with drug addiction, or on mental health issues. But you're not going to get something working on the NHS, because someone will have to "betray" their party.
There must be a play for May here. Not sure ignoring it completely was the best course of action.
Let's say you have a Royal Commission that says "The NHS needs £30 billion per annum extra funding." It wouldn't take the NHS out of politics. There would be
a) a huge political fight on whose budget got cut/what taxes got raised to pay for it, that would essentially be no different to today;
b) a medical profession saying "We are the experts. It needs to be £50 billion..."
c) a Labour Party that would offer that £50 billion.
We would be no further forward in terms of taking the NHS out of politics. You never will. It is the most political thing in Britain.
We need to look carefully at why the UK is one of only a handful of Western countries where health is a major political issue. (The USA is the other major one). Pretty much everywhere else, health just happens.
because it's the only worth while thing the left has delivered. So it's totemic
I think that Labour might overplay their hand here. I think Hunt understands that huge changes are needed and is trying to build a consensus as to the way forward. Labour have to choose to either engage with the discussion or accept that only Conservatives will have input and will be whipped hard (ooh er!) to vote through whatever emerges from those discussions.
My personal view - we should reverse the benefit-in-kind taxation arrangements on employer-provided health insurance. Everyone who can afford to go private should be encouraged to do so. We also need to get a lot better at billing foreigners who turn up sick, we are not running an International Health Service.
Comments
Daniel Kahneman has an interesting idea about working with people one has disagreements with. In academia, as in politics and life in general, it's easy to get into arguments where one seeks to be 'the winner'. As a result, you seek to argue about the things you disagree, and to prove that you are right. And, of course, as is demonstrated constantly on this board, no-one ever changes their mind.
His idea is that you seek out someone with whom you disagree, and you set out to write a paper with them. And the goal of this paper, is to chronicle all you agree on. So, in the case of a paper on the NHS, it might not have solutions - or may only have limited ones - but it would have an agreement on what the problems are and what constitutes success.
I always thought it a very interesting idea.
I do agree that a more. i listed abojective would be far more likely to succeed. Until we live in a resource unlimited utopia, 'taking healthcare out of politics' is just another slogan.
Taking some of the politics out of healthcare might be another matter.
The fact is that there is an alternative to both: namely, a return to the mainstream, the Labour of Attlee and Wilson and Smith. A rejection of both factions which captured the Labour Party since the death of John Smith in 1994.True Labour.
Corbyn will not win a general election because he cannot capture the marginals of Middle England -the Middle England that can be won by mainstream True Labour.
After Corbyn is gone, yes there should be a female leader but it should be a woman who represents mainstream Labour. That rules out Diane Abbott. It rules out the nonentity who wont be friends with Tories. It rules out Angela Rayner too because she is like a character out of a Catherine Tate sketch. I cannot visualise her outside Number Ten as a representative of main stream Labour.
I can visualise Emily Thornberry outside Number Ten however. She is a clever woman. She tags along with Corbyn for tactical reasons, but she is no hard left Corbynite, nor is she a Blairite. She is mainstream Labour and she would win a general election. Momentum would not be pleased at a return to mainstreamism. Eventually she would have to crush Momentum, but the choice is there for Labour. Either the hard left Corbynistas with their threats of violence, their self indulgence and their extremism, forever in opposition, or power to bring about change by a return to pre Blairite mainstreamism.
Which?
https://twitter.com/payton_besecker/status/950815841720860672
[Spectator magazine]
https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/tony-blair-hq-fitzrovia-brexit-becoming-a-grandfather-a3746236.html
Later he pricks my interest by saying, “I probably shouldn’t say this” before telling me: “In one sense I feel sorry for Theresa May. She genuinely thinks her defining mission is to deliver Brexit.”
Actually Blair believes she could do “something different”: that she could become the “nation’s explainer and educator” on what the different Brexit options would mean. Does he know her to be a good explainer and educator? He hums for a moment, then says, “I think not, probably.”
There is no way there could or should be collaboration between parties about it because the conclusion could not be to have it a bit pregnant.
But when as now you have essentially two big political blocs, represented by two parties, Labour are always going to say "why should we work with you to neutralise our attack line?" If Labour hasn't got the NHS - what has it got?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfkjvagVsRI
Is Bolton still the Lord High Kipper?
Pfft!
https://twitter.com/johnestevens/status/955439298970574848
He has to go - where that leaves his party? I don't know. But it is dead with him as Leader - so anything has to be better. Right?!
It's all the rage, don'tcherknow.....
The US spends way more, so it's hardly surprising it's an issue there too.
https://www.economist.com/news/europe/21734412-netherlands-pursues-promising-costly-experiment-new-way-caring-vulnerable
I do think May should have tried to get some sort of cross-party consensus going. If it failed because Labour wouldn't play ball well she could have said that.
My personal view - we should reverse the benefit-in-kind taxation arrangements on employer-provided health insurance. Everyone who can afford to go private should be encouraged to do so. We also need to get a lot better at billing foreigners who turn up sick, we are not running an International Health Service.
Fortunately, you won't.
The ONS has nothing more recent than its 2015 Health Accounts, but it's of interest in and of itself, because it's the first time the UK used the SHA2011 categories (which are used by all EU countries and most OECD countries). This means we can compare apples to pommes with more confidence than previously.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthcaresystem/bulletins/ukhealthaccounts/2015
We spend around 9.9% of GDP on healthcare. That's above the median for OECD countries (I like the HA because it accounts for out-of-pocket health spending and private healthcare as well). About 80% of that expenditure is via the NHS.
In terms of comparison with our peers, the EU range is from 11.1% GDP (Germany) down to 6.3% for Latvia. We're 13th out of the set of {EU, OECD} countries (35 in total). If we were to match German levels of funding, we'd need to find an additional £22 billion (based on UK 2016 GDP).
Assuming we all agree that the US health system is not to be copied, to match the #2 OECD country (Japan), we'd have to give the NHS around £24 billion.
IMO it’s clear that there’s a need for a national conversation around health and social care, and that the conversation needs to be held well away from the party politics that attaches perjoratively negative labels to any proposed solutions.