But to me, 3,000 extra midwifes to save 700 babies looks like it might not be the best use for more NHS spending on a cost/benefit basis.
The man's a clown. How long have we been losing 700 babies a year because of the government's parsimony?
Since 1948.
And it would have been a lot more than 700 in the earlier years.
If we recruit 3,000 more midwifes to save 700 babies should we recruit 3,000 more midwifes after that to save another 300 babies and then yet another 3,000 more to save 100 babies ?
Ultimately you could have every pregnant woman have her own midwife following her around 100% of the time. It would reduce baby deaths but it wouldn't IMO be the most effective use of limited resources.
Actually, still births have steadily declined by a quarter over the last 3 decades as a percentage. The biggest change in maternity services is the 25% rise in the number of births over the same period. It is a capacity issue in large part. The explanation is the decline in teenage fertility rates, and the trend downwards of millenials in the twenties, and upwards for thirty and fortysomethings. The high fertility of migrants is a factor too, with 27% of new mothers having been born abroad.
Over the last few years the birthrate has trended slightly down, from a recent peak in 2012. Obvious implications for primary schools, but softening the pressure on maternity units. The problem there is staffing Midwifery, Obstertric and Neonatal units. The latter have become worryingly thin due to rota gaps and retention issues.
While there is personal tragedy by the bucketload, the financial costs of birth injury and related medicolegal issues is a major financial pressure.
For conspiracy followers real bust up between Cadwalladr and Oakshott on Marr - do not know too much about this bubble story but Cadwallader seems to have an anti Brexit agenda
I gather it is the Brexiteers' Brexiteer versus the Remoaners' Remoaner.
Two sides to every story and this one is going nowhere
.
The
Cummings kept most of the spend back until the last few weeks, when they went hell for leather on Turkey and immigration.
Great strategy, and Remain had no rebuttal.
Then, they should have done.
It's .
Remain was utterly complacent and doubled down on FEAR, because it apparently won the Scottish ref. Blame Cameron and the milksops like Will Straw who led the campaign.
.
I don’t think there’s any evidence for that whatsoever. Sounds like a conspiracy theory.
I don't think it's a conspiracy theory. It's no secret that many Blairites support joining the Euro, as did the CBI and the TUC, and Heseltine and Ken Clarke still do.
I also have it on good authority that George Osborne privately did. I think David Cameron, William Hague and Stuart Rose were more sceptical, but would never have campaigned to reverse it had we actually joined.
You’re arguing that behind Remainerism is a secret desire for “Euro-federalism”, which offers a better long term future for national democracy.
Then you flip to talking about the Euro.
Then you suggest that if we had joined the Euro, David Cameron would not have campaigned to reverse this.
Not one of your better efforts.
Remainers lost for many reasons. Mostly, a generational failure to make a critical, but positive, case for Britain’s role in the EU.
Cameron’s whole strategy - from calling the referendum, through the negotiation, and then the campaign itself - was incredibly poor.
That doesn’t make him an arch federalist though. Just crap.
And metropolitan bigots like Matthew Parris spray their hatred about 'people like them'.
But you know what, I suspect that people aren't any different to what they've always been.
Only now the internet allows loud-mouths to sound off beyond the limits of their local pub and declining economic growth means that the only way for people to fund the lifestyle they think they deserve is to have wealth taken from other groups.
A country full of hate is a country in deep trouble. And that is the country we are turning into. As I say, it will not end well.
There's always been hatred about but its easier to read it now.
I think a major problem is that we've been promised too much and there's reducing abilities to meet these promises.
Yet politicians still prefer to double down on the magic money tree and any rational discussion is drowned out by fear projects.
There's less political hate now than in the Seventies and Eighties.
But to me, 3,000 extra midwifes to save 700 babies looks like it might not be the best use for more NHS spending on a cost/benefit basis.
The man's a clown. How long have we been losing 700 babies a year because of the government's parsimony?
Since 1948.
And it would have been a lot more than 700 in the earlier years.
If we recruit 3,000 more midwifes to save 700 babies should we recruit 3,000 more midwifes after that to save another 300 babies and then yet another 3,000 more to save 100 babies ?
Ultimately you could have every pregnant woman have her own midwife following her around 100% of the time. It would reduce baby deaths but it wouldn't IMO be the most effective use of limited resources.
That depends on the proportion of midwives to expectant mothers and how it has fluctuated through the years, doesn't it?
Certainly but there's no doubt that we're already well into the law of diminishing returns on infant mortality:
But to me, 3,000 extra midwifes to save 700 babies looks like it might not be the best use for more NHS spending on a cost/benefit basis.
The man's a clown. How long have we been losing 700 babies a year because of the government's parsimony?
Since 1948.
And it would have been a lot more than 700 in the earlier years.
If we recruit 3,000 more midwifes to save 700 babies should we recruit 3,000 more midwifes after that to save another 300 babies and then yet another 3,000 more to save 100 babies ?
Ultimately you could have every pregnant woman have her own midwife following her around 100% of the time. It would reduce baby deaths but it wouldn't IMO be the most effective use of limited resources.
That depends on the proportion of midwives to expectant mothers and how it has fluctuated through the years, doesn't it?
Slightly more to it than that. The average age of mothers giving birth is now over 30 years and continuing to rise. While socially more convenient, that is biologically less good. The number of mothers giving birth in late thirties and early forties due to fertility treatment is a good thing, but medically a higher risk, as is the rise in multiple births.
For conspiracy followers real bust up between Cadwalladr and Oakshott on Marr - do not know too much about this bubble story but Cadwallader seems to have an anti Brexit agenda
You’re arguing that behind Remainerism is a secret desire for “Euro-federalism”, which offers a better long term future for national democracy.
Then you flip to talking about the Euro.
Then you suggest that if we had joined the Euro, David Cameron would not have campaigned to reverse this.
Not one of your better efforts.
Remainers lost for many reasons. Mostly, a generational failure to make a critical, but positive, case for Britain’s role in the EU.
Cameron’s whole strategy - from calling the referendum, through the negotiation, and then the campaign itself - was incredibly poor.
That doesn’t make him an arch federalist though. Just crap.
I think you make my point for me: the positive case for Britain's role in the EU can only be that the UK having a seat at the table in a supranational union, pooling its sovereignty accordingly amongst 28-nations, delivers better results geopolitically and economically in the modern world than having more direct control at the national level, but less international influence. There was enough evidence on the direction the EU was heading in, and the fact we'd be very unlikely to have another vote for decades, to know what a Remain vote would mean long-term.
I don't believe Cameron was an arch-federalist. He's a small-c conservative establishment-type character, who is happy to administer the status quo as he thinks any issues with its performance are largely down to not enough people like him running the show, not what sort of show is being put on.
And metropolitan bigots like Matthew Parris spray their hatred about 'people like them'.
But you know what, I suspect that people aren't any different to what they've always been.
Only now the internet allows loud-mouths to sound off beyond the limits of their local pub and declining economic growth means that the only way for people to fund the lifestyle they think they deserve is to have wealth taken from other groups.
A country full of hate is a country in deep trouble. And that is the country we are turning into. As I say, it will not end well.
There's always been hatred about but its easier to read it now.
I think a major problem is that we've been promised too much and there's reducing abilities to meet these promises.
Yet politicians still prefer to double down on the magic money tree and any rational discussion is drowned out by fear projects.
There's less political hate now than in the Seventies and Eighties.
But to me, 3,000 extra midwifes to save 700 babies looks like it might not be the best use for more NHS spending on a cost/benefit basis.
The man's a clown. How long have we been losing 700 babies a year because of the government's parsimony?
Since 1948.
And it would have been a lot more than 700 in the earlier years.
If we recruit 3,000 more midwifes to save 700 babies should we recruit 3,000 more midwifes after that to save another 300 babies and then yet another 3,000 more to save 100 babies ?
Ultimately you could have every pregnant woman have her own midwife following her around 100% of the time. It would reduce baby deaths but it wouldn't IMO be the most effective use of limited resources.
That depends on the proportion of midwives to expectant mothers and how it has fluctuated through the years, doesn't it?
Slightly more to it than that. The average age of mothers giving birth is now over 30 years and continuing to rise. While socially more convenient, that is biologically less good. The number of mothers giving birth in late thirties and early forties due to fertility treatment is a good thing, but medically a higher risk, as is the rise in multiple births.
A US Senator is shortly to give birth at 50, which seems remarkable.
The Mail is picking up, for its own purposes, something which has long been around:
' Some of this is down to the Conservatives and their supporters in the media, but the blame lies with Labour, and especially that element within the party that hates the idea of Britain in general and England in particular. George Orwell wrote about this 75 years ago in his classic essay “The Lion and the Unicorn”:
" England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during “God Save the King” than of stealing from a poor box. "
Little has changed.
Orwell went on: “In intention, at any rate, the English intelligentsia are Europeanised. They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident thought.” More recently, Martin Amis’s excellent book Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million looked at this group’s refusal to confront the Soviet terrors.
Metropolitan intellectual snobbery is part of an older, anti-English racism that runs back through the centuries to a series of multinational monarchs who looked down on the native peasants. '
More significantly, didn't Davis say that no hard border between NI and the RoI means no cameras? If so, that's a pretty big statement and seems to kill of a technological solution to the current impasse.
Gina Miller certain to take this back to court. When you thought no team could sink lower than the Australians you discover 'Vote Leave' have done just that. If proven the referendum surely has to be re-run
Be careful what you wish for. A re-run referendum would most likely turn out like the Winchester by-election.
That's a matter of opinion. My own view is that the Remain campaign was fought on the wrong issues and they won't make that mistake again. On the other side Leave were allowed to run a xenophobic/racist campaign which they weren't called out on. I think you'd be looking at a completely fresh page.
The mistake you're making is thinking most floating voters secretly think like you do.
They don't.
Remain would very probably lose by a bigger margin (and nothing is certain, of course) because they have learnt nothing, and forgotten nothing.
The immigration point was certainly made. But it could not be made by the leaders of the Remain campaign for obvious reasons. I am not sure the colour of our passports was an issue for either side.
It was not made, and it could not have been made because there was actually very little the UK could do. That's why Cameron tried so hard in his negotiation. The idea we actually had some "secret" level of control we chose not to exercise is retrospective myth-making.
There is an argument that we could have moved our entire benefits and healthcare system to a contributory basis, to massively disincentivise EU migration, but that of course would have been a colossal change that probably would not have commanded domestic political support, nor delivered the required results even if it had.
But to me, 3,000 extra midwifes to save 700 babies looks like it might not be the best use for more NHS spending on a cost/benefit basis.
The man's a clown. How long have we been losing 700 babies a year because of the government's parsimony?
Since 1948.
And it would have been a lot more than 700 in the earlier years.
If we recruit 3,000 more midwifes to save 700 babies should we recruit 3,000 more midwifes after that to save another 300 babies and then yet another 3,000 more to save 100 babies ?
Ultimately you could have every pregnant woman have her own midwife following her around 100% of the time. It would reduce baby deaths but it wouldn't IMO be the most effective use of limited resources.
That depends on the proportion of midwives to expectant mothers and how it has fluctuated through the years, doesn't it?
Certainly but there's no doubt that we're already well into the law of diminishing returns on infant mortality:
No doubt there was a degree of catch up in the former Eastern block, but even countries like Czechia, Slovenia and Estonia are doing better than us. Even Romania is hot on our tail. Romania now has a rate similar to us in 1990.
Caveat: the figures are recorded slightly differently in some other countries, so direct comparison tricky. The trend over time is nonetheless clear.
'Stood down for remainder of test match'. Not fired yet I guess.
I don't see how they can not be sacked as captain and vice-captain, given the admissions of premeditated cheating. Problematically they dropped others in it by clarifying it was a 'leadership group' who decided it. Who else is in the leadership group, and if they are not captain or vice-captain, what punishment can they receive, given its not like the authorities will be keen to suspend their best players? But will they have to?
The Mail is picking up, for its own purposes, something which has long been around:
' Some of this is down to the Conservatives and their supporters in the media, but the blame lies with Labour, and especially that element within the party that hates the idea of Britain in general and England in particular. George Orwell wrote about this 75 years ago in his classic essay “The Lion and the Unicorn”:
" England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during “God Save the King” than of stealing from a poor box. "
Little has changed.
Orwell went on: “In intention, at any rate, the English intelligentsia are Europeanised. They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident thought.” More recently, Martin Amis’s excellent book Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million looked at this group’s refusal to confront the Soviet terrors.
Metropolitan intellectual snobbery is part of an older, anti-English racism that runs back through the centuries to a series of multinational monarchs who looked down on the native peasants. '
I am intrigued by the idea that the Conservative government's failure to choose a British company to make the UK's blue passports is the fault of the Labour party.
The article above has betting implications. If the Hodges Scenario is correct (Vote Conservative to save Britain from Labour...and the Conservatives) then May may a) lead the Conservatives into the 2022 election, and b) win. Although it's too far out for certainty, we should reconsider the consensus that May will resign post-Brexit.
'Stood down for remainder of test match'. Not fired yet I guess.
I don't see how they can not be sacked as captain and vice-captain, given the admissions of premeditated cheating. Problematically they dropped others in it by clarifying it was a 'leadership group' who decided it. Who else is in the leadership group, and if they are not captain or vice-captain, what punishment can they receive, given its not like the authorities will be keen to suspend their best players? But will they have to?
I don’t see how, given what’s been admitted so far, there’s not at least three players (Bancroft, Smith and Warner) looking at lengthy bans from the game by the ICC.
Quote from the Australian Sports Commission chairman: "The ASC condemns cheating of any form in sport. The ASC expects and requires that Australian teams and athletes demonstrate unimpeachable integrity in representing our country.“
I think the ASC were hoping that the F1 race in Melbourne might be leading the headlines today....
The Mail is picking up, for its own purposes, something which has long been around:
' Some of this is down to the Conservatives and their supporters in the media, but the blame lies with Labour, and especially that element within the party that hates the idea of Britain in general and England in particular. George Orwell wrote about this 75 years ago in his classic essay “The Lion and the Unicorn”:
" England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during “God Save the King” than of stealing from a poor box. "
Little has changed.
Orwell went on: “In intention, at any rate, the English intelligentsia are Europeanised. They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident thought.” More recently, Martin Amis’s excellent book Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million looked at this group’s refusal to confront the Soviet terrors.
Metropolitan intellectual snobbery is part of an older, anti-English racism that runs back through the centuries to a series of multinational monarchs who looked down on the native peasants. '
I am intrigued by the idea that the Conservative government's failure to choose a British company to make the UK's blue passports is the fault of the Labour party.
That's just the Mail ranting.
My point is that the Mail's headline isn't dissimilar to what Orwell wrote nearly 80 years ago or what John King wrote in the New Statesman two years ago.
Though I expect that Orwell and King's writings were of a more thought provoking nature - I don't read the Mail so I can't comment on what it actually said.
The article above has betting implications. If the Hodges Scenario is correct (Vote Conservative to save Britain from Labour...and the Conservatives) then May may a) lead the Conservatives into the 2022 election, and b) win. Although it's too far out for certainty, we should reconsider the consensus that May will resign post-Brexit.
That article makes absolutely no sense. It says that the Tories are being taken over by the right, so how can May stay in control without the right's support?
The Mail is picking up, for its own purposes, something which has long been around:
' Some of this is down to the Conservatives and their supporters in the media, but the blame lies with Labour, and especially that element within the party that hates the idea of Britain in general and England in particular. George Orwell wrote about this 75 years ago in his classic essay “The Lion and the Unicorn”:
" England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during “God Save the King” than of stealing from a poor box. "
Little has changed.
Orwell went on: “In intention, at any rate, the English intelligentsia are Europeanised. They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident thought.” More recently, Martin Amis’s excellent book Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million looked at this group’s refusal to confront the Soviet terrors.
Metropolitan intellectual snobbery is part of an older, anti-English racism that runs back through the centuries to a series of multinational monarchs who looked down on the native peasants. '
I am intrigued by the idea that the Conservative government's failure to choose a British company to make the UK's blue passports is the fault of the Labour party.
Talk today is that De La Rue inflated the quote as it has a 189 million pension deficit. Frank Field last night demanded that they explain why their bid was so much higher
'Stood down for remainder of test match'. Not fired yet I guess.
I don't see how they can not be sacked as captain and vice-captain, given the admissions of premeditated cheating. Problematically they dropped others in it by clarifying it was a 'leadership group' who decided it. Who else is in the leadership group, and if they are not captain or vice-captain, what punishment can they receive, given its not like the authorities will be keen to suspend their best players? But will they have to?
I don’t see how, given what’s been admitted so far, there’s not at least three players (Bancroft, Smith and Warner) looking at lengthy bans from the game by the ICC.
Quote from the Australian Sports Commission chairman: "The ASC condemns cheating of any form in sport. The ASC expects and requires that Australian teams and athletes demonstrate unimpeachable integrity in representing our country.“
I think the ASC were hoping that the F1 race in Melbourne might be leading the headlines today....
One notable thing is that Smith cannot be believed if he claims that he thinks what he did was wrong. He planned it, with others, knowing it was cheating but thinking it was an opportunity. He ordered it, with the most inexperienced member of the team chosen to do it. Then when forced to admit the truth, he stated he would not consider stepping down, which is proof that he doesn't think what he did was really wrong, in my opinion. If you don't consider stepping down when you have been caught planning and orchestrating a cheat, you never will. Oh he will be forced to, but clearly he thinks a captain should be allowed to cheat without consequence to their position.
The Mail is picking up, for its own purposes, something which has long been around:
' Some of this is down to the Conservatives and their supporters in the media, but the blame lies with Labour, and especially that element within the party that hates the idea of Britain in general and England in particular. George Orwell wrote about this 75 years ago in his classic essay “The Lion and the Unicorn”:
" England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during “God Save the King” than of stealing from a poor box. "
Little has changed.
Orwell went on: “In intention, at any rate, the English intelligentsia are Europeanised. They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident thought.” More recently, Martin Amis’s excellent book Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million looked at this group’s refusal to confront the Soviet terrors.
Metropolitan intellectual snobbery is part of an older, anti-English racism that runs back through the centuries to a series of multinational monarchs who looked down on the native peasants. '
I am intrigued by the idea that the Conservative government's failure to choose a British company to make the UK's blue passports is the fault of the Labour party.
Talk today is that De La Rue inflated the quote as it has a 189 million pension deficit. Frank Field last night demanded that they explain why their bid was so much higher
It’s clear they thought they could bid whatever they liked for the contract, and the government wouldn’t call them on it.
But to me, 3,000 extra midwifes to save 700 babies looks like it might not be the best use for more NHS spending on a cost/benefit basis.
The man's a clown. How long have we been losing 700 babies a year because of the government's parsimony?
Since 1948.
And it would have been a lot more than 700 in the earlier years.
If we recruit 3,000 more midwifes to save 700 babies should we recruit 3,000 more midwifes after that to save another 300 babies and then yet another 3,000 more to save 100 babies ?
Ultimately you could have every pregnant woman have her own midwife following her around 100% of the time. It would reduce baby deaths but it wouldn't IMO be the most effective use of limited resources.
That depends on the proportion of midwives to expectant mothers and how it has fluctuated through the years, doesn't it?
Certainly but there's no doubt that we're already well into the law of diminishing returns on infant mortality:
No doubt there was a degree of catch up in the former Eastern block, but even countries like Czechia, Slovenia and Estonia are doing better than us. Even Romania is hot on our tail. Romania now has a rate similar to us in 1990.
Caveat: the figures are recorded slightly differently in some other countries, so direct comparison tricky. The trend over time is nonetheless clear.
There's been a similar fall down the rankings for France, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium.
To be controversial I wonder if changing ethnic proportions among new babies might have an effect.
But to me, 3,000 extra midwifes to save 700 babies looks like it might not be the best use for more NHS spending on a cost/benefit basis.
The man's a clown. How long have we been losing 700 babies a year because of the government's parsimony?
Since 1948.
And it would have been a lot more than 700 in the earlier years.
If we recruit 3,000 more midwifes to save 700 babies should we recruit 3,000 more midwifes after that to save another 300 babies and then yet another 3,000 more to save 100 babies ?
Ultimately you could have every pregnant woman have her own midwife following her around 100% of the time. It would reduce baby deaths but it wouldn't IMO be the most effective use of limited resources.
That depends on the proportion of midwives to expectant mothers and how it has fluctuated through the years, doesn't it?
Certainly but there's no doubt that we're already well into the law of diminishing returns on infant mortality:
No doubt there was a degree of catch up in the former Eastern block, but even countries like Czechia, Slovenia and Estonia are doing better than us. Even Romania is hot on our tail. Romania now has a rate similar to us in 1990.
Caveat: the figures are recorded slightly differently in some other countries, so direct comparison tricky. The trend over time is nonetheless clear.
I'd be interested to know how home births affect outcomes, and the differing rates of home births in different countries.
I'm in favour of more midwifes, but It'd be good to know that this is the best way for money to be spent if we want to decrease infant mortality rates. What are the countries ahead of us in the tables doing differently/better?
No doubt there was a degree of catch up in the former Eastern block, but even countries like Czechia, Slovenia and Estonia are doing better than us. Even Romania is hot on our tail. Romania now has a rate similar to us in 1990.
Caveat: the figures are recorded slightly differently in some other countries, so direct comparison tricky. The trend over time is nonetheless clear.
Purely a gut feeling, but I'd like to think our statistics on this are honest. I'm not sure how much I trust other countries.
I'd like to know if midwife numbers can be connected to infant mortality. If so, then it's worth doing more. But I get the impression it's more about making it a nicer experience for mothers to be. Which is fair enough.
Incidentally, I know someone who's gone through this and it wasn't due to a lack of midwives. More a case of bad luck/piss poor decision making depending on your pov.
But to me, 3,000 extra midwifes to save 700 babies looks like it might not be the best use for more NHS spending on a cost/benefit basis.
The man's a clown. How long have we been losing 700 babies a year because of the government's parsimony?
Since 1948.
And it would have been a lot more than 700 in the earlier years.
If we recruit 3,000 more midwifes to save 700 babies should we recruit 3,000 more midwifes after that to save another 300 babies and then yet another 3,000 more to save 100 babies ?
Ultimately you could have every pregnant woman have her own midwife following her around 100% of the time. It would reduce baby deaths but it wouldn't IMO be the most effective use of limited resources.
That depends on the proportion of midwives to expectant mothers and how it has fluctuated through the years, doesn't it?
Certainly but there's no doubt that we're already well into the law of diminishing returns on infant mortality:
No doubt there was a degree of catch up in the former Eastern block, but even countries like Czechia, Slovenia and Estonia are doing better than us. Even Romania is hot on our tail. Romania now has a rate similar to us in 1990.
Caveat: the figures are recorded slightly differently in some other countries, so direct comparison tricky. The trend over time is nonetheless clear.
There's been a similar fall down the rankings for France, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium.
To be controversial I wonder if changing ethnic proportions among new babies might have an effect.
I notice that the countries with the lowest infant mortality are all small population countries.
Is there a point in the European welfare state model where an increasing population starts to have negative effects.
But to me, 3,000 extra midwifes to save 700 babies looks like it might not be the best use for more NHS spending on a cost/benefit basis.
The man's a clown. How long have we been losing 700 babies a year because of the government's parsimony?
Since 1948.
And it would have been a lot more than 700 in the earlier years.
If we recruit 3,000 more midwifes to save 700 babies should we recruit 3,000 more midwifes after that to save another 300 babies and then yet another 3,000 more to save 100 babies ?
Ultimately you could have every pregnant woman have her own midwife following her around 100% of the time. It would reduce baby deaths but it wouldn't IMO be the most effective use of limited resources.
That depends on the proportion of midwives to expectant mothers and how it has fluctuated through the years, doesn't it?
Certainly but there's no doubt that we're already well into the law of diminishing returns on infant mortality:
No doubt there was a degree of catch up in the former Eastern block, but even countries like Czechia, Slovenia and Estonia are doing better than us. Even Romania is hot on our tail. Romania now has a rate similar to us in 1990.
Caveat: the figures are recorded slightly differently in some other countries, so direct comparison tricky. The trend over time is nonetheless clear.
There's been a similar fall down the rankings for France, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium.
To be controversial I wonder if changing ethnic proportions among new babies might have an effect.
IMV almost certainly. Several factors:
*) Immigrants are likely to be poorer *) Congenital defects due to cousin marriages *) Less likely to abort if issues detected *) Language issues
Add these together and you'd push up the figures a little. It's be good to see the figures.
I think you make my point for me: the positive case for Britain's role in the EU can only be that the UK having a seat at the table in a supranational union, pooling its sovereignty accordingly amongst 28-nations, delivers better results geopolitically and economically in the modern world than having more direct control at the national level, but less international influence. There was enough evidence on the direction the EU was heading in, and the fact we'd be very unlikely to have another vote for decades, to know what a Remain vote would mean long-term.
I don't believe Cameron was an arch-federalist. He's a small-c conservative establishment-type character, who is happy to administer the status quo as he thinks any issues with its performance are largely down to not enough people like him running the show, not what sort of show is being put on.
I’m glad you concede that Brexit means less international influence.
However, you set up false dichotomy in my view. It’s possible to have much greater devolution in the U.K. - returning power to the people - while working jointly with EU partners on more global issues.
But going back to the point, you claimed that Remainers lost because they couldn’t articulate publicly their federalist fantasy. You don’t really have anything to back this up.
More significantly, didn't Davis say that no hard border between NI and the RoI means no cameras? If so, that's a pretty big statement and seems to kill of a technological solution to the current impasse.
Gina Miller certain to take this back to court. When you thought no team could sink lower than the Australians you discover 'Vote Leave' have done just that. If proven the referendum surely has to be re-run
Be careful what you wish for. A re-run referendum would most likely turn out like the Winchester by-election.
That's a matter of opinion. My own view is that the Remain campaign was fought on the wrong issues and they won't make that mistake again. On the other side Leave were allowed to run a xenophobic/racist campaign which they weren't called out on. I think you'd be looking at a completely fresh page.
The mistake you're making is thinking most floating voters secretly think like you do.
They don't.
Remain would very probably lose by a bigger margin (and nothing is certain, of course) because they have learnt nothing, and forgotten nothing.
The immigration point was certainly made. But it could not be made by the leaders of the Remain campaign for obvious reasons. I am not sure the colour of our passports was an issue for either side.
It was not made, and it could not have been made because there was actually very little the UK could do. That's why Cameron tried so hard in his negotiation. The idea we actually had some "secret" level of control we chose not to exercise is retrospective myth-making.
There is an argument that we could have moved our entire benefits and healthcare system to a contributory basis, to massively disincentivise EU migration, but that of course would have been a colossal change that probably would not have commanded domestic political support, nor delivered the required results even if it had.
The article above has betting implications. If the Hodges Scenario is correct (Vote Conservative to save Britain from Labour...and the Conservatives) then May may a) lead the Conservatives into the 2022 election, and b) win. Although it's too far out for certainty, we should reconsider the consensus that May will resign post-Brexit.
That article makes absolutely no sense. It says that the Tories are being taken over by the right, so how can May stay in control without the right's support?
I think he said that the Mogg group are big enough to inflict wounds and be dicks, but not big enough to depose May. The reluctant Leavers group are aware that the membership will elect a Mogg and so will postpone deposing May. So the Mogg group can't dethrone May and the reluctant Leavers won't dethrone May
'Stood down for remainder of test match'. Not fired yet I guess.
I don't see how they can not be sacked as captain and vice-captain, given the admissions of premeditated cheating. Problematically they dropped others in it by clarifying it was a 'leadership group' who decided it. Who else is in the leadership group, and if they are not captain or vice-captain, what punishment can they receive, given its not like the authorities will be keen to suspend their best players? But will they have to?
I don’t see how, given what’s been admitted so far, there’s not at least three players (Bancroft, Smith and Warner) looking at lengthy bans from the game by the ICC.
Quote from the Australian Sports Commission chairman: "The ASC condemns cheating of any form in sport. The ASC expects and requires that Australian teams and athletes demonstrate unimpeachable integrity in representing our country.“
I think the ASC were hoping that the F1 race in Melbourne might be leading the headlines today....
Much as I am enjoying the Schadenfreude, the problem goes well beyond naughty Aussies, and yet is easily solved.
Nobody should be allowed to polish the ball except the bowler, and it should be returned to the Umpire at the end of each over. It would only need a quick glance to see if something funny is going on, and wouldn't slow the game down. In fact the introduction of these common sense procedures might well speed the game up.
No doubt there was a degree of catch up in the former Eastern block, but even countries like Czechia, Slovenia and Estonia are doing better than us. Even Romania is hot on our tail. Romania now has a rate similar to us in 1990.
Caveat: the figures are recorded slightly differently in some other countries, so direct comparison tricky. The trend over time is nonetheless clear.
There's been a similar fall down the rankings for France, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium.
To be controversial I wonder if changing ethnic proportions among new babies might have an effect.
IMV almost certainly. Several factors:
*) Immigrants are likely to be poorer *) Congenital defects due to cousin marriages *) Less likely to abort if issues detected *) Language issues
Add these together and you'd push up the figures a little. It's be good to see the figures.
Some stats on faddish things such as home births, elective Caesarians, water births etc may also be useful information, as well as births occurring outside a hospital more generally. Do those countries with a ‘better’ record insist on confining/admitting woman approaching their due date, for example?
Also that the stats for infant mortality relate to ages 0-5. A breakdown of these by cause of death might also be useful. Knowing the numbers of pneumonia/cancer/accident will be enlightening. I suspect a lot of countries don’t include death by accident in the statistics.
If the Tories do hold Barnet it will indeed be down to the Jewish vote.
At the last general election the Tories were fractionally ahead across all the Barnet wards which was why they held all 3 parliamentary seats in the borough despite the swing against them
There was an interesting discrepancy in Barnet between the Labour % vote share for the GLC seats and in the simultaneous mayoral election (between Bojo & Ken L) in 2012, which was just sufficient to swing the mayoral election in favour of Bojo. I suspected at the time that Jewish voters in this electoral area were sympathetic to Labour in general, but would not vote for Ken L. Although I rarely agree with TSE, he may have a point in the thread header.
However, I would emphasise that overall Jews are a tiny minority in the UK (just 0.4% of the total population), so the borough of Barnet is very much an exception when considering whether there is such a thing as the Jewish vote in the UK.
And of course theirs is not a bloc vote. It is a highly heterogeneous group.
True in general, but if a particular candidate/party is clearly hostile to a specific group, members of that group will tend to vote en masse for the opposing candidate/party best placed to win, as was the case in Barnet in the 2012 London mayoral election, and may occur in Barnet in the council elections in May 2018. In the case of religious groups, this is often encouraged from the pulpit.
The Mail is picking up, for its own purposes, something which has long been around:
' Some of this is down to the Conservatives and their supporters in the media, but the blame lies with Labour, and especially that element within the party that hates the idea of Britain in general and England in particular. George Orwell wrote about this 75 years ago in his classic essay “The Lion and the Unicorn”:
" England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during “God Save the King” than of stealing from a poor box. "
Little has changed.
Orwell went on: “In intention, at any rate, the English intelligentsia are Europeanised. They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident thought.” More recently, Martin Amis’s excellent book Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million looked at this group’s refusal to confront the Soviet terrors.
Metropolitan intellectual snobbery is part of an older, anti-English racism that runs back through the centuries to a series of multinational monarchs who looked down on the native peasants. '
No, this is the Daily Mail riding its usual hobby horse. The truth is most of the "ruling class" do actually read the Mail and are Conservative to the core.
This notion of a "metropolitan ruling elite" is typical Mail scapegoating - always looking for someone else to blame for the failings of a Conservative Government.
If it's simply "my country right or wrong" fine but most people don't, I suspect, wallow in the Mail's uncritical adulation for all things English and British. They can admire people and things from other countries and recognise the faults in our own.
We aren't perfect - we do the best we can. I suspect English people love their country no less than Germans or French love theirs and that's fine.
The other aspect of this that annoys me is who the heck do the Mail think they are to tell people how to be patriotic or to be the guardians of patriotism ? You don't have to read the Mail to love your country, you don't have to vote Conservative to do so either.
I think you make my point for me: the positive case for Britain's role in the EU can only be that the UK having a seat at the table in a supranational union, pooling its sovereignty accordingly amongst 28-nations, delivers better results geopolitically and economically in the modern world than having more direct control at the national level, but less international influence. There was enough evidence on the direction the EU was heading in, and the fact we'd be very unlikely to have another vote for decades, to know what a Remain vote would mean long-term.
I don't believe Cameron was an arch-federalist. He's a small-c conservative establishment-type character, who is happy to administer the status quo as he thinks any issues with its performance are largely down to not enough people like him running the show, not what sort of show is being put on.
I’m glad you concede that Brexit means less international influence.
However, you set up false dichotomy in my view. It’s possible to have much greater devolution in the U.K. - returning power to the people - while working jointly with EU partners on more global issues.
But going back to the point, you claimed that Remainers lost because they couldn’t articulate publicly their federalist fantasy. You don’t really have anything to back this up.
Many who voted leave wished that greater devolution from the EU was possible. What we see in practice isn’t “pooled sovereignty” but rather an ever tightening ratchet of power ceded to Brussels, not controlled by those we elect but by the bureaucrats such as Drunker and Selamyr.
No doubt there was a degree of catch up in the former Eastern block, but even countries like Czechia, Slovenia and Estonia are doing better than us. Even Romania is hot on our tail. Romania now has a rate similar to us in 1990.
Caveat: the figures are recorded slightly differently in some other countries, so direct comparison tricky. The trend over time is nonetheless clear.
Purely a gut feeling, but I'd like to think our statistics on this are honest. I'm not sure how much I trust other countries.
I'd like to know if midwife numbers can be connected to infant mortality. If so, then it's worth doing more. But I get the impression it's more about making it a nicer experience for mothers to be. Which is fair enough.
Incidentally, I know someone who's gone through this and it wasn't due to a lack of midwives. More a case of bad luck/piss poor decision making depending on your pov.
I think that all the figures are honest, the differences more definitional. Does a 28 week stillbirth get recorded as a birth or as a miscarriage? does a neonate dying within days get recorded the same way as one lasting weeks?
There also issues of how widespread abortion is for severe congenital defects. Are there allowed to go to term in some populations, but not others?
I do think migrant mothers are part of the issue, 27% of British births having a mother born abroad.
Indeed, the emphasis on Midwives may well be part of what we are doing wrong. The countries doing well in the figures have a more medically rather than midwife based model. Apart from our shortage of Obstetricians, the feminist politics of this is a real minefield, as anyone who remembers the Wendy Savage case can recall.
I'd be interested to know how home births affect outcomes, and the differing rates of home births in different countries.
I'm in favour of more midwifes, but It'd be good to know that this is the best way for money to be spent if we want to decrease infant mortality rates. What are the countries ahead of us in the tables doing differently/better?
Horrible as it is to consider, the state puts monetary values on lives every day. They do it when considering whether or not to make safety improvements to roads or railways for example. I remember at the time of the Hatfield rail crash there was a discussion comparing the upper limits at which it was considered no longer sensible to make improvements because of the cost per fatality avoided. There was a very good paper written on this in 2013 looking at VPF or Value per Fatality. In 2013 that VPF for the UK railways was estimated to be £1.59 million
If we assume a cost of a midwife to the State to be somewhere around £100,000 a year then that is a total cost for 3000 midwife of £300 million a year. If that saves 700 babies a year then that is at a cost of around £430,000 each. I would suggest that even if one is being economically hard nosed about this, it is still far below the currently accepted VPF and should be adopted.
No doubt there was a degree of catch up in the former Eastern block, but even countries like Czechia, Slovenia and Estonia are doing better than us. Even Romania is hot on our tail. Romania now has a rate similar to us in 1990.
Caveat: the figures are recorded slightly differently in some other countries, so direct comparison tricky. The trend over time is nonetheless clear.
There's been a similar fall down the rankings for France, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium.
To be controversial I wonder if changing ethnic proportions among new babies might have an effect.
IMV almost certainly. Several factors:
*) Immigrants are likely to be poorer *) Congenital defects due to cousin marriages *) Less likely to abort if issues detected *) Language issues
Add these together and you'd push up the figures a little. It's be good to see the figures.
Some stats on faddish things such as home births, elective Caesarians, water births etc may also be useful information, as well as births occurring outside a hospital more generally. Do those countries with a ‘better’ record insist on confining/admitting woman approaching their due date, for example?
Also that the stats for infant mortality relate to ages 0-5. A breakdown of these by cause of death might also be useful. Knowing the numbers of pneumonia/cancer/accident will be enlightening. I suspect a lot of countries don’t include death by accident in the statistics.
I believe that home births are more common in parts of Europe. 20% in the Netherlands for instance.
I think the infant mortality figures are maximum of 28 days of life, so accidents are not really an issue.
I'd be interested to know how home births affect outcomes, and the differing rates of home births in different countries.
I'm in favour of more midwifes, but It'd be good to know that this is the best way for money to be spent if we want to decrease infant mortality rates. What are the countries ahead of us in the tables doing differently/better?
Horrible as it is to consider, the state puts monetary values on lives every day. They do it when considering whether or not to make safety improvements to roads or railways for example. I remember at the time of the Hatfield rail crash there was a discussion comparing the upper limits at which it was considered no longer sensible to make improvements because of the cost per fatality avoided. There was a very good paper written on this in 2013 looking at VPF or Value per Fatality. In 2013 that VPF for the UK railways was estimated to be £1.59 million
If we assume a cost of a midwife to the State to be somewhere around £100,000 a year then that is a total cost for 3000 midwife of £300 million a year. If that saves 700 babies a year then that is at a cost of around £430,000 each. I would suggest that even if one is being economically hard nosed about this, it is still far below the currently accepted VPF and should be adopted.
The most common measure applied in the UK for health economics is the QALY (Quality Adjusted Life Year) so the cost of saving a neonate at £430 000 may well beat a cancer drug for older people. NICE works on a basis of £30 000 per QALY. More than that an intervention is unlikely to be supported.
And metropolitan bigots like Matthew Parris spray their hatred about 'people like them'.
But you know what, I suspect that people aren't any different to what they've always been.
Only now the internet allows loud-mouths to sound off beyond the limits of their local pub and declining economic growth means that the only way for people to fund the lifestyle they think they deserve is to have wealth taken from other groups.
Parris' article about Clacton and its inhabitants, in 2014, was a real eye-opener.
I remember Parris saying that when he worked in Thatcher's office in the 1970s he would refer to her as Hilda.
As he thought she was too 'down-market' to have a middle class name like Margaret.
I'd be interested to know how home births affect outcomes, and the differing rates of home births in different countries.
I'm in favour of more midwifes, but It'd be good to know that this is the best way for money to be spent if we want to decrease infant mortality rates. What are the countries ahead of us in the tables doing differently/better?
Horrible as it is to consider, the state puts monetary values on lives every day. They do it when considering whether or not to make safety improvements to roads or railways for example. I remember at the time of the Hatfield rail crash there was a discussion comparing the upper limits at which it was considered no longer sensible to make improvements because of the cost per fatality avoided. There was a very good paper written on this in 2013 looking at VPF or Value per Fatality. In 2013 that VPF for the UK railways was estimated to be £1.59 million
If we assume a cost of a midwife to the State to be somewhere around £100,000 a year then that is a total cost for 3000 midwife of £300 million a year. If that saves 700 babies a year then that is at a cost of around £430,000 each. I would suggest that even if one is being economically hard nosed about this, it is still far below the currently accepted VPF and should be adopted.
I haven't seen that study; do you have a linky please?
The question comes in why those babies are dying, and how money can best be focused on reducing that number. As an example, it's possible that education might save as many lives as midwifes. We were an intelligent middle-class couple, and the NCT group we attended was brilliant for giving us lots of information we just didn't have.
I think you make my point for me: the positive case for Britain's role in the EU can only be that the UK having a seat at the table in a supranational union, pooling its sovereignty accordingly amongst 28-nations, delivers better results geopolitically and economically in the modern world than having more direct control at the national level, but less international influence. There was enough evidence on the direction the EU was heading in, and the fact we'd be very unlikely to have another vote for decades, to know what a Remain vote would mean long-term.
I don't believe Cameron was an arch-federalist. He's a small-c conservative establishment-type character, who is happy to administer the status quo as he thinks any issues with its performance are largely down to not enough people like him running the show, not what sort of show is being put on.
I’m glad you concede that Brexit means less international influence.
However, you set up false dichotomy in my view. It’s possible to have much greater devolution in the U.K. - returning power to the people - while working jointly with EU partners on more global issues.
But going back to the point, you claimed that Remainers lost because they couldn’t articulate publicly their federalist fantasy. You don’t really have anything to back this up.
The basic and often vociferous denial by Remain advocates that there is a Federalist agenda in the EU is evidence enough. Williamglenn is almost unique on here in advocating the UK as part of a Federal EU in spite of that being the ambition of many in Europe. Remain were almost entirely silent on this subject either on favour or against because they were desperate to hide even the possibility of it from the public.
I'd be interested to know how home births affect outcomes, and the differing rates of home births in different countries.
I'm in favour of more midwifes, but It'd be good to know that this is the best way for money to be spent if we want to decrease infant mortality rates. What are the countries ahead of us in the tables doing differently/better?
Horrible as it is to consider, the state puts monetary values on lives every day. They do it when considering whether or not to make safety improvements to roads or railways for example. I remember at the time of the Hatfield rail crash there was a discussion comparing the upper limits at which it was considered no longer sensible to make improvements because of the cost per fatality avoided. There was a very good paper written on this in 2013 looking at VPF or Value per Fatality. In 2013 that VPF for the UK railways was estimated to be £1.59 million
If we assume a cost of a midwife to the State to be somewhere around £100,000 a year then that is a total cost for 3000 midwife of £300 million a year. If that saves 700 babies a year then that is at a cost of around £430,000 each. I would suggest that even if one is being economically hard nosed about this, it is still far below the currently accepted VPF and should be adopted.
I haven't seen that study; do you have a linky please?
The question comes in why those babies are dying, and how money can best be focused on reducing that number. As an example, it's possible that education might save as many lives as midwifes. We were an intelligent middle-class couple, and the NCT group we attended was brilliant for giving us lots of information we just didn't have.
It is a pdf so difficult to link to on my phone. If you go and Google 'Andrew W Evans' 'Economics of Railway Safety' it is a paper published in April 2013 in 'Research on Transport Economics'
If you can't find it let me know and I will dig out a direct link when I get home.
I'd be interested to know how home births affect outcomes, and the differing rates of home births in different countries.
I'm in favour of more midwifes, but It'd be good to know that this is the best way for money to be spent if we want to decrease infant mortality rates. What are the countries ahead of us in the tables doing differently/better?
Horrible as it is to consider, the state puts monetary values on lives every day. They do it when considering whether or not to make safety improvements to roads or railways for example. I remember at the time of the Hatfield rail crash there was a discussion comparing the upper limits at which it was considered no longer sensible to make improvements because of the cost per fatality avoided. There was a very good paper written on this in 2013 looking at VPF or Value per Fatality. In 2013 that VPF for the UK railways was estimated to be £1.59 million
If we assume a cost of a midwife to the State to be somewhere around £100,000 a year then that is a total cost for 3000 midwife of £300 million a year. If that saves 700 babies a year then that is at a cost of around £430,000 each. I would suggest that even if one is being economically hard nosed about this, it is still far below the currently accepted VPF and should be adopted.
The most common measure applied in the UK for health economics is the QALY (Quality Adjusted Life Year) so the cost of saving a neonate at £430 000 may well beat a cancer drug for older people. NICE works on a basis of £30 000 per QALY. More than that an intervention is unlikely to be supported.
It is amazing what the difference in value of a life is between two departments of the same Government.
I'd be interested to know how home births affect outcomes, and the differing rates of home births in different countries.
I'm in favour of more midwifes, but It'd be good to know that this is the best way for money to be spent if we want to decrease infant mortality rates. What are the countries ahead of us in the tables doing differently/better?
Horrible as it is to consider, the state puts monetary values on lives every day. They do it when considering whether or not to make safety improvements to roads or railways for example. I remember at the time of the Hatfield rail crash there was a discussion comparing the upper limits at which it was considered no longer sensible to make improvements because of the cost per fatality avoided. There was a very good paper written on this in 2013 looking at VPF or Value per Fatality. In 2013 that VPF for the UK railways was estimated to be £1.59 million
If we assume a cost of a midwife to the State to be somewhere around £100,000 a year then that is a total cost for 3000 midwife of £300 million a year. If that saves 700 babies a year then that is at a cost of around £430,000 each. I would suggest that even if one is being economically hard nosed about this, it is still far below the currently accepted VPF and should be adopted.
I haven't seen that study; do you have a linky please?
The question comes in why those babies are dying, and how money can best be focused on reducing that number. As an example, it's possible that education might save as many lives as midwifes. We were an intelligent middle-class couple, and the NCT group we attended was brilliant for giving us lots of information we just didn't have.
It is a pdf so difficult to link to on my phone. If you go and Google 'Andrew W Evans' 'Economics of Railway Safety' it is a paper published in April 2013 in 'Research on Transport Economics'
If you can't find it let me know and I will dig out a direct link when I get home.
And metropolitan bigots like Matthew Parris spray their hatred about 'people like them'.
But you know what, I suspect that people aren't any different to what they've always been.
Only now the internet allows loud-mouths to sound off beyond the limits of their local pub and declining economic growth means that the only way for people to fund the lifestyle they think they deserve is to have wealth taken from other groups.
Parris' article about Clacton and its inhabitants, in 2014, was a real eye-opener.
I remember Parris saying that when he worked in Thatcher's office in the 1970s he would refer to her as Hilda.
As he thought she was too 'down-market' to have a middle class name like Margaret.
Margaret is a middle class name?! No where ah come fae.
I'd be interested to know how home births affect outcomes, and the differing rates of home births in different countries.
I'm in favour of more midwifes, but It'd be good to know that this is the best way for money to be spent if we want to decrease infant mortality rates. What are the countries ahead of us in the tables doing differently/better?
Horrible as it is to consider, the state puts monetary values on lives every day. They do it when considering whether or not to make safety improvements to roads or railways for example. I remember at the time of the Hatfield rail crash there was a discussion comparing the upper limits at which it was considered no longer sensible to make improvements because of the cost per fatality avoided. There was a very good paper written on this in 2013 looking at VPF or Value per Fatality. In 2013 that VPF for the UK railways was estimated to be £1.59 million
If we assume a cost of a midwife to the State to be somewhere around £100,000 a year then that is a total cost for 3000 midwife of £300 million a year. If that saves 700 babies a year then that is at a cost of around £430,000 each. I would suggest that even if one is being economically hard nosed about this, it is still far below the currently accepted VPF and should be adopted.
I haven't seen that study; do you have a linky please?
The question comes in why those babies are dying, and how money can best be focused on reducing that number. As an example, it's possible that education might save as many lives as midwifes. We were an intelligent middle-class couple, and the NCT group we attended was brilliant for giving us lots of information we just didn't have.
It is a pdf so difficult to link to on my phone. If you go and Google 'Andrew W Evans' 'Economics of Railway Safety' it is a paper published in April 2013 in 'Research on Transport Economics'
If you can't find it let me know and I will dig out a direct link when I get home.
Thanks.
It really is a goldmine of useful stats comparing safety on the railways between the UK, US and EU.
I'd be interested to know how home births affect outcomes, and the differing rates of home births in different countries.
I'm in favour of more midwifes, but It'd be good to know that this is the best way for money to be spent if we want to decrease infant mortality rates. What are the countries ahead of us in the tables doing differently/better?
Horrible as it is to consider, the state puts monetary values on lives every day. They do it when considering whether or not to make safety improvements to roads or railways for example. I remember at the time of the Hatfield rail crash there was a discussion comparing the upper limits at which it was considered no longer sensible to make improvements because of the cost per fatality avoided. There was a very good paper written on this in 2013 looking at VPF or Value per Fatality. In 2013 that VPF for the UK railways was estimated to be £1.59 million
If we assume a cost of a midwife to the State to be somewhere around £100,000 a year then that is a total cost for 3000 midwife of £300 million a year. If that saves 700 babies a year then that is at a cost of around £430,000 each. I would suggest that even if one is being economically hard nosed about this, it is still far below the currently accepted VPF and should be adopted.
The most common measure applied in the UK for health economics is the QALY (Quality Adjusted Life Year) so the cost of saving a neonate at £430 000 may well beat a cancer drug for older people. NICE works on a basis of £30 000 per QALY. More than that an intervention is unlikely to be supported.
It is amazing what the difference in value of a life is between two departments of the same Government.
It gets worse than that - from what I was told Derbyshire County Council used (*) to use different values within the roads department when choosing which road improvements should go ahead ...
Alastair Meeks: 'But sooner or later those who wish Brexit to be a success are going to need to find a way of reaching out to those who remain sceptical.'
That boat sailed away some time ago ... If I can't be a citizen of Europe, I will proudly stand for the 'citizen of nowhere' anthem.
I know 1 “citizen of nowhere”
He has organised his life so that he spends less than 90 days in any country each year. He literally does not pay income tax anywhere
I like him on a personal level but find the way he has organised his tax affairs despicable
That's an argument in favour of trans continental institutions such as the EU
He’s an EU citizen. Splits his time between the U.K., Italy, Switzerland, the US and Scandinavia. With some ad hoc travel and careful planning he saves himself $3m pa
Given he’s worth $200m+ himself and his wife inherited another $250m I don’t know why he bothers
*) Immigrants are likely to be poorer *) Congenital defects due to cousin marriages *) Less likely to abort if issues detected *) Language issues
Add these together and you'd push up the figures a little. It's be good to see the figures.
Some stats on faddish things such as home births, elective Caesarians, water births etc may also be useful information, as well as births occurring outside a hospital more generally. Do those countries with a ‘better’ record insist on confining/admitting woman approaching their due date, for example?
Also that the stats for infant mortality relate to ages 0-5. A breakdown of these by cause of death might also be useful. Knowing the numbers of pneumonia/cancer/accident will be enlightening. I suspect a lot of countries don’t include death by accident in the statistics.
I believe that home births are more common in parts of Europe. 20% in the Netherlands for instance.
I think the infant mortality figures are maximum of 28 days of life, so accidents are not really an issue.
The U.K. ONS figures are indeed for 28 days, so hopefully not too many accidents there - the vast majority of them probably never make it out of the hospital.
Really interesting discussion, hopefully there’s some good research out there about what small differences can affect outcomes within sensible parameters.
But to me, 3,000 extra midwifes to save 700 babies looks like it might not be the best use for more NHS spending on a cost/benefit basis.
It made me think that if the government knows that recruiting 3,000 extra midwives would save 700 babies a year they should have done it a long time ago.
That’s just the CCO interns doing maths.
I can see how it will be misused politically but the factual basis will be extrapolation at best
It was a very foolish Tweet.
I agree with that. But you shouldn’t draw any policy conclusions from it
The right shamefully dog-whistled its way through the EU referendum campaign and the London mayoral election =- with Rod Liddle being a perfect example. But he and his mates are absolutely correct about Corbyn. So, not only is the Labour leader's refusal to challenge anti-Semitism morally wrong, it is also politically destructive. Once again, he is the Tory get out of jail free card.
Just as the hard left don’t care about anti-Semitism, the Leavers don’t care about their xenophobic lies. Both get annoyed when you point out their blind spots. Neither are going to do anything about dealing with them.
What does that mean? It means that neither will lose much support because camps are too entrenched. And both are capping their support by entrenching their opponents.
I suspect that the far left's history of hanging out with anti-Semites and Jew-baiters is only now becoming more widely known. I do think it will cost Labour support in some of the more middle-class, anti-Brexit constituencies where the party did well in 2017.
Taking a hostile view of Jews and Israel is not a vote-loser in general. It is likely to help the Labour party gain votes in most areas, with Barnet being one of the few exceptions. While not openly expressed, as it would now be non-PC, such views are just as widely held among the well-to-do as the working classes.
Alastair Meeks: 'But sooner or later those who wish Brexit to be a success are going to need to find a way of reaching out to those who remain sceptical.'
That boat sailed away some time ago ... If I can't be a citizen of Europe, I will proudly stand for the 'citizen of nowhere' anthem.
I know 1 “citizen of nowhere”
He has organised his life so that he spends less than 90 days in any country each year. He literally does not pay income tax anywhere
I like him on a personal level but find the way he has organised his tax affairs despicable
That's an argument in favour of trans continental institutions such as the EU
He’s an EU citizen. Splits his time between the U.K., Italy, Switzerland, the US and Scandinavia. With some ad hoc travel and careful planning he saves himself $3m pa
Given he’s worth $200m+ himself and his wife inherited another $250m I don’t know why he bothers
As my mother says "You don't get rich by spending money!"
And metropolitan bigots like Matthew Parris spray their hatred about 'people like them'.
But you know what, I suspect that people aren't any different to what they've always been.
Only now the internet allows loud-mouths to sound off beyond the limits of their local pub and declining economic growth means that the only way for people to fund the lifestyle they think they deserve is to have wealth taken from other groups.
Parris' article about Clacton and its inhabitants, in 2014, was a real eye-opener.
I remember Parris saying that when he worked in Thatcher's office in the 1970s he would refer to her as Hilda.
As he thought she was too 'down-market' to have a middle class name like Margaret.
Mrs Thatcher fired him, when he wrote back to a constituent who was complaining about her council accommodation, to tell her she should consider herself lucky to have a council house at all.
Most health experts reckon primary care is best place to invest resources, for several and varied reasons: prevention is better than cure, you can detect deteriorating health earlier while you have a chance of doing something about it, a lot of health problems are linked to social problems etc etc. Where resources are limited however than means reducing hospital cover. Hospitals get the attention, as seen by the furore over waiting times, denied treatments and so on. Jeremy Hunt is correct at one level but he is not spelling out the implications.
Most health experts reckon primary care is best place to invest resources, for several and varied reasons: prevention is better than cure, you can detect deteriorating health earlier while you have a chance of doing something about it, a lot of health problems are linked to social problems etc etc. Where resources are limited however than means reducing hospital cover. Hospitals get the attention, as seen by the furore over waiting times, denied treatments and so on. Jeremy Hunt is correct at one level but he is not spelling out the implications.
Put baldly: we are not going to treat your cancer because you are probably going to die quite soon anyway. We're better putting that money into GPs, midwives and social care because it helps more people to have long and healthy lives.
Alastair Meeks: 'But sooner or later those who wish Brexit to be a success are going to need to find a way of reaching out to those who remain sceptical.'
That boat sailed away some time ago ... If I can't be a citizen of Europe, I will proudly stand for the 'citizen of nowhere' anthem.
I know 1 “citizen of nowhere”
He has organised his life so that he spends less than 90 days in any country each year. He literally does not pay income tax anywhere
I like him on a personal level but find the way he has organised his tax affairs despicable
That's an argument in favour of trans continental institutions such as the EU
He’s an EU citizen. Splits his time between the U.K., Italy, Switzerland, the US and Scandinavia. With some ad hoc travel and careful planning he saves himself $3m pa
Given he’s worth $200m+ himself and his wife inherited another $250m I don’t know why he bothers
There’s a fair few of those in this part of the world too, where there’s no direct tax on income. Mainly Brits and Yanks, all paranoid about spending more than 90 days at ‘home’ lest they get a large tax bill. The Americans are also good at getting a relatively modest salary and large cash bonuses, for the obvious reason of Uncle Sam’s international overreach.
In 1940 the Gestapo arrested Companys in Paris & sent him back to Spain. Franco had him tortured, kangaroo trialed and shot. One of many thousands at that point in history, but still notable.
The U.K. ONS figures are indeed for 28 days, so hopefully not too many accidents there - the vast majority of them probably never make it out of the hospital.
Really interesting discussion, hopefully there’s some good research out there about what small differences can affect outcomes within sensible parameters.
When studying history, infant mortality is usually defined as deaths before the age of 1.
Alastair Meeks: 'But sooner or later those who wish Brexit to be a success are going to need to find a way of reaching out to those who remain sceptical.'
That boat sailed away some time ago ... If I can't be a citizen of Europe, I will proudly stand for the 'citizen of nowhere' anthem.
I know 1 “citizen of nowhere”
He has organised his life so that he spends less than 90 days in any country each year. He literally does not pay income tax anywhere
I like him on a personal level but find the way he has organised his tax affairs despicable
That's an argument in favour of trans continental institutions such as the EU
He’s an EU citizen. Splits his time between the U.K., Italy, Switzerland, the US and Scandinavia. With some ad hoc travel and careful planning he saves himself $3m pa
Given he’s worth $200m+ himself and his wife inherited another $250m I don’t know why he bothers
As my mother says "You don't get rich by spending money!"
A rich man who benefits from society has a moral obligation to contribute financially
Some stats on faddish things such as home births, elective Caesarians, water births etc may also be useful information, as well as births occurring outside a hospital more generally. Do those countries with a ‘better’ record insist on confining/admitting woman approaching their due date, for example?
Also that the stats for infant mortality relate to ages 0-5. A breakdown of these by cause of death might also be useful. Knowing the numbers of pneumonia/cancer/accident will be enlightening. I suspect a lot of countries don’t include death by accident in the statistics.
I believe that home births are more common in parts of Europe. 20% in the Netherlands for instance.
I think the infant mortality figures are maximum of 28 days of life, so accidents are not really an issue.
The U.K. ONS figures are indeed for 28 days, so hopefully not too many accidents there - the vast majority of them probably never make it out of the hospital.
Really interesting discussion, hopefully there’s some good research out there about what small differences can affect outcomes within sensible parameters.
I think midwives usually double up as health visitors? Their effect isn't limited to infant mortality rates.
Alastair Meeks: 'But sooner or later those who wish Brexit to be a success are going to need to find a way of reaching out to those who remain sceptical.'
That boat sailed away some time ago ... If I can't be a citizen of Europe, I will proudly stand for the 'citizen of nowhere' anthem.
I know 1 “citizen of nowhere”
He has organised his life so that he spends less than 90 days in any country each year. He literally does not pay income tax anywhere
I like him on a personal level but find the way he has organised his tax affairs despicable
That's an argument in favour of trans continental institutions such as the EU
He’s an EU citizen. Splits his time between the U.K., Italy, Switzerland, the US and Scandinavia. With some ad hoc travel and careful planning he saves himself $3m pa
Given he’s worth $200m+ himself and his wife inherited another $250m I don’t know why he bothers
As my mother says "You don't get rich by spending money!"
A rich man who benefits from society has a moral obligation to contribute financially
It's strange how some people can never have enough.
Most health experts reckon primary care is best place to invest resources, for several and varied reasons: prevention is better than cure, you can detect deteriorating health earlier while you have a chance of doing something about it, a lot of health problems are linked to social problems etc etc. Where resources are limited however than means reducing hospital cover. Hospitals get the attention, as seen by the furore over waiting times, denied treatments and so on. Jeremy Hunt is correct at one level but he is not spelling out the implications.
Put baldly: we are not going to treat your cancer because you are probably going to die quite soon anyway. We're better putting that money into GPs, midwives and social care because it helps more people to have long and healthy lives.
Or perhaps even into public health, as better value still. The recent Cancer campaign on obesity for example.
As an example of how well this can work, look at the North Karelia experience in Finland. In the Seventies the Finns led the world league table for heart disease:
We need to make sedentariness and junk fast food the difficult option, and healthy lifestyle the default. This is true of neonatal deaths too. Maternal smoking and diabetes are significant risks for still births.
In 1940 the Gestapo arrested Companys in Paris & sent him back to Spain. Franco had him tortured, kangaroo trialed and shot. One of many thousands at that point in history, but still notable.
So hardly comparable with Puigdemont who won't be tortured, kangaroo trialed and shot. I have no opinion on Catalan independence. As far as I am concerned if they want to be independent that's up to them. The Spanish government doesn't have to make it easy for them. The issue that the Germans are dealing with is a strong prima facie case that Puigdemont held a referendum that was illegal under Spanish and Catalan law. Germany has an obligation under the European Arrest Warrant to allow that trial to go ahead. They have no discretion.
The U.K. ONS figures are indeed for 28 days, so hopefully not too many accidents there - the vast majority of them probably never make it out of the hospital.
Really interesting discussion, hopefully there’s some good research out there about what small differences can affect outcomes within sensible parameters.
When studying history, infant mortality is usually defined as deaths before the age of 1.
That is why international comparisons are definitially complex. In developed countroes where the common causes of infection are much more rare, 28 and 1 year mortality are not very different.
Best get back into the garden, spring has sprung in the East Midlands.
Alastair Meeks: 'But sooner or later those who wish Brexit to be a success are going to need to find a way of reaching out to those who remain sceptical.'
That boat sailed away some time ago ... If I can't be a citizen of Europe, I will proudly stand for the 'citizen of nowhere' anthem.
I know 1 “citizen of nowhere”
He has organised his life so that he spends less than 90 days in any country each year. He literally does not pay income tax anywhere
I like him on a personal level but find the way he has organised his tax affairs despicable
That's an argument in favour of trans continental institutions such as the EU
He’s an EU citizen. Splits his time between the U.K., Italy, Switzerland, the US and Scandinavia. With some ad hoc travel and careful planning he saves himself $3m pa
Given he’s worth $200m+ himself and his wife inherited another $250m I don’t know why he bothers
As my mother says "You don't get rich by spending money!"
A rich man who benefits from society has a moral obligation to contribute financially
It's strange how some people can never have enough.
IMO for some people it can verge on a mental illness (and I mean that seriously). One vague acquaintance / competitor of my dad was very rich (by our standards at least), and lived a very parsimonious existence: you'd never guess he had money. According to dad, he'd had a very poor childhood abroad and had promised himself he would never not have any money again. The need to get money did seem to obsess him, but he never seemed to spend anything other than was needed for his business.
Apparently he was a very fair dealer with his associates, though I doubt that extended to the taxman.
In 1940 the Gestapo arrested Companys in Paris & sent him back to Spain. Franco had him tortured, kangaroo trialed and shot. One of many thousands at that point in history, but still notable.
So hardly comparable with Puigdemont who won't be tortured, kangaroo trialed and shot. I have no opinion on Catalan independence. As far as I am concerned if they want to be independent that's up to them. The Spanish government doesn't have to make it easy for them. The issue that the Germans are dealing with is a strong prima facie case that Puigdemont held a referendum that was illegal under Spanish and Catalan law. Germany has an obligation under the European Arrest Warrant to allow that trial to go ahead. They have no discretion.
Which is why the European Arrest Warrant is a bad piece of legislation.
In 1940 the Gestapo arrested Companys in Paris & sent him back to Spain. Franco had him tortured, kangaroo trialed and shot. One of many thousands at that point in history, but still notable.
So hardly comparable with Puigdemont who won't be tortured, kangaroo trialed and shot. I have no opinion on Catalan independence. As far as I am concerned if they want to be independent that's up to them. The Spanish government doesn't have to make it easy for them. The issue that the Germans are dealing with is a strong prima facie case that Puigdemont held a referendum that was illegal under Spanish and Catalan law. Germany has an obligation under the European Arrest Warrant to allow that trial to go ahead. They have no discretion.
Which is why the European Arrest Warrant is a bad piece of legislation.
Arguable. But escaping justice is also denying justice. It's easy to say, what happens in Spain is none of our business. At least the EAW is objective. It avoids Costa del Crime situations.
Tory EU headbangers are at least not in charge... yet....of that party but hope to be whilst Labour's headbangers on a host of issues are now firmly locked in place.
In 1940 the Gestapo arrested Companys in Paris & sent him back to Spain. Franco had him tortured, kangaroo trialed and shot. One of many thousands at that point in history, but still notable.
So hardly comparable with Puigdemont who won't be tortured, kangaroo trialed and shot. I have no opinion on Catalan independence. As far as I am concerned if they want to be independent that's up to them. The Spanish government doesn't have to make it easy for them. The issue that the Germans are dealing with is a strong prima facie case that Puigdemont held a referendum that was illegal under Spanish and Catalan law. Germany has an obligation under the European Arrest Warrant to allow that trial to go ahead. They have no discretion.
Hardly comparable, apart from the German thing, and the Catalonian thing, and the Spanish thing, and justice in the hands of the heirs of Franco thing.
Presumably you're all for Clara Ponsati being sent back from Scotland to face PP justice, on strictly legal grounds of course. Would you concede that politicians being imprisoned for holding a peaceful referendum are in fact political prisoners, or do you think it's right that they should be treated as criminals?
On a more parochial note, Unionists are missing a trick with the Catalan business. The Union flag, one big UK family bollox is tapped out to the point of counter productivity, particularly in light of the delightful fellow travellers it brings with it. The single issue that I've seen that might make progressive (or in fact all) Indy supporters look on the EU less favourably than the UK is Catalonia.
Most health experts reckon primary care is best place to invest resources, for several and varied reasons: prevention is better than cure, you can detect deteriorating health earlier while you have a chance of doing something about it, a lot of health problems are linked to social problems etc etc. Where resources are limited however than means reducing hospital cover. Hospitals get the attention, as seen by the furore over waiting times, denied treatments and so on. Jeremy Hunt is correct at one level but he is not spelling out the implications.
Put baldly: we are not going to treat your cancer because you are probably going to die quite soon anyway. We're better putting that money into GPs, midwives and social care because it helps more people to have long and healthy lives.
Or perhaps even into public health, as better value still. The recent Cancer campaign on obesity for example.
As an example of how well this can work, look at the North Karelia experience in Finland. In the Seventies the Finns led the world league table for heart disease:
We need to make sedentariness and junk fast food the difficult option, and healthy lifestyle the default. This is true of neonatal deaths too. Maternal smoking and diabetes are significant risks for still births.
Exactly, VAT on hot take-away pastry based snacks such as pasties would be a good start.
I think you make my point for me: the positive case for Britain's role in the EU can only be that the UK having a seat at the table in a supranational union, pooling its sovereignty accordingly amongst 28-nations, delivers better results geopolitically and economically in the modern world than having more direct control at the national level, but less international influence. There was enough evidence on the direction the EU was heading in, and the fact we'd be very unlikely to have another vote for decades, to know what a Remain vote would mean long-term.
I don't believe Cameron was an arch-federalist. He's a small-c conservative establishment-type character, who is happy to administer the status quo as he thinks any issues with its performance are largely down to not enough people like him running the show, not what sort of show is being put on.
I’m glad you concede that Brexit means less international influence.
However, you set up false dichotomy in my view. It’s possible to have much greater devolution in the U.K. - returning power to the people - while working jointly with EU partners on more global issues.
But going back to the point, you claimed that Remainers lost because they couldn’t articulate publicly their federalist fantasy. You don’t really have anything to back this up.
I haven’t conceded anything. I was merely making the argument in the way Remainers would. I find it interesting how you, like many federalists, are happy to abrogate power at the European level, whilst only devolving it at the local/regional level, skipping out the national level entirely.
Of course, that’s deliberate. Even though it usually leads to shouts of “mad”, “loon” or “foaming” from those who are actually just displeased they’re being called out on it.
And there’s plenty of evidence many leading Remainers have in the past advocated or current do support a federal Europe. They just learned to tactically keep it quiet in the U.K. That’s also deliberate. The whole premise of my argument is that leading Remainers have kept shtum on their real reasons for a “positive” case for Europe because they know it would go down like a bucket of cold sick here. So they obfuscate instead.
The fact the EU is heading towards an ever closer federal union is, I’m afraid, a fact.
Tory EU headbangers are at least not in charge... yet....of that party but hope to be whilst Labour's headbangers on a host of issues are now firmly locked in place.
“I’m very, very sorry that people feel hurt by this and that’s why I think it’s right that Jeremy has expressed regret for it,” Watson told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.
In 1940 the Gestapo arrested Companys in Paris & sent him back to Spain. Franco had him tortured, kangaroo trialed and shot. One of many thousands at that point in history, but still notable.
In 1940 the Gestapo arrested Companys in Paris & sent him back to Spain. Franco had him tortured, kangaroo trialed and shot. One of many thousands at that point in history, but still notable.
So hardly comparable with Puigdemont who won't be tortured, kangaroo trialed and shot. I have no opinion on Catalan independence. As far as I am concerned if they want to be independent that's up to them. The Spanish government doesn't have to make it easy for them. The issue that the Germans are dealing with is a strong prima facie case that Puigdemont held a referendum that was illegal under Spanish and Catalan law. Germany has an obligation under the European Arrest Warrant to allow that trial to go ahead. They have no discretion.
Which is why the European Arrest Warrant is a bad piece of legislation.
Arguable. But escaping justice is also denying justice. It's easy to say, what happens in Spain is none of our business. At least the EAW is objective. It avoids Costa del Crime situations.
Not so. It would be very simple to.modify and make fair whilst remaining effective. Simply say that people can.only be extradited from one country to another if what they are accused of is considered a crime in both countries. Now it bay well be that this would be the case in this instance even though it should not be. But certainly we should not have a situation where you can be extradited from one European country to another for something that is not a crime in both countries.
In 1940 the Gestapo arrested Companys in Paris & sent him back to Spain. Franco had him tortured, kangaroo trialed and shot. One of many thousands at that point in history, but still notable.
So hardly comparable with Puigdemont who won't be tortured, kangaroo trialed and shot. I have no opinion on Catalan independence. As far as I am concerned if they want to be independent that's up to them. The Spanish government doesn't have to make it easy for them. The issue that the Germans are dealing with is a strong prima facie case that Puigdemont held a referendum that was illegal under Spanish and Catalan law. Germany has an obligation under the European Arrest Warrant to allow that trial to go ahead. They have no discretion.
Hardly comparable, apart from the German thing, and the Catalonian thing, and the Spanish thing, and justice in the hands of the heirs of Franco thing.
Presumably you're all for Clara Ponsati being sent back from Scotland to face PP justice, on strictly legal grounds of course. Would you concede that politicians being imprisoned for holding a peaceful referendum are in fact political prisoners, or do you think it's right that they should be treated as criminals?
On a more parochial note, Unionists are missing a trick with the Catalan business. The Union flag, one big UK family bollox is tapped out to the point of counter productivity, particularly in light of the delightful fellow travellers it brings with it. The single issue that I've seen that might make progressive (or in fact all) Indy supporters look on the EU less favourably than the UK is Catalonia.
You are seriously suggesting modern day Germany and Spain are no different from their fascist periods? The legal principle of the EAW is that you accept some other countries have legal systems and courts that are as good as your own so you allow court cases to go ahead rather than preventing them.
On the political question I wish the Catalans well. Independence will be tough for them if they don't get the cooperation of Spain, but that's their decision.It's a good reason to keep things legal.
I.also have no argument against independence for Scotland in principle. It's up to us to decide, subject to what relationships the rest of the UK agree with us, in or out.
Comments
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/birthsummarytablesenglandandwales/2015-07-15
Over the last few years the birthrate has trended slightly down, from a recent peak in 2012. Obvious implications for primary schools, but softening the pressure on maternity units. The problem there is staffing Midwifery, Obstertric and Neonatal units. The latter have become worryingly thin due to rota gaps and retention issues.
While there is personal tragedy by the bucketload, the financial costs of birth injury and related medicolegal issues is a major financial pressure.
Then you flip to talking about the Euro.
Then you suggest that if we had joined the Euro, David Cameron would not have campaigned to reverse this.
Not one of your better efforts.
Remainers lost for many reasons.
Mostly, a generational failure to make a critical, but positive, case for Britain’s role in the EU.
Cameron’s whole strategy - from calling the referendum, through the negotiation, and then the campaign itself - was incredibly poor.
That doesn’t make him an arch federalist though. Just crap.
1950/1955 2.87%
1955/1960 2.43%
1960/1965 2.22%
1965/1970 1.90%
1970/1975 1.73%
1975/1980 1.41%
1980/1985 1.09%
1985/1990 0.91%
1990/1995 0.67%
1995/2000 0.59%
2000/2005 0.49%
2005/2010 0.42%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_and_under-five_mortality_rates
I don't believe Cameron was an arch-federalist. He's a small-c conservative establishment-type character, who is happy to administer the status quo as he thinks any issues with its performance are largely down to not enough people like him running the show, not what sort of show is being put on.
' Some of this is down to the Conservatives and their supporters in the media, but the blame lies with Labour, and especially that element within the party that hates the idea of Britain in general and England in particular. George Orwell wrote about this 75 years ago in his classic essay “The Lion and the Unicorn”:
" England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during “God Save the King” than of stealing from a poor box. "
Little has changed.
Orwell went on: “In intention, at any rate, the English intelligentsia are Europeanised. They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident thought.” More recently, Martin Amis’s excellent book Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million looked at this group’s refusal to confront the Soviet terrors.
Metropolitan intellectual snobbery is part of an older, anti-English racism that runs back through the centuries to a series of multinational monarchs who looked down on the native peasants. '
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/01/why-are-so-many-left-embarrassed-patriotism
Or not
http://lawyers-inforbritain.uk/b-m-a/can-the-uk-control-its-borders-if-it-remains-in-the-eu/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5541205/Australia-laughing-stock-ball-tampering-cricket-scandal-Malcolm-Turnbull-leads-condemnation.html
https://visual.ons.gov.uk/uk-drops-in-european-child-mortality-rankings/
No doubt there was a degree of catch up in the former Eastern block, but even countries like Czechia, Slovenia and Estonia are doing better than us. Even Romania is hot on our tail. Romania now has a rate similar to us in 1990.
Caveat: the figures are recorded slightly differently in some other countries, so direct comparison tricky. The trend over time is nonetheless clear.
I don't see how they can not be sacked as captain and vice-captain, given the admissions of premeditated cheating. Problematically they dropped others in it by clarifying it was a 'leadership group' who decided it. Who else is in the leadership group, and if they are not captain or vice-captain, what punishment can they receive, given its not like the authorities will be keen to suspend their best players? But will they have to?
Quote from the Australian Sports Commission chairman: "The ASC condemns cheating of any form in sport. The ASC expects and requires that Australian teams and athletes demonstrate unimpeachable integrity in representing our country.“
I think the ASC were hoping that the F1 race in Melbourne might be leading the headlines today....
My point is that the Mail's headline isn't dissimilar to what Orwell wrote nearly 80 years ago or what John King wrote in the New Statesman two years ago.
Though I expect that Orwell and King's writings were of a more thought provoking nature - I don't read the Mail so I can't comment on what it actually said.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/childhoodinfantandperinatalmortalityinenglandandwales/2016
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/infantmortalitybirthcohorttablesinenglandandwales
But now to Pacific Rim.
https://twitter.com/TheNTNews/status/977830650353827842
To be controversial I wonder if changing ethnic proportions among new babies might have an effect.
I'm in favour of more midwifes, but It'd be good to know that this is the best way for money to be spent if we want to decrease infant mortality rates. What are the countries ahead of us in the tables doing differently/better?
What were the equivalents to the potato famines and Croke Park massacre?
Did a Bishop of Rome issue a Papal Bull approving the EU annex the UK?
#ShitTake
I'd like to know if midwife numbers can be connected to infant mortality. If so, then it's worth doing more. But I get the impression it's more about making it a nicer experience for mothers to be. Which is fair enough.
Incidentally, I know someone who's gone through this and it wasn't due to a lack of midwives. More a case of bad luck/piss poor decision making depending on your pov.
Is there a point in the European welfare state model where an increasing population starts to have negative effects.
*) Immigrants are likely to be poorer
*) Congenital defects due to cousin marriages
*) Less likely to abort if issues detected
*) Language issues
Add these together and you'd push up the figures a little. It's be good to see the figures.
However, you set up false dichotomy in my view. It’s possible to have much greater devolution in the U.K. - returning power to the people - while working jointly with EU partners on more global issues.
But going back to the point, you claimed that Remainers lost because they couldn’t articulate publicly their federalist fantasy. You don’t really have anything to back this up.
Nobody should be allowed to polish the ball except the bowler, and it should be returned to the Umpire at the end of each over. It would only need a quick glance to see if something funny is going on, and wouldn't slow the game down. In fact the introduction of these common sense procedures might well speed the game up.
Also that the stats for infant mortality relate to ages 0-5. A breakdown of these by cause of death might also be useful. Knowing the numbers of pneumonia/cancer/accident will be enlightening. I suspect a lot of countries don’t include death by accident in the statistics.
This notion of a "metropolitan ruling elite" is typical Mail scapegoating - always looking for someone else to blame for the failings of a Conservative Government.
If it's simply "my country right or wrong" fine but most people don't, I suspect, wallow in the Mail's uncritical adulation for all things English and British. They can admire people and things from other countries and recognise the faults in our own.
We aren't perfect - we do the best we can. I suspect English people love their country no less than Germans or French love theirs and that's fine.
The other aspect of this that annoys me is who the heck do the Mail think they are to tell people how to be patriotic or to be the guardians of patriotism ? You don't have to read the Mail to love your country, you don't have to vote Conservative to do so either.
https://twitter.com/GrahameLucas/status/977863273625407489
There also issues of how widespread abortion is for severe congenital defects. Are there allowed to go to term in some populations, but not others?
I do think migrant mothers are part of the issue, 27% of British births having a mother born abroad.
Indeed, the emphasis on Midwives may well be part of what we are doing wrong. The countries doing well in the figures have a more medically rather than midwife based model. Apart from our shortage of Obstetricians, the feminist politics of this is a real minefield, as anyone who remembers the Wendy Savage case can recall.
If we assume a cost of a midwife to the State to be somewhere around £100,000 a year then that is a total cost for 3000 midwife of £300 million a year. If that saves 700 babies a year then that is at a cost of around £430,000 each. I would suggest that even if one is being economically hard nosed about this, it is still far below the currently accepted VPF and should be adopted.
Glad the government told them where to go.
I think the infant mortality figures are maximum of 28 days of life, so accidents are not really an issue.
As he thought she was too 'down-market' to have a middle class name like Margaret.
The question comes in why those babies are dying, and how money can best be focused on reducing that number. As an example, it's possible that education might save as many lives as midwifes. We were an intelligent middle-class couple, and the NCT group we attended was brilliant for giving us lots of information we just didn't have.
https://twitter.com/TheBarmyArmy/status/977765829281398784?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet
If you can't find it let me know and I will dig out a direct link when I get home.
https://astronomynow.com/2018/03/22/british-led-exoplanet-mission-selected-as-esas-next-space-science-probe/
I'm sure all leavers and remainers can agree this is a great example of European co-operation.
http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~ipsavage/104-12.pdf
No where ah come fae.
(*) 20+years ago
Given he’s worth $200m+ himself and his wife inherited another $250m I don’t know why he bothers
The U.K. ONS figures are indeed for 28 days, so hopefully not too many accidents there - the vast majority of them probably never make it out of the hospital.
Really interesting discussion, hopefully there’s some good research out there about what small differences can affect outcomes within sensible parameters.
Someone needs a moral compass
As an example of how well this can work, look at the North Karelia experience in Finland. In the Seventies the Finns led the world league table for heart disease:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/04/finlands-radical-heart-health-transformation/389766/
We need to make sedentariness and junk fast food the difficult option, and healthy lifestyle the default. This is true of neonatal deaths too. Maternal smoking and diabetes are significant risks for still births.
Best get back into the garden, spring has sprung in the East Midlands.
Apparently he was a very fair dealer with his associates, though I doubt that extended to the taxman.
Presumably you're all for Clara Ponsati being sent back from Scotland to face PP justice, on strictly legal grounds of course. Would you concede that politicians being imprisoned for holding a peaceful referendum are in fact political prisoners, or do you think it's right that they should be treated as criminals?
On a more parochial note, Unionists are missing a trick with the Catalan business. The Union flag, one big UK family bollox is tapped out to the point of counter productivity, particularly in light of the delightful fellow travellers it brings with it. The single issue that I've seen that might make progressive (or in fact all) Indy supporters look on the EU less favourably than the UK is Catalonia.
Of course, that’s deliberate. Even though it usually leads to shouts of “mad”, “loon” or “foaming” from those who are actually just displeased they’re being called out on it.
And there’s plenty of evidence many leading Remainers have in the past advocated or current do support a federal Europe. They just learned to tactically keep it quiet in the U.K. That’s also deliberate. The whole premise of my argument is that leading Remainers have kept shtum on their real reasons for a “positive” case for Europe because they know it would go down like a bucket of cold sick here. So they obfuscate instead.
The fact the EU is heading towards an ever closer federal union is, I’m afraid, a fact.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5541529/Is-moment-Australia-cheated-against-England-ASHES.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5540803/Chuka-Umunna-slams-Jeremy-Corbyn-anti-Semitic-mural-row.html
Or Islamophobic or anti-LGBT stuff,....just the anti Jewish stuff.
“I’m very, very sorry that people feel hurt by this and that’s why I think it’s right that Jeremy has expressed regret for it,” Watson told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/25/senior-labour-figures-defend-corbyn-row-antisemitic-mural
On the political question I wish the Catalans well. Independence will be tough for them if they don't get the cooperation of Spain, but that's their decision.It's a good reason to keep things legal.
I.also have no argument against independence for Scotland in principle. It's up to us to decide, subject to what relationships the rest of the UK agree with us, in or out.