Starmergeddon: They Came And Ate Us

[Torquemada 1420]

Maybe this belongs on this thread

Just more for the "NHS is wonderful" cult.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c045pp740vro

You are now in the minority:

https://news.stv.tv/scotland/major-poll ... n-with-nhs

[Yeeb]

Yet more over-generalisation
If the sneering, massive cunts like me have done fuck all about it (though we have little influence as to what governments actually do whoever we vote for) what is it that youngsters like you are going to do to put it right then ?
Oh and I was lucky enough to have healthcare cover most of my working life and made a calculated financial call to continue it after I retired

Ah put a sock in it boomer , had no influence boo hoo just picked up cheap everything and index linked free money forever - thought you said you’d be happy to pay more for the nhs ? Real shame then your generation consistently voted and acted otherwise and none of you ever blame them forrins, no sirree

Fuck off
I moved to this forum to get away from shitfights
You got perma banned from the other place for inciting shitfights
Moving on.......................

Lolz, got perma apparently from an irisher who couldn’t take the craig , nice try though Mr boom

[Yeeb]

Fuck off
I moved to this forum to get away from shitfights
You got perma banned from the other place for inciting shitfights
Moving on.......................

Stop putting 50p in the arsehole

Quite. Shouldn't feed the troll, apologies

Surely you were the first troll on here ? It’s actually factual how much oldies under pay & over burden, you just got upset by my use of the word ‘all’ regarding their propensity to not pay and blame the out of work & immigrants . FWIW I freely take back that word all if it helps you calm down petal.
If you are honest you are just getting wound up by my troll history and not this thread of truths, and you yourself brought the tone down first with name calling and sneering hypocritically about private healthcare & family. Doubt your self awareness will realise that however ;)

[Yeeb]

Maybe this belongs on this thread

Just more for the "NHS is wonderful" cult.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c045pp740vro

You are now in the minority:

https://news.stv.tv/scotland/major-poll ... n-with-nhs

Mental heath deffo isn’t a nhs strong point and the after effects of lockdowns are barely realised yet.

[C69]

Only c69 has mentioned the key elephant in room about what can a govt do about Uk economy , whilst all you armchair Tory and Labour bashers waffle - that elephant being state pension & the triple lock. It’s by far and away the single biggest drain on UK plc finances, and as 75% of health spending is on the oldies , they alone directly take up about 40% of govt spending.

By directly I mean via new hips and pension paid, rather than indirectly such as benefitting from nice roads, police and fire cover, armed forces stopping us being invaded , street lighting they can use at night…

Arguably neither pension nor the nhs is adequately or appropriately funded , governments of various hues have kicked these cans down the road since ww2 & nhs formation. Until someone has the balls to change these (and abolishing triple lock seems easier to me than fixing the black hole of nhs quickly) then any budget is merely tinkering for political point scoring.

It's complicated indeed. The NHS is a fucking basket case ATM. I had the misfortune to go to A&E recently and it was a fucking horrific experience.
Waited for ages in an archaic system,given misdiagnosis by coçky nurses who weren't qualified to do so. Serious issue.
It ls not fit for purpose. I hate working in the NHS and will fuck off for good as early as I can. Labour have no clue whatsoever what to do. Streeting is utterly clueless.

Sorry you’ve had a bad experience recently on it, location really is a lottery, my little part of SW London is pretty fucking amazing tbf when we’ve had to use it for A&E (rugby days then more recently kids inc my middle one who has allergies and can get seriously ill seriously quickly as we’ve found out), mundane kids stuff, my stupid gout, covid - all dealt with quickly and well and by nice people.

Oldies take up about 75% of the cost of the nhs so they should really pay for it, I have little sympathy for current crop of oaps who all whinge about immigrants , benefits scroungers etc without appreciating just how little they cost the state v oldies.

First thing I’d do with nhs is properly set up a pipeline of tuition fee free training to get the staff the nhs needs instead of importing and having to use pricey bank staff. Would take five years minimum to see anything though.
Second thing I’d do is pretty much force anyone able to, to work for nhs or fill potholes etc to get their benefits. Kind of a civilian conscription if you will.

Fucking hell it goes from bad to worse. I had an MRI recently which I was informed was ok like a previous CT only to called in a panic yesterday to be told I need another scan as an emergency today.

Jebus I am fucking stressed

[Yeeb]

I never said everyone on benefits is dodgy and I didnt jump to any conclusions! Portering involves patient contact, often on 1:1 basis and requires knowledge of hospital, how it works, infection control, etc. Wiping oldies shit up usually done by a care worker who needs to be trained, vetted, supervised, etc.The NHS trains lots of folk, it has one of the highest % of degree or higher qualified staff in the UK, but asking them to train even more folk will cost money it doesn't have. Others can answer about the construction industry etc.

Scotlands NHS hiring woes as you describe them are small in comparison to part of England, NHS in SE is propped up by a workforce of whom over 25% are from abroad.

I dont disagree about the need to reduce folk not working and claiming benefits however it is just too easy to throw out the usual 'solutions' like get them working in the NHS or conscription without knowing or thinking through the reality of the situation!

So perhaps then helping the nhs in a non patient contact way then like building a hospital , maintaining its grounds , helping delivering a few crates of piss bags , that sort of thing ?

NHS doesn't build hospitals, that's contracted out to specialist firms. Grounds maintenance might be an option but even areas like security, car parking etc have more to them in the NHS context than meets the eye. For example many have to deal with members of the public who are very anxious, worried, scared or compromised in some way medically or with drugs/alcohol, etc so they do need good skills in communication, managing conflict, etc. Working in procurement/supplies is difficult because of the nature of the products they handle ie drugs, medical devices, syringes, etc so opportunities might be limited. Many areas that might be suitable have been contracted out ie catering/kitchens, laundries, etc.

Not trying to be awkward but once you get into the nitty gritty of the reality of the NHS work context then the opportunity for suitable work placements is pretty limited! I know many other industries are the same where the last thing they need is the additional burden, costs and risks of offering placements to temp employees. It just aint worth it for many.

It’s ok i was taking your words as a discussion not awkward , some (older?) types on here get too wound up by internets forum. Perhaps could have phrased it better along the lines of ‘being made to participate in an activity that would benefit society such as nhs or fixing potholes’ and yes, elf and safety and people being signed off sick for depression would likely prevent 99% of vacant roles of societal benefit being filled.
Btw I actually work in medical procurement and supplies and there are plenty of unskilled jobs there as several of my depots are (under) staffed with able bodied hardworking types with limited knowledge of English.
It’s also not unreasonable to suggest that some of those outsourced firms with nhs contracts, could be encouraged shall we say to employ some who are claiming benefits.

[Yeeb]

It's complicated indeed. The NHS is a fucking basket case ATM. I had the misfortune to go to A&E recently and it was a fucking horrific experience.
Waited for ages in an archaic system,given misdiagnosis by coçky nurses who weren't qualified to do so. Serious issue.
It ls not fit for purpose. I hate working in the NHS and will fuck off for good as early as I can. Labour have no clue whatsoever what to do. Streeting is utterly clueless.

Sorry you’ve had a bad experience recently on it, location really is a lottery, my little part of SW London is pretty fucking amazing tbf when we’ve had to use it for A&E (rugby days then more recently kids inc my middle one who has allergies and can get seriously ill seriously quickly as we’ve found out), mundane kids stuff, my stupid gout, covid - all dealt with quickly and well and by nice people.

Oldies take up about 75% of the cost of the nhs so they should really pay for it, I have little sympathy for current crop of oaps who all whinge about immigrants , benefits scroungers etc without appreciating just how little they cost the state v oldies.

First thing I’d do with nhs is properly set up a pipeline of tuition fee free training to get the staff the nhs needs instead of importing and having to use pricey bank staff. Would take five years minimum to see anything though.
Second thing I’d do is pretty much force anyone able to, to work for nhs or fill potholes etc to get their benefits. Kind of a civilian conscription if you will.

Fucking hell it goes from bad to worse. I had an MRI recently which I was informed was ok like a previous CT only to called in a panic yesterday to be told I need another scan as an emergency today.

Jebus I am fucking stressed

Aaargh no ways , that’s bad man.
What can we do to help de stress you & talk about on here ?

[C69]

Sorry you’ve had a bad experience recently on it, location really is a lottery, my little part of SW London is pretty fucking amazing tbf when we’ve had to use it for A&E (rugby days then more recently kids inc my middle one who has allergies and can get seriously ill seriously quickly as we’ve found out), mundane kids stuff, my stupid gout, covid - all dealt with quickly and well and by nice people.

Oldies take up about 75% of the cost of the nhs so they should really pay for it, I have little sympathy for current crop of oaps who all whinge about immigrants , benefits scroungers etc without appreciating just how little they cost the state v oldies.

First thing I’d do with nhs is properly set up a pipeline of tuition fee free training to get the staff the nhs needs instead of importing and having to use pricey bank staff. Would take five years minimum to see anything though.
Second thing I’d do is pretty much force anyone able to, to work for nhs or fill potholes etc to get their benefits. Kind of a civilian conscription if you will.

Fucking hell it goes from bad to worse. I had an MRI recently which I was informed was ok like a previous CT only to called in a panic yesterday to be told I need another scan as an emergency today.

Jebus I am fucking stressed

Aaargh no ways , that’s bad man.
What can we do to help de stress you & talk about on here ?

Lol

[Yeeb]

Tell us more about these cocky nurses

[Tichtheid]

Good luck, C69

[C69]

Good luck, C69

I was initially informed my CT was ok.
Fucking hell given I work in the NHS it has been a fucking nightmare mate.
I also have HR issues about confidentiality with my manager lol.

[petej]

When you have a massively fat, unfit and ageing population no health system is going to fair well. The NHS frequently treats symptoms/outcomes not causes of ill health. Public health which is mostly long term and was very heavily neglected by the Tories and is the sort of thing that balance sheet accountants will think is wasteful.

[Paddington Bear]

When you have a massively fat, unfit and ageing population no health system is going to fair well. The NHS frequently treats symptoms/outcomes not causes of ill health. Public health which is mostly long term and was very heavily neglected by the Tories and is the sort of thing that balance sheet accountants will think is wasteful.

This goes back to stuff discussed yesterday - a lot of people are incentivised by the State to make themselves ill. 25% of the country is not disabled in the ordinary meaning of the word - being sad and fat and therefore disabled is something that can be fixed

[dpedin]

When you have a massively fat, unfit and ageing population no health system is going to fair well. The NHS frequently treats symptoms/outcomes not causes of ill health. Public health which is mostly long term and was very heavily neglected by the Tories and is the sort of thing that balance sheet accountants will think is wasteful.

This goes back to stuff discussed yesterday - a lot of people are incentivised by the State to make themselves ill. 25% of the country is not disabled in the ordinary meaning of the word - being sad and fat and therefore disabled is something that can be fixed

The lack of investment in Public Health coupled with inadequate regulations and huge marketing budgets of producers has led us to a point where many get fat, sad and immobile. Living on the breadline means for many their food options tend to be the cheapest and most unhealthy food options around. The consequential rise of type2 diabetes has horrendous health consequences for individuals and the NHS. Rather than diet and exercise many will turn to medication as an 'easier' way to manage T2 or lose weight.

It is easy to blame individuals for their own predicament, and I often do, but there is an argument to say that we as a country/society have created the monster through our political and economic choices. I use the USA as one example of that where profit is more important than public health hence foodstuffs stuffed with sugar, massive marketing of crap food to kids, etc. Compare the USA with most of the Scandi countries who have a better balance between public health and profit and the levels of obesity are markedly lower.

I know a surgeon involved in bariatric surgery and when it first became a thing and the NHS had to set guidelines to ensure only those most in medical need got access to the surgery. One of the criteria was patients had to have a certain level of BMI, too low and surgery wasn't an option they had to go to diet and exercise classes. All that happened is once the criteria became public then all the fatties just ate more to make sure their BMI went above the criteria set! Diet, psychology and exercise was just too hard for many surgery was easier! One interesting postscript was many who had the surgery couldn't keep to the strict diet required afterwards and often came back with problems or gained much of the weight they initially lost!

[Slick]

When you have a massively fat, unfit and ageing population no health system is going to fair well. The NHS frequently treats symptoms/outcomes not causes of ill health. Public health which is mostly long term and was very heavily neglected by the Tories and is the sort of thing that balance sheet accountants will think is wasteful.

This goes back to stuff discussed yesterday - a lot of people are incentivised by the State to make themselves ill. 25% of the country is not disabled in the ordinary meaning of the word - being sad and fat and therefore disabled is something that can be fixed

The lack of investment in Public Health coupled with inadequate regulations and huge marketing budgets of producers has led us to a point where many get fat, sad and immobile. Living on the breadline means for many their food options tend to be the cheapest and most unhealthy food options around. The consequential rise of type2 diabetes has horrendous health consequences for individuals and the NHS. Rather than diet and exercise many will turn to medication as an 'easier' way to manage T2 or lose weight.

It is easy to blame individuals for their own predicament, and I often do, but there is an argument to say that we as a country/society have created the monster through our political and economic choices. I use the USA as one example of that where profit is more important than public health hence foodstuffs stuffed with sugar, massive marketing of crap food to kids, etc. Compare the USA with most of the Scandi countries who have a better balance between public health and profit and the levels of obesity are markedly lower.

I know a surgeon involved in bariatric surgery and when it first became a thing and the NHS had to set guidelines to ensure only those most in medical need got access to the surgery. One of the criteria was patients had to have a certain level of BMI, too low and surgery wasn't an option they had to go to diet and exercise classes. All that happened is once the criteria became public then all the fatties just ate more to make sure their BMI went above the criteria set! Diet, psychology and exercise was just too hard for many surgery was easier! One interesting postscript was many who had the surgery couldn't keep to the strict diet required afterwards and often came back with problems or gained much of the weight they initially lost!

I think I've mentioned it before but I was at an event fairly recently where there was an anti poverty campaigner did a speech - she herself had been in brutal poverty but had managed to get out. A lot of what she was saying just wasn't on my radar at all about how difficult the life is and how it's almost impossible to get out of it for many. A lot of wet eyes in the house, including my own. It has certainly give me a different perspective and a belief that poverty and education is the root cause of so, so many of our issues in this country.

In saying that, I've been amused this week by a local mother and son team. She uses a wheelchair now and then and he is her carer. Anyway, they have spent the last week on the beach with all their dogs, smoking massive joints and drinking cheap cider and arriving with 2 new disposable BBQ's and packs of Richmond sausages each day.

[Paddington Bear]

When you have a massively fat, unfit and ageing population no health system is going to fair well. The NHS frequently treats symptoms/outcomes not causes of ill health. Public health which is mostly long term and was very heavily neglected by the Tories and is the sort of thing that balance sheet accountants will think is wasteful.

This goes back to stuff discussed yesterday - a lot of people are incentivised by the State to make themselves ill. 25% of the country is not disabled in the ordinary meaning of the word - being sad and fat and therefore disabled is something that can be fixed

The lack of investment in Public Health coupled with inadequate regulations and huge marketing budgets of producers has led us to a point where many get fat, sad and immobile. Living on the breadline means for many their food options tend to be the cheapest and most unhealthy food options around. The consequential rise of type2 diabetes has horrendous health consequences for individuals and the NHS. Rather than diet and exercise many will turn to medication as an 'easier' way to manage T2 or lose weight.

It is easy to blame individuals for their own predicament, and I often do, but there is an argument to say that we as a country/society have created the monster through our political and economic choices. I use the USA as one example of that where profit is more important than public health hence foodstuffs stuffed with sugar, massive marketing of crap food to kids, etc. Compare the USA with most of the Scandi countries who have a better balance between public health and profit and the levels of obesity are markedly lower.

I know a surgeon involved in bariatric surgery and when it first became a thing and the NHS had to set guidelines to ensure only those most in medical need got access to the surgery. One of the criteria was patients had to have a certain level of BMI, too low and surgery wasn't an option they had to go to diet and exercise classes. All that happened is once the criteria became public then all the fatties just ate more to make sure their BMI went above the criteria set! Diet, psychology and exercise was just too hard for many surgery was easier! One interesting postscript was many who had the surgery couldn't keep to the strict diet required afterwards and often came back with problems or gained much of the weight they initially lost!

I think we need to get away from the idea that the 25% of society that are ‘disabled’ are entirely made up of people on the breadline - a lot of these people are relatively comfortably off. What you do with people genuinely on the breadline is a separate issue, and we could provide far better and more generous support to them if we weren’t pretending that a quarter of the nation have genuine disabilities

[Yeeb]

This goes back to stuff discussed yesterday - a lot of people are incentivised by the State to make themselves ill. 25% of the country is not disabled in the ordinary meaning of the word - being sad and fat and therefore disabled is something that can be fixed

The lack of investment in Public Health coupled with inadequate regulations and huge marketing budgets of producers has led us to a point where many get fat, sad and immobile. Living on the breadline means for many their food options tend to be the cheapest and most unhealthy food options around. The consequential rise of type2 diabetes has horrendous health consequences for individuals and the NHS. Rather than diet and exercise many will turn to medication as an 'easier' way to manage T2 or lose weight.

It is easy to blame individuals for their own predicament, and I often do, but there is an argument to say that we as a country/society have created the monster through our political and economic choices. I use the USA as one example of that where profit is more important than public health hence foodstuffs stuffed with sugar, massive marketing of crap food to kids, etc. Compare the USA with most of the Scandi countries who have a better balance between public health and profit and the levels of obesity are markedly lower.

I know a surgeon involved in bariatric surgery and when it first became a thing and the NHS had to set guidelines to ensure only those most in medical need got access to the surgery. One of the criteria was patients had to have a certain level of BMI, too low and surgery wasn't an option they had to go to diet and exercise classes. All that happened is once the criteria became public then all the fatties just ate more to make sure their BMI went above the criteria set! Diet, psychology and exercise was just too hard for many surgery was easier! One interesting postscript was many who had the surgery couldn't keep to the strict diet required afterwards and often came back with problems or gained much of the weight they initially lost!

I think I've mentioned it before but I was at an event fairly recently where there was an anti poverty campaigner did a speech - she herself had been in brutal poverty but had managed to get out. A lot of what she was saying just wasn't on my radar at all about how difficult the life is and how it's almost impossible to get out of it for many. A lot of wet eyes in the house, including my own. It has certainly give me a different perspective and a belief that poverty and education is the root cause of so, so many of our issues in this country.

In saying that, I've been amused this week by a local mother and son team. She uses a wheelchair now and then and he is her carer. Anyway, they have spent the last week on the beach with all their dogs, smoking massive joints and drinking cheap cider and arriving with 2 new disposable BBQ's and packs of Richmond sausages each day.

Who was fatter, anti poverty lady, or Mrs Richmond-Blunt ?

[Sandstorm]

I know a surgeon involved in bariatric surgery and when it first became a thing and the NHS had to set guidelines to ensure only those most in medical need got access to the surgery. One of the criteria was patients had to have a certain level of BMI, too low and surgery wasn't an option they had to go to diet and exercise classes. All that happened is once the criteria became public then all the fatties just ate more to make sure their BMI went above the criteria set! Diet, psychology and exercise was just too hard for many surgery was easier! One interesting postscript was many who had the surgery couldn't keep to the strict diet required afterwards and often came back with problems or gained much of the weight they initially lost!

Sew up their mouths instead of their guts.

[C69]

This goes back to stuff discussed yesterday - a lot of people are incentivised by the State to make themselves ill. 25% of the country is not disabled in the ordinary meaning of the word - being sad and fat and therefore disabled is something that can be fixed

The lack of investment in Public Health coupled with inadequate regulations and huge marketing budgets of producers has led us to a point where many get fat, sad and immobile. Living on the breadline means for many their food options tend to be the cheapest and most unhealthy food options around. The consequential rise of type2 diabetes has horrendous health consequences for individuals and the NHS. Rather than diet and exercise many will turn to medication as an 'easier' way to manage T2 or lose weight.

It is easy to blame individuals for their own predicament, and I often do, but there is an argument to say that we as a country/society have created the monster through our political and economic choices. I use the USA as one example of that where profit is more important than public health hence foodstuffs stuffed with sugar, massive marketing of crap food to kids, etc. Compare the USA with most of the Scandi countries who have a better balance between public health and profit and the levels of obesity are markedly lower.

I know a surgeon involved in bariatric surgery and when it first became a thing and the NHS had to set guidelines to ensure only those most in medical need got access to the surgery. One of the criteria was patients had to have a certain level of BMI, too low and surgery wasn't an option they had to go to diet and exercise classes. All that happened is once the criteria became public then all the fatties just ate more to make sure their BMI went above the criteria set! Diet, psychology and exercise was just too hard for many surgery was easier! One interesting postscript was many who had the surgery couldn't keep to the strict diet required afterwards and often came back with problems or gained much of the weight they initially lost!

I think we need to get away from the idea that the 25% of society that are ‘disabled’ are entirely made up of people on the breadline - a lot of these people are relatively comfortably off. What you do with people genuinely on the breadline is a separate issue, and we could provide far better and more generous support to them if we weren’t pretending that a quarter of the nation have genuine disabilities

Can you provide any evidence for you rant?

[Paddington Bear]

The lack of investment in Public Health coupled with inadequate regulations and huge marketing budgets of producers has led us to a point where many get fat, sad and immobile. Living on the breadline means for many their food options tend to be the cheapest and most unhealthy food options around. The consequential rise of type2 diabetes has horrendous health consequences for individuals and the NHS. Rather than diet and exercise many will turn to medication as an 'easier' way to manage T2 or lose weight.

It is easy to blame individuals for their own predicament, and I often do, but there is an argument to say that we as a country/society have created the monster through our political and economic choices. I use the USA as one example of that where profit is more important than public health hence foodstuffs stuffed with sugar, massive marketing of crap food to kids, etc. Compare the USA with most of the Scandi countries who have a better balance between public health and profit and the levels of obesity are markedly lower.

I know a surgeon involved in bariatric surgery and when it first became a thing and the NHS had to set guidelines to ensure only those most in medical need got access to the surgery. One of the criteria was patients had to have a certain level of BMI, too low and surgery wasn't an option they had to go to diet and exercise classes. All that happened is once the criteria became public then all the fatties just ate more to make sure their BMI went above the criteria set! Diet, psychology and exercise was just too hard for many surgery was easier! One interesting postscript was many who had the surgery couldn't keep to the strict diet required afterwards and often came back with problems or gained much of the weight they initially lost!

I think we need to get away from the idea that the 25% of society that are ‘disabled’ are entirely made up of people on the breadline - a lot of these people are relatively comfortably off. What you do with people genuinely on the breadline is a separate issue, and we could provide far better and more generous support to them if we weren’t pretending that a quarter of the nation have genuine disabilities

Can you provide any evidence for you rant?

You and I have very different definitions of rant

[Biffer]

One thing to remember is it can often cost you more to do the assessment of everyone than you will save. For example assessing all pensioners would have cost more than the free tv licences.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

One thing to remember is it can often cost you more to do the assessment of everyone than you will save. For example assessing all pensioners would have cost more than the free tv licences.

it's a fair point that in many systems a certain level of waste is preferable to the costs of correctly assessing all (or far more)

[shaggy]

One thing to remember is it can often cost you more to do the assessment of everyone than you will save. For example assessing all pensioners would have cost more than the free tv licences.

it's a fair point that in many systems a certain level of waste is preferable to the costs of correctly assessing all (or far more)

But that inaction creates a draw for fraud.

It does seem that the civil service and governments really struggle with the application of complex solutions, which big businesses seem to handle better with less resources.

[Mahoney]

I sometimes wonder if there's a case for an honesty box approach you could take if you would otherwise just make a benefit universal because it's too expensive / humiliating to assess. Send everyone a "do you qualify to receive X" and just never check up on it.

If you were going to give it to everyone otherwise, then all the people who honestly say they don't qualify for it are gravy.

[Torquemada 1420]

A few thoughts after watching the energy secretary once again mounting what seems to me an incredibly weak defence of Labour's handling of the whole water industry issue.

The water companies are being permitted to increase bills by an average of 26% (considerably more in some cases), despite their litany of failures and financial mismanagement of extraordinary amounts of funding. He claims that the money raised by the bill increases is entirely necessary and will be used for much needed capital investment and that the regulatory framework now prevents them from using it to pay out dividends (which strains credulity given how fucking intentionally weak and soft touch most of our regulators are...).

He stated that the money has to come via this mechanism, via private money, because there's a limited public pot.

Now, maybe I'm being incredibly dense, but I'm failing to really grasp any material difference between private and public money in this instance. This money whether it comes via bill rise or taxation rise is coming from the same source - ordinary people. It's a tax in all but name as the government effectively signs off the regulator permitting a bill increase and people don't really have any choice about paying it.


Further, when the economy is struggling, principally because people don't have enough disposable income, why are regulators, that ultimately answer to the government, allowing yet further over-inflationary increases on utilities across the board?

Spot on. Private profits and public costs.

The water industry is farcical. What is it lost in leaks? 3 billion litres a day?

So now, why exactly would the water companies seek to fix this? The cost of the lost water is being paid for, by us. If any water company spends a cent fixing a single leak, it immediately reduces its profit so why would it bother?
Maybe prices need to be fixed by Govt AND for every litre of water lost, the water cos fined. Alternatively, renationalise the lot without paying a penny to the shareholders.

[C69]

I think we need to get away from the idea that the 25% of society that are ‘disabled’ are entirely made up of people on the breadline - a lot of these people are relatively comfortably off. What you do with people genuinely on the breadline is a separate issue, and we could provide far better and more generous support to them if we weren’t pretending that a quarter of the nation have genuine disabilities

Can you provide any evidence for you rant?

You and I have very different definitions of rant

Ok then just post the evidence

[Yeeb]

I sometimes wonder if there's a case for an honesty box approach you could take if you would otherwise just make a benefit universal because it's too expensive / humiliating to assess. Send everyone a "do you qualify to receive X" and just never check up on it.

If you were going to give it to everyone otherwise, then all the people who honestly say they don't qualify for it are gravy.

Yes, the great unwashed are famed for their honesty

Anecdotally and very influenced by Covid , but claims for everything were widely waved through and not checked up on. I’m still getting my grandads Giro, he’s in good nick for 127

[Biffer]

One thing to remember is it can often cost you more to do the assessment of everyone than you will save. For example assessing all pensioners would have cost more than the free tv licences.

it's a fair point that in many systems a certain level of waste is preferable to the costs of correctly assessing all (or far more)

But that inaction creates a draw for fraud.

It does seem that the civil service and governments really struggle with the application of complex solutions, which big businesses seem to handle better with less resources.

It does create that draw, but the more people taken in by the draw, the more benefit there is from pursuing the cost to address it. At some point there’s a balance where it’s most efficient.

Private business rarely has to address complex solutions on the same scale as governments. And when they do they often have the same problems, as can be seen when private companies attempt to implement new systems for government. Government procurement isn’t the only problem with implementing new all UK systems.

[Tichtheid]

One thing to remember is it can often cost you more to do the assessment of everyone than you will save. For example assessing all pensioners would have cost more than the free tv licences.

it's a fair point that in many systems a certain level of waste is preferable to the costs of correctly assessing all (or far more)

"Correctly" is a buzz word in this. Going back to my anecdote, my friend who I'll call "John" had been found fit for work multiple times. The company doing the assessing even wrote to his GP to tell him to stop signing off John as unfit for work.

In preparation for the tribunal hearing on whether or not my friend's benefits should be reinstated and he should be signed off I went through their assessment document point by point and detailed how their recording of the answers were at best mistaken and at worst deliberately misleading.

The tribunal heard the case from the assessors first and then called John and I in. I went through my experience of how John's mental and physical health problems presented and how they affected him.

It took them five minutes to call us back in and say that we had been successful in our appeal and that John's benefits were to be reinstated - all this time he had been incurring council tax and utility bill debts and they had called bailiffs in, even though I had explained the situation to each party.

John had epilepsy due to a thug hitting him on the back of a head with a metal bar - this was a random act of violence. He also had chest and blood clotting problems and when the epilepsy symptoms kicked in he didn't take any of the medicine that he was on so everything was exacerbated.

He was passed fit for work again soon after the tribunal, this time by letter and without interview or assessment.

I'm going to have to cut this short here, as I said this went on for six years until John hit state pension age.

From reading around and in conversation with groups such as MIND and from articles in the press, John was far from alone in his predicament. I'm about to come to the assessors now.

But that inaction creates a draw for fraud.

It does seem that the civil service and governments really struggle with the application of complex solutions, which big businesses seem to handle better with less resources.

The assessors in the above case were Atos, a multibillion dollar multinational company.

The assessor was something they called a "health professional" but I couldn't find any medical qualifications attributed to the person doing the initial assessment interview

This all happened a while ago, but a quick Google tells me that "In 2013, the UK Parliament's Public Accounts Committee reported that nearly 40% of appeals against Atos's assessments were successful"

[Hal Jordan]

As ever, the climate takes on the heavy lifting as vacuum Starmer bows before the car industry and relaxes the EV mandate.

He can chase the Reform vote all he wants (nEt ZErO hurrr) they aren't going to switch allegiance.

DEI wokeness likely to be on the chopping block full time so we can keep in with our good friends, the Americans. Already happening at the big law firms in the Ciry that are extensions of US firms, it will be interesting (sadly predictable) to see what happens in response.

[Yeeb]

See another Labour MP has shit the bed and got nicked , this time for noncing.
So glad they are proving to be materially better and less dodgy than the last government

[Hal Jordan]

See another Labour MP has shit the bed and got nicked , this time for noncing.
So glad they are proving to be materially better and less dodgy than the last government

Not a well liked fellow before this, by all accounts.

[sockwithaticket]

Also, as, has been noted in the past. An MP behaving badly isn't the litmus test over whether the government is better it's about what they do when presented with the incident. Rather than attempting to cover up and pretend nothing's happened, Labour suspend the whip and wait for the outcome of the police investigation.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

Going back to my anecdote, my friend who I'll call "John"

If nothing else I was motivated by this to pick one of my friends and rename them John. And it's going well with many known associates, including his wife, agreeing to the change. But she may change her mind when she starts to release just how much stuff I've ordered (mostly free catalogues and the like) to their home. This might take a while, but at some point I like to think it'd be easier for him to just do the decent thing and actually change his name

[fishfoodie]

I see Sunak made Disco biscuits a Peer .... so what's the shortest time so far between someone being granted a Peerage, & them being found to be unfit & corrupt & thrown out ??

[Hal Jordan]

Scunthorpe steel factory is privatised. I wonder which foreign vulture they will flog it to for 10 bob and a pickled egg for the good of the public purse?

Also, Wes Streeting is a fucking cunt.

[_Os_]

I wonder which foreign vulture they will flog it to for 10 bob and a pickled egg for the good of the public purse?

I posted on the Trump thread "competition is bad if the game is zero sum and you cannot win. Which is why UK agri has been protected.", it's good the last part of UK virgin steel production (not produced from recycling) has been nationalised.

As you say though the "flog it for 10 bob and a pickled egg" crew are circling, it's not even a joke they would sell it for £1. David Davis (remember him?) said to Sky News on Saturday "this plant is losing £250m a year, it must be returned to profitability!!!". How the fuck is that going to happen when the competition is China/India/Russia and you're producing in a country as expensive as the UK? There's no chance, but that isn't the point. The point is market forces can mean you lose everything, which is the point of having a state. If the UK loses £250m a year and retains the ability to produce something critical for doing anything in industry, that's a good deal.

I really do think a lot of Thatcherites are just totally mad. Quite happy for foreigners to buy critical assets, bleed them and reinvest nothing, then close them down on the basis of market forces leaving the UK strategically weaker. Then they act like the UK is a world leading super power, after they sold all that for 10 bob and a pickled egg.

[Yeeb]

I wonder which foreign vulture they will flog it to for 10 bob and a pickled egg for the good of the public purse?

I posted on the Trump thread "competition is bad if the game is zero sum and you cannot win. Which is why UK agri has been protected.", it's good the last part of UK virgin steel production (not produced from recycling) has been nationalised.

As you say though the "flog it for 10 bob and a pickled egg" crew are circling, it's not even a joke they would sell it for £1. David Davis (remember him?) said to Sky News on Saturday "this plant is losing £250m a year, it must be returned to profitability!!!". How the fuck is that going to happen when the competition is China/India/Russia and you're producing in a country as expensive as the UK? There's no chance, but that isn't the point. The point is market forces can mean you lose everything, which is the point of having a state. If the UK loses £250m a year and retains the ability to produce something critical for doing anything in industry, that's a good deal.

I really do think a lot of Thatcherites are just totally mad. Quite happy for foreigners to buy critical assets, bleed them and reinvest nothing, then close them down on the basis of market forces leaving the UK strategically weaker. Then they act like the UK is a world leading super power, after they sold all that for 10 bob and a pickled egg.

There are many doctrinal problems with just believing the market will fill the gap with no problems. Definite strategic and economic case for certain key primary and secondary industries to have been propped up to at least provide a base of domestic capability , by this I mean a few coal and iron mines, steel production, shipbuilding for our navies , aero etc . Certain government investment could also have been conditional on using 50% of domestic materials and labour too. The decisions to kill off all these lame ducks was also not helped by woeful management and union practices and relations , which soured general view of having these pits and furnaces in the first place. I would have propped up these (and supported certain targeted regional policy ) so that at least a certain amount of steel demand could have been met by domestic demand , whether it was 10% or 50% would have been better than nothing.

In this Scunthorpe case , I feel its locking door after horse has bolted , energy price is high, and we have to import the materials now anyway, so it’s a drain unless there is a rapid reopening of a few pits and mines.

Purely letting market provide was also extremely flawed for housing and selling off social housing stock with no replacement (it was the lack of replacement that caused the problems, not the selling of the poorly made and maintained shit that most people bought cheap).

Certain things we will always have to import like certain metals and minerals, bananas and tomatoes etc . But energy, iron and coal , we have in theory.

[Hal Jordan]

Coal? The 20th Century has been over for a quarter of a century now, coal is thankfully dead in the UK.

[Sandstorm]

I wonder which foreign vulture they will flog it to for 10 bob and a pickled egg for the good of the public purse?

I posted on the Trump thread "competition is bad if the game is zero sum and you cannot win. Which is why UK agri has been protected.", it's good the last part of UK virgin steel production (not produced from recycling) has been nationalised.

As you say though the "flog it for 10 bob and a pickled egg" crew are circling, it's not even a joke they would sell it for £1. David Davis (remember him?) said to Sky News on Saturday "this plant is losing £250m a year, it must be returned to profitability!!!". How the fuck is that going to happen when the competition is China/India/Russia and you're producing in a country as expensive as the UK? There's no chance, but that isn't the point. The point is market forces can mean you lose everything, which is the point of having a state. If the UK loses £250m a year and retains the ability to produce something critical for doing anything in industry, that's a good deal.

I really do think a lot of Thatcherites are just totally mad. Quite happy for foreigners to buy critical assets, bleed them and reinvest nothing, then close them down on the basis of market forces leaving the UK strategically weaker. Then they act like the UK is a world leading super power, after they sold all that for 10 bob and a pickled egg.

I agree. Nationalising British Steel opens the door to do the same to other poorly run foreign owned companies (like cnuting Thames Water!!) and we'll take those back (if necessary) for a £1 too.