Be Excellent To Each Other

Oregon militia give themselves up. I never understood this. I still don't.

I mean seriously, what on Earth are you talking about..? It's difficult to unpick and decode your various chip-on-shoulder resentments and on this occasion you've simply lost me I'm afraid.

Yes, I didn't call doctors "arseholes", you're quite right - glad we agree. Nor do I think that either, so the "problem" you describe does not arise.

Like I say, it's difficult to know what you're implying here, but if you're meaning that doctors - being the creme de la creme of their academic intake, and having received many years of intense training, to do a very difficult job - are better than the likes of me, well, I'll make it easy for you Marky: you'd be quite right. Contrary to whatever warped perceptions you may have me here, I'd be the first to admit it, and am doing.

However, this doesn't mean they're beyond all reproach and criticism (including from their intellectual inferiors; perhaps we bring other things to the table and even if we don't, we're all taxpayers and therefore stakeholders here).

I realise, of course, that in your case it is very likely impossible for you to see the other side of this argument, but actually, many people deplore the notion of doctors going on strike, denying people thousands of operations. You'll recall Apod posting that union flyer or whatever it was that was highly selective in terms of the examples/information it gave in terms of justifying the strike - I get very suspicious and cynical when I see such propaganda (I have the same arguments with wild-eyed Scottish Nationalists who insist on using very carefully picked, narrow and out of date economic data to try to justify the supposed (and comprehensively debunked) economic case for Scottish independence). At the end of the day, if you have to cherry pick and use selective information to justify your case then at the very least, there has to be another side to the coin, think about it.

On a more personal note, I do wish you would chill out FFS. Until recently I assumed you were some young firebrand in his 20s but it turns out you're some old guy in his mid-40s I believe, probably only 3-4 years younger than me? Shit, I know everyone (including me) gets passionate and hot under the collar from time to time, but you? You seem to have only one setting of coil-springed, seething resentment, ready to jump down anyone's (usually mine) throat who dares to speak against your utterly rigid, unbending world view? Sheesh, you're old enough to remember Rik from The Young Ones, right...?

Looking at what's transpired in even the lifetime of this forum; I've been told austerity would never work - and yet we now have 2 million+ more in work and our economy is doing better than any other developed economy as confirmed by the IMF et al, as I've linked to and so on. Does this not, at the very least, make you question your devout beliefs?

In terms of the NHS, virtually no other country on Earth does things the same way, i.e. a 1940s Socialist wet dream of massive, unweildy, monolithical, centralised control, with all the catastrophic cock ups costing billions upon billions in recent years that even you concede - if this ideology (for that is what it is) is so "good", why does no-one else do it?

You'll find it hard to believe but when I was at the age that I actually thought you were, i.e. right up to my mid-20s, I was a staunch Labour supporter, but in the end I simply could not ignore the empirical evidence presented to me time and again, and of course, never more borne out than for the UK itself from 2010 to the present day. I may not be as gifted and intelligent as a good doctor, but I do have a brain and two eyes in my head after all. People are rejecting Socialism and Social Democracy in their *droves* in this country; Labour are in utter disarray and free-fall, double-digit behind in the polls with their leader on a -40% approval rating, despite relative hard times.

Not sure what about anything I said inspired that bizarre little rant. I don't think it's an exceptionally extreme view to still support the NHS and the doctors in this dispute. Indeed I think it's more or less the majority view. Most people do not want to see the NHS changed in the direction the Tories are going.

If the NHS is a touchy subject then it is because I know it well. That's why I actually had Grim... specifically hide the NHS thread so you could spout your bile about it in there.

Quite simply because they recognise that the cost of changing to a different system that is only arguably better would likely outweigh the benefits of doing so. Which is more or less the common sense view many have of the NHS. There certainly is no other system you can point to and say that's definitely how we should do things and here's how we can do it, all healthcare systems are behemoths that came into being over a long time. They all have their own merits and demerits. And the data suggests that working with and improving what we have can deliver one of the better systems by most measures. But nobody sensible seems to think that the Tory "plan" is going to deliver a better system. The cost of this utter fucking bureaucracy-swelling debacle is already huge and will dwarf anything the NHS ever managed on its own.

Criticising doctors for striking and/or countless billions pissed away on IT projects that have laughably failed (no doubt in part because of the NHS' structure) <> "spouting bile".

Good to see you addressing my post... oh no, you've just declared it a "rant". Too many home truths I guess.

I think you'll find EVERYTHING is a "touchy subject" for you, and anything resembling debate (i.e. the thread title) or even just a civil discussion is impossible with you IMO.

Yes I would very much like to move to America's model where millions do not have healthcare at all, and choose between paying for food or medicine. The freemarket rules!

Oh man, please, not that old chestnut?
Yes, the American healthcare system absolutely sucks, give me the NHS anyday. But what about the best of the insurance-based European systems?

I've done a fair bit of travelling and I'm sorry, no-one is ever going to convince me that the German or French healthcare systems are inferior to the NHS; the very notion of them being expected to have to wait month upon month for hip ops or whatever, or mixed wards etc is, I'm sorry, just laughable. Then there's the whole issue of cancer outcomes and survival rates; I'm afraid the UK does not compare well, which means people are literally dying, basically.

At least in England, changes are being made, but in Labour-dominated Wales, I believe the NHS is performing poorly; for me, there is most definitely a political and ideological dimension to all this.

And there's definitely no ideology in anything the Tories do, no sir! That's called common sense.

OK, well, we're either going to have a serious discussion or we're not. Clearly we're not, so I've got other stuff to be doing guys.

Only if you totally ignore the 20-30% extra costs are the German and French systems definitely better. But suggest that to a Tory and they tell you that any extra money spent on the NHS will just get wasted, even though that is total and obvious bollocks.

But anyway those systems aren't even on the table from either party so, meh. All we've got is the Tory wet dream, a load of US "healthcare providers" circling like sharks.

Shit, I'll agree with you. I'm talking about what *I* think should happen - not Tory policy, which as you say sounds like a load of shit, why anyone would even want to emulate the American system is beyond my comprehension.

Edit: I think the 20-30% extra over costs is likely a bit unfair (but will defer to your knowledge to an extent). Certainly the French system is expensive (but wonderful), whereas the German's is rather cheaper according to data I've seen? But it's not just the really big countries we could learn from; I believe the Finns have an amazing health and education system?

Look, I want the same as you, really I do. I am not the devil. I just want to do it in the best, most efficient way possible, which hardly strikes me as controversial of itself.

Looks like the government have run out of patience with the doctors - contracts to be imposed and enforced.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35 ... ws_central

Oh well, watch them leave in droves now to work in the private sector. Good work, Jeremy "Cockney Rhyming Slang" Hunt.

So when the bankers say "you mustn't put up business taxes or curb bonuses and if you do we'll leave the country" we roll over. But when the doctors (and the teachers [0] and nurses [1]) say "you mustn't make our conditions worse or we'll leave the profession" we say "lol, tough." Seems sensible.

[0] http://www.theguardian.com/education/20 ... ao-finds11% more teachers leaving the profession in the last three years, recruitment targets missed for last four years, schools struggling to recruit, etc etc.
[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/clam ... nate-rates "Use of agency staff has risen from £1.8 billion to £3.3 billion in 3 years to help correct historic understaffing on wards." >> hospitals don't use agency staff for fun, they use them because they can't recruit permanent staff.

Oh dear.

Don't bother trying to engage in that individual with good faith, he may as well have copy and pasted exactly the same "public sector workers are scum/the NHS is shit but I have insurance" rant that he's frequently posted for so many years. I can see that DocG is exasperatingly posting statistics in response to him that will unfortunately get ignored.

Thanks for your contribution. Get back to Twitter and have a good bitch; I'll continue to ignore you.

I don't even disagree; I was merely posting breaking and relevant news, not endorsement.

That said though, as I've mentioned many times previously - ANY comparison with "bankers" is always going to come out on top, irrespective of what it is. Heck, I much prefer the previously mentioned NHS IT disasters and lost billions, in comparison to bank and banker bailouts (which, if you'll recall, I was almost a lone voice here AGAINST the bank bailouts)

Perhaps it would be better in the long run but I'm not sure you'd have much of an economic miracle to boast about if the banks hadn't been bailed out.

"boast about"... heh. More rude, perjorative language eh; still, I suppose that's better than outright making shit up about what I've supposedly said about having private health insurance and bollocks to everyone else etc., so you're one of the "better" ones...

I almost wonder whether you uber-Left Wing politicos here would prefer it if your naysaying and doom-mongering about the Tories in 2010 actually DID come to pass, as opposed to the inarguably vastly better situation the country is in, now as of then? Being proved wrong on a near-continuous basis (especially by hairy-arsed thickoes like me, eh?), must burn like hell. Perhaps I should be more understanding of the glowering resentment and low-level goading that passes for political debate and discussion, but I've never had much issue admitting being wrong myself. So I guess, it all depends how big one's ego is, and how conceited you are.

In conclusion, nothing I could ever say, do or demonstrate would budge you and a few others so much as one micrometre so I really don't know why you bother coming into this *debate* thread? The whole point about a debate is to be open minded; I enjoy debating with people like Curio, Kern, Malia, Grim... etc., many of whom have left wing views but they don't resort to goading shit, straw man arguments and/or outright trolling, yeah?

Huge citation needed. Food banks are still needed, poverty levels have risen (and Tories have even fiddled the books to say what poverty actually is). Millions starving and disabled people dying because of swingeing cuts isn't particularly good from where I'm standing. Plus Gideon "Steady Hand" Osborne has missed every deficit target he's ever set himself.

Fair enough the economy is growing, but if people at the lower end of the spectrum aren't actually seeing any improvement, who is it benefitting exactly?

"Common sense."

Inarguably.

There you go off on one again. I didn't think it was especially pejorative to describe you as boasting about the state of the economy, you clearly feel your views were vindicated and mention it in those terms all the time.

But to get back on topic for a moment surely you must agree that the banking sector, whilst responsible for the collapse is also a fairly major component in the current bottom line of this country's economy. That was the only point I was making.

I'm becoming exhausted with this Myp, I'm sorry. It's all been done to death umpteen times now, do we really have to do it again.

If you look back over the last 30 pages here there's loads of stuff about 2 million+ new jobs, only ~ 1 in 40 being a zero hours contract job, the IMF as an independent entity praising the UK economy, economy grown to much larger than it was pre-crash etc. etc. Does anyone in their right mind not acknowledge that things are vastly better than in 2010 according any sensible definition?

Well, whether they do or don't, I'm done tbh. Fed up with the goading shit, I really am; sticking to B&B, motorbikes and the like for now.

So those people who have had their benefits sanctioned, now live in abject poverty and are now forced to use food banks to avoid starvation are "not in their right mind" for not acknowledging that things are vastly better than in 2010, is what you're saying? Just for one example.

I'm sure Google are very happy with their 3% tax rate, though.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27032642

OK last word.

You *seriously* think I like the fact people have to use food banks? I've just volunteered to be a (unpaid!) Trustee of the nearest one to me, through the Church; I am PASSIONATE about ameliorating poverty and it winds me up no end that even good guys like you, whom I've actually met (so you know first hand I am FAR from some Lord Faunlteroy type and/or Tory arse), apparently think I somehow don't?

As for Google paying 3% corporation tax I am utterly, utterly disgusted. Again, as the owner of a tiny business who gets fined for even being 1 day late, and who has had to pay £100k+ corp tax in one year before now (it'll be around £60k this year), you honestly think this does not bother me?

You seem to think I hang off every word and syllable of Tory governmental policy, which is absurd. In political terms I am a left of centre conservative but this does not somehow make me David Cameron's or George Osborne's biggest fanboy; I don't agree with everything they do, far from it, but I agree with loony tunes Corby a damn sight less still.

Politics has to be about compromise. If I want the county run by a party that does every single thing precisely the way I want it, well, I'd better start my own political party and get everyone to vote for it in a landslide victory which, given my apparent powers of persuasion here could be a tall order.

You didn't answer my question: are those people not in their right mind for not acknowledging things are better than 2010? Stop dodging it.

I'm dodging nowt. Yes, I take your point that someone who is relying on foodbanks might well say there's been nothing by way of a recovery - but that's true of ANY situation.

By "recovery", I mean a big improvement for the MEAN population as a whole, not outerlyers (I don't mean this in any derogatory sense but purely a statistical one).

Even in a recovery stronger than ours, there would always be individuals/groups who were worse off, so yes, if you asked them, as opposed to getting a more representative sample, they'd undoubtedly say things were worse - but this proves nothing. (Insufficient and/or invalid data sample)

The IMF, as an independent assessor of the UK economy, no doubt based their (very positive) assessment on correct, sufficiently comprehensive and representative statistical parameters and indicators. If they (and others besides) say - emphatically - that the UK economy has undergone a major recovery, why do you think it so unreasonable/invalid to cite it?

By saying there's been a recovery, this does NOT mean I "approve" of people having to resort to foodbanks and/or insufficient social safety nets, because I sure as hell don't, as I prove by my ACTIONS as well as words.

That's no more valid that reasoning that because it's cold today, global warming is a myth.

So you agree that because it's cold today, we cannot rule out the existence of global warming?

Which is, of course, what the game plan seems to be.

What I don't understand is why no one has taken Jeremy to one side and told him to grow the fuck up. I can only presume that Gaz is correct and the entire gameplan of this Government is to undermine the existence of the NHS. I just don't understand why they would want that. Even if they are haughty nobs who look down on the plebs and want to keep them as some sort of underclass, it doesn't make sense to do that by causing riots. Have they learnt nothing from the Hunger Games?

One word answer : Money

I honestly don't know if it's some Machiavellian plan or if he's just a total dickhead backed into a corner. I mean it's a given that he's a total dickhead but whether or not there's anything else to it, we'll see in time.

He's certainly keeping the negative press off Cameron, Osborne etc.

That's a useful talent to have.

Dick head in a corner. There was no way he could back down.

Yeah, which is exactly why he's in that role. Same with IDS in the DWP. Action party policy, but keep all the heat off Cameron and Osborne.

As was said of Supermac, greater love hath no man than he who lays down his friends for his life.

But even that doesn't make sense. They would make much more money by running a corrupt NHS than having to take back handers from corporate groups and they would be responsible for their own corruption rather than in a blackmailable position from a corporate sponsor.

It's because they are lobbied by their rich mates who happen to own these private healthcare companies. And in return they get to sit on the boards of these companies once they retire from politics.

But that seems incredibly short term ist, if they keep this up, there won't be society to provide money to them.

If we haven't run out of oil, we will have run out clean water cause they poisoned it all with their fracking and global warming will have raised sea levels poisoning reservoirs. Disease will be rife as there are no doctors so people are just self-medicating street cut antibiotics. It is like they are actively attempting to initiate a dystopian cyber-punk reality. How short sighted do you have to be to think that such an existence wouldn't be a good thing for them. These disgusting little toads will be left for dead at the first sign of trouble, have they learnt nothing from Robocop?

On the plus side, that would reduce the number of older people making demands on the NHS that cannot be supported by future dependency ratios.

Oh man, I love this place.

And those pesky disableds won't be causing too much of a strain on the system either.

Partly this :



Partly short term (get all the money out now) and partly that when they have done this then they continue to make money even when they are not in charge and can change / modify / influence what the NHS is doing now - if Labour won the next election (unlikely I know) but they could put a stop to their money making schemes , if instead of an NHS we have private healthcare then no-one will be able to remake the NHS and the payments will just keep coming in.

Serve the public trust
Protect the innocent
[classified]

DIRECTIVE 4, dudes. It's *so* the way forward for us evil Tories.

The Independent hasn't been a newspaper for years.

STAND BACK AND ADMIRE THE AWESOMENESS OF MY JOKE CITIZEN. "NEWSPAPER FOLDS". GENIUS, IS THAT. BE COWED AT THE LEVEL OF CLEVERNESS IN THE USE OF MY WORDS.