Politics

Anything that doesn't fit anywhere else, and is NON CH related - chat about the weather, or anything else that takes your fancy.

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rockfreak
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Re: Politics

Post by rockfreak »

Yes John. this was the anti-Trump rally which has been replicated in cities across the world. If you had to sum it up I think it was worry that the most powerful nation in the world is now run by a loutish, bullying misogynist who appears to be a peevish boy in a man's body. The banners and placards on today's event were overwhelmingly home-made but all the better for it. And so many women wearing pink pussy hats. I love going into London for these events but the only downer is that, unfailingly, some kind young person on the tube takes a look at me and offers me their seat.
Avon
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Re: Politics

Post by Avon »

Certainly politics is more interesting these days. My entire time at CH apart from the rapturous departure of Thatcher in 1990 was dominated by needing to examine Thatcherite politics without being able to see the after effects. What would Neil Simms and Yuri Bondov make of Trump and May?
sejintenej
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Re: Politics

Post by sejintenej »

rockfreak wrote:Yes John. this was the anti-Trump rally which has been replicated in cities across the world. If you had to sum it up I think it was worry that the most powerful nation in the world is now run by a loutish, bullying misogynist who appears to be a peevish boy in a man's body. The banners and placards on today's event were overwhelmingly home-made but all the better for it..
and what would you have said if that woman had won the election? IMHO they were / are each as bad as the other. The world is in for a shake-up and I wonder if the euro or even the depleted uncommon market will survive Trump's presidency
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rockfreak
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Re: Politics

Post by rockfreak »

jhopgood wrote:
J.R. wrote:I have a sneaky feeling Theresa May might be a good PM, as long as she doesn't do a 'Maggie' over something like 'Poll Tax' !
I don't think Soros agrees.

Rockfreak replies. You, and Soros, might be right. The falling pound might be central to all this. It's now getting to the point where some pundits are suggesting it could end up on parity with the dollar. When Norman Lamont tried to prop up the pound in 1992 by raising interest rates it was to no avail. Soros and his mates continued driving it down and we ducked out of the ERM. The lesson is, presumably, that when the markets think you are a weakened economy they will continue driving you down. My own understanding of economics is that a government can only tolerate a weakening currency for so long before they have to take action. A consistently weakening currency usually causes inflation at home before long. This is already starting to become evident. We are not only at the mercy of the other 27 states but also of the markets. The currency markets, the bond markets, the share markets, and even the ratings agencies (Moodys, S&Ps, etc) are starting to rattle the sabre. And if you read the economics pages in the broadsheets you will have seen the concern of British companies about a hard Brexit. The Irish Chamber of Commerce says that it has had a hundred enquiries from big British companies, including many City firms, about possible relocation to Dublin. So Katharine with her Irish passport will not be alone. Odd, because the famous Irish diaspora has usually been in the opposite direction.
rockfreak
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Re: Politics

Post by rockfreak »

He's done it again! Another Freaky letter, this time in the Observer. "Rising incomes mean nothing if prices rise even faster". Essentially an observation that the pundits who measure these things concentrate too much on actual income inequality without taking into account various other socio-economic conditions that change as time goes by.
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Re: Politics

Post by rockfreak »

Right, privileged snotbags. Time to boot up some politics again. Tomorrow (Saturday March 4) sees the "Save the NHS" march set off in London - midday at Tavistock Square, heading for Parliament Square, although they probably won't march until 12.30pm if these things are anything to go by. We (well my generation anyway) grew up with the idea of the NHS free at the point of delivery and not there for greedy shareholders to make a profit from. How long before the Sicker (is it still called that?) is run by Virgin, Serco or Circle Health, or some other tax-dodging, unpatriotic, scumbag organisation?
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J.R.
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Re: Politics

Post by J.R. »

Once again Freaky, I have to agree, especially having recently spent the best part of a week as a guest of the NHS.

I very quickly got the impression that there were far too many 'Chiefs'' and not enough 'Indians' doing the actual work.

Maybe, just maybe, a 'culling' of some management might be the answer.
John Rutley. Prep B & Coleridge B. 1958-1963.
rockfreak
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Re: Politics

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Good to see you back JR. I was getting a bit worried. Hope you're OK. The turnout in London today was mega with lots of medical professionals. As usual the TV coverage seemed to diminish the whole thing. The themes were mainly about privatisation and underfunding. Yours truly got interviewed by BBC TV but it doesn't seem to have surfaced on either mainstream or social channels. I was in Whitehall, in the main march, but among a group of people chanting "Tory scum" at Downing Street. But since the politicians are usually away at weekends it may be that only Larry the cat heard. Perhaps finding it weird to see an ageing radical getting so agitated they asked my opinion of the NHS and why I was there. I replied that I was old enough to remember queuing up in a clinic in the late '40s as a small child for an jab against TB. I told them that two members of my family had died from TB or Diphtheria, but that within a few years Nye Bevan's NHS and its programme of child immunisation had seen off these diseases as killers. They asked if I thought these marches achieved anything. I replied that sitting on your backside doing nothing certainly didn't achieve anything.
sejintenej
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Re: Politics

Post by sejintenej »

IMHO the NHS is badly organised for several reasons. We know that less than 50% of staff are involved in patient care in one way or another.
1 The old Royal Free hospital: they had umpteen maintenance staff who did everything in ghangs. New man comes in and alone does in a morning what the rest took a week to do. Oh, and he was 63 and stayed with them for about 7 years even after the others left.

2 I've just been to see my consultant who needs tests - blood, xrays, 20 minutes of specialised tests and the whole lot took 10 weeks to set up and then a wait to see him again. In my other guise (and for the same complaint) my GP organises regular blood tests, I took her letter plus latest blood work to the hospital by appointment, the nurse read it, whipped me round to do everything and after 25 minutes I met the NHS equivalent consultant who had identical test results in front of him. (On top of that my GP warned me that ENT is a very busy speciality so there could be a long delay in getting an appointent - all of 8 days). OK, so I had to pay €25 most of which my insurance reimbursed straight to my bank account

3 Had a small spat with that "other" GP. My wife hurt her hip and was limping slightly when we went to the surgery. The NHS equivalent GP normally checks weight/height, eyes, blood pressure and o2 saturation even before asking "what is the problem?". In this case she started of by "If you are in pain you (never) come to me, I come to you" before even doing the standard tests. She was really angry even though normally we are the best of friends. Where do you get that in the English NHS? I normally got a routine appointment with her same day but here in the UK on one occasion I couldn't get an emergency appointment until "the week after next". OK so I control this complaint (normally) and carry emergency drugs but a lot of people die from it in the UK but on that occasion A & E jumped the queue and had me under treatment within 3 minutes of arrival.
The first time I went to her we spent half an hour just giving her all my previous medical history - jabs - which?, when? ops - what, where? outcome? diseases; what? when? problems? allergies? ......... and all this going back to as far as I could remember. My UK GP has no idea and the UK specialist had not been made aware of previous surgery related to the present complaint (apparently it made no difference but .....)

3 Long delays in having operations! Story about an enterprising UK NHS consultant who specialises in new knees and hips. Normally does one in the morning with a lesser surgeon and spends the rest of the morning drinking coffee - same in afternoon. Arranged with the hospital before he went on holiday - lesser surgeon opens up, he replaces the knee and goes to second theatre where the patient is already open where he does another and returns to first theatre where he does a third. All the time the other surgeon is in the "other" theatre opening up or closing the wound. Same in the afternoon - six operations per day instead of two. They did this for one week - 30 operations instead of 10. OK so it needed two anaesthesiests and more theatre staff (who would normally be sitting round drinking coffee) but the waiting list almost disappeared. The union was not happy!

4 Lack of discipline - many staff can get through the day doing damn all and ignoring patients. At one hospital I was at water was not taken to patients so they could wash - "it is against our patients' human rights that we suggest that they wash in the mornings!" Next hospital I was in had a black mark against it for cleanliness despite each ward having a (very hard-working) cleaner all day. Senior nurse was straight; "either you go over there (I was ambulatory) OR we will bring water to you; what is it to be?"
When we made a formal complaint we were told in writing that "the treatment and care had been given to the highest medical standards". When we appealed they had a different person read the notes and he found over 20 cases of improper actions by the hospital - the Ombudsman raised that figure to 31. Though it was a terminal cancer case they had sidelined the MacMillan nurse so she could not even be made aware of the patient.

5 The NHS hospital was the regional centre of excellence for certain cancer types - when they moved to new premises they had forgotten to lead line Xray and radiation treatment areas so they could not get licences to carry out even Xrays. Poor, perhaps incompetent organisation and the people concerned are being paid hundreds of thousands of pounds. One of the pills I am on costs £1.00 per hundred over the counter in another EU country. Here in the UK about £8 is charged for a course of 30 and the HNS has just been condemned for overpaying for this (IMHO lifesaving) prescription drug. (Personally I don't agree with this being available over the counter anywhere - it is potentially too dangerous).

Tory scum? It's Labour which supports poor service and laziness and is opposed to improvement. Get rid of all the unnecessary hangers-on in the NHS
What happens if a politician drowns in a river? That is pollution.
What happens if all of them drown? That is solution!!!
rockfreak
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Re: Politics

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OK public schoolboys (and girls, although Katharine seems the only one game enough to venture on to this site these days). The article 50 button has been pressed, the other 27 states have had the gauntlet thrown down, where do we stand? The Brexiteers are gung ho. I have composed a poem for them, based on Newbolt's famous poem Vitae Lampada, otherwise known as "Play up, play up, and play the game!" - something we were encouraged to do when I was at CH in the 1950s.

There ain't no hush in the pub tonight,
Closing time but they're getting 'em in.
Nigel is plonked and Boris is tight,
The foreigner's taking it on the chin.
And it's all for the sake of the old roast beef,
And the muddied oafs at the school's Wall Game,
But the voice of the Bullingdon rallies the troops:
"Throw up, throw up, and same again!"

Today's Guardian letters page reprises a comment made by Dr Scuffil many months ago about the outbreak of the War of Jenkins'Ear, when Walpole said: "Tonight they are ringing the bells: soon they will be wringing their hands." Today's response from the other 27 states has not exactly been encouraging.
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J.R.
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Re: Politics

Post by J.R. »

rockfreak wrote: Fri Mar 31, 2017 9:19 pm OK public schoolboys (and girls, although Katharine seems the only one game enough to venture on to this site these days). The article 50 button has been pressed, the other 27 states have had the gauntlet thrown down, where do we stand? The Brexiteers are gung ho. I have composed a poem for them, based on Newbolt's famous poem Vitae Lampada, otherwise known as "Play up, play up, and play the game!" - something we were encouraged to do when I was at CH in the 1950s.

There ain't no hush in the pub tonight,
Closing time but they're getting 'em in.
Nigel is plonked and Boris is tight,
The foreigner's taking it on the chin.
And it's all for the sake of the old roast beef,
And the muddied oafs at the school's Wall Game,
But the voice of the Bullingdon rallies the troops:
"Throw up, throw up, and same again!"

Today's Guardian letters page reprises a comment made by Dr Scuffil many months ago about the outbreak of the War of Jenkins'Ear, when Walpole said: "Tonight they are ringing the bells: soon they will be wringing their hands." Today's response from the other 27 states has not exactly been encouraging.

I personally think the other 27 are worried that we might just have started a trend !
John Rutley. Prep B & Coleridge B. 1958-1963.
sejintenej
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Re: Politics

Post by sejintenej »

J.R. wrote: Sat Apr 01, 2017 1:08 pm
rockfreak wrote: Fri Mar 31, 2017 9:19 pm
Today's Guardian letters page reprises a comment made by Dr Scuffil many months ago about the outbreak of the War of Jenkins'Ear, when Walpole said: "Tonight they are ringing the bells: soon they will be wringing their hands." Today's response from the other 27 states has not exactly been encouraging.
I personally think the other 27 are worried that we might just have started a trend !
I reckon that they are worried because we will not be paying for their champers and they won't be able to export their crooks so easily. As for France, all their competent entrepreneurs fled to London when Hollande took power and they probably will not be going back. If you think about it, Britain has done bl***y well out of people who were forced to (or voluntarily) left France since 1600. For example the British Olympic movement benefitted from the efforts of a chairman descended from French Hugenots (and the enemy of England, Owen Glyndwer (?sp))
What happens if a politician drowns in a river? That is pollution.
What happens if all of them drown? That is solution!!!
rockfreak
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Re: Politics

Post by rockfreak »

Now that the EU has made a reply I think it's time for the second verse of Vitae LamBrexit:

The streets of Brussels are running red,
Red with the wreck of a deal that broke.
Tusk's said no and May looks half dead,
And Spain has given us quite a poke.
The river of bile has brimmed its banks
And the Daily Mail's going quite insane.
But the voice of Bozza rallies the ranks:
"Throw up, throw up, and same again!"
rockfreak
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Re: Politics

Post by rockfreak »

Our friend Steve Hilton's in the news again. After his roles as, variously, free-market, state-slashing Thatcherite under Cameron, and then bleeding heart, compassionate conservative after he'd walked out of Number Ten, he now surfaces with another move sharp right in which he's revealed to be planning Europhobic strategy with Arron Banks (UKIP's main sponsor), Farrago himself, Raheem Kasaam (editor of Breitbart London) and Trump strategist Steve Bannon. They are initially plotting to attack and discredit all the Remain MPs. A cynic might add that it might be an easier job trying to discredit themselves. Apart from their plan for world domination, the theme which refused to go away in Sunday's Observer interview with Banks was just where, if at all, some of these highly honest and upright patriots paid any tax.
rockfreak
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Re: Politics

Post by rockfreak »

More on Steve Hilton this week. His missus is the well-heeled Rachel Whetstone who is a vice president at Uber. Uber have been getting all sorts of bad publicity recently and Hilto does seem to have a habit of getting involved with dodgy people of one sort or another. Whatever benefits he was charged with spreading around at the CH leaving service he doesn't seem to have, according to his means, spread them back to society in general. Has he ever had a job that the rest of us would describe as work? I wonder what his next move will be. PR for Vladimir Putin perhaps.
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