There has been so much going on this week that I have had to miss out a few of the less interesting topics; but there's plenty of good material available via the links below, and hopefully my accompanying notes will be useful too. I am doing this with a less-than-clear head, so it might not come out quite right in places, but I'll do my best...
Covering It Up
Probably the biggest story of the past week (and more) has been the ongoing revelations about just how much trouble within the National Health Service (NHS) was kept hidden by the then minister Andy Burnham, especially toward the end of the previous decade because of the electoral damage the truth might well do to Labour in the May 2010 General Election.
The Standard has a useful item on Basildon and Thurrock hospitals, and of course we already knew of the mid-Staffs scandal. There are no doubt others, as the sheer numbers of reports of issues seems to keep growing by the day, from scores to hundreds, and now (apparently) thought to be somewhere around a thousand, plus or minus. In fact, no-one seems to have reached the end of the trail as yet, so that number is likely to continue to grow – unless it is suppressed, that is.
The whole contention that has inevitably been propounded is that the NHS was not safe with Labour, and certainly wasn't fit for purpose. Anecdotes from several trustworthy sources I know personally reveal a true catalogue of poor practice and, frankly, idiocy in many areas. It would be embarrassing to the decent NHS staff to have these revealed here, tempting though it is to use a few examples to show that this is all genuine.
I could provide at least another half-dozen links to good, useful articles on this topic; but I don't think they are needed at this time. If that should change, I'll post additional links (probably updated or new) in the weeks to come.
As I have mentioned before, the NHS model is not a good fit for today's world and its needs and capabilities, and the NHS is regarded by many with knowledge of other countries' medical services to be considerably inferior. That's why it needs a proper reform exercise, to bring it up to a standard fit for the twenty-first century. These issues are fundamental and can no longer be metaphorically swept under the carpet: they need to be tackled, and now.
It's A Gotcha!
As regular readers will by now have got the message I keep exemplifying, Lefties tend to be dishonest, manipulative and hypocritical. Indeed, I have never in my (fairly long) life met even one that hasn't been at least one of those, and most have repeatedly demonstrated at least two of those traits.
The truly ghastly Mehdi Hasan has been caught out in respect of his attitude toward the Daily Mail, switching around completely from one occasion he has reason to mention them to the next. See Mr Steerpike's post at The Spectator, complete with a short clip from BBC Question Time on which he appeared last week and where the hypocrisy became evident.
Now, there might be a little leeway one can allow, bearing in mind that a job application was one side of this picture and the first part of story dates to a couple of years or so ago; but this was way beyond what could be allowed for in that context. Read Mr Steerpike's post, also this by Guido and this at Trending Central, and then think about how it would be if you were in the same position. It's a good little exercise to try...
On the topic of Question Time, this from The Commentator illustrates yet again just how blatantly biased the BBC is, with yet another heavily-slanted programme in the series, as most of them are now. I have to confess I no longer bother with it: as I am no longer a moderator for the old LiveChat for the programme (because CoverItLive broke their 'it'll never cost you a penny' promise and made it untenable) there is no compelling reason for me to sit through all that carefully-engineered Socialist propaganda and manipulation – so I don't.
Press Freedom
Another big issue that is still rumbling around Westminster, because a Bill about it is coming up, is press freedom-vs-regulation post-Leveson. Lord Justice Leveson has this week appeared before Members, but gave bo answers, evading replying instead. The whole thing is in danger of more-or-less freewheeling into something like how the old Soviet Union worked, with the government effectively dictating what could and could be said, and how it was to be presented.
We do not need a Pravda/Izvestia type of media scene in Britain! The criminal law as it exists already covers all angles, so there is no need for any new regulations. Perhaps Fraser Nelson has the best approach to tackling the issue once and for all: by enshrining media independence and freedom (within the law) in a Bill of Rights. Otherwise it's going to pop up again and again, whenever there is a media scandal, rather than correctly applying the relevant existing law or laws to deal with it properly and to most if not all people's satisfaction.
Shuffling the Deck
All three major parties have been having a re-shuffle of their ministers/shadows this past week. Labour's was most notable for keeping Andy Butnham, despite all the revelations as I mentioned above. A junior shadow minister for health has been moved instead. Either Burnham 'knows where the bodies are buried' as the saying goes, or Len McCluskey told Ed[ward] Miliband to keep him in post as shadow health secretary.
I can't think of any other likely reason; but it makes Ed-M look weak by not having what it takes to get him out of the shadow cabinet. Overall, it does look like a McCluskey-driven set of changes, as any Blairite members (such as Jim Murphy, Stephen Twigg and Liam Byrne) are now out, and hard Left types are in. It has been a true lurch to the left by Ed-M, as many pundits predicted and have also recognised once the news came out.
The Lib Dems' reshuffle was fairly low-key, and doesn't really warrant further mention. For the Conservatives, David Cameron made some interesting changes to some junior appointments, but (as expected) left the front-bench team untouched. There was no secret made of this plan, though it seems to have surprised one or two commentators...
Guido ran a rolling 'blog of the reshuffle details as they came in, and the completed record is here. I find it convenient because of its colour coding that makes it easy to concentrate on one party at a time if desired, or to simply go through it chronologically if that is preferred.
Energy Price Fixing
?The Labour leader's big new populist policy is to rig (i,e fix, or dictate if you prefer that term) energy prices for 24 months if he should become Prime Minister in 2015.
Sounds good, doesn't it? Well, it was supposed to. Of course, those of us with experience of Labour governments trying this sort of stunt in the past well remember the blackouts because the power supply couldn't be maintained to all customers at all times.
With the decay in our own power station capability, EU directives closing down perfectly serviceable power stations and a lack of any proper energy provision for the future during Labour's previous thirteen years in government, the situation is likely to be a lot more severe this time than it was back in the 'seventies. I still have powerful and enduring memories of those times, and it was not good. Price fixing will mean insufficient funds to invest in whatever is required to meet future need.
The National Grid is already warning of blackout risk this winter, although that shouldn't happen in practice as other sources are available to us.
Not that Ed-M cares about that: all he wanted was something attractive that he could 'sell' to enough of the less alert sections of the electorate, simply to help him win the next election. That was and is his only consideration, and it is obvious with a couple of moments' thought. As this at Trending Central indicates, several major energy providers already offer fixed-price tariffs for even longer periods, as well as providing other information to show that this 'policy' is in reality essentially a con-trick – and it will cost us all a lot!.
Communism Kills
Actually, all forms of Leftward politics ends up killing people, as oppression and fear are the only way they can maintain their steely grip on the citizenry. The fabled New World Order of which James (a.k.a. Gordon) Brown spoke so often is to be a totalitarian dictatorship, and is largey in place in key chunks of the world.
Often the Left-wing régimes we have encountered during the last century or so have been mass-murderers as well, though trying to ascertain accurate numbers is difficult for various reasons, from lack of record-keeping to artificial famine in areas without accurate census data, and suchlike.
I don't have all the information – though longer-term readers of this 'blog will recall that I have posted a table showing recorded and estimated numbers murdered, by date, country, régime and event. The middle column of that table seems to be borne out by a new book that seeks to document it all as authoritatively as possible. That number was around a hundred million.
The third column in the table I posted showed what it might have been in reality – more than founle that number – but this will almost certainly never be possible to verify or refute. The bottom line is that Communism (or Socialism, which is essentially the same thing, as the likes of Stalin and Lenin have both attested) is in that business and does not care how many it kills.
The iron grip, reinforced by fear, is all that counts with the evil that is all Leftism, without any exception. Those who claim otherwise are either being dishonest or just aren't bright enough to understand the overwhelming and unambiguous concrete evidence that is easily found in general terms. For the closest to accurate figures, though, Stephane Courtois' Black Book is probably the best source currently available.
The Cancer Called Labour
Not my words, but Sean Thomas in The Telegraph. Although he tends to lay it on a little thick, he is correct; and this also follows on neatly from my previous item in this digest. The contention is that the Blair/Brown government was 'the worst ever' – which is very much a judgment call, though I'd agree without hesitation that it was one of the very worst, and one of the most evil, too.
Beyond that is hard to be definitive on, but Sean could well be right. Anyway, it's not all that long and worth going through, if only as a reminder of some things that might have slipped our minds with the passage of years. The section on education, toward the end, is a sobering reminder, expressed in stark terms, of just how bad we had become.
And that's it for now. I have some other quite usable material, but this is starting to become long again, so I shall stop here. I might do a supplementary digest after an overnight think: we shall see...
Showing posts with label nhs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nhs. Show all posts
Friday, 11 October 2013
Friday, 23 August 2013
Weekly Political Digest – 23 August 2013
It has been another busy week, even though we are in the summer holiday period which traditionally tends to be quiet on the political front. Not this year, though. Even Hopi Sen has realised this; and if you have the time to read a lengthy piece on Labour's current difficulties then follow this link, and I recommend that you also check out the more insightful comments below it...
Snowden, Miranda and Greenwald
The biggest news this week was almost certainly the detention of David Miranda for carrying what is described as 'potentially sensitive information' from one of Edward Snowden's contacts to journalist colleague and domestic 'partner' Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian – which publication had paid for Miranda's flight, by the way.
In what has turned out to be a more complex scenario, with several twists and turns along the way, even those who initially had their doubts and concerns about that long detention (the legal maximum of nine hours without charge, as the information could not be decrypted in order to verify its nature within that time period) have changed their tune. This from Louise Mensch is particularly useful as it goes into very careful (if somewhat repetitive) detail; and Dan Hodges has faced up to the Guardianistas who seem to have taken a rather bizarre approach to what transpired.
My own thoughts are that there is still too much we don't really know, and no doubt much that we'll never have in the public domain; but the security of the nation is paramount. Provided it is a genuine case, as this strongly appears to have been, and not just an excuse to apply draconian measures inappropriately as some had liked to imagine, then dealing with the data and any known copies of it, in the way that has been described (including destroying computer hard drives at The Guardian's offices) is obviously entirely justified. Imagine what could have happened otherwise.
Of course, there are no doubt other copies still out there somewhere, and it is quite possible that one way or another some inimical force or other will one day find out from one such copy whatever is needed to severely harm our nation. Perhaps (as has been strongly hinted by Glenn Greenwald himself) this will be facilitated by The Guardian.
I wonder if that will make its readers happy. After all, they are mostly Lefties, and as we know, Lefties support those who seek to destroy our nation and its culture from within, whether via the Fabian route or the more revolutionary Marxist (e.g. Frankfurt School) route.
I Kid You Not
One of the topics I have touched upon over the years has been early indoctrination. As the Jesuit Fathers knew, and from whom came the saying about this very subject, those first few years in particular are the time an organisation with its own agenda can imprint its views more or less permanently. It is why I have always been wary of early years intervention by the State or any of its agencies, despite the 'sales pitch' and the convenience of changing domestic patterns in Britain during recent decades
The following few years should not be neglected by those with such an outlook, especially when they are no longer pulling the strings of national government and the next batch of children might no longer be so compliant. This to me seems to be why the UNITE Union (interesting that it is the McCluskey outfit!) has created what might be called a 'child activism and propaganda' website, as Guido briefly describes. He rightly calls it 'creepy'...
This is an ominous development; and the first thing any parent should do is block it from access by their child's computer (the so-called Parental Controls) but how the mentioned videos can be prevented from being shown, or Union representatives going into schools, is less easy.
Parents will need to watch this very carefully, watching for signs that it is happening at their child's school and lobbying school governors to do what they can to stop it happening in the first place. Governor's don't have the power to control the curriculum or the nuts and bolts of teaching, and rightly – that's the Head Teacher and his/her management team's job – but the governors will have a good idea of that team's and the Head's outlook and methodologies. The more laterally thinking (and right minded) ones will no doubt find a way to deal with any such move.
Looking Back to May 2010
This from Mike Smithson is very telling, and really puts the final nail in the coffin of the idea that David Cameron could have gone for a Conservative minority government. Although one might think that, as the party with the greatest number of MPs back in May 2010 they could have just gone ahead, the telling line is that James (a..k.a. Gordon) Brown was under no obligation to go to the Palace.
Whether or not that should remain constitutionally or be changed to prevent minority incumbencies to cling to power in the face of a democratic defeat for them is an interesting debate that perhaps should be had anew; but the result was that, as explained at the above link, at the time there was no realistic way that Cameron could form a minority government. Personally, I'd have preferred it as well, but it was never going to happen.
On the other hand, as Iain Martin points out, Cameron and Co should be going flat out for an overall majority in 2015, not planning for another coalition. That was then, this is now and looking forward not back.
Shale of the Century
This century sees the advent of shale gas mining in this country, and we should all be glad of it as it will help to keep the lights on in the aftermath of a long period without a proper energy policy. It's more complex than that, of course, but shale gas will be a real boon to us here in Britain. Not that this stops the Lefties protesting and indeed shouting about it, trying to undermine it all on some manufactured and/or exaggerated pretext.
Yorkie at The Commentator does a fairly thorough job of taking the lid off the Left's game, including the later news that Green MP Caroline Lucas has managed to get herself arrested at a so-called 'anti-fracking' protest (almost certainly deliberate, with the primary aim of getting herself some publicity).
It is well worth going through what is a fairly short piece, especially noting the use of the totalitarians' favourite techniques such as declaring that only their own views count and accusing any government that takes note of other views as being 'anti-democratic', 'not listening', or some such. This again demonstrates the inherent dishonesty off Lefty outfits, and they are all like that and probably always have been. Lying, manipulative, totalitarian by nature: all of 'em!
Well, if they don't like what's happening to our country (not really theirs is it?) then perhaps they might be happier living in a Socialist/Communist country instead. They are no benefit to Britain, so they might as well get out. That would also help with the burgeoning overcrowding in this small island, and by getting rid of the dross the overall quality will rise too.
On The House
Okay, houses and housing in general. There are, as one might expect, a whole range of claims and counter-claims being made about Britain's housing situation, from the numbers being built year by year to the controversial new Help to Buy equity loan scheme.
It looks like the latter is starting to achieve its headline outcome, which is a positive sign, at least if taken in isolation. The effect on house prices over time is likely to be less helpful to the buying public; but of course the scheme could be modified or even withdrawn at a later date, before that has had a chance to bite too hard. I don't know this will play out, but am aware of legitimate concerns about the scheme, so it one to watch quite closely over the months and (perhaps, if it lasts that long) years ahead.
Meanwhile, the numbers of residences being built remains a thorny question; and FullFact has had a go at looking into this. Their main angle is on the claim that planning consent has been granted for some 400,000 residences that have yet to be built. I am cautious about their treatment, including the somewhat selective graph that shows only the period of the Coalition Government so has no broader context.
I know from my own time on the local Council – when we were also very much aware of what was happening in other places as well as our own – just how much of a house-building slump there had been before the change of national government. The dip for a few months more recently, while significant, looks worse than it really is, and which that longer-term context should (if the data are accurate) have shown.
We knew back in those years what was happening nationally as well as locally – though we here in medway have tended to buck this trend somewhat and have more building going on and achieved than many other places, including elsewhere in Kent.
Indeed, we even have more so-called 'affordable homes' than neighbouring/nearby Local Authority areas whose specifications call for a higher percentage of such homes. For example, our ten percent has resulted in many more such places actually coming into being than others' 25%, where little has actually been provided. Delivery is much more important than posturing...
Back to FullFact: the actual numbers each year are quite impressive, especially in the present climate. The question of whether there even ought to be a need for all these extra homes on the small and increasingly crowded island is a separate (though obviously related) issue; but although the demand ought to slow over the next decade, for now it needs to be satisfied.
Obviously developers weren't going to build when that very climate meant that few could afford to buy them, however 'affordable' some of them (subsidised by the other properties and from the public purse) were in practice. This is why the whole previous decade's figures are so important in setting context, as it becomes easy to spot when things turned downward and what must have driven that. Anyway, with a little intelligence one can glean enough from that analysis to realise what is actually going on, and it is quite good.
Labour On Back Foot
Labour's ongoing policy woes (largely through a lack of any real policies) are being added to by the loss of dominance on key issues such the economy and even in areas thought 'safe' for them, such as the National Health Service (NHS).
Regarding the latter, Simon Heffer has, in a return to a more sensible outlook than he has tended to exhibit in the last few years, does a thorough job of showing how, as he puts it, Labour has lost the moral high ground on the NHS. It is a good piece, and I have little quibble with any of it – which is the first time I have been able to say that about a Heffer contribution in a long time.
I have been sitting on this one for a few weeks, awaiting the fallout from the Keogh report, and it looks as though nothing has materially changed in the weeks from then until now. The article looks lengthy, but it isn't: there are several large photographs embedded within in. The opening few paragraphs tell most of the story in a nutshell, including a list of just some of the issues that are of concern to us all, as users of the NHS and paying for it in our taxes. Especially for anyone wearing the proverbial rose-tinted spectacles when it comes to the NHS, I urge you to read the whole piece, which will probably take around twelve minutes.
When it comes to the economy, Labour still have no credible or consistent stance, and are continuing to struggle to find one. They have essentially silent on the whole issue for several weeks now; and their gloom-and-doom merchants have received a further blow with this week's slow-but-positive economic indicators, which are turning out to be better than was previously forecase.
It's still small beer, but this careful policy has resulted in a general upward trens during the coalition years, which is an understandable way to proceed. Personally, and as I have written before, it has been my belief that it could have a notch or two higher for the past year or so without significantly risking a catastrophe – but I don't have all the inside information, so perhaps the Chancellor has been right in his approach all along.
Even if not a hundred percent optimum, it has certainly been close to that ideal, as most independent organisations in the field have acknowledged, most or all of the the time. Even the credit down-rating (unavoidable in the global situation, especially as we are essentially a trading nation) was fractional, and so much less than in many other countries that one might have thought were stronger than us.
Airport Bias?
This is an interesting development regarding the Rochester Airport plans. A local resident here has formally complained to the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) over the leaflet about the plans that has been distributed locally, and which he claims is misleading and biased in favour of the airport. Unfortunately I don't have a copy of the leaflet myself; but I'd probably prefer not to comment while the complaint was being looked into by the ASA.
For myself, I can state that we on the airport Consultative Committee put a lot of thought into the ideas that culminated (somewhat belatedly) in the formal proposal. As I have already explained on this 'blog in recent weeks, the paved runway enables earlier take-off so that the craft will have climbed much further than at present by the time it passes over the nearest residential areas.
My estimate is for a ten-fold reduction in sound at ground level, not an increase. That simple Applied Mathematics, routine A-Level stuff: I know, as I studied for that qualification myself...
As for the new generation of mini-jets: they are actually quieter than propeller-type craft, as other small airports can attest, so there's no worry there. I suspect warped agendas are at work here, as is so often the case, and the 'hyper alarmism' that was mentioned in at least one of the linked articles from earlier in this post as being a standard tool of the Left, who are behind this as they have been all along.
I certainly have confidence, as perhaps the community's best advocate and representative in Medway for many years; and again there are similar situations elsewhere in the country, including in much more 'sensitive' locations than ours that – despite initial (uninformed) concerns – turned out to be cases of "What was all the fuss about?"
Fairoaks Airport in Surrey is perhaps the ultimate example of that phenomenon; and who opposing the Rochester Airport plans feels able to challenge that now well-established parallel development in leafy Surrey of all places? Money -> mouth...
Close to Home
Here in the county of Kent, as elsewhere in Britain, councils often have to resort to court proceedings to ensure the payment of due Council Tax. This inevitably results in cases where bailiffs have to go in. Note that all this is caused by people's actions in not paying their dues. These are very often (though of course not always, by any means) those living a fairly grand lifestyle, often subsidised from the public purse.
Anyone who has been in the debt-collecting business (and I know a couple) will tell you what they discover when calling at debtors' homes. One typical case was of someone owing thousands of Pounds to a bank, who 'had no money' and was paying the debt back at a rate that would take decades to fully repay, yet during the early stages of that (weekly) collection period, suddenly there was an expensive new car replacing the older one that had been there previously. Was it a visitor? No: it remained there as the only vehicle at that address.
Anyway, reported in our local newspaper is the number of instances of teach council where bailiffs came into the picture. Although I don't think Medway was even included in the survey, they probably aren't in the top few so I doubt would have been mentioned in any case.
This is an awkward one for opposition politicians on the councils, mostly Labour and a few Lib Dems and perhaps the odd Independent, as they are so vociferous about Council Tax collection rates and the amounts of total arrears. They can hardly start taking the side of the 'poor resident', especially when they know that there are some of us who have whole strings of anecdotes in similar vein to the example I cited above that show that many of them are not (literally) 'poor' at all.
Not that this has kept them quiet when it comes to what they still erroneously term 'the bedroom tax' and supposedly 'evictions' of those caught in having their benefit hand-ours corrected to where they should have been all along. This is the usual Labour bandwaggon-jumping, as it has been from the outset, and as usual for them an attempt to sweep under the carpet their own earlier piloting of exactly the same policy some twelve . Here's the evidence of that...
.
Snowden, Miranda and Greenwald
The biggest news this week was almost certainly the detention of David Miranda for carrying what is described as 'potentially sensitive information' from one of Edward Snowden's contacts to journalist colleague and domestic 'partner' Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian – which publication had paid for Miranda's flight, by the way.
In what has turned out to be a more complex scenario, with several twists and turns along the way, even those who initially had their doubts and concerns about that long detention (the legal maximum of nine hours without charge, as the information could not be decrypted in order to verify its nature within that time period) have changed their tune. This from Louise Mensch is particularly useful as it goes into very careful (if somewhat repetitive) detail; and Dan Hodges has faced up to the Guardianistas who seem to have taken a rather bizarre approach to what transpired.
My own thoughts are that there is still too much we don't really know, and no doubt much that we'll never have in the public domain; but the security of the nation is paramount. Provided it is a genuine case, as this strongly appears to have been, and not just an excuse to apply draconian measures inappropriately as some had liked to imagine, then dealing with the data and any known copies of it, in the way that has been described (including destroying computer hard drives at The Guardian's offices) is obviously entirely justified. Imagine what could have happened otherwise.
Of course, there are no doubt other copies still out there somewhere, and it is quite possible that one way or another some inimical force or other will one day find out from one such copy whatever is needed to severely harm our nation. Perhaps (as has been strongly hinted by Glenn Greenwald himself) this will be facilitated by The Guardian.
I wonder if that will make its readers happy. After all, they are mostly Lefties, and as we know, Lefties support those who seek to destroy our nation and its culture from within, whether via the Fabian route or the more revolutionary Marxist (e.g. Frankfurt School) route.
I Kid You Not
One of the topics I have touched upon over the years has been early indoctrination. As the Jesuit Fathers knew, and from whom came the saying about this very subject, those first few years in particular are the time an organisation with its own agenda can imprint its views more or less permanently. It is why I have always been wary of early years intervention by the State or any of its agencies, despite the 'sales pitch' and the convenience of changing domestic patterns in Britain during recent decades
The following few years should not be neglected by those with such an outlook, especially when they are no longer pulling the strings of national government and the next batch of children might no longer be so compliant. This to me seems to be why the UNITE Union (interesting that it is the McCluskey outfit!) has created what might be called a 'child activism and propaganda' website, as Guido briefly describes. He rightly calls it 'creepy'...
This is an ominous development; and the first thing any parent should do is block it from access by their child's computer (the so-called Parental Controls) but how the mentioned videos can be prevented from being shown, or Union representatives going into schools, is less easy.
Parents will need to watch this very carefully, watching for signs that it is happening at their child's school and lobbying school governors to do what they can to stop it happening in the first place. Governor's don't have the power to control the curriculum or the nuts and bolts of teaching, and rightly – that's the Head Teacher and his/her management team's job – but the governors will have a good idea of that team's and the Head's outlook and methodologies. The more laterally thinking (and right minded) ones will no doubt find a way to deal with any such move.
Looking Back to May 2010
This from Mike Smithson is very telling, and really puts the final nail in the coffin of the idea that David Cameron could have gone for a Conservative minority government. Although one might think that, as the party with the greatest number of MPs back in May 2010 they could have just gone ahead, the telling line is that James (a..k.a. Gordon) Brown was under no obligation to go to the Palace.
Whether or not that should remain constitutionally or be changed to prevent minority incumbencies to cling to power in the face of a democratic defeat for them is an interesting debate that perhaps should be had anew; but the result was that, as explained at the above link, at the time there was no realistic way that Cameron could form a minority government. Personally, I'd have preferred it as well, but it was never going to happen.
On the other hand, as Iain Martin points out, Cameron and Co should be going flat out for an overall majority in 2015, not planning for another coalition. That was then, this is now and looking forward not back.
Shale of the Century
This century sees the advent of shale gas mining in this country, and we should all be glad of it as it will help to keep the lights on in the aftermath of a long period without a proper energy policy. It's more complex than that, of course, but shale gas will be a real boon to us here in Britain. Not that this stops the Lefties protesting and indeed shouting about it, trying to undermine it all on some manufactured and/or exaggerated pretext.
Yorkie at The Commentator does a fairly thorough job of taking the lid off the Left's game, including the later news that Green MP Caroline Lucas has managed to get herself arrested at a so-called 'anti-fracking' protest (almost certainly deliberate, with the primary aim of getting herself some publicity).
It is well worth going through what is a fairly short piece, especially noting the use of the totalitarians' favourite techniques such as declaring that only their own views count and accusing any government that takes note of other views as being 'anti-democratic', 'not listening', or some such. This again demonstrates the inherent dishonesty off Lefty outfits, and they are all like that and probably always have been. Lying, manipulative, totalitarian by nature: all of 'em!
Well, if they don't like what's happening to our country (not really theirs is it?) then perhaps they might be happier living in a Socialist/Communist country instead. They are no benefit to Britain, so they might as well get out. That would also help with the burgeoning overcrowding in this small island, and by getting rid of the dross the overall quality will rise too.
On The House
Okay, houses and housing in general. There are, as one might expect, a whole range of claims and counter-claims being made about Britain's housing situation, from the numbers being built year by year to the controversial new Help to Buy equity loan scheme.
It looks like the latter is starting to achieve its headline outcome, which is a positive sign, at least if taken in isolation. The effect on house prices over time is likely to be less helpful to the buying public; but of course the scheme could be modified or even withdrawn at a later date, before that has had a chance to bite too hard. I don't know this will play out, but am aware of legitimate concerns about the scheme, so it one to watch quite closely over the months and (perhaps, if it lasts that long) years ahead.
Meanwhile, the numbers of residences being built remains a thorny question; and FullFact has had a go at looking into this. Their main angle is on the claim that planning consent has been granted for some 400,000 residences that have yet to be built. I am cautious about their treatment, including the somewhat selective graph that shows only the period of the Coalition Government so has no broader context.
I know from my own time on the local Council – when we were also very much aware of what was happening in other places as well as our own – just how much of a house-building slump there had been before the change of national government. The dip for a few months more recently, while significant, looks worse than it really is, and which that longer-term context should (if the data are accurate) have shown.
We knew back in those years what was happening nationally as well as locally – though we here in medway have tended to buck this trend somewhat and have more building going on and achieved than many other places, including elsewhere in Kent.
Indeed, we even have more so-called 'affordable homes' than neighbouring/nearby Local Authority areas whose specifications call for a higher percentage of such homes. For example, our ten percent has resulted in many more such places actually coming into being than others' 25%, where little has actually been provided. Delivery is much more important than posturing...
Back to FullFact: the actual numbers each year are quite impressive, especially in the present climate. The question of whether there even ought to be a need for all these extra homes on the small and increasingly crowded island is a separate (though obviously related) issue; but although the demand ought to slow over the next decade, for now it needs to be satisfied.
Obviously developers weren't going to build when that very climate meant that few could afford to buy them, however 'affordable' some of them (subsidised by the other properties and from the public purse) were in practice. This is why the whole previous decade's figures are so important in setting context, as it becomes easy to spot when things turned downward and what must have driven that. Anyway, with a little intelligence one can glean enough from that analysis to realise what is actually going on, and it is quite good.
Labour On Back Foot
Labour's ongoing policy woes (largely through a lack of any real policies) are being added to by the loss of dominance on key issues such the economy and even in areas thought 'safe' for them, such as the National Health Service (NHS).
Regarding the latter, Simon Heffer has, in a return to a more sensible outlook than he has tended to exhibit in the last few years, does a thorough job of showing how, as he puts it, Labour has lost the moral high ground on the NHS. It is a good piece, and I have little quibble with any of it – which is the first time I have been able to say that about a Heffer contribution in a long time.
I have been sitting on this one for a few weeks, awaiting the fallout from the Keogh report, and it looks as though nothing has materially changed in the weeks from then until now. The article looks lengthy, but it isn't: there are several large photographs embedded within in. The opening few paragraphs tell most of the story in a nutshell, including a list of just some of the issues that are of concern to us all, as users of the NHS and paying for it in our taxes. Especially for anyone wearing the proverbial rose-tinted spectacles when it comes to the NHS, I urge you to read the whole piece, which will probably take around twelve minutes.
When it comes to the economy, Labour still have no credible or consistent stance, and are continuing to struggle to find one. They have essentially silent on the whole issue for several weeks now; and their gloom-and-doom merchants have received a further blow with this week's slow-but-positive economic indicators, which are turning out to be better than was previously forecase.
It's still small beer, but this careful policy has resulted in a general upward trens during the coalition years, which is an understandable way to proceed. Personally, and as I have written before, it has been my belief that it could have a notch or two higher for the past year or so without significantly risking a catastrophe – but I don't have all the inside information, so perhaps the Chancellor has been right in his approach all along.
Even if not a hundred percent optimum, it has certainly been close to that ideal, as most independent organisations in the field have acknowledged, most or all of the the time. Even the credit down-rating (unavoidable in the global situation, especially as we are essentially a trading nation) was fractional, and so much less than in many other countries that one might have thought were stronger than us.
Airport Bias?
This is an interesting development regarding the Rochester Airport plans. A local resident here has formally complained to the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) over the leaflet about the plans that has been distributed locally, and which he claims is misleading and biased in favour of the airport. Unfortunately I don't have a copy of the leaflet myself; but I'd probably prefer not to comment while the complaint was being looked into by the ASA.
For myself, I can state that we on the airport Consultative Committee put a lot of thought into the ideas that culminated (somewhat belatedly) in the formal proposal. As I have already explained on this 'blog in recent weeks, the paved runway enables earlier take-off so that the craft will have climbed much further than at present by the time it passes over the nearest residential areas.
My estimate is for a ten-fold reduction in sound at ground level, not an increase. That simple Applied Mathematics, routine A-Level stuff: I know, as I studied for that qualification myself...
As for the new generation of mini-jets: they are actually quieter than propeller-type craft, as other small airports can attest, so there's no worry there. I suspect warped agendas are at work here, as is so often the case, and the 'hyper alarmism' that was mentioned in at least one of the linked articles from earlier in this post as being a standard tool of the Left, who are behind this as they have been all along.
I certainly have confidence, as perhaps the community's best advocate and representative in Medway for many years; and again there are similar situations elsewhere in the country, including in much more 'sensitive' locations than ours that – despite initial (uninformed) concerns – turned out to be cases of "What was all the fuss about?"
Fairoaks Airport in Surrey is perhaps the ultimate example of that phenomenon; and who opposing the Rochester Airport plans feels able to challenge that now well-established parallel development in leafy Surrey of all places? Money -> mouth...
Close to Home
Here in the county of Kent, as elsewhere in Britain, councils often have to resort to court proceedings to ensure the payment of due Council Tax. This inevitably results in cases where bailiffs have to go in. Note that all this is caused by people's actions in not paying their dues. These are very often (though of course not always, by any means) those living a fairly grand lifestyle, often subsidised from the public purse.
Anyone who has been in the debt-collecting business (and I know a couple) will tell you what they discover when calling at debtors' homes. One typical case was of someone owing thousands of Pounds to a bank, who 'had no money' and was paying the debt back at a rate that would take decades to fully repay, yet during the early stages of that (weekly) collection period, suddenly there was an expensive new car replacing the older one that had been there previously. Was it a visitor? No: it remained there as the only vehicle at that address.
Anyway, reported in our local newspaper is the number of instances of teach council where bailiffs came into the picture. Although I don't think Medway was even included in the survey, they probably aren't in the top few so I doubt would have been mentioned in any case.
This is an awkward one for opposition politicians on the councils, mostly Labour and a few Lib Dems and perhaps the odd Independent, as they are so vociferous about Council Tax collection rates and the amounts of total arrears. They can hardly start taking the side of the 'poor resident', especially when they know that there are some of us who have whole strings of anecdotes in similar vein to the example I cited above that show that many of them are not (literally) 'poor' at all.
Not that this has kept them quiet when it comes to what they still erroneously term 'the bedroom tax' and supposedly 'evictions' of those caught in having their benefit hand-ours corrected to where they should have been all along. This is the usual Labour bandwaggon-jumping, as it has been from the outset, and as usual for them an attempt to sweep under the carpet their own earlier piloting of exactly the same policy some twelve . Here's the evidence of that...
Friday, 19 July 2013
Weekly Political Digest – 19 July 2013
There is again a lot to go through this week, but I shall, as always, attempt to keep it fairly brief...
First, following up something covered in my last digest, it's worth noting that UNITE's Len McCluskey has, as expected, welcomed Ed Miliband's proposal regarding union affiliation fees that will give the unions more of the money they will continue to collect, while making Ed-M seem responsible and competent in the eyes of those who don't realise what a sell-out it really is.
How Much Tax?
The Daily Mirror ran a typical front page headline that tried to suggest that the Coalition Government was placing a higher tax burden on 'the poor' than on 'the rich' – standard Lefty class warfare. Of course, they got it wrong, on two counts in fact.
First, as Fraser Nelson reports, there has already been a significant shift of the tax burden away from the poorer end of society and toward the better off than was operated under the previous government, or indeed any previous government.
Second, the real or effective tax level for some at the lower end can be as high as 84%, not the 36% that the Mirror splashed over its front page; and Fraser has provided the data to back up this claim. Some could even be paying 95% in effective tax.
As he says, the real issue is the slow reform of the welfare system that really needs to move on apace, as the reality of Labour's system and how it was structured was (as some have been saying all along) to trap huge numbers of people within a system that was always intended to make them dependent upon the State and be economically unable to find a realistic way out of in as many cases as James (a.k.a. Gordon) Brown in particular could devise a way to hold onto.
Not that Labour has stopped there: in order to restore and expand on that whole policy, they are secretly planning to make claiming benefits a kind of 'human right', so that it becomes a permanent and unshakeable burden and a trap for even more of us than ever before.
Again, the solution is (as with so many inadequate outcomes since 2010) a Conservative overall majority in 2015. Not only would this release their MPs and Ministers from the compromises and blockages that they are currently having to tolerate – and I have considerable inside info on this, provided to me in confidence – but it would also remove the excuse of the Lib Dems, for those who like to perceive it as such.
As I say, I know more of the truth than to fall for that easy attack line myself, but that doesn't stop others, especially UKIPpers, who seem to have made a career out of it.
Fantasy Politics
Lord Ashcroft has an enormously respected record of extensive and detailed opinion polling, and among his latest commissioned work has been the result that a lot of ideas being floated by some within the Conservative fraternity, including some MPs, is just fantasy politics that has little if any public support. He has been looking specifically at what has been labelled The Alternative Queen's Speech: it is the speech that is different, not the Queen, I hasten to add(!)
As the Noble Lord. says, those policies are not the way to a parliamentary majority in the next General Election. Although there is no harm in looking at these side issues in private (they make for useful mental exercise, especially in terms of inventiveness and thinking outside the box), but it isn't a good idea to promote such ideas in public.
However, now that this had been done, it did at least afford Lord Ashcroft a suitable opportunity to teach us the hard-knock lesson of life regarding such things, so I suspect this is the last Alternative Queen's Speech we shall encounter from this government...
Beeb Traps Itself
Charles Moore looks at the BBC this week, and finds all manner of interesting things, some of which I and others already knew. It is worth going through the whole piece. The most striking conclusions, inescapable though they are (in more than one senses of the word), are that (a) the Beeb has, in effect, trapped itself into reporting only what suits its people's own outlooks, and (b) employing only like-minded people.
This seems to be irreconcilable, no matter what anyone tries to do, so almost certainly cannot be solved in any way that leaves the BBC essentially intact. As a number of commenters and observers have been saying for years, it has to be broken up and sold off as a commercial enterprise that will in future need to compete directly in the marketplace, not hold a privileged position outside and above the real marketplace. The licence fee (in reality an anachronistic stealth tax) must then go as well, and rightly so!
Medway Maritime Hospital
Our local hospital – the one where I was taken when I had my 'incident' a couple of years ago – is one of the fourteen that were looked at specifically in the recent inquiry, and of which eleven have now been placed in so-called 'specisl measures'. Whether or not the media were right to latch onto the 'excess mortality rates' as the single big factor is challenged by FullFact, with some justification, though it shouldn't be dismissed as a measure, having considerably validity nonetheless.
The Keogh report contains a number of colour-coded tables to show the level of quality at each of those hospitals in various areas and a range of aspects of each. It has to be said that the Medway came out not all that badly overall, but a moderate number of areas needing attention did get highlighted.
In a sense, all this is good news, in that it had been going on for years yet nothing was being done about it. The previous Labour government treated the NHS almost as a kind of sacred cow, and it is known that the then Health Secretary, Andy Burnham, refused to countenance dealing with any complaint and instead preferred to hide it all away and pretend that all was well.
That has been documented in several places, though with differing numbers of formal complaints, so there isn't a single source I can quote with a hundred percent confidence on that particular aspect. The 'NHS as a religion' meme is covered very well by Rev. Dr Peter Mullen at Cranmer's 'blog, and helps one understand just what it is like to some and what that means in practice.
It will come as no surprise that Lefties treat the NHS as an entity as the be-all and end-all, and that (as always with the Left, as I have reminded readers numerous times) the individual has no value. Paul Goodman covers this in his piece for ConHome.
When the subject was aired in the House of Commons, perhaps inevitably – and certainly predictably – it became something of a blame game. Now, there are those who don't like that in politics, and I tend to go along with that view myself as an ideal; but if one doesn't realise and understand how we got to a particular point and why, and especially if some are spreading misinformation, then it becomes difficult or even impossible to find a proper and lasting solution.
Take it from an old hand in the public sector who has seen it all before...
Indeed, as Douglas Carswell MP reports, Labour MPs were far more interested in making it out to be about them than caring about the multiple deaths and other ills at the hospitals. Self-serving to the end, their 'phoney rage' (as Douglas puts it) attempts to divert attention away from the actual issues.
Meanwhile, local Medway MP Mark Reckless welcomes the support that the special measures will apparently provide to Medway Maritime Hospital. We shall have to wait and see what this will turn out to be in practice, but Mark's words in the linked article do make for illuminating reading about how the three Medway-based MPs have approached the matter of our local hospital and its deficiencies and needs.
First, following up something covered in my last digest, it's worth noting that UNITE's Len McCluskey has, as expected, welcomed Ed Miliband's proposal regarding union affiliation fees that will give the unions more of the money they will continue to collect, while making Ed-M seem responsible and competent in the eyes of those who don't realise what a sell-out it really is.
How Much Tax?
The Daily Mirror ran a typical front page headline that tried to suggest that the Coalition Government was placing a higher tax burden on 'the poor' than on 'the rich' – standard Lefty class warfare. Of course, they got it wrong, on two counts in fact.
First, as Fraser Nelson reports, there has already been a significant shift of the tax burden away from the poorer end of society and toward the better off than was operated under the previous government, or indeed any previous government.
Second, the real or effective tax level for some at the lower end can be as high as 84%, not the 36% that the Mirror splashed over its front page; and Fraser has provided the data to back up this claim. Some could even be paying 95% in effective tax.
As he says, the real issue is the slow reform of the welfare system that really needs to move on apace, as the reality of Labour's system and how it was structured was (as some have been saying all along) to trap huge numbers of people within a system that was always intended to make them dependent upon the State and be economically unable to find a realistic way out of in as many cases as James (a.k.a. Gordon) Brown in particular could devise a way to hold onto.
Not that Labour has stopped there: in order to restore and expand on that whole policy, they are secretly planning to make claiming benefits a kind of 'human right', so that it becomes a permanent and unshakeable burden and a trap for even more of us than ever before.
Again, the solution is (as with so many inadequate outcomes since 2010) a Conservative overall majority in 2015. Not only would this release their MPs and Ministers from the compromises and blockages that they are currently having to tolerate – and I have considerable inside info on this, provided to me in confidence – but it would also remove the excuse of the Lib Dems, for those who like to perceive it as such.
As I say, I know more of the truth than to fall for that easy attack line myself, but that doesn't stop others, especially UKIPpers, who seem to have made a career out of it.
Fantasy Politics
Lord Ashcroft has an enormously respected record of extensive and detailed opinion polling, and among his latest commissioned work has been the result that a lot of ideas being floated by some within the Conservative fraternity, including some MPs, is just fantasy politics that has little if any public support. He has been looking specifically at what has been labelled The Alternative Queen's Speech: it is the speech that is different, not the Queen, I hasten to add(!)
As the Noble Lord. says, those policies are not the way to a parliamentary majority in the next General Election. Although there is no harm in looking at these side issues in private (they make for useful mental exercise, especially in terms of inventiveness and thinking outside the box), but it isn't a good idea to promote such ideas in public.
However, now that this had been done, it did at least afford Lord Ashcroft a suitable opportunity to teach us the hard-knock lesson of life regarding such things, so I suspect this is the last Alternative Queen's Speech we shall encounter from this government...
Beeb Traps Itself
Charles Moore looks at the BBC this week, and finds all manner of interesting things, some of which I and others already knew. It is worth going through the whole piece. The most striking conclusions, inescapable though they are (in more than one senses of the word), are that (a) the Beeb has, in effect, trapped itself into reporting only what suits its people's own outlooks, and (b) employing only like-minded people.
This seems to be irreconcilable, no matter what anyone tries to do, so almost certainly cannot be solved in any way that leaves the BBC essentially intact. As a number of commenters and observers have been saying for years, it has to be broken up and sold off as a commercial enterprise that will in future need to compete directly in the marketplace, not hold a privileged position outside and above the real marketplace. The licence fee (in reality an anachronistic stealth tax) must then go as well, and rightly so!
Medway Maritime Hospital
Our local hospital – the one where I was taken when I had my 'incident' a couple of years ago – is one of the fourteen that were looked at specifically in the recent inquiry, and of which eleven have now been placed in so-called 'specisl measures'. Whether or not the media were right to latch onto the 'excess mortality rates' as the single big factor is challenged by FullFact, with some justification, though it shouldn't be dismissed as a measure, having considerably validity nonetheless.
The Keogh report contains a number of colour-coded tables to show the level of quality at each of those hospitals in various areas and a range of aspects of each. It has to be said that the Medway came out not all that badly overall, but a moderate number of areas needing attention did get highlighted.
In a sense, all this is good news, in that it had been going on for years yet nothing was being done about it. The previous Labour government treated the NHS almost as a kind of sacred cow, and it is known that the then Health Secretary, Andy Burnham, refused to countenance dealing with any complaint and instead preferred to hide it all away and pretend that all was well.
That has been documented in several places, though with differing numbers of formal complaints, so there isn't a single source I can quote with a hundred percent confidence on that particular aspect. The 'NHS as a religion' meme is covered very well by Rev. Dr Peter Mullen at Cranmer's 'blog, and helps one understand just what it is like to some and what that means in practice.
It will come as no surprise that Lefties treat the NHS as an entity as the be-all and end-all, and that (as always with the Left, as I have reminded readers numerous times) the individual has no value. Paul Goodman covers this in his piece for ConHome.
When the subject was aired in the House of Commons, perhaps inevitably – and certainly predictably – it became something of a blame game. Now, there are those who don't like that in politics, and I tend to go along with that view myself as an ideal; but if one doesn't realise and understand how we got to a particular point and why, and especially if some are spreading misinformation, then it becomes difficult or even impossible to find a proper and lasting solution.
Take it from an old hand in the public sector who has seen it all before...
Indeed, as Douglas Carswell MP reports, Labour MPs were far more interested in making it out to be about them than caring about the multiple deaths and other ills at the hospitals. Self-serving to the end, their 'phoney rage' (as Douglas puts it) attempts to divert attention away from the actual issues.
Meanwhile, local Medway MP Mark Reckless welcomes the support that the special measures will apparently provide to Medway Maritime Hospital. We shall have to wait and see what this will turn out to be in practice, but Mark's words in the linked article do make for illuminating reading about how the three Medway-based MPs have approached the matter of our local hospital and its deficiencies and needs.
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