Monday, Aug 17, 2009
Tories blowing it
Guardian: Tories to make NHS 'world's biggest quango'
Not related to house prices but the Tories seem to have left themselves wide open with this. I am not so sure that a Tory landslide is on the cards given New Labours protectorate.
Posted by stillthinking @ 10:44 PM (948 views) Add Comment
25 Comments
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1. This comment has been removed as it was found to be in breach of our Blog Policies.
2. vacuouspolitician said...
Yep. Our lords and masters...
Hurrah for born leaders!
There's a similar pic of Osbourne somewhere...
3. inflation is eating my savings said...
Thanks Paul, that is perhaps more disturbing than the link you put below the last post.
Incidentally, does anything (eg. a sunset, a lovers glance, roast pheasant doused in apple and bread sauce) actually make you smile?
4. stillthinking said...
Good link. Osbourne should get out of politics, he knew full well what was happening and acted solely to personally profit. The only one I like is Vince Cable but I don't think he has any chance at all.
There isn't anybody really. Poor old UK. No such crime as stupidity.
5. vacuouspolitician said...
@3
Well I have to say you've surpassed yourself tonight Inflation. I'm not surprised inflation is eating your savings ...having "roast pheasant doused in apple and bread sauce"! lol Is that what they serve at the Smith Institute? ...or perhaps the local Rotary club?
6. inflation is eating my savings said...
@ vacuous!
Alas none of the above. Pheasant is actually cheaper than chicken (a butcher in auld reekie will do a plucked bird for 3 quid- or you can just speed up when you see one on the road), but much harder to cook well. I usually fail.
7. Potnoddle said...
I can see you people are keeping up the standard of debate. I think you can find a similar shot of the current labour party; though their dressed as miners.
This is really irrelevant and only interests class war idiots; as a working class kid I find this very dull.
8. nomad said...
A picture that is well worth showing again and again - ghastly! The instant thought is what an appaulling choice we have to make next year - a swim in mud or a walk over white hot embers.
Then I recall some photographs of me when in late teens and early twenties. Oh dear!
9. sybil13 said...
It was a long time ago but wasn't one of the main reasons that people became disillusioned by the Tory party and wanted them out as much as they now want Labour out, that they were about to privatise health care and dismantle the NHS?
10. japanese uncle said...
I seem to have seen this picture in the Daily Mail a few years ago. Yes there is really little choice for voters even in this oldest democracy on earth.
Anyway 'Bullingdon' reminds me of the pathetic 'Lord Bullingdon' in the film Barry Lyndon, perfect fit for these golden boys.
11. hpwatcher said...
It's a pretty horiffic picture.....
Though I absolutely hate the guardian, the darling of the socialist, neo-liberal press.....
12. mark wadsworth said...
Oh dear, oh dear.
I find it helpful to break down the whole NHS debate into two completely separate debates - one debate on the "funding" side (choose your own mix of taxpayer funded, private insurance - whether voluntary or compulsory and co-payments) and the "provision" side (choose your own mix of state-run monopoly and competing providers).
The point about most European countries is that they have some mix of funding and competing providers. Their health services are still "free at point of use" (or at least heavily subsidised by the taxpayer or insurers) with more or less universal coverage, it's just that the bit of competion between providers (whoever owns them - in Germany, the only other country I've lived in) clinics and hospitals are often owned by local councils, trade unions, health insurers, churches or charities, but they still compete with beneficial results for the patient).
The US system is awful, on any measure, but we can look to the other countries that rank near or above the UK in international comparisons to see if there are good bits that we can copy to get the same results for lower cost; or better results for the same cost. Even if the NHS itself continues to operate a lot of clinics and hospitals, at least people can vote with their feet. We'll then soon see which provides better care for the same cost.
That said, the Tories don't seem to have a clue either and Obama has made a complete mess of whatever it was he was trying to do.
13. flashman said...
Are these people despised because they are privileged or for some other reason? It's quite normal for young people to pose. Some wear football shirts and chant, some have spiky hair and some wear old-fashioned toff outfits. I'm sure we all (proudly) cringe when we look back on pictures of our youth.
Cutting NHS spending would be easy. Obese people should be made to pay £50 per doctors visit. Morbidly obese people or smokers should be made to pay £100 per doctors visit. Pleading poverty won't cut it because a poor person couldn't have afforded the big Macs and cigs.
14. paul said...
flashman, look at what the Bullingdon Club is, and ask yourself, "Are these people who should be put in charge of running the country?"
15. flashman said...
paul: Isn't it just a dining club for high-spirited, rich students? They dress up in silly clothes, get pissed and throw a few bread rolls. Their only crime seems to be that their parents were rich. I think the form that 'young rebellion' takes, often tends to be dictated by social class and money. If they were Goths or new romantics would people be so uppity? Personally, I think that a rebellious youth is a prerequisite for a well-rounded adult. I’m willing to bet that Gordon Brown and Tony Blair were both a bit dull and nerdy in their youth. Boris Johnson was elected because he is fun and sprightly. Londoners were a bit sick of self-righteous and dull
16. vacuouspolitician said...
@6 . lol. Nice one. Does the Bentley not go over 60 mph?
@13 flashman "Boris Johnson was elected because he is fun and sprightly"...yes he is a baffoon and the figure of fun for a whole generation of HIGNFY viewers. Who on earth would make a complete t*t of himself on national TV and then proclaim "I've just walked into a rather large elephant trap"... !
Do ordinary people really need to be governed by people who have no knowledge or empathy of their plight? Why can't we have ordinary people running this country? ...from ordinary walks of life... who are intelligent and talk sense and most importantly not have a vested interest in protecting "their own" ?
Tony Blair wasn't an ordinary person...he was the ultimate vacuous politician...and he was also a public school twit. Do we really need another public school twit i/c of the country?
17. flashman said...
vacuouspolitician: “Do we really need another public school twit i/c of the country”
We certainly don’t need a working class turd (this statement, is no more ridiculous than your statement). This country has suffered from the politics of envy and inverted/regular snobbery for too long.
Boris Johnson is an intellectual. He is also irreverent, self-deprecating and fun. He might not be the right man for Scunthorpe but Londoners like a bit more complexity and sophistication.
18. vacuouspolitician said...
"Boris Johnson is an intellectual"
...is he? Really? By what measure?
"He might not be the right man for Scunthorpe but Londoners like a bit more complexity and sophistication."
...what a pompous/arrogant thing to say. Facts?
19. flashman said...
Of course London is more sophisticated than Scunthorpe and of course Boris Johnson is an intellectual. The country is sick of the mealy-mouthed pc police, telling us what we are allowed to say. The truth is the truth.
The champagne is on ice and the population are going to resoundingly vote in a bunch of Old Etonians. The car scratching variety of socialists will have to adjust to being an unpopular minority.
20. the number cruncher said...
Boris main backers where property developers and hedge funds - the very people who got us into this mess. It was their money that got him elected and not his intellectualism or his buffoonery.
look at the support Boris had and the money behind his campaign. How could he loose. Money decides elections as well as the blind luck of the economic cycle.
I want my country run by people who have the ability to put the long term interests of the whole of our population before VI's and themselves and sure as hell the Bullingdon club are not going to do it.
21. vacuouspolitician said...
Is London that sophisticated? ...and is Boris Johnson really an intellect? In your black or white world this might be the case...
...perhaps highlighting your bunch of champagne drinking old Etonians as no better than the rabble we have in power now hits a raw nerve. Chin chin old boy...
22. flashman said...
I always dread my international clients visiting other cities in the UK because they are invariably astonished by how second rate or just plain shitty they are. London, Milan, Paris, New York. These are the internationally acclaimed cities. You are deluded if you think that anywhere else in Britain belongs in this list. You know it's true, so why all the fuss? Your argument style is very Labour (it's true because I want it to be)
An envy of toffs has caused some rather silly people to vote Labour for ten years. The resulting mess has shown up these voters for what they are....bitter, jealous and inferior. Anyone who is inflamed by a bunch of rich young men having fun is now out of step. You can ruin the country again in another 10 years but for now, your country wants you to go away
23. vacuouspolitician said...
hmmm...it's not only politicians that are vacuous...
You just dont get it do you? I'll spell it out for you again. Do ordinary people really need to be governed by people who have no knowledge or empathy of their plight? Why can't we have ordinary people running this country? ...from ordinary walks of life... who are intelligent and talk sense and most importantly not have a vested interest in protecting "their own" ?
It's not about envy or any such silly notions that you mention in all your comments so far...it's only in your black or white world that these "facts" seem to count. They don't. You've lost the argument because you have given me no real answers...break open the champers old chap...London's calling...
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25. vacuouspolitician said...
Yawn. That really does show you up for the person you are...be really proud of who you are and what you have turned out to be.
You have no answers. Intelligence...?