Poll: 2nd Leaders debate - Live tonight at 8pm on BBC news and SKY news

[stockhausen]

... Unfortunately, the current mudslinging ...

... Labour have already been going for the negative campaigning approach ...

Thank heavens we have been able to rely on the Tory press resisting this temptation, particularly as they realise that the Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats have a real chance of having their voices heard for a change

 

[Naffa]

Irrelevant, self defence is the only legitimate reason to go to war and the only one given by the UK government.

Fair enough, one can't argue with that.

 

[scorza]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/26/health-trusts-planning-job-cuts

What "efficiency savings" really means - thousands of job cuts of front line heathcare workers, that's doctors and nurses to you and me. This is under Labour spending plans too, the Conservatives say they are planning to outspend Labour on the NHS apparently, but does anyone believe them?

 

[Hatter The Mad]

It is about time the NHS learned to do more with less.

 

[Gaidin109]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/26/health-trusts-planning-job-cuts

What "efficiency savings" really means - thousands of job cuts of front line heathcare workers, that's doctors and nurses to you and me. This is under Labour spending plans too, the Conservatives say they are planning to outspend Labour on the NHS apparently, but does anyone believe them?

I believe that the Conservative will also cut the NHS, but not from front-line services. The Tories have stated on numerous occasions that administration in the NHS is their main target and to be honest, I agree with them. There are far too many managers and non-jobs within the NHS that frankly are unneccessary and expensive so trimming them back is a sensible and cost effective way of streamlining services.

A smaller, more efficient service doesn't automatically make it a worse service.

 

[Gaidin109]

Sweeping statement of the century.

For someone who claims to be clever this is really a silly post.

It just so true though. It seems the public are always forced down to the lowest common denominator when it comes to group decision making.

Not such a sily post, when you put some thought into its meaning.

 

[scorza]

I believe that the Conservative will also cut the NHS, but not from front-line services. The Tories have stated on numerous occasions that administration in the NHS is their main target and to be honest, I agree with them. There are far too many managers and non-jobs within the NHS that frankly are unneccessary and expensive so trimming them back is a sensible and cost effective way of streamlining services.

A smaller, more efficient service doesn't automatically make it a worse service.

And you believe them? How very naive of you.

The general public seems to buy the myth you stated about there being too many managers and "non-jobs" but I've seen no evidence that this is actually the case. What were you saying about the lowest common denominator and group decision making?

The only way to make substantial cost savings in the NHS is to reduce front line staff, meaning those that remain will work harder providing a more efficient service with longer waiting times and lower quality of service. Sadly this is going to be necessary to cut the deficit. I just wish the politicians would be honest about this.

 

[Dolph]

Sweeping statement of the century.

For someone who claims to be clever this is really a silly post.

Look at how frequently the public, as a group, demand stupid things with absolutely no actual benefit be made into law.

It's not a silly post at all, as a collective, the public are stupid, irrational, fickle, emotionally driven and most of all frequently out and out wrong.

There is a reason why, in any formal debate, argumentum ad populum, or appealing to the majority, is a fallacy, because whether or not a majority of people believe something has no bearing on the truth. Unfortunately, we went and made a political system out of a fallacy.

 

[clv101]

The only way to make substantial cost savings in the NHS ...

I would have thought the best way to make substantial cost savings to the NHS would be make the population healthier.

Ban tobacco, introducing minimum pricing on alcohol (at least 50p per unit in the first instance), introduce taxation on products with sugar and saturated fat contents over 30% and high salt, mandate sugar/fat/salt limits on ready-meals (UK is the largest consumer in Europe by a large margin), double the amount of physical education in schools, increase role of competitive sports days, make bikes VAT free (for similar reasons to books)...

 

[stockhausen]

... whether or not a majority of people believe something has no bearing on the truth ... we went and made a political system out of a fallacy.

Remind me when a majority last elected a Government

I think that it is the desire of Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats that we should have a more representative form of Government, including wholesale reform of the Upper House; both the Tories and New Labour seem to be completely opposed to this seemingly quite reasonable idea.

 

[Dolph]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/26/health-trusts-planning-job-cuts

What "efficiency savings" really means - thousands of job cuts of front line heathcare workers, that's doctors and nurses to you and me. This is under Labour spending plans too, the Conservatives say they are planning to outspend Labour on the NHS apparently, but does anyone believe them?

Structural inefficiency is the cause of this, it's better from a business perspective (ie the way to attract a larger budget) to cut frontline and spend in back office. Until we address that structural flaw the problem of poor spending practices won't go away.

In theory, we should be able to trim the NHS budget without impact anyway, because the massive increases in the NHS budget (tripled since 1997) have not resulted in an equivilent performance increase, the service is running far less efficiently than it was in 1997, so by increasing efficiency, it should be possible to reduce spending without impacting the service.

The problem is, we both know that's unlikely to happen that way, we just disagree on whether to ignore the structural problems that cause the effect and pump more money into it instead, or try to fix them.

 

[Gaidin109]

And you believe them? How very naive of you.

The general public seems to buy the myth you stated about there being too many managers and "non-jobs" but I've seen no evidence that this is actually the case. What were you saying about the lowest common denominator and group decision making?

The only way to make substantial cost savings in the NHS is to reduce front line staff, meaning those that remain will work harder providing a more efficient service with longer waiting times and lower quality of service. Sadly this is going to be necessary to cut the deficit. I just wish the politicians would be honest about this.

The usual, "I disagree with you, so you must be naive or stupid" arguement.

Cutting the use of Quangos and Management Consultants within the NHS. £2bn a yer is spent on this. The cost of management bodies that oversee the PCTs has risen from £1.4bn to £2.1bn over the last four years.

Overall the cost of bureaucracy in the NHS has increased by 103% since 2003. The DofHeath, its quango and regional oversight committees had a budget of £12.6bn alone last year. Compare this to A&E budget of £1.7bn or Maternity of £1.8bn and you get the picture. This does not include the billions more spent within the PCT's themselves on administration. A report last year showed that staff numbers had risen by 18%, yet the amount spent on them rose by 48%, the rise in administrators outripped that of Doctors and Nurses.
Quango such as the Cosmetic Surgery Steering Group, Advisory board on registration of Homeopathic medicine and the Leadership and Race Equality Action Plan Independent Panel are really un-neccessary.

The NHS currently employs 5000 more managers than it does consultants

The Labour Government promised to cut spending on ALB's by 50% under John Reid in 2004, and a 25% reduction in Management and Administration in the same period. The opposite has in fact happened.

 

[Dolph]

Remind me when a majority last elected a Government

That's not really relevant to the point that collectively the population are idiots though. All three of the main political parties have stupid policies that make no sense somewhere in their manifestos that are popular with their voters.

I think that it is the desire of Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats that we should have a more representative form of Government, including wholesale reform of the Upper House; both the Tories and New Labour seem to be completely opposed to this seemingly quite reasonable idea.

The whole point of the HoL is to try and control the problems of democracy, exposing the HoL to democracy makes absolutely no sense when you remember what the purpose of the upper house is. That doesn't mean some sort of reform is necessary (the current cronyism setup is massively flawed) but electing the house is not the answer unless the constitutional shakeup involves the creation of explicit protections against bad laws enabling them to be struck down by the supreme court.

 

[Dolph]

I would have thought the best way to make substantial cost savings to the NHS would be make the population healthier.

Ban tobacco, introducing minimum pricing on alcohol (at least 50p per unit in the first instance), introduce taxation on products with sugar and saturated fat contents over 30% and high salt, mandate sugar/fat/salt limits on ready-meals (UK is the largest consumer in Europe by a large margin), double the amount of physical education in schools, increase role of competitive sports days, make bikes VAT free (for similar reasons to books)...

Well done, you've just crippled the NHS because tobacco makes far more in taxation than it costs the NHS, alcohol duty likewise.

Taxation doesn't do much to alter behaviour, so all you've done with the other tax rises is stoked inflation.

The last three points are pretty good, apart from you have to balance the long term benefits with the increase in both short and long term sporting and cycling injuries...

 

[stockhausen]

... The whole point of the HoL is to try and control the problems of democracy, exposing the HoL to democracy makes absolutely no sense when you remember what the purpose of the upper house is. That doesn't mean some sort of reform is necessary (the current cronyism setup is massively flawed) but electing the house is not the answer unless the constitutional shakeup involves the creation of explicit protections against bad laws enabling them to be struck down by the supreme court.

That is certainly one way of expressing it, another would be that "The whole point of the The Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled is to allow the establishment to retain control."


However, I am glad to see that unlike the Tories, you agree that the House of Lords is in need of reform . . . I think . . . assuming that that is what you actually meant by the statement "That doesn't mean some sort of reform is necessary Reading your posts, it is often a wee bit difficult to know what exactly you do mean

 

[robgmun]

i really don't think the Tories are in a 'blind panic' as some are trying to portray, if anything Labour is in much deeper **** and GB is very unlikely to remain leader of the Labour party after May 7th, whatever happens.

The Tories can bide there time and they know this, even if they don't win this time round you can bet they know they will get into power eventually sooner rather than later. DC is the best they've got and he's back up by strong MP's who know what they're doing.

I wouldn't put it past them if they are secretly wishing that Lib-dem joins Labour and makes a complete hash of the government and the economy and Tories will just win out by landslide by default at the next election (which could well be this year!)

 

[Gaidin109]

Reading your posts, it is often a wee bit difficult to know what exactly you do mean

That's because you're a wee bit thick!

 

[scorza]

I would have thought the best way to make substantial cost savings to the NHS would be make the population healthier.

Ban tobacco, introducing minimum pricing on alcohol (at least 50p per unit in the first instance), introduce taxation on products with sugar and saturated fat contents over 30% and high salt, mandate sugar/fat/salt limits on ready-meals (UK is the largest consumer in Europe by a large margin), double the amount of physical education in schools, increase role of competitive sports days, make bikes VAT free (for similar reasons to books)...

Well that would reduce demand for NHS services, though it would only provide long term benefits and therefore no good for the incoming government. It still wouldn't provide much in the way of cost savings however unless you can make redundant a load of front-line staff. Eventually with the long term health benefits you might get the NHS back to providing the current levels of service.

 

[Dolph]

That is certainly one way of expressing it, another would be that "The whole point of the The Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled is to allow the establishment to retain control."

I'm far more concerned about the actions of the commons in most cases than the actions of the Lords. The only concern I have about the current Lords is that they aren't strong enough in blocking poor and stupid legislation, they don't do it often enough, hence why a written constitiution guaranteeing the valid approaches to lawmaking is still needed.

However, I am glad to see that unlike the Tories, you agree that the House of Lords is in need of reform . . . I think . . . assuming that that is what you actually meant by the statement "That doesn't mean some sort of reform is necessary Reading your posts, it is often a wee bit difficult to know what exactly you do mean

Oh dear, I missed out 'un'. I apologise and kneel down at the feet of the clear and rational posting god and beg forgiveness...

And yes, I do agree that the HoL needs reform, I'm just unsure what the nature of that reform should be, because it would depend on surrounding constitutional changes...

 

[stockhausen]

i really don't think the Tories are in a 'blind panic' as some are trying to portray ...

Judging by the tactics being adopted by the Tory press who are desperate to discredit Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats, "some" have got it spot-on and the Tories are in a "blind panic".

... [David Cameron] is the best [the Tories have] got ...

You are probably right there, what a scary thought

... [David Cameron is] backed up by strong MP's who know what they're doing. ...

What, like George Osborne who certainly seems to be in a "blind panic" whenever he has to answer questions and Ashcroft's best friend William Hague who has been demonstrated to be thoroughly dishonest an who is as a result, being kept away from the media

... I wouldn't put it past [the Tories] if they are secretly wishing that Lib-dem joins Labour and ...

... brings about electoral reform

Yes, I can see how the Tories might think that that would help them