Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Bit strong isn't it.

Robbed from afn, courtesy of

freddie01
28 Jan'15 - 22:53 - 6432 of 6432



BURNHAM’S CAR CRASH INTERVIEW ON NHS PRIVATISATION‏



In an interview on BBC Newsnight last night, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham admitted that his party would put the ideology of socialised care ahead of patient choice and quality of healthcare. He also slammed the Coalition government for increasing private sector involvement in the service by 1.5 percent, despite the previous Labour administration increasing private involvement by 4.4 percent during their tenure.

Burnham was grilled by Kirsty Wark, who set out by displaying a graph which illustrated that the slow increase in private sector outsourcing enacted by the Coalition government was merely a continuation of a trend started under Labour. Indeed, Burnham himself was Health Secretary from 2009 – 2010, during which time private sector involvement grew by half a percent.

Burnham, however, insisted that the 1.5 percent increase threatened to “destabalise” the health system, by delivering “fragmentation of care” when the “future demands the opposite”. Labour’s flagship policy on the NHS is integration of services, which was pushed by Burnham during the interview.

When quizzed on what the right percentage of private involvement is, Burnham said: “There isn’t a right percentage. I’m very clear that the NHS should be our preferred provider so I don’t see a role for the private sector where it can replace core public provision at the heart of every community.

But Wark challenged Burnham on what this would mean for the quality of care received by patients. “We did a study and we looked at knees and hips across a number of patients,” she told him. “The ones that were outsourced had a better quality of care, they felt, and a better outcome. So therefore that matters to people who pay into the National Health Service, to know that they have the opportunity, if necessary, to go to the best place for them.

“It’s not a question of replacing, it’s giving them that possibility of provision and that’s what you want to take away.”

Astonishingly, Burnham replied: “I’m saying to you that there’s a new reality now from the last decade. The new reality is: times are very tough and market based provision of healthcare adds cost and it adds complexity, and it brings fragmentation.”

Later in the interview Burnham insisted: “So I’m saying of course we support choice and of course we support clinicians -” To which Wark interjected: “But you don’t support choice!”

“Of course we support clinicians getting the best for their patients,” Burnham replied, “but that is within the context of a public NHS where the NHS is the preferred provider because if you carry on stripping services out, cherry-picking, you in the end destabilise the NHS”

“What [percentage] is too far?” challenged Wark, “A number please,” she pressed.

“I’m not going to give a number. I’m not putting a target saying “this is the right level”,” conceded Burnham.

The interview has been widely panned as a “car crash” for Burnham, and, by proxy, for Labour. Westminster blogger Guido Fawkes commented “The Tory outsourcing so aggressively decried by Burnham is just 1.5% more than he implemented, and he won’t even commit to reducing it.”

Others took to Twitter to share the “nightmare” interview, including the Spectator’s Sebastian Payne who tweeted a link saying “Andy Burnham’s car crash interview shows why Labour can’t be trusted with the NHS”

The columnist Ian Birrell called Burnham a hypocrite, tweeting “‘Of course we support choice’ says Andy Burnham, seeking to restrict patient choice with hypocritical U-turn on private provision.”

This morning Burham took to the pages of the Mirror to set out his plans for the NHS. They include repealing the Health and Social Care Act, which he claims has introduced a “a toxic mix of cuts, crisis and privatisation

“That’s why Labour will introduce a Bill to repeal it in our first Queen’s Speech. This will put the right values back at the heart of the NHS and call time on the market experiment.”

However, the article too has drawn criticism. Dan Hodges, the Telegraph commentator and son of Labour MP Glenda Jackson, Tweeted “Andy Burnham in the Mirror writes that Labour will “call time on the [NHS] market experiment”. On Newsnight he said the opposite.

And conservative MP Nadine Dorries commented “It seems that Andy Burnham has made the judgment that #newsnight viewers aren’t the sort of people who will read the Mirror, so he’s safe.”

Others on Twitter have been sharing a link to a Guardian article from 2001, when Burnham sat on the Health Select Committee in Parliament, asking whether Labour was going to privatise the NHS. The conclusion the paper reaches is: “Yes and no – it all depends what you mean by privatisation. Labour insists that it does not want to privatise the NHS, merely bring in private sector expertise and management skills where this can help the health service do its job.”

The paper admits that “for years in opposition was a staple form of Labour rhetoric to claim the Conservatives were “privatising” the NHS by contracting out support services – such as cleaning – to the private sector, or proposing to build hospitals under the private finance initiative.”

It also concedes that “the main difference is that Labour believe that health provision should be paid for by the NHS entirely out of central taxation, whereas the Tories believe the NHS budget should be supplemented by encouraging individuals to take out private medical insurance.”

Northampton Planners voted against TWO Bovis (BVS) new housing developments this evening:

1. 378 homes
2. 1000 homes

An appeal will cost Bovis around £0.5m

Any winter problems in A&E will be forgotten by the warmer weather of the GE.

So it looks like Labour are the party of outsourcing and privatisation of the NHS. Who would have thought it. But then again, the New Labour of Blair was more Conservative than the Conservatives. The Conservatives have never wanted to privatise the NHS, just improve it.

no they won't
assuredly NHS will be an important issue with the electorate .... unfortunately, the average joe has no comprehension of the scale of the inherent problems within the system, and of course none of the parties have any solution - there certainly isn't an easy one
throwing in money is no answer and in truth, i think the current system almost has to be scrapped and rebuilt
there is no question but that we have a growing and ageing population, absorbing ever more of the resources available
i can certainly foresee the re-emergence of the local walk-in cottage hospital for minor ailments ..... in fact, we now have one in the town, and i'm sure that helps take much pressure off the nearby surgery as well as A&E
pharmacists may also be given extra authority - i think it's starting to happen - to treat simple cuts and grazes and other non-threatening bits

Miliband is now in panic mode.

He has offered a Home Rule Bill for Scotland within 100 days if Labour win the election.

he he lovely policy, nearly as crooked as the Tories themselves.

Looks like Milly is learning fast from sleazy Dave.

The Scots won't trust Milibland.

"You think you are goung to win! Tell me another joke like that"

Hays ohh they will if he gives them home rule, theyl snap his hand off.

No doubt Dave and his fellow stratergy unit are sitting in panic. Oliver Letwing and Lynton Will be sweating now.

Actor Brian Cox defects from Labour to SNP


HOLLYWOOD actor Brian Cox has dealt a damaging blow to Scottish Labour by defecting from the party to join the SNP, claiming that they had “failed” to live up to its “basic principles”.

The Bourne Supremacy and X-Men star - one of Scotland’s best known actors - has formally joined the SNP after campaigning for a Yes vote in the independence referendum.

The Dundee-born actor had previously been a vocal Labour supporter, dining with Tony Blair and even voicing Labour Party election broadcasts.

But last month the 68-year-old warned the “the writing is on the wall” if the “Labour Party doesn’t get its s*** together soon”.

In a letter to Labour general secretary Iain McNicol, Cox said: “I have always believed the Labour Party stood for social democracy but sadly I no longer believe they do.

“It is with deep sadness that I am resigning from the party - a party I believed in but has now failed in the last few years to live up to its basic principles.

“I feel the Scottish National Party is the party taking forward values of social justice and represents Scotland’s best interests and that is why I have, like many other Labour supporters, decided to become a member of the SNP.”

Cox continued: “The people in Dundee, particularly in the Labour Party, showed great fortitude in their choice of socialism and independence and are very much on the right road.




“Their position was severely undermined by the empty rhetoric of leading members of the party.

“This has lead to great disillusionment with the party throughout Scotland and my position merely reflects that disillusionment.”

Scottish Labour’s deputy leader, Kezia Dugdale, said: “Brian Cox is a great Scottish actor whose commitment to the arts in unrivalled.

“He has been a great Labour supporter and I’m sad to see him leave.”

The actor, who grew up in a working class family in Dundee before rising to stardom as a Hollywood actor, is now principally based in America.

An SNP spokesman confirmed Brian Cox is now a member of the party.

He said the actor “joined the SNP recently”.

The news swept rapidly across Twitter yesterday.

West Dumfries SNP group wrote: “It is another blow to the party as it fights for its electoral lives amid desperate polling figures.”

SNP Trade Unionists tweeted: “Brian Cox quits Labour and joins the SNP. Given the enthusiasm with which Brian Cox campaigned for a Yes vote...”

While Angus Robertson MP, the leader of the SNP at Westminster, also shared the news with his followers and was retweeted 10 times in as many minutes.

2Miliband promises Scotland Home Rule Bill within 100 days of taking power


Comments on this joke from Daily Herald :-

Miliband has a few problems here. Big ones at that.
First…his idea of Home Rule, and our idea (most Scots) are two different things. Regards social security and general welfare, most of us demand full control over it, not those parts that London graciously deigns to give us, minus the funding, which makes the thing quite useless in fact.

Second. I have said previously, and it is also a recognized fact by ppl on a much higher paygrade, The Work Program is utterly worthless. It costs an absolute fortune to administer. Most of the roles done by the Work Program providers could so easy be getting done by DWP civil servants in jobcenters. Work Prog peeps get almost twice the pay and are in big expensive Downtown offices. The fact that the boss of one of these companies has paid herself over 8 million in a single year says it all. That was mostly taxpayers money. Notice the strange silence of the Taxpayers Alliance with that one! Her company doesn’t actually make any money of its own after all. It’s not like Apple or something. That’s all from the Government. All of it.

The failure rate of those who have had the misfortune to have been thrown into the Work Program is simply disgraceful. The entire project should’ve been abolished ages ago. That Miliband considers this anywhere near to being a route to help anyone who is out of work shows up his total lack of knowledge of reality.

Apart from that, the real means to create real employment as opposed to Work Program inspired Workfare and zero hours, can only come from central government reestablishing real industry. You know, like shipyards that build new oilrigs, and the steelmills that produce the steel, and so on. Instead of getting it all done in China. None of that is going to ever come from Westminster’s useless and overly costly Work Program.

As for Jimbo Murph being a game changer for Labour…..well yeah he is. But not in the way red Tory Ed thinks!!


For the avoidance of doubt will Ed Miliband please let us have his definition of Home Rule now.


What the hell is home rule? Who defines that? Someone, outwith the Scottish people, says that we will have home rule. This is contemptible. I am done. Vote SNP - from a 50 year old, lifelong Labour voter.


You've hit the nail on the head, Francis. This is more like colonial rule than home rule.



Mr Miliband knows we want Home Rule, so he is renaming what is on offer as "Home Rule".


"The party leader insisted Mr Murphy was, after just a month of being elected Scottish Labour leader, already leading the political agenda in Scotland."

That tells me he does.



Leading the political agenda? That tells me neither of them are in touch with reality. Of course, Jim Murphy is now supposed to pipe up and say that whatever Mr Miliband has planned, he doesn't necessarily have to go along with it if he doesn't feel like it because he's is own man. Or will they be coming as a double-act from now on?


You mean like
* his triumph on having the new womens' prison scrapped, when the reality was that the campaign was initiated about Women for Independence whose role has been carefully excised?
* Like how Jim and the rest of the Labour Party voted against a moratorium re fracking when the fact is that they abstained on that clause, and instead put forward a clause which allows fracking to go ahead subject to some administrative requirements for fracking companies - a clause so anodyne that the Tories accepted it without a vote?
* Then turned round and demanded the SG do something they chose not to do - just put a stop to fracking - when they knew that the clause proposing transferring responsibility for fracking to Holyrood had been lost at the House of Commons (in fairness they supported this).
*The policy of Scottish Labour to devolve powers away from Holyrood to local authorities was supposed to be like our other national drink, made in Scotland from girders, but is actually a parallel to the policy at Westminster to devolve powers from there to large city councils.
Another newspaper in the last few days, ran a story with the headline "Jimitation", which seems to me a pretty apt description of what Murphy is at with a fairly compliant Scottish media (otherwise Margaret Curran would have been laughed out of town for claiming on Twitter to have voted against fracking). Leading the political agenda? I dont think so. There is perception and then there is reality.
26 • Reply•Share ›



Poor Miliband, he knoweth not his history. Before calling it the Scotland Home Rule Bill perhaps he should compare it to the "The Government of Ireland Bill 1920":

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/...

This was known as the third Home Rule Bill, the first having been thrown out by the House of Lords which had the power to do so at the time, and the second interrupted by the First World War. That's the (third) Ireland "Home Rule Bill" which was enacted (repealed in 1999 for NI), which means calling the proposed Labour one will invite inevitable comparison to the Irish 1920 one, ignoring of course its partitioning of Ireland which is not applicable to Scotland.

He might like to consider that bearing in mind in some respects, the current Scotland Act 2012 has some better provisions, nobody would accept reversals that the Government of Ireland Bill 1920 have, but WOULD expect the favourable provisions.

In essence, to deliver the Scotland Home Rule Bill, he would have to deliver close to Devo-Max, if not the full monty. In any case, more than Smith, and more than the current Command paper.

Thanks Ed. I look forward to it. Why not go the whole hog and call it the "Devo-Max Bill" - and deliver it? The SNP will be there in strength to help you!



We have heard Labours empty promises before, Browns VOW and Miliband as one of the three Amigos. The comand paper was supposed to detail these promises but turned out be only about 30% of the way there and will probably be watered down further by the time it becomes a bill.. Once again Westminster politicians have shown their lack of integrity and will promise anything to gain control of Westminster. The only way Scotland is going to get the promises honoured is to have as many SNP MPs as possible.
34 • Reply•

Miliband just lurches from one disaster to another.

It's what he does best, and long may it continue.
2517

Murray just won and is into the Australian Open final.

Just been watching Haystack. He's got his mojo back at last! I thought it was silly of him to make the comments he did on the eve of the referendum, but heyho all is forgiven I hope. He is going to need his A game in the final.

Well done, Murray!

Peter Rolfe---26 kids by 15 women, what a fine specimen he is, benefits of £46k a year. If ever a reason were needed to clamp down on benefits this surely is it.
2517

2517

What do you suggest in the case you described.