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.

The British Medical Association, the Conservatives, Plaid Cymru nationalists and Labour MP Ann Clwyd are all demanding an independent inquiry. And a survey out today shows that seven out of ten voters agree.

The Mail’s investigation will reveal that:

Police are probing allegations of neglect of vulnerable patients in South Wales hospitals;
Six nurses are on criminal charges, 15 are suspended and more arrests are expected;
Families who have complained say medical records have been altered or gone missing;
Ambulances can take hours to arrive even in emergencies;
Elderly patients are denied food and water for long spells and told to ‘go to the toilet’ in their beds.

Yesterday another scandal erupted at the Glan Clwyd Hospital in Rhyl, North Wales, where police are investigating claims that staff used furniture to restrain dementia patients.

Is Nick Clegg the biggest hypocrite in British politics?

The neutering of the Recall Bill is only the latest piece of humbug from the Lib Dem leader






By Robert Colvile

12:26PM BST 20 Oct 2014





“This country deserves better than the tawdry Westminster politics we get from Labour and the Tories – and I am going to keep hammering away at the system every single day, because bit by bit that system will break to let the people in.”


Whose recent party conference speech is this taken from? It certainly sounds an awful lot like Nigel Farage, with its outsider, smash-the-system message. But no: the speaker is the chap whose name and picture adorn the top of this article: Nick Clegg.


But that’s a bit strange, because tomorrow, Clegg will introduce the Recall of MPs Bill for its Second Reading in Parliament. And that Bill doesn’t “let the people in” at all. On the contrary – it keeps them firmly in their grubby little place.


As today's Telegraph’s leader explains, the idea of recall (which went rapidly up the political agenda after the expenses scandal five years ago) is that if a set proportion of an MP’s constituents petition for their removal, a by-election is triggered.


Alas, the plans fell into the hands of dear old Nick. The result was a Bill which permits voters to recall MPs only if they’ve been convicted of a crime, or suspended from the Commons. In other words, an idea intended to set the voters up as judge and jury has consigned them to the role of occasional executioner – under circumstances so limited that the right will hardly ever be invoked.

How on earth can that be described as “hammering away at the system”, or taking on “tawdry Westminster politics”? It can’t. But that’s classic Clegg – he’s a politician whose defining feature is his capacity not just to engage in acts of hypocrisy, but to continue preaching to the rest of us about our sins as if nothing has happened. On issue after issue, Clegg’s capacity for the volte face is unmatched.


Consider the following: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/nick-clegg/11174093/Is-Nick-Clegg-the-biggest-hypocrite-in-British-politics.html

Cyners,

My history isn't great, but I think the business of Turkey being a western ally stems back to WWII. In addition, it's a geographical crossroads where Christianity meets Islam, so it's understandable that the west want to tread lightly round those parts.

GF>

Can I light the fuse?

8-)

-----

i was questioning the statement "a key ally" and how on earth that could apply in the present circumstances

Turkey is a key ally in several ways. They are members of NATO these days. They allow NATO and specifically the US to use air bases in Turkey. One base is shared with Turkish military right on the Syrian border and one is on the Aegean Sea for just NATO (the US in practice) and is ideal for Med operations.

Here's a little fuse for you Fred! :-)


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2799411/labour-s-nhs-shame-exposed-mail-investigation-reveals-meltdown-labour-run-welsh-nhs-police-probing-allegations-horrifying-neglect.html

i'm afraid the hospitals in wales have a long history of poor service, so this report is almost old news redredged

doodlebug, aka Stigologist aka Holden, be very careful very careful, new law means you can now go to prison for 2 years for Trolling.

With your record id start collecting corks now bud.

I agree that the story is not new. However, it is always good to remind people of the incompetence and hypocrisy of Labour.

Predictable response to my last post then!

Wont be saying that Hays after the By election loss.

If you listened to Andy Burnham on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday, the hypocrisy beggars belief Haystack.

some of my best friends are Defaid Mynydd Duon, and they have been bleating about this for many years

https://m.yahoo.com/w/legobpengine/frontpage/uk.lifestyle/two-cups-of-coffee-a-day-could-seriously-affect-male-fertility-thanks-to-caffeine-levels-130541083.html?.b=/index&.intl=GB&.lang=en-gb

Will NHS England kill patients while trying to protect its budgets?20/10/2014



Here’s an illuminating story.

An elderly person in Bristol attended hospital early last week, complaining of severe pain that suggested a hernia. A doctor examined this person and said that, in fact, a double-hernia was in evidence – but the hospital could not provide any form of treatment because the patient’s GP practice had not referred them.

The hospital was unwilling to treat the patient if the GP practice was unwilling to pay for it, you see.

The patient had to go home and phone their doctor. The practice agreed to a home visit on Tuesday. The patient dutifully waited for this visit to take place but nobody turned up. Calling the practice later, they were told that this was because they were booked to attend the surgery on Friday – and had to respond that, firstly, they would not have attended because nobody had told them of this change and, secondly, that Friday was too late in view of the patient’s condition and much more urgent action was necessary.

Is this the bright, bold and above all efficient new NHS that David Cameron, Andrew Lansley, Jeremy Hunt and all their little neoliberal minions have been promoting so avidly since 2010?

It clearly poses nothing less than a clear and terrifying threat to public health.

What if the patient had been diagnosed with a life-threatening condition? Would the hospital have left them to die while administrators there and at the GP practice haggled over the cost?

The answer, it seems, is a clear yes.

That is the cost of the wholesale commercialisation that the Conservative Party has brought to the NHS in England – along with the losses listed in the image above. The Tories think it is a price worth paying, if it means they can squeeze money out of sick proles.

Here’s the solution:



“The market is not the answer to 21st century healthcare.” Those were the words of Andy Burnham, Shadow Health Secretary, this morning (Sunday).

He followed it up on Twitter, after being asked if that meant Labour policy was to reverse the marketisation of the NHS, with a one-word answer: “Yes.”

Some of you may well have doubts. Labour does not have the best record on the NHS – look at PFI, care of the elderly, and the extent to which the last Labour government allowed the private sector into the health service… and then look at this:



The first step towards improving a situation is to admit the mistakes that have been made. Labour has done this. In fact – look at the date on the image – Labour did it more than two years ago.

Looking at PFI – the Private Finance Initiative – this was in fact first used by the Conservative Government in 1992. It proliferated under Labour after Treasury civil servants advised that its benefits outweighed the risks at the time. In terms of healthcare, Labour had inherited a service that had been run into the ground by nearly 20 years of Tory neglect and needed a fast injection of cash before the UK’s hospitals started falling down around their users.

In those circumstances, PFI seemed like a good idea. It wasn’t – but it would be wrong for opportunists to suggest that PFI was dreamed up by Labour or that Labour should be deemed untrustworthy because of it. It was a stop-gap solution and those contracts must now be bought out before they can damage the nation’s finances any further.

What, you think we can’t afford it? George Osborne has spent more money in four and a half years than every Labour Chancellor since Labour first formed a government and you think we can’t afford this? Think again.

It won’t happen under a Conservative government – they’ll just make matters worse. The Liberal Democrats and WhoKIP won’t help either – they’re just Tory enablers at the end of the day.

If you live in England, and you need just one reason to vote Labour next May, it’s the National Health Service.

Labour lead by three points in this week’s Ashcroft National Poll, conducted over the past weekend. There is little movement in the main parties’ shares: the Conservatives are unchanged on 28 per cent, with Labour (31 per cent), the Liberal Democrats (7 per cent) and UKIP (18 per cent) each down a point since last week. The Greens are up three points at 8 per cent.

£12.5b of new money, from where? Typical response from same old Labour, let's chuck money at the problem that'll sort it.
2517

Wheres Cameron getting his £7.5 Billion in the next parliament to fund tax
cuts?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????.

(wont get in anyway but people want to know)

Labour have costed there spending and informed the electorate where its coming from. The Tories havent.