Gordon Brown.....

[Geo the Sarge]

I don't define productivity I leave that to the ONS, but they say it fell in the public sector by 3.2% from 1997-2007. It also pointed out that the largest increase in spending was in healthcare and they suffered the greatest decline in productivity.

On the sustainable point the IFS pointed out recently that the parties would need to find huge amounts of cost savings:

"The IFS suggested that the Conservatives need to find £64bn in cuts by 2015 from unprotected areas such as education, housing, transport etc. They have not explained 82 per cent of this, or £52bn of cuts."

(Labour haven't explained 87% of cuts and LD 74% so all parties are guilty of this)

As Rex pointed out Brown as a "prudent" chancellor saved nothing during the boom too.

I don't care what the figures say, the NHS is miles better than it was 13 years ago, anyone who works for it will tell you that.
...

Yes it is miles better, but I think the point people are making is along the lines of - it's twice as good, but given the amount of money spent on it it should be ten times as good - hence the inefficiency argument.

(and obv twice and 10x are made up figures just to illustrate the concept)

Can you not understand that it is miles better and has cost as much to get there due to:

1. Everything is more expensive, not just the drugs but the equipment/the staffing/the transport/the electrcity bills, in effect everything required for the NHS to perform. And we are not just talking hospitals, it's the local doctors surgeries too.
2. There are many more "conditions" that have now been quite rightly recognised as medical and are now being treated through the NHS system where before these poor unfortunates got no recognition or treatment.
3. People are living longer, therfore more people with medical problems are having to be treated for longer, whilst more people are entering the NHS system with conditions not previously treated by the NHS.

The NHS is one of our country's biggest assets and funding should always be there for it. I agree that it could be run a bit better and there is too much bureaucracy.

Geo

[Jon MW]

I don't define productivity I leave that to the ONS, but they say it fell in the public sector by 3.2% from 1997-2007. It also pointed out that the largest increase in spending was in healthcare and they suffered the greatest decline in productivity.

On the sustainable point the IFS pointed out recently that the parties would need to find huge amounts of cost savings:

"The IFS suggested that the Conservatives need to find £64bn in cuts by 2015 from unprotected areas such as education, housing, transport etc. They have not explained 82 per cent of this, or £52bn of cuts."

(Labour haven't explained 87% of cuts and LD 74% so all parties are guilty of this)

As Rex pointed out Brown as a "prudent" chancellor saved nothing during the boom too.

I don't care what the figures say, the NHS is miles better than it was 13 years ago, anyone who works for it will tell you that.
...

Yes it is miles better, but I think the point people are making is along the lines of - it's twice as good, but given the amount of money spent on it it should be ten times as good - hence the inefficiency argument.

(and obv twice and 10x are made up figures just to illustrate the concept)

Can you not understand that it is miles better and has cost as much to get there due to:

1. Everything is more expensive, not just the drugs but the equipment/the staffing/the transport/the electrcity bills, in effect everything required for the NHS to perform. And we are not just talking hospitals, it's the local doctors surgeries too.
2. There are many more "conditions" that have now been quite rightly recognised as medical and are now being treated through the NHS system where before these poor unfortunates got no recognition or treatment.
3. People are living longer, therfore more people with medical problems are having to be treated for longer, whilst more people are entering the NHS system with conditions not previously treated by the NHS.

The NHS is one of our country's biggest assets and funding should always be there for it. I agree that it could be run a bit better and there is too much bureaucracy.

Geo

The exact specifics of how good it is and how efficient or inefficient it is are ambiguous but that last line would be how I'd sum it up as well.

[gatso]

not sure which of the election threads to put this on so I'll go for this one

here's a piece, published today, that may be of interest to some people written by an old, old friend of mine who happens to be nick clegg's cousin about their great aunt moura budberg who is widely believed to have been a soviet spy

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/election_2010/article7113886.ece

[rex008]

Sunday Times piece today by AA Gill who was in the spin room at the last debate. He has an amazingly amusing and deeply polemic go at Mandy. I wouldn't want to piss AA Gill off. Superb.

Article

The best bit:

“He is the most interesting politician, don’t you think? You press all love him,” she says. We love him in the way children love the most poisonous snake in the zoo. Outside of this club of politics and hacks, Mandelson is the choreographer of everything that is most despised and hated about politics: the entitlement, the closed doors, the sunlounger deals.

On the street and the doorstep, he’s the man who took a party that stood for something and made it one that would sit down with anything. He represents the oligarchy of Europe, the Third Way and the Project. The public are merely “them”, the polloi, the dumb, slow, moaning livestock of politics.

In a real world that counts its change and checks the receipts, he is loathed for being oleaginous, patronising, duplicitous, bitter and vindictive, for treating democracy as a game of perpetual power-mongering, where the lives and needs of voters are merely chips. He oils up to the rich and celebrity, unbowed by his own disgrace but happy to manipulate and insinuate other people’s. He has no loyalty, no sympathy.

You have never seen him with anyone who isn’t useful or wouldn’t rate a quarter page in Grazia. And he is unelected.

Oleaginous is a superb word. I'm going to attempt to use it every day.

The Gulf of Mexico is rather oleaginous at the moment .

[thetank]

Paxman used the word oleaginous on Newsnight last week. Had to look it up.

Hadn't heard it in 27 years of life and now twice in a week.

[gatso]

Paxman used the word oleaginous on Newsnight last week.

referring to who?

[thetank]

The singer from Hadouken was saying nice things about Paxman.

They were on the show as part of a feature where they got 3 bands to make songs for the political parties.
Right Said Fred did the Libdem song and some rappers did the Tory one. They were all pretty good actually (and that's not me being oleaginous.)

[cia260895]

what a tops word oleaginous is

[AndrewT]

I remember Victor Lewis Smith once described someone (can't remember who) as 'so oleaginous he doesn't need to open a door to enter a room - he just oozes underneath it'

[The Baron]

Wow I never thought I could lean back towards labour prior to this election but I think it's just happened.

Because his content in the economy debate was miles ahead of the other two. An awful PM yes but he knows the economy. GG now tho!

[thetank]

Yup, Brown ended Boom and Bust.

insert own punchline here

[The-Crow]

Now Gordons resigned the story changes hour by hour.

The news reporters are kept guessing and don't know who to follow or interview, lol

Politics has never been so interesting.




 

[NoflopsHomer]

I don't define productivity I leave that to the ONS, but they say it fell in the public sector by 3.2% from 1997-2007. It also pointed out that the largest increase in spending was in healthcare and they suffered the greatest decline in productivity.

On the sustainable point the IFS pointed out recently that the parties would need to find huge amounts of cost savings:

"The IFS suggested that the Conservatives need to find £64bn in cuts by 2015 from unprotected areas such as education, housing, transport etc. They have not explained 82 per cent of this, or £52bn of cuts."

(Labour haven't explained 87% of cuts and LD 74% so all parties are guilty of this)

As Rex pointed out Brown as a "prudent" chancellor saved nothing during the boom too.

I don't care what the figures say, the NHS is miles better than it was 13 years ago, anyone who works for it will tell you that.

and this question?

What in your opinion are labour's top achievements?

Minimum wage and devolution for Scotland, Wales and N.I (and a relative level of harmony in the latter, although the Major government set the basics in there). Not too much else really though

[Jon MW]

I don't define productivity I leave that to the ONS, but they say it fell in the public sector by 3.2% from 1997-2007. It also pointed out that the largest increase in spending was in healthcare and they suffered the greatest decline in productivity.

On the sustainable point the IFS pointed out recently that the parties would need to find huge amounts of cost savings:

"The IFS suggested that the Conservatives need to find £64bn in cuts by 2015 from unprotected areas such as education, housing, transport etc. They have not explained 82 per cent of this, or £52bn of cuts."

(Labour haven't explained 87% of cuts and LD 74% so all parties are guilty of this)

As Rex pointed out Brown as a "prudent" chancellor saved nothing during the boom too.

I don't care what the figures say, the NHS is miles better than it was 13 years ago, anyone who works for it will tell you that.

and this question?

What in your opinion are labour's top achievements?

Minimum wage and devolution for Scotland, Wales and N.I (and a relative level of harmony in the latter, although the Major government set the basics in there). Not too much else really though

Independence for the Bank of England was a good move as well

[Dingdell]

Now Gordons resigned the story changes hour by hour.

The news reporters are kept guessing and don't know who to follow or interview, lol

Politics has never been so interesting.

Imo opinion worst case scenario is Brown resigning, new labour leader, Lib Dems make pact with labour who has a leader who wasn't elected (again) and both the labour votors and the conservatives end up with something that wasn't what they voted for.

As someone said last night at Luton - Will Nick Clegg please shut up ffs, he's strutting around as if he's prime minister and he got less votes than the other two!

Browns resignation tactical to continue negotiations with Lib Dems, the election reflects the fact the electorate didn't want him as pm, he resign, labour gets power if lib dems agree with an unknown labour leader at the helm and the conservatives who polled more votes loose the election. WTF?

Now we know that the lib dem popularity contest was a complete farce when it came to the actual polling day lets have a re-election with 2 horses only in each constituency, the two highest polling parties in that area, and lets see who wins without the 'benefit' of tactical voting, and with the labour partys leader announced so people knwo who they are voting for.

You can't enter the eurovision contest and if there is a tie change your song for the tie breaker. If labour are changing their leader a revote is needed imo.