It is simply way too hot to blog at the moment.
Don’t worry, I’m sure the British summer will soon end!
TD Blog
Just another Tory-supporting blog
Lord Martin of Expenses
So we have the first Speaker to be forced out of his job in 300 years - a convention-breaking act - and now, with the excuse of “convention”, he is going to be elevated to the House of Lords.
Michael Martin does not deserve a seat in the upper House. His tenure has Speaker was a disaster and has brought the House of Commons into disrepute. He encouraged the expenses abuses by MPs - and made plenty of his inappropriate expense claims. And neither was he ever impartial whilst in the Chair.
No-one considers it appropriate for Martin to become a Lord. Not the Lords Appointment Commission, current Lords, former Speakers, or the general public. No-one but Gordon Brown and Labour MPs, that is.
Michael Martin was a terrible speaker, and as a member of the House of Lords, he will damage the reputation of the upper House as well.
The NHS is not a toy. But neither is it your playground.
According to the chairman of the BMA, the NHS “is not a toy“.
Dr Hamish Meldrum urged Andy Burnham, the new Health Secretary, against any part privatisation of the health service, exhorting him to look after the organisation, end the internal market where doctors and hospitals compete for patients and to ditch the use of management consultants and private finance initiatives…
Dr Meldrum told the BMA annual representatives meeting in Liverpool that a target-driven culture has ‘infested’ the NHS, leading to financial outcomes for trusts being put ahead of clinical outcomes for patients. (The Telegraph)
Ending the excessive number of targets in the NHS is something that needs to happen to allow the health service to do its actual job. But the rest of Meldrum’s points is a load of rubbish.
We should have an internal market in the NHS, no, we need an internal market in the NHS. That is the only way that we can get an efficient health service - one that is focused on value for money. We pay a lot for the NHS and the least we should be able to expect is value for money!
Management consultants have their place, when used sparingly and when listened to. The problem is that they are over-used. And private finance initiatives? They bring private money into the public health system and make it more efficient - because it needs to be efficient to make money - the private system can, after all, perform the same operation for less!
The BMA are right that the NHS isn’t a toy. But neither is it their own private playground. They cannot just go on spending without looking at the value for money we get from it. Just because they want to be able to not consider the costs doesn’t mean they shouldn’t. It’s not good enough for doctor’s to say “we don’t want to worry about costs” any more.
The NHS is more than expensive enough as it is. It’s time to make economies and to be aware of the costs. If the private sector can make money from carrying out NHS operations at NHS costs, it shows that the NHS certainly is not efficient.
The BMA need to be prepared to learn from the private healthcare system. The NHS is no more their toy than it is politicians’.
Brown’s vision
So Brown has a “vision“, does he? If one wished to be cruel, one could compare this to his actual vision - or rather, lack of it: he is blind in one eye and the other hardly sees well…
But the biggest issue is that this “vision” is the third or fourth “relaunch” (or should it be referred to as the re-re-re-relaunch?) so if they truly believe in this stuff, why has it taken then twelve years of Labour rule to bring it in? Yes, ten were under Blair but Brown himself has been PM for two years and he was preparing to take over all the way through Blair’s decade!
What this is is Labour’s manifesto for the next general election (which we’re still waitin for, thanks Gordo). A package without a price tag, but one we’ll have to pay anyway - just not until after the election.
Devolution? Pointless
So say the Scots:
- 9% disapproive of the way devolution has worked
- 46% say it has made absolutely no difference
- 41% appriove of how devolution has worked.
So 55% of Scottish people either think that devolution has been bad or pointless. Hardly a record to be proud of.
Devolution has not worked properly, and Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP who have all been a part of a Scottish executive are all to blame.
Devolution can work, but it needs to be managed well, and be dedicated to more than just the personal glorification of the politicians or political parties involved. It needs to be focused on making real differences that matter to people, not abstract ideals that they do not want (for example, “independence”).
And devolution should be equal across the UK - so that Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and England all have parliaments with the same powers. Without that equality, devolution can never really work in the greater scheme of things.
