Brown's speech

[BoredBloke]

The ward my wife was on when she had her kidney transplant was dirty - but to be honest it's a bit rich Brown trying to earn points for pledging to clean things up. His party has been in power for 10 years. Why has he waited until now to do this?

[sasguru]

Actually the NHS cannot survive as it is. It's bloated and inefficient and the ONLY centrally funded health service in the world. While I do not want a US style HS, I would take as a model the French or German models - both of which are far superior in terms of health outcomes. Both of these use some form of private-public partnership. Ideology (of either side) should be abandoned in favour of pragmatism.

Isn't the NHS now competing with the Chinese army and the Indian Railways for the largest no. of employees in any one organisation. That tells you something.

[DodgyAgent]

I blame Thatcher for Compulsory Competitive Tendering. Cleaning services were outsourced to the lowest bidder. Quality suffered and it's never recovered.

You would. You have been having a dig at Thatcher for a while now without coming up with any good reason for doing so. So bring it on and we can debate (again..yawn) the pros and cons of Thatcher. Remember that the cons usually get well beaten particularly when they are reminded of the fact that they have prospered thanks to the Thatcher reforms of the 70s and 80s.

[sasguru]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle1050197.ece

[xoggoth]

Indeed.

Where there is a clear profit motive to be had from supplying better services to the customers, I would choose private enterprise every time but under Thatcher that essential point was often ignored. There is usually no real benefit to a private nursing home in providing better care for the elderly for example as there is no real competition to obtain their custom, they are stuck with what they afford or with where the council/their relatives dump them. It serves profit better to skimp as much as possible. That is true in many public services from refuse collection to train maintenance, there is no true open market or real competition.

The idea that gained credence under the Tories was that you only had to privatise something or call it a cost centre and it immediately became more efficient, as idiotic a dogma as anything the lefties ever invented. In some cases, dedicated public workers are a better option. Unfortunately, the worst aspects of privatisation/PFI have been adopted by Labour as a handy means of fiddling the books and hiding public debt.

[DBA_bloke]

Actually the NHS cannot survive as it is.

Sad, but true.

[DBA_bloke]

The ward my wife was on when she had her kidney transplant was dirty - but to be honest it's a bit rich Brown trying to earn points for pledging to clean things up. His party has been in power for 10 years. Why has he waited until now to do this?

It's an easy "win". Makes him look concerned, and, owing to every NHS hospital being a trust, or whatever, piss-easy to blame others for the mess. Nice one, Gordon!

[DodgyAgent]

Indeed.

Where there is a clear profit motive to be had from supplying better services to the customers, I would choose private enterprise every time but under Thatcher that essential point was often ignored. There is usually no real benefit to a private nursing home in providing better care for the elderly for example as there is no real competition to obtain their custom, they are stuck with what they afford or with where the council/their relatives dump them. It serves profit better to skimp as much as possible. That is true in many public services from refuse collection to train maintenance, there is no true open market or real competition.

The idea that gained credence under the Tories was that you only had to privatise something or call it a cost centre and it immediately became more efficient, as idiotic a dogma as anything the lefties ever invented. In some cases, dedicated public workers are a better option. Unfortunately, the worst aspects of privatisation/PFI have been adopted by Labour as a handy means of fiddling the books and hiding public debt.

You are quite right, a private monopoly is as bad as a public monopoly. The private one cuts cost to maximise profit the public one builds its empire in "money no object" fashion. Thatcher and the others needed to apply all the rules that create efficiency, ie. unless consumers have choice then no matter whether the service is public or private that service will be inefficient and run mainly for the benefit of those that run it.

Why should it be necessry to streamline healthcare provision in such a way that people have no choice about where they receive their care? Just imagine if food was sold in the same way as healthcare is delivered. There would be one store for say every 10,000 consumers essentially selling products that they want to sell. There would be one checkout operating at any one time with queues going out into the street. It would be a nightmare scenario. far better to have competing supermarkets all of which in many ways replicating each other. Each supermarket selling goods and services according to the needs and wants of the consumer.

So why not have 5 hospitals in one area, some of who are specialising in niche areas. By all means have hospitals replicating each others services as long as they are in competition with each other. There is no debate going on that is prepared to even discuss the concept of a voucher system that will empower the consumers. This is a disgrace when the current systems are so spectacularly inefficient (private and public).

No the NHS is too political for any political party to bother about devising a system that delivers the best service for the taxpayer.

[Old Greg]

You would. You have been having a dig at Thatcher for a while now without coming up with any good reason for doing so. So bring it on and we can debate (again..yawn) the pros and cons of Thatcher. Remember that the cons usually get well beaten particularly when they are reminded of the fact that they have prospered thanks to the Thatcher reforms of the 70s and 80s.

So, on the point I made about Compulsory Competitive Tendering of cleaning services in the NHS, either:

You don't think it was Thatcher's fault.

or

You think it was a good thing.

or

You don't know or care.


On the wider points, I think most of my points where I've mentioned Thatcher have been about the decline in society, particularly the 'me first' culture we now have and people not caring about others anymore. Your point about reminding people who have prospered from Thatcher's reforms is well made and I think demonstrates my position. I may well be significantly better off, but I'm not the only person who counts.

And as for getting 'well beaten', it's not a 'right or wrong' debate. You can't prove Thatcher was good or bad, it's a matter of opinion.

PS - have you voted for me yet as sexiest babe? You love it really.

[DodgyAgent]

So, on the point I made about Compulsory Competitive Tendering of cleaning services in the NHS, either:

You don't think it was Thatcher's fault.

or

You think it was a good thing.

or

You don't know or care.


On the wider points, I think most of my points where I've mentioned Thatcher have been about the decline in society, particularly the 'me first' culture we now have and people not caring about others anymore. Your point about reminding people who have prospered from Thatcher's reforms is well made and I think demonstrates my position. I may well be significantly better off, but I'm not the only person who counts.

And as for getting 'well beaten', it's not a 'right or wrong' debate. You can't prove Thatcher was good or bad, it's a matter of opinion.

PS - have you voted for me yet as sexiest babe? You love it really.

The decline in society is nothing to do with a "me me" mentality. The left have used this argument because they do nott like the concept of individual freedom and personal responsibility. Property ownership, freedom from Unions gave many people the right to take control of their own lives. The leftie middle classes did not like it because they were stripped of a "poor" or "working class" element of society who they could feel sorry for. They also snobbishly beilieved that the poor and working classes of Britain would not know how to handle their freedoms.

No the decline in society is thanks to the fightback from the left who still control all the institutions in which decline is epidemic. i.e the welfare state, the poor inefficient schools, the social services the health service. These are the sections of society where decline is rife, the very parts of society that are prevented from the "rights" to individual freedoms and responsibilities.

The left can sneer all they like at the rich city bankers, the huge private companies and the wealthy entrepreneurs, but it is not these people who are committing crimes, letting in criminals to the UK or delivering shockingly appalling public services. In fact on the contrary it is these people and institutions given their freedoms who have created the huge amounts of wealth that has been so squandered by the liberal left on attempts to undermine and destroy the good things about this country.