Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 117
July 27, 2016
NHS On Overtime
There are reports of astonishing incomes being paid to consultants working overtime to try and deal with waiting lists and cover for staff shortages. First it is right to point out that consultants are entitled to be paid for working longer hours and if their efforts reduce waiting times they are to be welcomed. Second, medicine is not a profession which should be associated with getting rich and it cannot be right to pay out such sums as have been reported to individual doctors. During the putting together of the May government it was for a time reported the Jeremy Hunt had been given the push, but then he stayed on. This blog thinks that was a mistake.
The present fragmented nature of the NHS structure with quasi independent Trusts, Commissioning Boards and Foundations is an addict’s binge on organisational engineering for its own sake. Enveloped in a further twenty regulatory quangos it no longer resembles a coherent or rational publicly funded service. It is paid for by taxpayers, it is under funded, its is full of Peters being robbed to pay Pauls and it should be directly controlled by the Ministry of Health with a minimum of management and a maximum of medicine. The fact that somebody is writing cheques so that at least one consultant has been paid an eye popping £375000 in overtime pay, is clear evidence calling for change at the top.
July 25, 2016
Northern Ireland: Brexit Border
Northern Ireland is in a far more difficult situation than Scotland, when it comes to the practical implications of Brexit. Both enjoy funding from the EU, which London may or may not replace to the full, but only NI has a land border with an EU country. Finding a practical solution, as suggested by Prime Minister May, could be easier said than done. If the UK, principally England, is to control its borders to reduce EU migration, it cannot leave one border to the EU open. One solution may be to have an open border between the Republic of Ireland and NI, but control the border between NI and the UK. That would please the nationalists, but would send the unionists into one of their frenzies. Unfortunately for the latter who campaigned for Brexit, NI voted Remain. Maybe the unionists no longer hold the sway they once did.
July 24, 2016
A Road Map For Labour
Turn Left To Power is an explosive dissertation in book form offering a fundamental redirection for Labour’s return to power, with bold ideas for a new economic and social settlement, including economic and taxation reform, restoration of responsibility in government and a renewal of democracy. Full of detailed information, hard facts and the results of thorough research and deep thinking, the narrative will grip you like a thriller and open your eyes to a brighter, fairer future in a mere 25000 words. The ideas are relevant whether Brexit goes In or Out. Frank and at a times brutal, Turn Left To Power offers a collection of fundamental reforms which amount to a political revolution which can propel Labour back to government in 2020.
Check it out now. Paperback £4.99 Kindle £1.99 AMAZON UK
The Parliamentary Labour Party
Is rotten, childish, self centered, inward looking, detached completely from the wider public and the vast reservoir of working class and middle class supporters whom it has abandoned, hooked on trivia and infighting and immune to the issues which bedevil people’s lives. It hates Corbyn because he speaks for the multitude against them. It is determined to get rid of him.
In the few months he has been in office, Corbyn, without any help from the PLP, has changed the political conversation, thwarted one after another of the Tory government’s muddled legislative adventures, pulled the whole of the centre to the left and increased Labour’s vote share and grand total in every single election, local and national, fought on his watch. He is also by far and away the best known politician in the country, now eclipsing even Boris.
But the PLP want to replace him with Owen Smith.
Who?
Good Holiday Reading: Thatcher Era Thriller
Set in the mid nineteen nineties, this fast moving thriller lifts the curtain on sex, sleaze and corruption in high places as the long reign of the government totters to an end, following the ousting of the iconic Margaret Thatcher. The novel catches the mood of those times with a host of fictional characters who engage in political intrigue, sex, money laundering and murder, pursued by an Irish investigative journalist and his girlfriend, the daughter of a cabinet minister found dead in a hotel room after bondage sex.
Dover Crisis : New Government Stumbles
This is not a good beginning for the May government. The first issue which directly affects ordinary people in a very trying way called out for a proactive response from government, which was warned early in the week that because of the French state of emergency and extra security demands across France, action in support was needed at Dover. Not only was nothing done, but nobody from government was anywhere to be seen.
Where is the Transport Secretary?
Where is the Home Secretary?
Why are people being left in traffic jams for over 24 hours?
We had the same crisis last year for a different reason. Nobody learns anything in Whitehall. As for the way this country is governed, no wonder people are getting angry.
July 23, 2016
Labour : A New Economic Settlement
Turn Left To Power is an explosive dissertation in book form offering a fundamental redirection for Labour’s return to power, with bold ideas for a new economic and social settlement, including economic and taxation reform, restoration of responsibility in government and a renewal of democracy. Full of detailed information, hard facts and the results of thorough research and deep thinking, the narrative will grip you like a thriller and open your eyes to a brighter, fairer future in a mere 25000 words. The ideas are relevant whether Brexit goes In or Out. Frank and at a times brutal, Turn Left To Power offers a collection of fundamental reforms which amount to a political revolution which can propel Labour back to government in 2020.
Check it out now. Paperback £4.99 Kindle £1.99 AMAZON UK
Labour Leadership: Election or Confrontation?
The battle for the Labour leadership is not really about who leads. It is about what is led and for what purpose. And it is about public disaffection with the whole of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
Globalization is tottering because most people are worse off because of it. In our national context the interests of the working classes, the lack of decent skills based jobs, relevant education, prospects for young people, housing, healthcare, work life balance, childcare or a host of other details which affect everyday life, have left them struggling and feeling politically abandoned. Then along came a sprightly grandfatherly figure with a grey beard who listened to them, spoke their language, argued their cases and changed the political conversation.
They joined his party in unprecedented numbers, elected him their leader by an landslide and watched in dismay as an angry and spiteful Labour party in Parliament, for the most part with blood on its hands for being a co-architect of the most unbalanced and unfair economic settlement since WWII, did everything it could to get rid of him. When its many strategies failed, it forced a re-run election, which it plans to win. Well it may not work out quite like that.
The cry from this pool of selfish mediocrity which loves the game of politics and the endless brawling as a way of life, is that Corbyn is not a leader. Oh? He is certainly the best leader of the Labour Movement since Clement Attlee. That he falls short in the eyes of the PLP may be something to do with the fact that most of them are not worth leading.
July 22, 2016
A Way Forward For Labour
Turn Left To Power is an explosive dissertation in book form offering a fundamental redirection for Labour’s return to power, with bold ideas for a new economic and social settlement, including economic and taxation reform, restoration of responsibility in government and a renewal of democracy. Full of detailed information, hard facts and the results of thorough research and deep thinking, the narrative will grip you like a thriller and open your eyes to a brighter, fairer future in a mere 25000 words. The ideas are relevant whether Brexit goes In or Out. Frank and at a times brutal, Turn Left To Power offers a collection of fundamental reforms which amount to a political revolution which can propel Labour back to government in 2020.
Check it out now. Paperback £4.99 Kindle £1.99 AMAZON UK
So Can Trump Be Stopped?
We will perhaps know more when the Democratic Convention is complete and we have seen the color of Clinton’s campaign. But meanwhile here are the key themes from Trump which resonate with what is now an international surge against the way things are and all the people and institutions who have had a hand in shaping them that way.
Trump Says
Only and outsider can effectively deal with America’s problems
Globalization has not worked for too many Americans
Instead he will offer Americanization, putting America first
He will bring jobs back for the traditional working class
He will be their voice
He will scrap unfair trade deals
He will make America safe
He will stop terrorists getting in
He will destroy IS as a threat
He will reduce crime
He will put a stop to America’s disastrous interventions overseas and make allies pay more for their own defense
There is more, but this is enough to get a lot of people voting who have not bothered to do so for years. And how do Americans know he has the will and competence to do all this?
They don’t. The only way to find out is to elect him. They just might.
