Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 203
October 23, 2014
NHS: Common Sense At Last
Since the nineteen fifties the NHS has suffered from political interference involving continuous re-organisations, which before they are bedded in, are replaced with another. An absurd culture of targets, which has created a large bureaucratic industry in the NHS, coupled with a disjoint between the various arms of treatment, have inhibited the performance of a fundamentally sound organisation. There is also much too much pass the parcel, in this case the patient, theology in the mindset of the thinkers. Yet when an emergency occurs in the community, requiring all hands to the pump and the abandonment of process and demarcation lines, the system performs to astonishing levels of achievement. If it were ramshackle at its core it would, in such an emergency, collapse altogether.
So it is heartening and refreshing to learn of the Five Year Plan today published by NHS England by its new Chief Executive, in collaboration with five other agencies appointed by various governments to meddle in healthcare. It foresees the breakdown of barriers between doctor, hospital, pharmacy, home care and patients themselves, to produce a comprehensive and seamless service adapted to local needs. This is a plan produced by the health service itself and not by politicians whose ruinous interference has hobbled it for decades and wasted untold £ billions.
No plan for anything is perfect, nor is its outcome ever quite as expected, but this plan for our health service deserves universal support.
Books For Today
Each of these books is different and not part of a sequence, but all of them have the common ability to draw you into the story and keep you turning the pages from start to finish. Click on any of the images for my page on Amazon UK and here for Amazon.com
October 22, 2014
Fiona Woolf: Oh No Not Again!
There is no doubt that the distinguished lawyer Fiona Woolf is herself a successful woman of unimpeachable reputation and character. There is also no no doubt that her appointment to head up the child sex abuse inquiry, following on the disaster of the initial appointment of Lady Butler Sloss, is another extraordinary error of judgement . This is now set to become yet another media spectacle, which to the abused and those who represent or sympathise with them, and that is almost everyone, is beyond comprehension. How on earth could the government get this wrong twice?
The answer is that the Government, its advisers, the officials and lawyers who head up the legal teams in Whitehall, together with the distinguished candidates who are, have been, or may be lined up for this appointment, fail to understand the root issue. This is not just about child abuse. It is about them. And one of them cannot be an impartial chair of what they get up to and what they cover up. They are all part of the Establishment.
It has always been the case that ministers, mandarins, judges, bishops, lawyers and all those engaged in the top echelons of government and public service in this country, while technically at arms length are all cozy with each other. This extraordinary agglomeration of powerful people controls every facet and lever of power and public policy, yet only a relative handful, members of the House of Commons, are elected. Everyone else is appointed by people who were themselves appointed, and who are backed up by approximately one thousand two hundred quangos or government agencies which oversee almost every single aspect of the daily lives of the people.
To describe this as a fully fledged democracy requires a flight from reality. For long the British public have accepted the ascendancy of this imperial structure to manage their country, because they thought it honourable and efficient. The advent of social media, the eruption of extraordinary scandals, the failures in financial, foreign, energy, flood prevention, health, education, housing and other policies, has caused a profound change in this perception. The uneven recovery which has hugely benefited the people at the top, while leaving those lower down worse off, has finally caused a fundamental reorientation of view.
The Establishment is seen as self-serving and self-seeking, profiting at the expense of the masses, hopelessly inefficient at its myriad functions and over rewarded to a preposterous level. It is seen as protective of its own and the grand master of cover up using the device of an official Inquiry, which gets at the truth but ensures that the opprobrium of blame is so thinned and dissipated that the responsibility for disaster falls on the shoulders of no one. They also now know that it has within its ranks serial child abusers, whom it has shielded and protected from generation to generation.
That is why it is not possible to fill the vacancy of the chair of the child abuse inquiry with any candidate from within any part of the Establishment, because it is they who are actually under scrutiny, together with their sins and the devices they use to conceal them. It is also why the electoral pull of the anti-establishment UKIP party is now anchored very much deeper than disaffection with the EU.
Buy Books Now
Each of these books is different and not part of a sequence, but all of them have the common ability to draw you into the story and keep you turning the pages from start to finish. Click on any of the images for my page on Amazon UK and here for Amazon.com
October 20, 2014
Books Worth Reading
Each of these books is different and not part of a sequence, but all of them have the common ability to draw you into the story and keep you turning the pages from start to finish. Click on any of the images for my page on Amazon UK and here for Amazon.com
October 17, 2014
UK: Five Party Politics
The 2015 General Election is shaping up to become one of the most interesting on record. The reason for this is that instead of being the usual three party contest in which two parties, Labour and Tory, dominate and one or other hopes to from a government without the need for coalition, there is now in operation a very different political model. The third party, the Lib Dems, are now joined by UKIP in England and The Scottish Nationalists in Scotland. Each of these parties can have a direct impact on the outcome for the whole UK.
UKIP have tapped into a combination of anti-EU, anti-immigration, anti-establishment, anti-Westminster, pro England, pro ordinary people fed up and worried about their future, which together adds up to a resonance which is as powerful in working class urban areas as in the Tory shires. There is now no doubt that UKIP will take votes from the Tories and Lib Dems and if not from Labour’s hard core certainly from its floating vote. At the moment it looks as if this will damage the Tories a good deal more than Labour, but the latter will not be damage free. The Lib Dems were on track to lose the majority of their seats anyway and UKIP will not affect that very much. In some fights their presence will help Clegg’s people and in others cost them, so it will be a case of swings and roundabouts.
The latest and unexpected development is the post referendum rise in the popularity of the Scottish National Party. Most would have expected that its fortunes would have been on the wane, following defeat on the independence issue; its primary raison d’etre. Instead, energised under its feisty new leader- elect Nicola Sturgeon, it has tripled its membership and looks set to win many more than its current 6 seats at Westminster. Some estimate it could easily triple this total. If it does, these new seats will be gained from Labour. Any reduction in the 40 plus Labour currently holds in Scotland will seriously impede the prospect of a Labour win overall.
There is not much doubt that in the end the new Prime Minister will be either Cameron or Milliband. What cannot be foreseen is who among their political rivals they will have to do a deal with in order to gain a majority. Moreover the outcome could be such that the answer to the question of who the new PM is, will be no clearer after the election than it was before. There could be a prolonged period of uncertainty and deal making, made more difficult by the fact that the detached impartiality of the Queen, means that she will send for whoever it is, once she is advised that he has a potential majority in the commons, but she will not act as Chairman of the discussions among the warring factions. In Germany, France and Italy that role is played by the President. In Spain and the Scandinavian monarchies, all of which function under a written constitution, the monarch helps the discussions to reach an outcome.
If the United Kingdom should find itself in such a situation after May 2015, it will no doubt think of something. That is how it works.
October 16, 2014
Read And Enjoy
Each of these books is different and not part of a sequence, but all of them have the common ability to draw you into the story and keep you turning the pages from start to finish. Click on any of the images for my page on Amazon UK and here for Amazon.com
Ebola In Texas
The following article appears today on the BBC News Website. It is well worth reading. BBC News – The Ebola fumble in Dallas
device: true,
geo: true
}
// ]]> Read full article
October 14, 2014
Four Good Reads
Each of these books is different and not part of a sequence, but all of them have the common ability to draw you into the story and keep you turning the pages from start to finish. Click on any of the images for my page on Amazon UK and here for Amazon.com
October 13, 2014
Fair Capitalism: Mark Carney Speaks
The governor of the Bank of England, speaking in Washington, has said some very profound things. This blog reproduces the text of the BBC News report
BBC News – Mark Carney says bankers’ behaviour needs to change
Bankers’ behaviour still needs to change following the financial crisis, Bank of England governor Mark Carney has warned.
He said that top executives had “got away without sanction”.
“Maybe they were not at the best tables in society after that, but they’re still at the best golf courses. That has to change,” he said.
Mr Carney was speaking at the International Monetary Fund’s annual meeting in Washington.
The governor’s warning comes amid a radical reshape of the industry aimed at limiting the impact of any future bank collapses.
Banks will have to ensure retail customers’ deposits are protected and kept separate from their investment arms by the start of 2019.
UK financial institutions were told last week that they must submit their plans, detailing the legal and operating structure of their planned ring-fenced banks, by the end of the year.
New laws also mean that bankers found guilty of “reckless misconduct” could face jail.
Banking bailouts
Mr Carney suggested if senior bankers were unhappy with the changes, then they should resign.
“If you’re chair of an audit committee, you have responsibility for the activities of an institution. And if you don’t think you can discharge that responsibility, you shouldn’t be on that board.”
Mr Carney’s warning followed a separate speech on plans to avoid any further taxpayer bailouts of big banks, which he said would reach a “watershed” at next month’s G20 summit in Australia’s Brisbane.
“The world’s largest banks threatened the stability of the global financial system. Their bailout using public funds undermines market discipline and goes to the heart of fairness in our societies. This cannot be allowed to continue,” he added.
Separately, in an interview with US news channel CNN on Monday Mr Carney said weakness in the eurozone had been a major theme at the IMF meeting in Washington.
“The only difficulty that is caused by Europe is that it provides an additional drag on growth. But that doesn’t dictate the monetary policy of the Bank of England,” he said.
