The independence campaign in Scotland has re-established the reality of public debate and a genuine political community. Through old fashioned meetings and face to face conversation, combined with social media, people are hearing a narrative which is blocked by the gatekeepers of the mainstream media. Philipa Whitford, a surgeon, here talks about Labour Tories, Tory Tories and Liberal Tories combining to destroy the very principles of the NHS. You don’t get to hear this on the BBC.
You can skip the first minute, but after that I suggest you listen to every word, very carefully.
Hat tip to Munguin’s Republic
I might have worked out how to post my recent podcast interview by Michael Greenwell
Thanks for that excellent video, have shared on some websites and facebook. The amount of crookery in both houses this creeping privatisation exposes is fascinating, we are being taken for patzies by the system and its gatekeepers, it will cost us, I fear by means that will not be mutual.
O/T sorry, but in a way closely related to our survival and food supplies. Neonicotionoids are responsible for causing bee collony collaps, bees not returning to the hive, dying whilst harvesting pollen.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/09/honeybees-dying-insecticide-harvard-study
Now this should make a Government act within 24 hours, if they have any nous, because without bees we will lose a lot of our fruits. I would not whince if rape would not be pollinated, because some in oure village are suffering from horrible stuffy noses and throats, but if we don’t curtail the chemical industry now, then we are giving a green light to our own demise.
enjoy the wet weekend, why not write a poem
Geomannie,
I am desperate to do so. I am speaking in Dundee on August 29 at the Steps theatre, but I don’t have any other invites!
This might be of interest Craig. I know you were the rector.
http://www.bdsmovement.net/2014/scottish-students-say-yes-to-boycotting-israel-12032
This decision is puzzling. What is it in the Education Act 1994 I wonder. It doesn’t say.
‘In Dundee, the response from the DUSA executive has been that it couldn’t implement the motion in its entirety, citing restrictions imposed by the UK Education Act of 1994. The association’s response did not explain why it felt restrained by that law.’
Yes. Sadly DUSA is no longer run by the students. It has a board of trustees or something similar which tells the students what they can and can’t do, and which is ultra right wing (controlled by the Labour Party like the rest of the University’s governing bodies). Went through the same thing six years ago when a referendum agreed to boycott Eden Springs, and the trustees came out with same bollocks that it was illegal.
All part of the fundamental change to the University sector brought about by New Labour and continued by the Tories. The see themselves as corporations now.
Thanks for that. Terrible state of affairs.
Alarmed readers in England may be interested in this group
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Health_Action_Party
http://nhap.org/
Hang out in any health forum and you’ll find posters from American saying they don’t have health insurance and can’t afford to see a doctor. Sad to see and it makes me appreciate the socialised health care system we have here. The one they’re dismantling.
Mary, an analysis of the BBC/Labour view.
http://www.newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-opinion/9163-the-latest-nhs-waiting-time-crisis-i-smell-a-rat
Craig, Mary, Ba’al
Re VNB, and M.Offord…
i went into the Inverclyde registry Office the other day to enquire about Offord’s Birth Cert….
They Do indeed have a record of A Mr Malcolm Ian Offord DOB 1964 in their records… and for daylight robbery of £15 i can obtain a copy for ya Craig…if you still want it…
Re the above Podcast ..Pleasant listening to that…. Regards a Maritime issue… And a teeny bit ot, but J.R’s Supper Yacht ( Hampshire ll ) left Greenock on Monday .. last i saw it was passing Gourock about 6;30… but just over 2 hours Later… it was Nowhere to be seen in uk waters ( according to – marinetraffic.com )… i searched all over the joint Zilch…Daft Question But – Can they Buy themselves Off the Radar… 🙁
Fascinating that people talk about Darling’s passion.
What utter horseshit.
Look into the vacuum of the cunts eyes.He’s not had an original thought since he smoked his first joint in Stockbrisge,Edinburgh in the 1980’s and decided his career would be better served on the First Tuesday of every month at Edinburgh’s main lodge on George Street.
Please,look into his eyes.There aint nothing there but a servile toady MK-Ultra droid.
Am i wrong Brother Ally?
Bitter Together indeed.
Craig,
If u need crash space in Glasgow whilst up north in August don’t hesitate to get in touch.
You’d be most welcome in a chilled flat,with your own crash space, of like-minded souls. ;.)
Brian Fujisan, Sites like marinetraffic.com get their information through shore and satellite stations that monitor the collision avoidance system AIS, which is compulsory on vessels over 300 GRT.
There are many gaps in the coverage of these monitoring stations as the system is ship to ship and the vessel tracking is a supplementary use.
What is interesting to me though, is that another super yacht, Solandge, that came into Cammell Lairds a few months ago also seemed to only switch on it’s AIS when close to the Mersey shipping channel and promptly switched it off again when she left.
It looks like they are placing secrecy above Maritime Regulations and operating with a clear disregard for the safety of other ships. The IMO need to crack down on these pirates.
Where I have been working this week the senior electrician submitted a quote of 75 thousand pounds for approval to his manager for some electrical work and the manager doubled it to 135 thousand.
That seems to be the logic of post-Thatcher managers. The concept of human viability does not seem to enter their minute brains.
She is quite correct and we are seeing privatisation in England. However the problems with any model are an ageing population, the ability to treat more health problems with more and more advanced methods, the tendency for people to demand medical solutions without taking more responsibility for their own health and trying to prevent disease. One of the biggest and growing health risks is diabetes which is not helped by obesity.
Logically the ageing population must have remained healthy in order to age. There may be less interest in caring for them inside their families, but the need for care would not increase just because the population reached older age. They were going to need care anyway at a younger age, and their healthy years are irrelevant.
Similarly, those who talk about food supply shortages in the UK turn out to be the ones who want to export our food.
This country is saturated with media spun lies. I am more concerned about intellectual dishonesty than by meanness. The message is: if you ignore the lies, you will get a good job and pay your own way. You will not get a good job anywhere if you subtely question the integrity of your spiritual/social/work managers.
We are building ourselves up for a defeat on the scale of the first Afghan War described in Craig’s book if we promote Thatcherian dishonesty, and refuse to listen to the warnings of the recession about lying to ourselves.
Thanks Brian for looking.
You referred to ‘JR’. Not the one from Dallas. The one from Ineos.
This is the yacht. Not a 12ft dinghy. This one – http://www.superyachts.com/motor-yacht-9003/hampshire-ii.htm
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/grangemouth-crisis-billionaire-ineos-boss-2474762
There is Hampshire 1 which he also owns.
http://www.superyachts.com/motor-yacht-2809/hampshire.htm
Wonder what his position is on Scottish independence.
Geoffrey
9 May, 2014 – 6:58 pm
“If you succeed and gain independence, with promises of free university tuition and national health etc,and assuming you retain EU membership. The first thing you’ll have to do is ban the English from settling(but you won’t be able to) otherwise you’ll end up with all her old and ill and unproductive citizens,demanding free heath care,and education.”
“This will drive up government expenditure,and taxes,your young will leave,and then it won’t be long before you have your very own SKIP with 50% in the opinion polls!”
“Then what will you do?”
Not true Geoffrey.
Your entitlement to free NHS treatment depends on the length and purpose of your residence in the UK.
People from the EU cannot simply come to the UK for free treatment. There are strict rules on those from other countries claiming free healthcare.
The same would be true in an independent Scotland even within the EU.
You can only get free NHS hospital treatment if you are lawfully entitled to be in the UK and usually live here.
Also if you have come to the UK to work, either as an employee or self-employed person. In England and Wales, if you are employed, your employer’s main place of business must be in the UK or be registered in the UK.
In Scotland it is different:
In Scotland you can receive free healthcare if you normally work in the UK but are temporarily working abroad. You must have lived in the UK continuously for at least ten years and taken home leave in the UK at least once every two years. However, if you are studying abroad you may not be entitled to free NHS treatment.
And there are other restrictions in Scotland.
In all honesty, I must say that this is a powerful argument for the ‘Yes’ campaign. I wonder, though, whether Milliband couldn’t decide to reverse the break-up of the NHS. It would be a good way of forging a clear identity different from his brother and the New Labour of the past generation.
I reckon the SNP have already got all the hope vote, mainly comprising young people who’ll vote for whoever offers them a lollipop, plus a swathe of not-so-bright careerists laden with especially big chips on their shoulders and who can’t have managed very well getting out of their teenage years because they’re still imagining a shiny Camelot future.
What? Camelot? In present economic conditions? Are you joking? Here’s the truth: things are going to be shit whatever the referendum result is. That’s S-H-I-T. Just, if you want national bankruptcy sooner rather than later, vote YES.
What worries me is that scumbags on the international derivatives markets might talk UP Scottish independence so as to bring the economy crashing DOWN soon after the vote. Anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about, take a look at George Soros and Russia. Of course, there’s nothing they’d like more than a hopeless ‘poond’ that they could all speculate against – borrowing the worthless crap in order to sell it – but that ain’t going to come into existence. Right? Right?
The YESniks like congratulating each other, but the reality is that even if Better Together look like the shower of unattractive zombie idiots that they are, the front position in the polls doesn’t exactly seem to be rushing into the SNP’s hands. When they go home at night they’re starting to wonder whether they actually will gain many percent in the polls from waving the saltire ad nauseam at the Commonwealth Games.
I mean, what are they going to say? “A Scottish athlete ran round in circles faster than everyone else. This shows that the new epoch of national pride has begun, if only we all do the right thing in September”? Most people will think ‘get a life’.
The Games PR is appallingly badly run – there’s no doubt about that! Just look at the Red Road fiasco – completely out of touch But much of the mediascape will be focused on Glasgow during that time. For any East Coasters reading this, that’s a big city in the West, the biggest city in the country. Ruled by Labour. The one you’d like to see vanish except for a few art galleries and wine bars, the Merchant City and half of the Byres Road. And don’t deny it. How much disgust was there in Morningside at the idea of blowing up Red Road for entertainment, without so much as a thought of what’s happening in the lives of the people who lived there and whether they’re worse off or better off?
Yes, the Edinburgh “you’ll have had your tea” brigade are going to hate the Games! Glasgow, Glasgow, Glasgow, until it makes them want to vomit!
Nor is it going to sell well in Glasgow, telling people that YES isn’t mainly about Alex Salmond. Yawn! So what is it about, then? (Affects a dreamy look: “it’s about the future“. “Oh yeah? What fucking future??”).
Then there’s the other line: “voting Labour is the same as voting for the Tories“, whereas the SNP and independence are totally different. How’s that crap going to play in Glasgow? All those Labour voters are just a lot of idiots who embraced Toryism in Labour clothing without knowing it, are they? That’s rather than the real left-wing radicalism, coming straight down from Red Clydeside, step forward the SNP! That’s not going to kid many people, is it?
In 2010, nearly 80% of voters in Scotland supported Unionist parties in the UK general election. (I can’t bring myself to say “Westminster”, which is just a polite word for “FEB”.) And nearly twice as much of the non-Tory vote went to Labour and the LibDems rather than the SNP.
On the big issues, the SNP don’t do very well. They’re a one-issue bunch of creeps and all talk otherwise is camouflage and misdirection.
It just isn’t going to convince anyone, telling them that a NO vote is a vote for the Tories, when it patently isn’t.
I understand that the SNP are trying to make inroads into a part of the fear vote. That doesn’t mean they’ll be successful, though. Dunno what their doorstep intelligence is telling them.
Doug,so if they were “settling” they would be entitled,wouldn’t they?
Perhaps they are crossing their fingers making their preparations already?.
Scorgie
“Geoffrey
9 May, 2014 – 6:58 pm
“If you succeed and gain independence, with promises of free university tuition and national health etc,and assuming you retain EU membership. The first thing you’ll have to do is ban the English from settling(but you won’t be able to) otherwise you’ll end up with all her old and ill and unproductive citizens,demanding free heath care,and education.”
“This will drive up government expenditure,and taxes,your young will leave,and then it won’t be long before you have your very own SKIP with 50% in the opinion polls!”
“Then what will you do?”
Not true Geoffrey. Etc, etc, etc….”
_________________
Wrong again – or misleading again at best – Mr Scorgie.
Geoffrey said “settling” – not just popping up to Scotland for free treatment.
Nothing to stop Londoners (for example) selling their very expensive houses and moving up to Scotland, where they could buy a cheaper house and have oodles of cash left over. And once settled, they are fully entitled, under EU legislation, to healthcare, etc in Scotland. All they need to have would be a record of having previously paid into the UK social security system. Same as a Frenchman moving to London.
You should read posts properly and dispose of the facts before responding.
Doug – I don’t think you have answered Geoffrey’s question properly.
Do you mean that elderly and sick people who move from England to Scotland (many of whom may view themselves as Scottish or at least have some convincing link with Scotland) won’t be entitled to benefit from the free health treatment which is being posited as unavailable south of the border, at least not until they have lived in Scotland (not the UK) for 10 years?
Might as well say it, if that’s what you mean.
Please can we not assume that an independent Scotland would be a member of the EU. It might be, sure. Then again, it might not be.
I think Craig is probably right that Scotland will be able to stay within the EU,as he says who is going to throw it out?
However,I cannot imagine an English government allowing a Scottish government to run up an enormous deficit and still use the £.
Little England will have enough difficulty itself in retaining confidence in the £ without Scotland providing free scips,healthcare and education for an enormous influx of unproductive immigrants.
You can’t be thrown out if you aren’t in.
Craig’s argument was unconvincing. He talked about Scotland being ‘expelled’ (an argument from a misleading word choice) and he appealed to the authority of professional diplomats (another fallacy). In fact, if Frankfurt – I mean ‘Berlin’ – says no, then no it will be.
Nobody will be taking the EU Commission to court arguing that they’ll have to let an independent Scotland in. No court would have the jurisdiction to decide!
Arguing that the EU has no right to decide on Scottish membership because Scotland is ‘entitled’ to membership, and therefore the EU Commission was acting ‘unlawfully’ by denying Scotland membership, would just be ridiculous. There’s no court in which that argument could be heard. Of course the EU has the right to decide on the matter.
An independent Scotland would have to apply to join, and their application would be considered and might be rejected. If it’s rejected, there would be no appeal.
In any case, if the EU were to accept Scottish membership from independence day on, there would be conditions.
What would they be? I don’t know.
If there were any intelligent discussion in the media, that’s the question it would focus on.
But of course the SNP government is playing to an audience of morons, who think it’s all going to be sorted out by banging the table and talking about Scotland’s ‘rights’. It isn’t.
The line about Scotland having a ‘right’ to ‘stay in’ is crap.
“However,I cannot imagine an English government allowing a Scottish government to run up an enormous deficit and still use the £.”
They couldn’t stop Scotland using the pound, however big a deficit they run up. The Scottish government wouldn’t be printing the pounds; it would be borrowing them from abroad. As long as the economy stayed afloat, that would put the price of the pound UP, not DOWN. More demand -> higher price.
That, though, would only be a short period of time until…CRASH!
“Little England will have enough difficulty itself in retaining confidence in the £ without Scotland providing free scips,healthcare and education for an enormous influx of unproductive immigrants.”
You’re not taking on board the fact that a Scottish government that used the pound outside of a monetary union would have no control over monetary policy.
The financial hit on rump UK would come when Scotland went bankrupt. At that time, the British government would probably be expected by international money markets to bail it out. Doing so would damage Britain’s own credit rating as well as Scotland’s.
And the catch is…exactly the same would be true if Britain doesn’t bail Scotland out!
Scotland is already being compared to Iceland. (See here and here. Yes, those articles are in the Guardian and Telegraph (boo as loudly as you can, kids, the English want to take your ice cream!), but the statement is being made by Standard and Poor’s.
Still support independence?
Who needs a doctor anyway? Just ask your smartphone.
http://home.bt.com/techgadgets/technews/your-smartphone-could-now-be-your-doctor-11363900216633
Dr Ali Parsa, the inventor of the app, founded Circle Health. They took over Hinchingbrooke Hospital from the NHS.
http://www.hsj.co.uk/hsj-local/local-briefing/analysed-one-year-of-circle-at-hinchingbrooke/5055018.article
Mark Simmonds MP and now a junior foreign office minister took £12,500 per quarter from Circle Health as an adviser without declaring his interest in health debates in the HoC. Finally, after complaints were made to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, he made a short apology of sorts.
MP apologises for failing to mention interest in health firm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17104463
Cheap at half the price.
Boston’s MP Mark Simmonds claimed £173,436.96 in expenses last year, according to the latest figures released by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA).
The figures also show that Mr Simmonds employs his wife Lizbeth as an office manager on £20-25k a year.
The junior foreign officer minister is the most expensive MP in the county and his claims include £13,005.38 office costs, £5,910.00 staffing expenses and £137,426.92 on payroll
http://www.bostonstandard.co.uk/news/local/boston-mp-mark-simmonds-claims-173k-in-expenses-1-5489229
Should be nice to have the man sitting in the corner with the clipboard listening in. Yet another attack on our right to privacy from the fascists in power.
http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/your-practice/practice-topics/regulation/cqc/cqc-plans-for-inspectors-to-sit-in-on-gp-patient-consultations/20006601.article
The point about all the English people selling their houses and moving up to Scotland for free healthcare. Err – they could already do that. They could already have been doing that for the last ten years. Just like they could sell their houses and go live in Sweden for much better healthcare, too. Absolutely nothing stopping them. But they don’t do that, do they? People prefer to stay where they are for all kinds of social reasons, and the elderly and infirm are in fact the least migratory group (with the exception of those elderly emigrating to reunite with children working abroad).
I should say that the idea that all those English students would come to Scotland for education would be absolutely great. An enormous boost to the Scottish economy both short and long term which would vastly outweigh the direct costs of giving the education.
Craig
“The point about all the English people selling their houses and moving up to Scotland for free healthcare. Err – they could already do that. They could already have been doing that for the last ten years.”
______________
They could indeed. But the point the commenter was making was about possible developments in a future characterised by the “privatisation” of the NHS in England (and therefore more expensive healthcare in England) and the provision of “free” healthcare coverage in an independent Scotland.
As for your comment about people not havong moved to Sweden, you are correct, but you disregard the fact that a move from England to Scotland would be a lot easier from let’s say a psychological point of view – eg, same language, closely related cultures, etc.
“and the elderly and infirm are in fact the least migratory group (with the exception of those elderly emigrating to reunite with children working abroad).”
That exception is quite a big group. The English are the biggest non-Scottish national group in Scotland, and most are of working age.
There are also Scots, or the spouses of Scots, who have lived in England for decades and who might move north in their old age. I’ll tell you, if they don’t get treated well by a Scottish government which is ostentatiously welcoming hordes of English students, they are going to be well pissed off.
(This is all based on a shaky premise anyway, because health provision in Scotland won’t differ much according to what the referendum result is. Not even if the SNP say otherwise. A far more important issue is whether Scottish citizens, who may find that they are not EU citizens, would be entitled to much health treatment south of the border. Anybody in Scotland who wants to be sure of staying an EU citizen should vote “No”, and the same is true a fortiori for anyone who wants to be sure of staying a UK citizen, which of course means they automatically stay an EU citizen. If you don’t want to be British, vote “Yes”. Why can’t the SNP say that? Proper independence movements say exactly that. Venetian secessionists don’t want to stay Italian. Shetland secessionists don’t want to ‘stay’ Scottish. Why don’t the SNP say it? Because otherwise they wouldn’t get any support outside of their core.)