Like star-crossed lovers hugging as they plunge into an abyss, Severin Carrell whispers sweet nothings to Jim Murphy. The Guardian has given up all pretence of balance in not just its commentary but also its news coverage of Scotland. Carrell’s puff piece is the seventeenth Guardian article on how Jim Murphy will save Scottish Labour, and is based on nothing but an advance copy of a Murphy speech.
Carrell fails to ask any of the obvious questions. Murphy claims Labour are to contact 190,000 Labour voters, mostly elderly male and Glaswegian, who voted Yes. They will do this by “personal letters” and phone calls. This begs the question of how they identify these voters, and who will do the work. The Labour membership in Scotland is now tiny. My source in a Labour MSP’s office tells me the paid up individual political membership – excluding social clubs – stands just shy of 8,500. I find that believable. Largely thanks to Carrell that figure is similar to Guardian sales in Scotland. It is also interesting that a significant proportion of those dwindling Labour members are there because, one way or another, they are on the payroll. Councillors, council officials in “hidden” political posts, MPs and MSPs and their staff, HQ staff, union officials etc.
Labour were far from a full canvass in the referendum campaign. The ballot was (hopefully) secret. They simply cannot identify those hundreds of thousands of ex-Labour SNP supporters. Are these “personal” letters and phone calls just going to anyone who seems mature, male and Glaswegian? The entire claim of a targeted Murphy “campaign” is plainly a simple nonsense. It stands not a moment’s journalistic analysis. Only a brain-dead Labour acolyte like Carrell could promote it.
You’re quite simply an idiot, habby.
I covered all angles.
You just can’t read!
Anyway, the important issue here is why is Dershowitz emphasising Secret Service records rather than the flight logs.
Seems strange.
But why on earth was that new standard contract negotiated?
From recollection Habba, the BMA were seeking both a whopping pay rise for GPs and an end to the obligation to provide cover for their patients overnight and at weekends. Surprisingly the DoH( with Brown at the time keeping a loose rein on its purse strings) relented on both counts. We are now living with the consequences.
I think what is considered the most authoritative source on the numbers of Jews killed in the Holocaust is Raul Hilberg in his book The Destruction of the European Jews, who, if memory serves, put the number at something in excess of 5 million. His conclusion was based on census figures and the extent to which numbers were less than what they should have been, if there had been no murderous policy. If fewer were killed in death camps than used to be claimed, that presumably means that more were shot by Einsatzgruppen or died from deliberately caused malnutrition and disease.
I will not be following the instruction given by the commenter @ 6 Jan, 2015 – 11:19 pm.
Furthermore, the same commenter seems unsure of procedures in the UK’s NHS. Can we assume that this commenter lives abroad? Bit of a giveaway.
Habbabkuk (la vita è bella)
6 Jan, 2015 – 11:33 pm
Glenn_UK
Thanks for your thoughts – it’s rather typical that you should respond whilst others – usually so eloquent on the subject of OUR NHS – keep silent or merely offer insults.
But a question: can I take it that in the UK you cannot just go along to a GP’s surgery and wait to be seen?
Now, in Continental countries, GPs usually operate in the following way: thye have a surgery for a few (fixed) hours every day- usually for two or three hours – and in addition you can ring up your GP and ask for an appointment which you will get if he is not already full for that day (in which case you can biik for the next day or the day after or simply go along to his surgery during those two or three hours I mentioned.
Typos uncorrected!
Mary
You’re still not answering the questions, are you.
Should you not – in the interests of contributing to an informed debate on this thread – be putting your detective-like skills into explaining what might be causing the current chaos in certain OUR NHS hospitals rather than speculating on where I might be?
OldMark
“But why on earth was that new standard contract negotiated?
From recollection Habba, the BMA were seeking both a whopping pay rise for GPs and an end to the obligation to provide cover for their patients overnight and at weekends. Surprisingly the DoH( with Brown at the time keeping a loose rein on its purse strings) relented on both counts. We are now living with the consequences.”
______________
Thank you. But I know the impetus came from the GPs as represented by the BMA; what I am curious about is why the government (the DoH) agreed to those “more for less” demands.
Herbie
“You’re quite simply an idiot, habby.
I covered all angles.
You just can’t read!
Anyway, the important issue here is why is Dershowitz emphasising Secret Service records rather than the flight logs.”
___________________
No, Herbie, the important issue is whether Dershowitz (and others) engaged in sexual acts with minors or not.
In CM blog terms, it is also important to hear from you why you are emphasising certain aspects of what we know at present and not others.
I suppose the answer is that you do not like Dershowitz.
And that is not an intellectually rigorous way of proceeding, Professor.
The Independent: Prince Andrew sex allegations: Lawyer’s letter calls billionaire Jeffrey Epstein ‘the most dangerous sexual predator America has ever seen’:
I wonder what lawyer(s) may have been involved in “pressurizing” those witnesses.
Habbabkuk @ 7.26 am (on lack of expertise in foreign and military policy) . Your distinction between the NHS as an area where most of us have some personal experience and foreign and military policy is somewhat misleading. I agree that most commentators on this blogsite do not have personal experience of foreign policy and defence, whereas Craig does (as do a few others…and possibly yourself?) However, all those who comment can see many of the results of the foreign policy decisions, just as those who are luck enough to be unfamiliar personally with NHS services can see plenty of publically available information on delays, recruitment problems, budgets etc. What we can all bring to the discussion of any topic are our own political views and our own moral compass.
We can also contribute our special knowledge and information on some topics, including personal anecdotes which may help to explain (and sometimes be supporting arguments for) the positions we adopt. On the NHS, let me do just that, even if it involves the sort of ad hominem argument that is often best avoided. Some of us in SE London know quite a bit about Dr Simon Fradd, who led the GP contract negotiations. Scroll down this link for a bit of his CV). http://www.concordiahealth.co.uk/our-team
Two of my family members used to be signed up to the Melbourne Grove Medical Practice which he either set up or bought a partnershjip in. They left because the service was so bad – see some reviews at
http://www.nhs.uk/Services/GP/ReviewsAndRatings/DefaultView.aspx?id=42126 . As far as I can tell he had great skills …in managing to have lots of patients on his books but few qualified GPs. This has been partly by dint of operating a dodgy (but inexpensive for the practice) triage system – the decision about whether the appointment should be with a nurse or a doctor being taken by a nurse and not by a doctor: the reverse of best practice.
I hope you will acknowledge that Mary, Glenn and others have provided you with plenty of evidence to support the view that many (not all) of this and earlier governments’ politically-led policy initiatives for greater involvement of the private sector in health care have had unwelcome consequences at many levels.
Compilation of Parliamentary Financial Links to Private Healthcare
This represents the latest list of recent or present financial links between parliamentarians and individuals or companies involved in private healthcare.
The list is up-to-date as of March 2nd 2014. Another list will be drawn up prior to the election. The previous list
http://socialinvestigations.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/nhs-privatisation-compilation-of.html is representative of who had these interests when they voted on the Health and Social Care bill, helping it become an Act.
http://socialinvestigations.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/compilation-of-parliamentary-financial.html
Loads and loads of Lords and Ladies and then MPs of all political persuasions inc Cameron.
National Review: Alan Dershowitz’s Curious Denials.
Jonathan Turley: Dershowitz Threatens To Sue Victim’s Attorneys For Defamation . . . Attorneys Respond By Suing Him First. Jonathan Turley doesn’t think much of Dersh’s chances.
I Tried to Warn You About Sleazy Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in 2003: When Vicky Ward profiled Jeffrey Epstein for Vanity Fair, allegations of his attempted seduction of two young sisters were excised from the final piece.
Nice reply, Iain (7/1/15, 17:08) – it did not go unread.