I’m at Blackfriars but early today I was getting 63mbps all for €30 a month plus I am 25 minutes from any major village
Of course they should pay tax, but the numbers in the first paragraph are crap - add a huge wedge of turnover and only a tiny bit of profit, at a sub 5% margin? So they have won 33% of the NHS ‘private’ contracts worth £3bn. The overall NHS budget is £126bn. It’s peanuts. Alleged ‘privatisation’ little or nothing to do with the state the NHS as it is. I have no idea whether allowing private organisations o bid to run NHS services is a good thing or not, all I know is that it wouldn’t happen unless the government thought it would save taxpayer £. I’ve covered the legal stuff already I think. The irony is that by the end of the Blair/Brown years the NHS was funded something close to Western European levels, and its waiting time metrics, including A&E waits, were all being hit. The target then was for 97% of patients to wait no more than four hours in A&E. The coalition relaxed that to 95% and now they are struggling to hit 85%. The 18 week wait from consultant referral to treatment deadline was close to 100% complied to under Labour. The entire metric has been abandoned now. I have mentioned the nearly entirely irrelevant nature of the ‘privatisation’ argument above. The NHS was better funded and worked better for more people under Labour than it does now. You can blame austerity, but it has been a government decision to limit NHS funding. Your desire to blame Blair for everything is touching, but doomed. Private health insurance peaked in 2008 at about 12.5% of the population, then fell back and is now rising again, close to 11% covered now. Over three quarters of those covered are in company schemes, like me. As an aside, it’s a good business to be in, the margin (I.e excess on what insurance premiums bring in over the cost of paying over for treatment) is over 25%. Much better that NHS ‘private’ contracts - Branson take note. I don’t especially want ‘expedited’ training, if it takes 7 years to get a junior doctor qualified properly, it takes 7 years. But unless the terms and working conditions improve we will never fill the gap, because who the **** would want to do the jobs?
Just like the banks closed on Mondays? Or the not being able to pay money in! I jest not, they wouldn't accept cash and the cashier got a bank card out of the draw and took me to a machine after I spent 5 minutes filling out forms (plus the customary chat with other people while he was doing that). Not bad spending 15 minutes in a bank to pay in cash. Or the paying a bill into a government building that was only open 3 days a week plus the 2-hour lunches every day. When I was in there it took 2 people, god knows how many staples and photocopies and tapping endlessly on a keyboard, 25 minutes later I paid a bill. Or we could talk about paying cheques for shopping and being stuck in a queue while they all chat and pay by cheques. 80% of French workers work for the state/Government. They have to keep people employed. Use 3 people when only one is needed. Like the EU they will never change and that is their downfall. Same in Germany but they are not as lazy. Don't get me wrong I like France but you can see why the country is f22ked and after Brexit it will be even more f22ked when they have to fill the financial gap that we won't be paying As for your comments Limousin? I don't know if you are trying to be snobbish or mocking the area. I Have a house (holiday home) in a very picturesque part of the country. My house is fab and I am very happy with the holidays there. People can live in the Bahamas but if they live in a shack or a ghetto it's not quite the same.
Not being snobby st all sir it’s just that the Limousin is very much still on the repair as a region. I agree with the banks I wouldn’t agree that France is ****ed it needs reform but I hope it never gets it as the quality of life comes first France my friend is very strong so please do not believe the standard news stories here they have shaped British opinion for centuries right or wrong it exists When you live in it you get to see everything for what it is. I eat and drink in the Arab quarter sometimes and if you want to taste getto flavour.... it’s very edgy at first but after you treat people straight it comes back multiplied . What we can maybe agree on it’s that is a very large beautiful country where some values still remain. You take yourself wherever you go anyway. As for tech I can assure you that France is light years ahead. Banking well they are not so good . The TV is terrible Like the UK there are places not so nice I myself draw a line nowadays across from Tours ... below that the geography imo gets spellbinding
Yep can agree in parts. However, I don't believe all stories regarding Brexit or read the Mail. I see it for what it is. Too many people talk down our country but we have a great history at leading the way in many things. Living and working abroad has enriched my understanding of the World however, there is no place like home. Our country is fab (with all it's faults). You mention tech. Now you may know something I don't but from what I see, I don't think the French seem embrace tech like us. That's all over and not just in Limousin. I was in the South of France last year and went into a supermarket and had a general look around. I didn't think they were 'light years' ahead of us. If you are talking Hi tech then France don't even make the top 10. On various sites it has us higher than France. https://www.thetoptens.com/high-tech-countries/ French are a funny lot as they invent stuff that looks impressive but actually doesn't work very well...Take the Maginot Line, all pomp and glitz but didn't work.
Shops full of pies await Britain after Brexit BY Iain Martin | please log in to view this image iainmartin1 / 10 January 2018 please log in to view this image Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg via Getty Images If you have been worrying about the equanimity of some of those most dedicated to stopping Brexit, the latest column by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown for “The New European” newspaper offers little comfort. “Britain has never been a small, dull, grey island… until now,” she says, before going on to mix up Europe (a civilisation thousands of years old which it is a geographic and cultural impossibility for the UK to leave) and the European Union (which is in its current format a political construct only 25 years old.) In a crowded field, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has crafted one of the unintentionally funniest pieces to appear in The New European, by combining snobbery and an assault on chips. Yasmin quotes Kipling writing on imperialism, when he described “those street people” cheering the English flag. That’s “those street people,”or the voters and pesky taxpayers as we call them now. “Those street people, ill-taught, used and betrayed by manipulative scoundrels, cut us off from our continent. And they still vapour and fume and brag.” Blimey. That’ll win us round! “Sadly, few of them will ever see the light or admit they were wrong. So bring it on – the dull small island life, grey, inward, with shops full of pies and chips and blue passports in our bags. Groan.” Shops full of pies. This is, of course, spot on. Secretly, there is nothing that those of us who voted to leave the European Union like more than to gather for an evening to compare blue passport designs. On these occasions we always avoid restaurants, for fear of finding foreign dishes on the menu, and instead visit one of Britain’s many “shops full of pies.” Indeed, “who ate all the pies?” (I did, over Christmas) is our alternative national anthem. Britain was built on pies. We love pies, and after Brexit we will eat only pies. This shows that Vote Leave missed a trick in June 2016. If they had promised on the side of their bus that Britain post-Brexit would have “shops full of pies” I suspect that Leave would have won the EU referendum by a bigger margin. If chips were also provided, it would have been a landslide among British men. Every single man in Britain, apart from Nick “I’ll have the tapas” Clegg, would have voted for “shops full of pies.” Pies are what made this country great, along with fried fish (an idea imported from Spain and Portugal in the 17th century), claret (from France) and pasta (from Bella Pasta.)
The lovable Toby Young, whom Theresa May was backing just last weekend, keeps some very dubious company it seems. I wonder if this Private Eye article had more to do with his stepping down than all the fuss about his puerile tweets about womens' breasts. please log in to view this image
Stroller we all know you are anti Tory and anti Brexit. This is old news, the bloke has gone. Plenty of Labour mp's/Lords that have done worse but even worth posting about. Start posting some stuff on the economy, that is worth debating.
Now this is more interesting https://news.sky.com/story/brexit-c...-2030-sadiq-khans-impact-papers-warn-11203054 Although as soon as I saw the name Sadiq Khan i smirked.
Yes, he's gone, but I think this is quite revealing as to exactly why he had to go, and I think it speaks to the competence and judgment of our Prime Minister that she was supporting him right up to the moment he stepped down. I'm sure if there are Labour people even more vile than Toby Young, you or Kiwi will come up with all we need to know about them. I'm just trying to provide some balance. As to the economy, do you mean the UK economy that is already growing at a slower rate than the rest of the EU, even before we feel the full effects of Brexit?
I really do wonder where all these figures are plucked from?! Personally didn't vote in the referendum due to not understanding any potential implications. In hindsight I would have voted remain but that's been and gone now and whatever will be will be. There's always a loser in politics and we should just crack on and deal with whatever comes our way.
Agree. My mate was an avid 'remainer' but on Saturday he was telling me how he thinks long term it will probably be a good thing. I was only saying yesterday that all the hype and doom is disappearing and people will get on with it. Yes, you will still get people like the treacherous Blair kicking up a fuss but people just want to move on.
Looking at things tech from a Canadian and French invention called a Super or Hypermarket isn't what i meant by tech apologies. Aerospace, Pharmaceuticals, Car manufacturing (esp next generation cars) and Power Industries. road,rail links/systems, satellite tech, food transport logistics, building materials are what i really meant by light years ahead. On the face of it as Brits we all look upon Johnny Foreigner as being either lazy or a less on the ball than us. we borrow ideas and products and very quickly believe that we are in fact the masters of them e.g the latest foodie trend of the last 20 years. Music, Cycling and Football are things we do a lot better than the French but after that it becomes difficult. The truth is very much that we are a country ( A great country i agree) of mass consumers, which has to include the internet as one of the biggest shifts in recent times and our addiction to it. We still very much perceive the French and all other European nationalities are having something wrong with them. It's the Anglo Saxon way. Over a period of time the UK society and culture has shifted IMO to a very much worst place. I salute people getting cross at a pop at the UK believe it or not: I love the UK however today we are a divided nation in a real mess. Generations have grown apart and we have a dreadful political system that does not work for the people at all. France still knows to balance out Tech etc as generally ( not everywhere) you will still find standards that we once had. I know i rant on and it has taken 2 years for me to adjust between the transition of the frequency in which i switch from the two countries I totally agree with you even after all of this that the UK is a super fine place ... it's what you make of it that counts. My frustration is that our society and especially our culture has slipped to a lower level. I honestly cannot see it changing in my lifetime and therefore my relief at now going home to France albeit OTT restores faith inside me.
