mmmmm, this thread has moved on from "schools" to becoming a left right anti political debate. My view is one that recognises the need to be superior to our competition and I put this at a national level but its a basic reflection of my belief and philosophy on sport. I strongly believe that we need to tap into the psyche of the human and give him the tools to succeed on an individual level with the moral education to ensure that this is not done at the expense of deliberately undermining the opposition (other members of society). Education should be a right of birth as should a sdafety net to protect those who cannot help themselves. This should not however be a safety net to allow for any tom dick harry or harriette to come into the country and sponge of ius for accommodation, health and security. Government run institutions are invariably overstaffed and inefficient (my father was a manager of my grandfather who was a union rep in the public sector). THe NHS is a great institution set up by a very close family friends uncle and I've had many a good argument with him on the scargill/thatcher conflict and the NHS. The NHS itself has great nurses and doctors but is overstaffed in terms of inefficiently managed shop floor labour and suffers from a terrible infrastructure legacy. THe best way forward is well regulated (fixed rules) private sector across all key services with a proper safety net but firm (thatcher like) government prepared to stand up against the criminal and lazy elements in society. It's not an easy balance point to find, if it was we'd be liviing in paradise...
I am not at all sure the NHS is overstaffed. I have supervised a NHS manager for several years now who is seriously overburdened with unreachable targets and not enough resource to meet them. Every task is split into 15 minute slots and she rarely achieves every task as they don't fit the time. On a personal note I go to a diabetic clinic. It no longer has a receptionist as everything is done centrally. I went to my last apt and the entire department had moved and I had not been told it was just chance that I met someone who directed me otherwise I would have missed my time slot. etc etc.... and of course the news today about the underresourcing of A and E depts. just underlined the mess we are in. We have accessed Spanish and French services in recent years and the services there are 10 times better in terms of care and treatment. MY friend's child has a progressive degenerative illness. There is no specialist consultant in the south of England.... so they take him to France twice a year, he is half French, and the treatment he gets in a specialist children's Unit, I have witnessed myself, is second to none. Private sector only seems to work for minor illnesses and operations..... then everyone makes use of specialist NHS services. I really think this should not be a political subject at all......
yorkie, where do you go for your diabetic clinic? I go to Weston General and their staffing and keeping to time is excellent, I always arrive early and am often leaving on or before the time of my actual appointment!
mine is Leeds general infirmary...... bit like a workhouse... but goes to show how service across the country in the NHS is so patchy...
Maybe the French system is the way to go, but then it is half private and half state run. Why does Al have to wait a week for the result of an x-ray when if you have one here it arrives in your post the next day? That is done by a private company as are things like blood tests. If you have a serious illness the state picks up the whole cost, but for normal illnesses you pay approx. 40%. Private insurance will pick up the 40%, but it is quite expensive. Staff levels are good, but doctors say they are underpaid and a lot leave to work abroad. From what I can see there is a much lower number of managers and more hands on staff. Three times a day someone came in to clean my room during my brief stay in the local hospital and after they had sewn me back together, someone came round every half hour to make sure I had what I needed. When I went to A & E and was told I would need an op I expected an appointment, but was admitted on the spot and seen to the next morning. Our local hospital has been greatly extended over the past few years, with a lot of the money coming from the EU. Hospitals in the UK could be paying back private companies for the next forty years after the disastrous contracts that the then government entered into.
It cannot help but be political. If some people want to use other people's money for anything - health , education, defence, welfare, sport then it becomes political by definition as it involves society. Something can only remain out of the political arena - and then not always if it is simply a private spend. We all have views on the extent that we want to take money from others and then what to do with it - that is what government is ultimately about.
Not many people would argue for zero taxes but the range of who and what and how much is the real issue
Not at all - economics deals purely with the financial aspects of the decisions people make - we are talking about what decisions people WANT to make. My degree was Economic and Statistics - dealing with all aspects of financial, monetary and fiscal transactions - it said nothing about what you want to do - just about the effects that come about when you have decided what you want Only a Socialist could make a comment like that ...
I voted libdem at the last election to keep the Tories out in our constituency... libdem guy got in.... and LOL!!
I find your definition of public property a little restricted here. It does not have to mean that a remote state apparatus up in the clouds decides everything which happens at the local level. Kibbutzes and workers cooperatives are also examples of 'Public Ownership'. They are also incidentally examples of 'completed communism', as seen by Marx, who stated that the end phase of the state involved it's own dissolution, to be replaced by 'communism from below' - naturally a far cry from the Soviet Union. I would rather live in a town in which there are such cooperatives, owned and administered by workers themselves - small,local, and run by people who live in my locality. The reasons are twofold ; firstly every penny that I spend at this firm is more likely to remain in the area rather than being sucked up into a chain - and secondly, when run by people who live in my community they are more likely to make decisions which respect my environment. They are also more answerable to the community for their actions, because they are a part of it. I disagree when you say that only die hard Socialists are more inclined towards public ownership - most environmentalists are as well. The reason being that the free market, if left to itself, knows no such concepts as 'Restricted Growth' or 'post growth society'. both of which must enter our vocabulary if we are to tackle the problem of Co2 emissions and global warming - simply replacing our present technology with 'green' technology is not enough, without tackling the central problems of an endless growth philosophy & it's by products consumerism and materialism which never, can never if left to itself, raise the question that perhaps we have enough of everything already and that what is required is not more but rather just distribution.
I agree with a lot of this..... an environmentally sound society needs balance not growth.... when you look at the growth in some of these developing countries it is frightening... I have spent a fair amount of time in India ... and there you see opulence next to rank poverty.... mad..... I mentioned elsewhere that I spent a year working in Bhutan and that was the most balanced society I have known...... however there was a lot of resistance to consumerism and the cash economy..... incidentally I was responsible for the helping with development of the "old" British primary education system over there which the Bhutanese saw as a solid general education for all their children.
Cologne - challenge to your quest to halt the growth of consumerism and it's impact on the environment is not in the developed world, but in the undeveloped world. How can you restrict that growth in the BIC countries and the next one's to pick up the charge to develop their economies? In addition how can you restrict the global movement of people who wish to improve their chances? The concept of self sufficient small communities is just idealistic stuff for the theorists based on medieval societies - it may work for a few people, but the vast majority it cannot support their lives.
I must flee to the Yorkshire dales.... Hang on though we need to think post industrial era here..... developed society has virtually everything.... for example we have reinvented the vinyl disc again and again.... we are refining all our consumer goods..... where do we go from here??? or where do we need to go from here.... to make us happy(ier)? We don't need to work a 40 hour week, or spend up to 3 hours per day going to and from work.... we have enough.... and (being idealistic) if we share it all out we will all still have enough.... modern society in the developed world is just like the hamster wheel..... and we are intelligent enough to realise we don't need to keep going round qnd round it.... but we still do....
I was not referring to the developing countries here - or even to China. It is not those countries that currently have carbon footprints of 10+ Tons Co2 per head per year, or over 30 as in America !
I was not referring to the developing countries here - or even to China. It is not those countries that currently have carbon footprints of 10+ Tons Co2 per head per year, or over 30 as in America !
But their environmental impact is growing far far faster than in the developed world - just the growth in power stations in China to support the growing demand for power and the growth in population will mean they will soon catch up with the more environmentally minded developed worlds. Same with India, huge growth in deman and population - these have global impacts.
