ChezGiven

Exactly. Will be watching with my kraut mate, no fear here.

The last time the Tories were in they tried to introduce market forces into the NHS by splitting up Purchasing services (RHAs, PCTs etc) from Providing services (hospitals etc). That split still exists today. What was predicted by economic theory (Le Grand circa 91 and a father of the Chicago school, Williamson) was that this would create huge transaction costs. That directly translates as 'lots of bureaucracy'. Or managers. The reason for this is contracting and risk. Since each Purchaser can not know exactly how many services they will need over the budget year and each Provider doesnt know how may services they have to provide, the payment contracts become inordinately difficult to implement. The quantity can be monitored but the additional payments and fundings are difficult to price at the margin. The quality monitoring (already discussed here) produces targets that skew incentives away from giving good healthcare. The whole Tory rhetoric on the NHS is one massive piss-take as it was their lot that brought in the massive management culture into the NHS in the mistaken belief that efficiency gains would outweigh the costs. Labour's subsequent record on the NHS was all the more remarkable given the mess it was in when they took over.

I agree the Argies will be very very difficult to beat but if you watched them in qualifying, they were utter gash. Anything could happen, they may have peaked too early, whereas we are just beginning to find our form. You never know.

The lack of additional goals did mean we came second like.

Yes they do but one of the oddest things about French coverage is that there is about a 5 minute section to intro the game and about 3 minutes at the end, quick word with Arsene and then everyone clocks off. Dont know if anyone else saw this but the French players were given a dressing down for their behaviour by the sports minister. She said afterwards that she made some of them cry with her harsh words.

Down to 10 men, could have had 2 sent off in same move.

Aye, apart from the price the contractor pays Ashley.

May i take this moment to remind you of Mervyn King's prophetic words?

Another Capello gamble that has backfired. He is not having much luck at the minute, maybe we should send him a few lucky charms. I will donate my lucky wanking sock. Never been caught by mum using it?

Female, but I don't want to go in to it any further, I just posted it on a thread about how people are feeling. Nae worries mate, i was prying like but i wont anymore.

I thought it was all rumour at this point?

Glad its not a bereavement anyway Stevie, is the friend male or female?

VAT going up though, which affects the poor disproportionately. I have to say if the Cable elements are carried through, it will be much better than i feared.

Guardian reckons Cable has secured lots of 'fairness' in the emergency budget, basic allowance up to 10k (offsetting pensions contributions) and that the rich wont get this allowance and may have their thresholds lowered. Taking 850,000 of the lowest paid out of income tax apparently.

My point is why you think we should believe all the political parties are wrong......and your right I've made my points. You seem to agree with most of them.

My upgrade took about 30 minutes on the mac. Its a lot faster, folders good, not really got many apps that i need to multi-task with.

We've done the figures already too CT, they show that the deficit went from normal levels to agenda-inducing after the financial crisis.

Why? Because it allows markets to influence the structure of the economies and make them more aligned to their needs. Free markets, no government etc, remember?

Ok there are 26 pages but i have covered off all the arguments already. 1 The deficit was caused by the recession. Thats an economic factoid. 2 The economy is still stagnant and unemployment is high, so the deficit, if nothing else changes in the long run, is an issue. 3 The deficit can be solved most quickly by growing the economy. If the economy grows at 2% that pays off around 1/5th of the deficit. 4 Therefore, expansionary economic policies are the only true and long term solution to the deficit. There are two mechanisms, interest rates & money supply or govt spending & taxes. 5 Interest rates are practically zero so monetary policy wont, can not and will not solve the issue. Its called a liquidity trap. 6 The only real option which we have is to grow the economy by spending, funded through the deficit, otherwise we risk long term stagnation like Japan has experienced since 1996 when it was in the same position. 7 Every year that goes by with extremely high unemployment increases the chance that many of the long-term unemployed will never come back to the work force, and become a permanent underclass. (the so-called 'lost generation') Ever stopped to wonder why the same deficit hawks in the US GOP and the Global markets were saying controlling healthcare costs would be done by death panels but now the agenda is different, cost-cutting is all the rage? Why? Because its politically not economically expedient.

What's your point KCG?

Mr. Sensible-shoes doesn't approve unless they are Clarks and built to last.

Just watching the French presser. Some journo from uk asked Dommenech if everything that has happened was poetic justice for France. Am sure most Irish think it is.

Were you having a nervous breakdown? Am super-fly me, I mix Parisian chic with geordie charv and that boot is the result.

Scrape through group, glorious quarter final performance and unlucky defeat, all previous forgotten. Right now, i'd take that.

It's not really my concern but I fail to see how you can improve quality of care without having objective targets. The NHS is certain to decline under this government. Of more interest to me from a personal point of view is what happens to NICE. Rumours are afoot big changes are coming, none of which will be good imo. Fair enough I was mainly asking from an insiders point of view as to how the targets culture over the last few years had gone down. Thought it may have been the sort of stuff you discussed with the nurses and doctors in the canteen over lunch. Naah, I'm quite detached from the clinical realities of the NHS really. I'm more involved with clinical effectivenss of interventions, and more recently cost effectiveness. Seriously though, I'm not being partisan here when I say this government doesn't seem to have a clue what its doing regarding healthcare. For instance, before the election, Cameron promised a chest of money for the provision of cancer treatments. This just sounds like popularist bullshit to me. Early days still, we'll see soon enough. If your not been partisan then you'll agree their decisions have being reduced somewhat by the state of the countries finances. Have you also noted that Asda is to start selling all Cancer drugs at cost. aye right. Cost to whom? The cost to ASDA? Then you mean at their wholesale price. Which is what the NHS currently pays. Not sure what the smileys for???? I dont think they are trying to compete with the NHS more compete with other organisations / chemists who charge individulas a lot more, ie for profit. What this statement means is that for those in the population lucky to have private health insurance, ASDA will sell the cancer drugs without a mark-up. Thats not 'at cost'. There is no way of ASDA being sold anything 'at cost' since they are charged the wholesale price. They can add a mark-up to the wholesale price, which affects the level of co-payment the privately insured patients pays through the insurance scheme. What this does is removes a very small % profit from an absolutely tiny percentage of cancer patients without affecting public provision issues one iota. Thats why i was laughing.