Month: December 2007

Medicine and money are linked whether we like it or not, or whether we have a Health Service or not. In the 30s I don’t remember people running to see the doctor, the way they do today, but then one visit cost a twelfth of the basic weekly wage, today that would equate to £25, plus prescriptions. Lately I have been visiting doctors surgeries for repeat prescriptions and hospitals for premed assessment. I have found that in every department there is high pressure on the staff, insufficient staff and delays, because there is heavy under funding. The 3 year old grandchild of my neighbour was prepared with needles and tubes for a serious operation twice in one day and then the op was cancelled, each time because of emergencies. Can you imagine the trauma to the child and the parents? In my own case my delay was such that the small incision, through a delay 9 times what it would have been in Scotland, meant a large section of healthy flesh had to be removed. Another operation delay was doubled for me. I’m not complaining for myself, on the contrary, I know I am very lucky. I am complaining on behalf of the medical professionals in the health service, We need to consider them, I know of cases in which experienced surgeons had to retire early through induced heart problems. I also rail against the general way taxes are used for repeated legal wrangles, in pointless publicity in millions, in a massive bureaucracy, and schemes which are notional and do not get to the heart of need. I include the way globwarm is presented, its ramifications financially and personally, beyond what is reasonable when the effect of the alleged remedy is measured against the estimated improvement it might have wrought.

This Government has a propensity for acting without evaluating all the possible ripples their decisions might generate, The Northern Rock is a glaring case. Take also the report on their programme costing billions for providing work for our unemployed since 1997, 1.4 million of the 1.7 million places were taken up by people not born in this country. I also have previously mentioned that the proposed schemes for training young people in usable skills for employment, are open to those from other countries.

I cannot see how the whole infrastructure can be reinstated to the state it was in, in the 80s, when we have all these additional demands on a problematical economy, such as sea revetment, ID Cards, replacing lost info, flood prevention, new housing, public transport revival, and all the other essentials staring us in the eye, without fanciful pipe dreams like the Olympics – and don’t forget Globwarm. I ain’t got it! My income reduces year on year, as do most OAPs find, I still have to fund my own place in a home, if it ever comes to that, because I’m not on relief.

Lost Pensions replaced. I lost nearly 8 years of pensions through Government rules, Four and a half for my time in the Navy, the rest through short service of a few years in Government departments, having non-contributory pensions, with no carry over system. I am therefore sympathetic, indeed enraged, when people lose pensions through no fault of their own. So, the Government’s decision to help sounded good until I discovered that the ceiling for recovery was £27,000, In effect, this means that people who pay the lower levels of tax, £21,000, can be contributing to pensions in excess of their own salary. In other words this legislation again can hit the poor in favour of the marginally richer. The folk in Westminster never stop to think, it’s the sound-bite for praise that is important!

Dental Care 250,00 people have lost free dental care under new contracts and the new system seems unworkable. Have you wondered why so many dentists are deserting the DHSS for private practice. There is yet another reason. I believe in all walks of life there is a high proportion of honest people, a small proportion of out and out rogues, and about the same of greedy people. Dentists are no different from the rest of us, and many, I know, feel it their duty to take some DHSS patients, particularly children, and the OAPs, the more vulnerable. There is a strong belief that the government is frustrating the dentists, forcing them to leave the DHSS, through repeatedly requesting small items of information, already submitted years or months before, and requiring considerable loss of time in recovery,. There is no suggestion of malfeasance on the part of the dentists, it is supposed bureaucracy, but suspected to be a means of balancing the DHSS books, as the
money allocated for dentistry would then be transferred back to the general fund.

They want us to lead the World yet again. This time in GM crops. They never stop, do they? This was a Government advisor speaking in the face of great opposition. I don’t know much about GM, I know there is some fear for the future outcome, and the EU isn’t convinced. What I can’t see is, if we sink a fortune into research, who is going to benefit financially. I assume the whole world in the long run if it is a success, but I cannot see a long term return on our investment for us, can you?

I feel we should have a sabbatical from leading the World. For a start I’m not too sure the World looks upon us as its leader, and hasn’t for quite a while. From where I sit, often looking over my shoulder at the past, I find some of our standards are really a little bruised, as they are in a lot of countries that used to rule the World. I love the UK passionately, and I still believe we are pretty bright, probably still unique, but the World has changed, its values are different, as ours are, and we don’t excel in the World’s public eye as we did. Leading the World is pretty expensive, like showing off by hosting the Olympics. That’s a hoover sucking up cash if ever there was, and I can’t see us recouping, it is just another sop to Tony’s ego like the Dome.

Two Foot Notes.
Pregnancy as a solution. It used to be that girls who were unhappy at home got pregnant so they could live in a flat on welfare, it may still be so. It appears that if resources run out for a student, if a girl can get pregnant she will have the wherewithal to finish her degree. I said the World is changing

Organ Replacement. It has been reported that hospitals are so short of organs for replacement they are also using those from drug addicts, with the added risks of hepatitis and HIV.

We all knew in the 30s, that we were British.
There was only us here, alone, we weren’t priggish.
We enjoyed what it was, and knew our place because
It was the system we had, and wasn’t so bad
As people might say today.
Hitler came with his war, wrecked what we had before
We were a hopeless case, and thought we were done-for.
But we fought to the death to the very last day,
To capitulate, surrender, was not our way.
Any more than it is today.
The 60s aberration, deluged the Nation
With dogma, styles and habits – abomination,
Have we ever really recovered, I wonder
Has our total way of life been ripped asunder?
As sometimes it seems today.
In the 70s, nine countries formed the EU,
An error, no thought for the future. Just my view!.
This trading ruse has gone too far, there’s no review,
Become unwieldy, too disparate to control.
Our borders gone, no longer do we patrol,
And regain the identity we’ve lost today.
Can one legislate for such a variety
Of lands, peoples and perhaps even piety
Please all comers and accommodate their cultures
No jealousy, wrangling, political ruptures
I don’t think so today!
I’m old but not tired, I am possibly crazy
We see what is happening, are we too lazy
To get off our arses and stop this charade
Complain, write, and shout, demonstrate, have a parade
Stop this politics of me and mine, today.
The EU ‘s really a club, the staff’s local pub
A colossal bin your taxes go in, the nub
Is nothng useful has ever come out but paper
It’s an idea, a poor theory, just a caper
To keep politicians happy, today.
It’s not something passing it’s been carved in stone
If we jump off now and try to go it alone
We’ll be a pariah and would be even worse
Placed, in every way, draining our National purse.
I fear we’re here to stay today
So much is changing at incredible speed,
When push comes to shove and so many will need
Help, in such diverse ways, is the EU able
To cope? Or alone, not at the EU table?
Will we come full circle that day?

Generalities, Have you noticed that for the last 5 or 6 years there has been a new proposal of Government policy almost every day? Just think of the amount we have had since Brown took office, and how many have been rescinded or modified since. It takes civil servants to implement these statements, an increasing army of them. Take the running of two wars, how many clerks are beavering away, trying to update the equipment, keep the supply lines open, bring back the dead, feed clothe etc etc. , it’s endless. Take the Health Service, the Schools, the infrastructure, all constantly being tinkered with, and often to no advantage, with the inevitable changes in procedure, headed paper, even accommodation.

One aspect which should have been modified years ago, and I have been whingeing about it since I first started the blog, is the internal debt. It doesn’t take a genius to see that a ceiling on lending is essential. That when a person builds up a gross debt to a certain point, the door should be closed until the debt is reduced, and the ceiling should be fairly low, so the rest of us who are conservative in our spending are not picking up the tab. When a bank encourages an apprenticed, 16 year old, to have a card, there is something wrong.

Now For a Specific! I read that the government is proposing a scheme whereby they put money via the councils monthly, into the accounts of carers and OAPs over 75, to ‘shop around for their personal care package.’ – £520m over three years starting in April. I understand from something else I read, that some of the money is intended to pay for carers to have a holiday. This raises several questions in my mind. I find I can’t ‘shop around’ for specialists, like TY repair men, plumbers, and home-helps with references, so why is it easier to find Welfare helpers? Perhaps this phrase was an interpretation by the journalist, but he must have had a reason for saying it. It says this is going to be means tested, the money paid in regularly, and presumably some sort of check on fraud – more civil servants. There is a paucity of welfare helpers who really justify the term. I have heard so many complaints of paid Welfare helpers who only perform certain tasks, often those the person could do for him or herself. It is the heavy work, the climbing and the stooping which is most difficult or hazardous for old arthritic joints. The money is being given to the councils to manage, so this too will put a burden on our council tax, or some of the money will be diverted for that purpose. Either way it is a further expense for the tax payer.

I am a firm believer that carers of the seriously disabled absolutely need a respite, and those of us who are healthy and financially able, should pay for it for those who can’t. It is the bureaucracy involved in this new scheme that worries me and the supervision to prevent fraud. There are, allegedly, 5.7m carers in the UK not to mention the 4m 75+ OAPs, – together making up 17% of the population. There will be many deserving cases missing out. If an OAP requires a carer, or is so decrepit they qualify, how are they going to ‘shop around,’ as the welfare workers are thin on the ground too.

I don’t think the Government Spin Doctors, who are trying to be all things to all people. have a clue what caring and old age is about. Many of us OAPs move house when we become less able and this often means we have moved away from the friends we had, those who actually are still alive. We are no longer as mobile, we get operated on at intervals, we tire easily, and can’t stand in a queue at an airport any more, nor go for long walks, and shopping till we drop is considerably contracted. I can’t speak for others, but we, Soph and I have considered a weekend in a hotel, as a break, tried it and found the anticipation was greater than the realisation, as so much is after 75.

Like most of my kind, I am not complaining, on the contrary I believe we are very lucky, it is just that this scheme seems more like window dressing than a practical proposition, there are too many parameters to be considered – an ‘each on his merits’ approach, really does lead to bureaucracy, dissatisfaction through discrimination, and waste.

I have no axe to grind, and being very old there is little I have to worry about for myself and mine, I do worry about EU legislation and our own government’s policies and their effect on the generations coming behind me. In the 50s I was poor, under paid, with a family to look after, but I liked the UK, I felt secure in that all would turn out well in the long run, and I was right. Today there are so many rules and influences from within and without, legal, technical and cultural, making it all like a strait jacket. There is deterioration in our social lives, and I see our culture changing year on year, and rarely is it improved. It is hurry for the sake of hurry, and importing labour because our own standards are not what they used to be as a result of changing the educational and job training ethic.

In theory I have no objection to immigration in principle, but the execution has so many diverse parameters, and so many results not necessarily in the favour of the indigenous population of the UK, that I sometimes wonder if, overall, in whose favour the balance rests. 590,000 immigrants in 2006 tends to give pause for thought. No wonder the government wants to build more houses; at 3 to a house that represents a large town.

Take the case of cheap labour, the health, welfare and unemployment benefits are paid for by our taxes, aggregating over years not weeks. If the wages are so low, and the reason for the short term immigrants is to bolster their finances in their homeland, they will not be spending much in this country. While the employer of the cheap labour may be honest and pay his tax, his profits could well be put aside for his future, so the net gain to the country might be zero or less.

Brown has introduced a job training scheme to improve the skills of our young to fill jobs, and it appears that, presumably because of EU regulations, the training opportunities are open to foreigners as well as our own. When I went abroad, we could obtain free medical help, but the bill, via a form, was relayed to the Health Service. I believe if this policy in reverse was included in the training programme this would make sure our youngsters got fair treatment, not trampled in the queue to get in. The report to the Lords Committee that the estimated population of Britain, not even the UK will swell to 108 million by 2081 as a result of immigration would seem to confirm these fears of mine. The government is also proposing a scheme where non EU immigrants get points for ability and their specialist trade and professional skills, to fast track the government’s need to fill vacancies

Another aspect which concerns me is that our home grown terrorists are alleged to go to Pakistan for training and further indoctrination. The specific requirement for a tier 5, fast tracker, is that he speaks English. The terrorists who attacked London could be described as English speaking, tier 5 fast-trackers, need I say more?

In some areas of Britain the police are to get Polish lessons. Is this not using a sledge hammer to crack a nut? Should not it be the immigrants who should have to attend classes in English, or, if need be, have access to their own translator in each district?

Used Clothes Collection has recently been cited as a scam in some instances. I myself have been suspicious that the envelopes with the plastic sacks were not always from the charity stated, especially when I saw some collected in a scruffy red van, assumed to be from a large charity. Charity shops are the sufferers, overall, losing anything up to £3m in revenue through the diversion of the wares.

The EBAY Syndrome in the charity industry. After writing the above comments I discovered articles donated to charity can be stolen and resold on Ebay. Clearly Ebay has no control over what is offered. This apparently is acknowledged as something which is growing, and also applies to purchases at car-boot sales. Whether this is as wide spread as was suggested to me would be a matter for the Charities to assess, but it is unpleasant if true and does seem a logical avenue for greed.

Living on flood plains, with the ice caps melting is prognosticated not only to be tricky currently, but totally impossible in the future. Writing as a one time marine engineer, while revetment is theoretically possible, in a high proportion of cases, practically, it is totally uneconomical because it would be on too big a scale. Why the government is proposing building on flood plains in the future is totally beyond me unless they are considering stilts; using boats for transport would be interesting, In fact I think their whole approach to providing more accommodation is more knee jerk than considered, responsible design.

The Libdems are progressing in popularity at the expense of Labour, and if Cameron continues with his aggressive manner, it just might be at the expense of the Tories also. They have always seemed a very reasonable, almost academic party, ever since the Gang of Four, and would be great in a coalition, but, unfortunately, with tactical voting, I can’t see them ever in power. If they did obtain a majority it would be so small, the country would virtually have a hung Parliament, which might be no bad thing for a few years, we might get back to sane, measured government

Medical Theories. I think they started showering us with theories in the 60s, concerning the pros and cons of what we eat and how it would affect us, when so many other half baked and often foolish theories abounded. We were told more than X eggs consumed in a week were bad for you. From child hood, until I stopped work, I ate at least six and generally eight eggs a week, and I still eat plenty at 85. Later the Lancet said eggs, butter and so many other things were not bad for one in normal quantities. The latest from Holland suggests that cooked foods, such as bread, cereals, coffee, meat, potatoes – ried, roasted, baked, grilled or barbecued, could be responsible for people suffering forms of cancer, especially women. The EU is even acting on it. The results were from a 120,000 sample. I assume they didn’t considered the effects of eating food which hasn’t been cooked, when it is raw or boiled, or if there are other additives in food contributing to the results. I believe eating homemade bread from pure flowers puts on less weight than bought bread, and bought bread adheres to the roof of my denture making eating sandwiches impossible to do with delicacy, when homemade bread does not. Today there are additives in everything, and unless one eats only home grown and home cooked food there is no guarantee what you are eating. I wonder if those tested were allowed to have meals out or were, like being battery hens, all fed the same diet in closed circumstances. Scientists generally enter their research into professional journals and the public only becomes aware when a journalist, in a slack period, wants something sensational to write about. I think a lot of people are worried about dying, instead of enjoying living. One is inevitable, the other is up to us.

OAPs over eighty are getting an extre rise, of 25 pence per week, With the problems the Government seems to have with computers, can you imagine what that is going to cost to implement, let alone how ridiculous it sounds.

EU interference and Imperial measure. Small traders were put out of business because the health and safety regulations were, and are still, based upon factory procedures not Cottage Industries. The over paid and over cosseted mandarins in the EU have a mountain of bad legislation they have produced, because it was policy in their country, but untried generally and without reference to local implementation. Now we will soon be having even more countries joining, with more looking for the soft option here, having endured mismanagement in their own lands for decades – we will be picking up the tab, yet again, like we are now.

I remember, not so long ago, when a trader was fined for putting his prices in imperial measure, Now they tell us, because they never managed to stamp it out in the UK, that either it or metric is now acceptable. The building trade finds imperial more logical to visualise and of course the Yanks never did change. In Heavy Engineering, marine, bridge and drainage design, where movement creates incredible thrusts as a result, design is quite complex and has to be correct for safety. We used to carry formulae in our heads, and then metric measure came along, with the result it was not just a matter of converting feet into metres, there were many more parameters to take into account and life became very difficult. If reason had been applied in the 70s, life would have been easier.

I recently read that the EU emission rules will outlaw our army vehicles. There seems to be no rein on their illogical thinking. How much more CO2 will be given off from a few vehicles, than a row of shops burning in some distant town we are supposed to be protecting?

The EU is reported as proposing to scrap ‘Made in Britain’ labels on some foods They want to standardise nutritional information, in a world where nutrition seems to be the least important aspect to the average citizen. We depend on those labels, because we still think we produce high quality products, and if the truth were told many don’t yet trust foreigners. Next they will scrap labels on everything, and we won’t know who to trust.. There are strong lobbies in EU politics, fighting for isolated interests.

Did you know, or, indeed, do you care, that the 46 person team on the Cabinet of the president of the EU is costing £2,5m in salaries, expenses and entertaining What I can’t understand why it has to be 46, what are they all doing?. Of course that is not even the pin on the tip of the iceberg, The EU receives £12bn per year as our contribution, or £200 per head of our population. The corruption is so great, apparently, the auditors never sign out the annual accounts. I was always biased against the EU. When people talk about it helping trade, they are theorising, because we have never really been outside to be able to compare. I believe if services and products are top flight people will always buy them, if they are sensibly priced, irrespective of from whom or where.

I was not aware of the total dictatorship by Blair until I saw two of the three programs on his management of our affairs, on BBC TV – it was frightening. What has passed can’t really be corrected in most cases, but what frightens me is that when Gordon Brown and David Cameron are quoted in the press, and often speak on screen, they say ‘I’ when it should be ‘we’. Are all top politicians now in Blair’s mould? If they are, and the Cabinet is an apparition rather then a reality, then God help us!

Blair was a dictator in that he ignored advice, majority opinion, whether in his party, in the House, or the general public if he thought he was right, and everyone else couldn’t see what was obvious to him. The Dome is a glaring example. Whether he always thought he had a response on earth to divine help, I believe towards the end of his reign, the last 5 years, it would seem that he was convinced of his own accord with God. Since I was a small boy reading stories, I believed even the British Army, whom I, like everyone else, considered to be almost invincible, was told they couldn’t roust the rebels in the Afghanistan mountains, or the Hindu Cush as I knew it then. It seemed this was right, when Russia gave up, and we know what they are like as an aggressive force, Blair went ahead in spite of strong professional advice against it and overwhelming disapproval in the country.

I always thought that approval of the Lords was essential before action was put in hand, but that appears not to have been the case with the Blair administration. If this is so, then there is no way a dictatorship can be avoided, and if it does surface, controlled. This seriously worries me. There has been such massive waste of tax revenue over these years, from tiers of staffing which duplicated responsibilities and merely added to confusion, legislation, put into being and then rescinded and retraced again in yet another form, vast sums spent on retaining people in prison at huge sums per head per day, when a proportion could be dealt with more cheaply. The wars we didn’t want, as was the Dome, there is quite a list.

I would like to see a committee set up, made up of members of The Upper House, with all the parties equally represented, (say two from each) and not by the proportion of members in the House, to ensure the Punch and Judy ethic of the Commons is not replicated. They would only meet when some controversy, indiscretion or similar cause of serious importance, reported within the Commons or proposed by the public and vetted, required research, examination and reporting on to Parliament, such as the Iraq decision. The proposal of an even bigger data base as currently said to be a proposal by Brown, or the loss of the ‘discs’ are two more I would suggest. In the latter case I am not convinced there were only 2 disks. If an eight letter word is 20 Kb, how many bytes are needed for the information concerning one family, multiplied by 25 million? The mind boggles, and the word disc needs a bit of explaining to me at least, as does sending through the post.

When we had intelligent men of wealth who went into politics because it interested them and they had no need to toil, I suspect the Whip’s office had a harder time getting them to follow party lines on occasion. Now most are there as a job, and with some of the strong, hard-men we have seen as whips recently, it has seemed to me they troop through the lobby as instructed more than makes logical sense, especially when one reads or hears biographical snippets later, My proposition of a Watchdog Committee would ask awkward questions, and stop rubber stamping, or dictatorship – I think!

I’m worried, I’m sad, that things seem so bad
For the child today, with nowhere to play.
They’ve taken the commons, the playing fields
For cash, other ploys, which only reveals
How thoughtless they are, how narrow of mind,
When money means more than a mind refined.
By childish pursuits, not jointly with friends,
Before a screen. No! As nature intends.
Play is a prelude, a forerun of life,
A chance for experience, to sample strife.
How many I wonder come home alone
To an empty house, as none would condone
As the best idea, the good of the boy.
Economics it is, that force this ploy,
When aspirations are advert driven
And they hope one day they’ll be forgiven
For criminal lack of care and concern,
Not replicated in future, in turn.
Gone are the days when we walked everywhere.
With traffic so sparse we could cycle there,
Play games on the common, row on the lake,
Be friends with the cops, and all the time take
Our simple pleasures without fear for life,
Not hurry and stress and crime that is rife.
It isn’t fair, we must stop the rot now,
The system must change, the question is how?
Before houses take up all vacant land,
Making recovery impossible, and
Rubber stamping all the mistakes again.
Leaving the children without a domain.
To play in safety – we need a campaign,
That is sensible, with energy and cash,
That’s not all talk, and not something rash,
That is here to day and well designed
For a future, the sort we all have in mind.

The worry of excess immigration. With a probable world recession staring us in the face, we cannot continue allowing immigrants to swarm in here, which they will if not stopped, the figures coming out, at last justify that prognostication. There must be pre-vetting and skill assessment, and a sure knowledge of the needs and positions vacant to be filled. Anything else is sheer lunacy, a prescription for unemployment queues, the problems of deportation, racial friction, stress on the infrastructure, and crime generated through frustration on both sides.

No sensible company would allow a horde through its gates on the possibility there might be a vacancy – if not a factory, why a whole country? Ask the people in East Anglia how they like it. We should work out a system whereby at each Continental port and Airport, there is a government sponsored office with a job-recruitment agent, who acts for those looking for workers for the available vacancies, on the understanding they can’t be filled in the UK. The agent would vet the lower grades, or all, depending on the wishes of the employers, and only then, after a check on validity would the recruit be given a temporary government pass to board a ship or plane. One aspect would have to be included and might be the stumbling block; the job must carry the same salary for a national, to avoid importing cheap labour. In other words, bring back the old immigration system, close our borders and to Hell with EU directives. Open borders are a magnet for criminals to escape, smuggle goods and humans, and make it easier for the terrorists.

Respect seems to be a thing of the past. I was reading last week’s back copies of newspapers, and I remembered the newspapers of my youth, around 1932. There was a lot about a mass murderer. Later there was the Jubilee, the death of KG5, the abdication of Edward VIII, and the crowning of KG6, all treated, almost unctuously by the press, but with love by the country. There was censorship, political and voluntary, and while there was disapproval of Edward, it was nothing like as virulent nor as repetitive in the pages of a single newspaper, as the press were about Brown last week. We more than respected the Royals, they were too far above us and discreet enough for us to even think of being critical, and it was not until 30 or 40 years later, that we began to see the feeding frenzies we have today, politically, socially, and in the realms of entertainment. Television hasn’t helped. We respected politicians because there was a chasm between us, the press and radio were respectful, and if he made a serious gaff the politician resigned. There was respect all round, we were treated with respect in most circumstances, and we reciprocated. Now there is so much less respect, for the truth, for politicians, between politicians, for honour, for teachers by parents and pupils, for property, for the worker by management, by the press and TV, indeed everything. Today there is only one God, Mammon, and the service of it seems to justify disrespect in any form. If the politicians are seen to be disrespectful to one another, how can they expect to demand respect from the public, which takes them at the value they pretend to have when on camera, and are portrayed in the press? Without respect, and more importantly, trust, government will suffer and society will disintegrate.