Re: Privatisation of NHS hospitals begins : Mon Feb 13, 2012 4:56 pm  

Him wrote:

Hmmm and plenty of Brits serving in Afghanistan think the US Army is technologically amazing but staffed by overly aggressive idiotic gun-toting maniacs and that the US Army should spend more time on avoiding blowing up innocent civilians and allied soldiers and less time slagging off another nations armed forces.

Another Little Englander speaks.

Re: Privatisation of NHS hospitals begins : Mon Feb 13, 2012 5:04 pm  

If Labour don't keep up the pressure on this pig's ear of a piece of legislation, they don't deserve anyone's vote

Re: Privatisation of NHS hospitals begins : Mon Feb 13, 2012 5:32 pm  

cod'ead wrote:

If Labour don't keep up the pressure on this pig's ear of a piece of legislation, they don't deserve anyone's vote

They haven't deserved anyone's votes since Wilson's days.

Re: Privatisation of NHS hospitals begins : Mon Feb 13, 2012 6:42 pm  

Dally wrote:

Another Little Englander speaks.

When I advance to reading the Daily Mail then you can class me as such.

The British Army isn't perfect, it's underfunded, undermanned and too often has cliques of stupidity/over-aggression like those seen in the US Army. (deepcut, Abu ghraib etc) but I know the view of several serving British Army officers toward our cousins across the lake and it appears to be a view shared by many other nations.

It's generalising obviously, but the US soldiers appear far more removed from reality and robotic (blindly parroting phrases obviously taught them in basic training) whereas British soldiers appear more "normal".
There are obviously issues with PTSD but far too often in the US Army there are "incidents" with soldiers who haven't particularly seen any intense combat.
Then there was that massacre a few years ago (I forget where it happened but the courts martial/inquiry has basically just cleared the US soldiers) where because one of their troop was killed they went on a rampage deliberately murdering innocent civilians. In their evidence some of the privates described how their training put them in that mindset.

Now the Americans are going to have more incidents simply because they have far more troops out there than anyone else. And as I said, it's a generalisation. But there is certainly an issue with the "mental condition" of many US soldiers

Re: Privatisation of NHS hospitals begins : Mon Feb 13, 2012 7:35 pm  

Mintball wrote:

That just made me laugh, nod and applaud all at the same time. Which is some example of multi-tasking.

Which is an example of acceptance of a prevailing view.

If you get presented with the view of US soldiers being a bunch of gun-toting yahoos that will shoot indiscriminately and cause massive collateral damage, most people will accept this view, despite the fact that they have no actual experience of dealing with the US army. It is something we have been conditioned to believe.

Its like we are conditioned to believe things about state provided services being inefficient and private sector being efficient. Most people will for instance say by default that there are too many civil servants and the civil service is inefficient and bureaucratic. And yet Whitehall is at its smallest in headcount since the Second World War and it administers a hugely difficult task of providing services to 60 odd million people.

We are told to believe that the private sector is efficient and the state is inefficient but how many private sector companies have a few boom years and then go bust.....is this efficiency? The civil service can't be 'wound up' it has to carry on, when times are hard, it just has less money to use.

Re: Privatisation of NHS hospitals begins : Mon Feb 13, 2012 7:59 pm  

sally cinnamon wrote:

We are told to believe that the private sector is efficient and the state is inefficient but how many private sector companies have a few boom years and then go bust.....is this efficiency? The civil service can't be 'wound up' it has to carry on, when times are hard, it just has less money to use.

It all depends how efficiency is measure doesn't it? I'm sure most Enron shareholders though the company was efficient, right up to the moment the sky fell in.

The danger is when we start using commercial standards to measure how efficient a public service is. To my mind, a public service is efficient when it delivers a quality service to those it is serving. Nothing more, nothing less.

Re: Privatisation of NHS hospitals begins : Mon Feb 13, 2012 9:08 pm  

My mind was wandering someplace else this afternoon and I found myself thinking...

If a Government could give you the option to not pay your tax and national insurance to them, but instead pay the equivalent amounts of money to various private establishments in order to provide for yourself rather than depend on the state, would you do it ?

So (just for arguments sake) 20% of your equivalent tax take would go to a private health insurer, 20% to a private pension provider, you'd pay per mile for driving on all public roads, you'd only pay for the police if you called them out but they'd be allowed to keep any fine revenue they imposed on you, your public transport and utilities would no longer be subsidised but have to charge exactly what it cost to offer their services to you, you'd have to look after your parents when they became ill or senile, or pay for someone else to do the work - you get the idea ?

Would anyone really opt out ?

Re: Privatisation of NHS hospitals begins : Mon Feb 13, 2012 9:34 pm  

McLaren_Field wrote:

My mind was wandering someplace else this afternoon and I found myself thinking...

If a Government could give you the option to not pay your tax and national insurance to them, but instead pay the equivalent amounts of money to various private establishments in order to provide for yourself rather than depend on the state, would you do it ?

So (just for arguments sake) 20% of your equivalent tax take would go to a private health insurer, 20% to a private pension provider, you'd pay per mile for driving on all public roads, you'd only pay for the police if you called them out but they'd be allowed to keep any fine revenue they imposed on you, your public transport and utilities would no longer be subsidised but have to charge exactly what it cost to offer their services to you, you'd have to look after your parents when they became ill or senile, or pay for someone else to do the work - you get the idea ?

Would anyone really opt out ?

For what reason would you pay the armed services? Defending the garden shed? Undertaking pogroms in West Yorkshire? Imperialist adventures abroad?

Re: Privatisation of NHS hospitals begins : Mon Feb 13, 2012 10:37 pm  

Mugwump wrote:

For what reason would you pay the armed services? Defending the garden shed? Undertaking pogroms in West Yorkshire? Imperialist adventures abroad?

The Queen would pay them, they're her soldiers after all

Re: Privatisation of NHS hospitals begins : Mon Feb 13, 2012 10:50 pm  

Mugwump wrote:

For what reason would you pay the armed services? Defending the garden shed? Undertaking pogroms in West Yorkshire? Imperialist adventures abroad?

Well its work in progress for sure, but maybe we'd only have as many armed forces as could be raised by public donation, you know, those tub thumpers down the pub who's persistent solution to all manner of insurrection in foreign parts is to "send the troops in" - I'm sure those people would be well placed to contribute a small token of recompense in order to pay for those troops whereas those who didn't, wouldn't.

Or - have an insurance company collect premiums just in case your house ever needed defending from marauding heathens...