Posts

Whither our UK NHS ?

The NHS is 75 years old, and one of our most prized institutions. As you'll see from the analysis below, it is now  sorely in need of medical assistance   itself . How can we save it from its terminal decline ? Editors note: This blog was first published in August 2022 - in view of the steady deterioration in the service since then, which has now reached crisis point, not least because of the ongoing industrial action, I've  updated it to reflect the changes. The Election result introduced some real soul-searching amongst politicians as to why the current organisational model of the NHS is failing...unfortunately this is likely to be a tough nut to crack without a radical change in its funding model, which is based entirely on taxation - any Labour government will find it difficult to square such a change with its ideology. We shouldn't therefore expect much progress in this direction, despite Labour's large majority. Indeed, despite claims that waiting lists are fallin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Election Politics: Have Momentum Shown Their Hand too Early ?...

 Looking back at this blog from before the 2024 election, it's noteworthy that Labour's internal strife is still continuing apace, and is likely to come to a head now that the predicted hammering in the English local elections and the Welsh and Scottish parliamentaries on May 7th has come to fruition. If there is to be a change at the top before 2029, it will be highly likely to occur within a few weeks of this debacle. There may be a brief hiatus while Burnham tries to get back into the commons, but it must be brief if the party is to regain any sort of initiative. The 'Abbot affair' as I referred to it then may well turn out to have been the start of Starmer's undoing by allowing in the hard left.... Make no mistake, though, Starmer will fight tooth and nail to keep his job, despite his almost universal unpopularity amongst electorate and MPs alike. And he won't hesitate to throw as many of his colleagues 'under the proverbial bus' as it takes to do so...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Iran War: What are Trump’s Options and How Bad Could It Get ?

    Editor's Note: Please see recent update below the text... --------------------------------- Donald Trump has a problem on his hands…and the USA as a nation now has an even bigger one.... Having been persuaded by Netanyahu, and advised by his own White House advisors, that an all-out attack on the Iranian regime and its military wing, the IRGC, was the best solution to the ‘Iranian problem’, Trump was clearly expecting the war to be over in a matter of days. Somewhat surprisingly, this still seems to be his 'default' position for any campaign he starts, despite the lessons already provided by the Ukraine war and the continued attacks by all 3 of the Iranian proxies in the face of the massive bombing campaigns meted out to all 3 since the October 7th HAMAS attack. All this does beg the question of how closely he is really being kept informed, and who is actually driving US foreign policy... Despite the intense battering his military and the Israelis administered ove...
Post a Comment
Read more