Pondering, and while slightly more optimistic than we once were, still really quite unhappy Lefty thread

But then the NHS is superb value for money however you look at it.

The French system yes, is partly private, but its costs are astronomical. And in any privately outsourced system some of that money (public money, as well as individual's money) is going to produce profit as well as a service, profit that you can't control and that doesn't necessarily stay in the country.

It seems weirdly counter-logical to me to say that it's preferable to have a health service that is more expensive at point of sale and which somehow has to find extra cash to generate profits for the wealthiest.

Oh, come here, please.

Oooh er Ewe, really? What's being said?

I wonder whether the NHS is that way because of entrenched positions: the NHS itself and the unions have been under rightist attack for so long that they feel they can't afford to give any ground at all. Maybe a government with good leftist credentials could get everyone around a table and say - look, the NHS is fucking marvellous and it's staying right where it is. But now let's have a Royal Commission or something to work out ways forward.

But why is it that way? I know in my laast job we all ended up doing stuff because no-one could face arguing with the university secretary - one of the reasons I took severance, in the end, as it drove me mad. The culture would have to change from above, I guess.

But there's no saying private would be any better...

If Twitter is to be believed then it looks like Brown may be resigning this afternoon.

I'd go for most of that cf (up to the violent bits ) but what would be the effect of doing that unilaterally? It's the old socialism-in-one-country problem isn't it. Woss 'Matahir'?

Coolfonz - do we have some biscuits whilst we do all of this?

Own bicuits!! You're a harsh one!

NHS - really tricky. Given that it is the 3rd largest employer in the world, I know/have known lots of people who work/have worked in it. Stories, and stuff I have witnessed, abound with the utter waste and excess it generates. Would defend it wholehearedly, but some of the bureaucracy and costings are jaw-dropping.

Oh yes Ham, absolutely - was just making the point that there are still efficiency/productivity savings to be made, certainly in the NHS. Ex-p was a damned fine clinical bod who would have made a v good manager, but he's lost to the NHS now because of (hate to say this) the union's support of his superiors, who just weren't up to the job and probably cost the NHS thousands, literally, through their incompetence. Extrapolate this through the NHS and you'd save millions.

Nationalise all the cash and assets of banking, let the market take all the toxic debt. Natioanlise all the banks of the channel islands.

Peg sterling to the $/€.

Cease all currency transactions (a la Mahatir).

I would go a bit further than this myself...I'd freeze the assets of the top 0.5pc of richest people in the UK, all non-doms. Put control orders on them and their families. All the royals would be included. They have to give back all their property.

And bring back the death penalty for treason and politicians. Then hang about 20-30 senior banking executives and Labour/Tory politicians in Paternoster Square.

Then we'd break for lunch.

See, Pan, I think supplying your own damn biscuits is fine. We had coffee/tea/bottled water at every damn meeting, and I think all we did was increase sales of toilet paper and handwash as everyone drank their way through the day.

Pol - that's just bonkers, but seriously - can we not fix that kind of crap without throwing the baby out with the bathwater? It just seems like it could - should - be fixable within current institutions.

I'm in a quandary. My lefty heart says that universal benefits and services are a sine qua non... but maybe we just can't afford them? eg most Euro countries have an element of private health insurance. Maybe we will have to start thinking about this?

Ex-DP used to work in the NHS and was entirely ideologically committed to it, but he was constantly despairing of overly-bureaucratic processes. He once wanted to put up a pin-board at his lab bench and had to fill in a form to the maintenance department for permission, and then waited about three months for a reply before just banging in a couple of pins and putting it up himself. And - as someone who was very good at his job - he was forced out of the NHS in the end because his two immediate superiors, who just weren't terribly competent, effectively had jobs for life.

ok TD. But still not sure why. I am sure the people who are 'doing the dealing' are not as moveable as the "hot money" that is flowing round the world as we understand it to be, looking for a home where it will earn most money??

Public sector savings - I work as a manager in a public sector body. When at meets we have supply our own biscuits. Pathetic we know, but there is nothing left in the budget for them. Not a or a crumb to be had.

I mean, surely that would be the efficient way to look at it - cost/benefit and all that?

It's your spelling of apostrophes that's let you down, Pan.

I really want to know just how rubbish the people who would be prepared to work for a bit less would be - would their difference in productivity be more or less than the difference in salaries?

LordPanofthePeaks - i agree that they are overpaid but that has to be sorted globally.

The perceived waste and bureaucracy in the public sector is partly due to constantly having to justify how public money is spent. And yes, absolutely public money should be spent carefully, but when I think about how much time and energy and MONEY HE institutions put into stuff like the RAE and league tables (yes, indirect justification, I know), it just seems insane.

TD - not talking of killing off anything, esp. if it's an earner. But the notion of "having" to pay inflated salaries to the 'very clever people' in situ to keep them in situ isn't credible. They are indeed parasitic, if not living off this country's wealth, then living off other countries' wealth.

yes theyoungvisiter- Brown and Darling played a blinder in the way the bought the banks cheap and we are sitting on a nice and rising profit see here

Oh I agree that propping up the banks was the right thing to do. And actually I would support some of the tories cuts - we get tax credits and frankly it's bonkers. It makes no difference to our budget.

But other cuts I disagree with - in fiscal terms as well as moral ones. I'm sure things like surestart centres and subsidised childcare pay for themselves in terms of keeping parents in the labour market, allowing women to return to work etc.

Also regarding "The fundamental issues of efficiency and value for money in the public sector have simply not been addressed" - I don't know. Is that true? Many of my family work in local government and that honestly isn't the picture I get from their workplace - the impression I get is of constant outsourcing, constant bidding against external providers, having to undercut them every single time. There seems to be far more waste and profligacy at my private sector work place!

I heard a programme on the radio a little while ago with a man who'd been in the Swedish govt wwhen they had to undergo austerity measures + tax raises. The same threats of money going overseas were made - didn't happen - think cory has made this point elsewhere.

TD - not worried about the markets - just irritated by constant deference to them when they seem to be largely made up of people terrified they won't be quite as rich as they used to be any second.

LordPanofthePeaks- I must say that politicians and financial journalists are conveniently dont discuss this point sensibly and openly.

The volume of capital that trades in the UK hundreads or thousands times (if not more)larger than the UK economy. Much of the city earns fees from dealing GLOBAL capital. Sure a little money is made from our savings accounts and UK cororates but nothing that could come close to paying for the City.

If the City was just ripping off the UK economy then surely it would not have sustained us for that long as the primary industry. I don't want to side track the thread and start referring to the stats but I think that you are not correct on this at all.

Try killing off the global revenue that the city earn and wwatch how poor the UK would become!

What really galls is the way all these Lib Dems are being wheeled out on breakfast telly to justify Clegg completely selling out the core principles of his party and voters. FFS.