So we had the budget and its Granny Tax.
Followed by the Pasty Tax.
Then the Alcohol minimum pricing.
Then the petrol crisis-that-wasn't.
And then Dave Cameron"s snoopers' charter.
And then Little Gove's plans to let exams be managed by universities. Or, if they don't want to (as it seems they don't), Local History Societies or the Mothers' Union or Lord Sugar or something.
It just feels like one stupid initiative after another, each dafter than the last - almost like each one's just designed to distract attention from the last one. George Galloways's victory in Burnley East (i.e. Bradford) must have been like the icing on the cake.
All I'm saying is, if you get up tomorrow to find that Francis Maude is privatising snow, while George Osborne is on Daybreak, dressed up as Lady Gaga, juggling kittens - well, you heard it here first.
The irony is, I thought PR was Dave Cameron's original job.
Anyone know how the NHS Bill went?
What NHS Bill?
ReplyDeleteAnnounced on Radio Kent today, is the building of a new Private Hospital, which the NHS will be paying 25% of the cost of, so that they can place 25% of patients in their for specialist surgery. The idea being that it will encourage NHS Trusts in Kent, to develop their own specialist surgery skills to compete with something they are helping to fund.
It's incomprehensible, but it apparently, the outcome of a GP's initiative, under some new legislation or other. This is the underlying reason for both the Granny Tax and the Pasty Tax.
Profits from this venture will be exclusively shared by the Private Health Provider's shareholders.
This scandal was slipped out under the guise of local news.
I'm so glad to hear that we're not the only ones with interesting stuff coming from politicians - I was beginning to feel lonely. I actually thought America (we) had the corner on that market. The Brits are generally portrayed to us through the media as one of the only countries on that side of the pond with their politics in well-ordered hand. France is portrayed as having an overwhelming issue with Muslim immigrants, Germany as trying to control everything (what's new?), and Greece as being a bunch of children who can't control their money. Lots of generalizations there and apologies for any offense. But overall, that's about how our media has things pegged over there. I read the BBC's website, but I think they recognize my IP address as being over here and they sanitize everything I read. I don't understand why because this conversation is proof positive that the media no longer can control the flow of information. It's like they're shouting at the wind.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous: Europe's main concern is being foreign.
ReplyDeleteForeign with respect to yourselves? Or foreign with respect to the rest of the world? If you are foreign, then who is "local"?
DeleteIf you're British, everyone else is foreign - and a tough burden it is for them too.
DeleteReminds me of the apocryphal news headline - fog in Channel; continent isolated.