The 2015 Popularity Contest (aka UK General Election )

[Walken]

Which is a bind isn't it? We don't seem to trust politicians, and don't trust organisations either. I mean I think most people would agree that constant top down re-organisations as we had with the NHS recently are not very useful, and yet we see earlier in this thread that there is mistrust around more bottom up community led changes too.

Hypothetically, if the Tories win the election, you'd have a lot of people hating the government, yet demanding that nobody but the government should have any involvement in healthcare. That's a funny state of affairs.

It is a bind, the perception being that a non-profit organisation without shareholders to appease would be less inclined to sacrifice service, again coming down to mistrust of those in charge, if the organisations coming in where put under pressure to provide the best and most accessible service possible in order to win their contracts then you would think that would be to the benefit of all, but such is the level of mistrust of the goverment can they be trusted to ensure this. It wouldn't be the first case of a tory goverment running down national institutions to such a level where they can justify privatisation and sell off contracts to companies that they have an invested interest in. The public have been burned before

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I think you raise a very important point here, one which is generally over-looked by politicians of all sides.

Most people, as consumers, generally have a negative view of big business. Years of poor service, exploitation and market manipulation by banks, utility companies and many large retailers coupled with from a consumer perspective very poor outcomes from for example, rail privatisation, the outsourcing of refuge collections, is it any wonder that there is a range of negative emotions ranging from hostility and fear to cynicism associated with a changes to health provision?

Perhaps if Government and large corporates engaged in real market reform in the private sector aimed at the consumer then there would be more acceptance of alternative provision?

Britian has changed so much in 30 years and almost all the old securities of the employed working class (let alone those not employed or ill or elderly) have disappeared. One of the last pillars of a caring society the NHS is seen as next in line for privatisation - is there any wonder there is resistance and fear?

Is it mistrust of big business or just big everything though? I'm not sure centralising power is good, whether it's in a company or in a government. It may seem scant consolation perhaps, but the lifecycle of a FTSE 100 company is shorter now than it's ever been, and the churn is speeding up. That does at least suggest that big companies often don't stay around for too long before something better comes along to usurp them.

That doesn't tend to happen with political parties, and we rely instead on them being good people to keep them honest, and I'm not sure there's a great deal of evidence to back up that hope.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

It is a bind, the perception being that a non-profit organisation without shareholders to appease would be less inclined to sacrifice service, again coming down to mistrust of those in charge, if the organisations coming in where put under pressure to provide the best and most accessible service possible in order to win their contracts then you would think that would be to the benefit of all, but such is the level of mistrust of the goverment can they be trusted to ensure this. It wouldn't be the first case of a tory goverment running down national institutions to such a level where they can justify privatisation and sell off contracts to companies that they have an invested interest in. The public have been burned before

For sure, and I think we spoke previously about the apparent lack of skill in the domain that ministers seem to have control over. I'm not sure what will happen to be honest. If the campaigning is to be believed, if Labour win the election they may well roll back many of the changes the Tories put in. Whether that's good or bad can be debated, but it would be yet more top down reorganisation, which would seem far from ideal either way.

 

[Walken]

For sure, and I think we spoke previously about the apparent lack of skill in the domain that ministers seem to have control over. I'm not sure what will happen to be honest. If the campaigning is to be believed, if Labour win the election they may well roll back many of the changes the Tories put in. Whether that's good or bad can be debated, but it would be yet more top down reorganisation, which would seem far from ideal either way.

No doubt, short term-ism has become of the fall backs of democracy, I doubt any politician thinks beyond four years, if they even do that, such is the climate of the modern media age

 

[The Esk]

Is it mistrust of big business or just big everything though? I'm not sure centralising power is good, whether it's in a company or in a government. It may seem scant consolation perhaps, but the lifecycle of a FTSE 100 company is shorter now than it's ever been, and the churn is speeding up. That does at least suggest that big companies often don't stay around for too long before something better comes along to usurp them.

That doesn't tend to happen with political parties, and we rely instead on them being good people to keep them honest, and I'm not sure there's a great deal of evidence to back up that hope.

Most definitely big corporations. The NHS by several measures is the largest organisation in the country yet it the most universally admired and respected by the general population.

It ( the NHS) is probably the only organisation that the public regularly come into contact with where outcomes and service levels have improved for their benefit in the last 30 years.

Contrast that with service, customer experiences and broad perceptions of the excesses of big business at the consumer's expense.

That's why people care who provides their health services. Perhaps if the consumer experience elsewhere with big business was better, the source of health care provision would be less of an issue?

 

[Clint Planet]

Now, of course, I've never seen Clint teach and I have no reason to doubt his abilities whatsoever.......

I invited you into my school one time, a long time ago. I think it was because you had been so disparaging about the teaching profession (as ever). I wanted to show you how great my school is; how committed and talented the staff are; how valued and cared for the children are. You're all when it suits you and then *shrugs* or "it is what it is" when that better fits your agenda and you'd just done a "meh" response when I asked you what your experience of real schools actually was. Not much, was the answer, more or less.

Everyone - but everyone - has an opinion on education but you have the teaching profession in your cross-hairs more than anyone - you like to characterise us as dullard luddites who are selling our charges short. It is as insulting as it is wrong. The truth is you don't know much about the realities of teaching because you've never done it and you've no real idea about me, either. What's more, teachers are much more open-minded and innovative than you give them credit for.

(And I'd say that the Easterly model of planners and searchers has its merits but surely there has to be top-down planning and coordination of something as massive and complex as an education system. To hope that free schools and "inspirational types" will just spontaneously spring up and serve every child well is reckless and dogmatic. You have long undervalued the vital contribution of Education Authority expertise, though.)

In the meantime, I will return to the core problem that I think confronts our country - that of poverty, inequality and lack of opportunity for the most vulnerable in our society. As I've often said in the past, children should not be penalised for the social circumstances they find themselves in, and yet they are and you once said something like "I don't know much about inequality." That is what I mean when I say you ignore their needs.

 

[Seanjd]

Damned if they do, damned if they don't a bit though isn't it? Centralising power is almost certain to help those in power keep their power. It seems that people want some kind of benevolent dictator who will wield power but distribute it justly. Based upon history I'm not sure how realistic that is (tempting though it does sound).



That is the crux of the argument with these things, and has been for a very long time. I mean when did Ned Ludd smash up the looms that he believed would do everyone out of a job? The question is whether the current trend is just like all of the other technological trends of the last 1000 years, or whether it's something larger and more far reaching.

I'm not sure anyone can really say with any certainty.

Big up the Luddites.

 

[Seanjd]

I don't really care if things are state provided or non-state provided. Take http://www.alemhealth.com/ for instance. They're providing a means for hospitals in places like Afghanistan to access the medical expertise of specialists from around the world. That's a neat idea, and I'd like to think that it would be a neat idea regardless of whether the NHS had built it or this organisation in Dubai.

It's not that neat, it's a 'for profit' organisation which takes advantage of the fact that places like Afghanistan don't have a stable, quality health care system. In fact, patients in Afghanistan and the other countries it 'serves' have to pay for the service.

Private healthcare is a dangerous concept whether it's here or in Afghanistan.

 

[The Esk]

I invited you into my school one time, a long time ago.

Clint goes to the next staff meeting at his school "Comrades, we have faced the terror of Michael Gove and seen him off, we face the regular terror of OFSTED inspections and have seen them off. Now our biggest challenge to date, a visit from @Bruce Wayne"

Cue shrieks of terror and mass resignations lollol

Only joking guys, but actually I think it is an excellent idea

 

[Seanjd]

Hypothetically, if the Tories win the election, you'd have a lot of people hating the government, yet demanding that nobody but the government should have any involvement in healthcare. That's a funny state of affairs.

I don't think it's that funny. I think that the government should have 100% control of the NHS, while I hate the Tories for their 'privatisation by stealth' dismantling of the NHS in front if our eyes.

 

[Seanjd]

That's my world, and it's joyfully full of people that are actually doing stuff, they're not theorizing or pontificating about how difficult things are, they're getting out there and trying things out to make a difference.

It would be lovely if those in education, if nowhere else, would be capable of treating things on their merits rather than judging the messenger, but that sadly seems beyond you, as anything I say seems viewed through the Dickensian lens you have built up of me.

I'm sorry, are you implying teachers don't do anything? Okay, people might 'actually be doing stuff' in your world, but Clint is teaching the next generation of children. How disrespectful.

In the second pat I've bolded there, you make a sweep generalising statement than teachers cannot treat things on their merit. Clint is absolutely right. Do you have a problem with the teaching profession?

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Most definitely big corporations. The NHS by several measures is the largest organisation in the country yet it the most universally admired and respected by the general population.

It ( the NHS) is probably the only organisation that the public regularly come into contact with where outcomes and service levels have improved for their benefit in the last 30 years.

Contrast that with service, customer experiences and broad perceptions of the excesses of big business at the consumer's expense.

That's why people care who provides their health services. Perhaps if the consumer experience elsewhere with big business was better, the source of health care provision would be less of an issue?

I've no doubt that the NHS is both a very loved institution, and that it also has bits where it is truly exceptional. This love for the NHS can be a double edged sword though. We saw only last week with the King's Fund report that whistleblowing in the NHS is fraught with danger, and that's only at the more serious end of things.

It's great to support the NHS, but we should be very wary of creating an environment where any negative feedback of it is squashed, especially when the majority of patients have never experienced anything but the NHS. I mean the Czech's thought Skoda cars were the bees knees until the wall came down

There's a decent push within the NHS for thought diversity (http://www.nhsiq.nhs.uk/capacity-capability/thought-diversity.aspx) and a big part of that is the capacity for honest feedback to be heard. That's not saying everything is rubbish or everything is great, but accepting when things could be better and working to achieve that.

I invited you into my school one time, a long time ago. I think it was because you had been so disparaging about the teaching profession (as ever). I wanted to show you how great my school is; how committed and talented the staff are; how valued and cared for the children are. You're all when it suits you and then *shrugs* or "it is what it is" when that better fits your agenda and you'd just done a "meh" response when I asked you what your experience of real schools actually was. Not much, was the answer, more or less.

Everyone - but everyone - has an opinion on education but you have the teaching profession in your cross-hairs more than anyone - you like to characterise us as dullard luddites who are selling our charges short. It is as insulting as it is wrong. The truth is you don't know much about the realities of teaching because you've never done it and you've no real idea about me, either. What's more, teachers are much more open-minded and innovative than you give them credit for.

(And I'd say that the Easterly model of planners and searchers has its merits but surely there has to be top-down planning and coordination of something as massive and complex as an education system. To hope that free schools and "inspirational types" will just spontaneously spring up and serve every child well is reckless and dogmatic. You have long undervalued the vital contribution of Education Authority expertise, though.)

In the meantime, I will return to the core problem that I think confronts our country - that of poverty, inequality and lack of opportunity for the most vulnerable in our society. As I've often said in the past, children should not be penalised for the social circumstances they find themselves in, and yet they are and you once said something like "I don't know much about inequality." That is what I mean when I say you ignore their needs.

I can only apologise as I don't recall that invite, but if you can wrangle some weirdo from the Internet coming into your school I'd be only to happy to pop along. For what it's worth, I have worked in a couple of schools, but it was just a couple, it was a long time ago, and it wasn't in a teaching capacity, so I wouldn't use that for anything at all. I do have a PGCE however, but again, I'm not sure that qualifies me to say anything.

Thanks for the comment regarding Easterly, that's all I was after. Certainly not expecting everyone to agree with me.

Regarding inequality we're probably going over old ground here again, but I'll just reiterate that it seems to me that there are more (free) educational opportunities available now than has ever before been the case. That has to be a positive thing in any battle against inequality.

Big up the Luddites.

But they were wrong, which was kind of my point. Their fears didn't materialise, hence my question about whether the current situation is the same as that of the Luddites (and the many other 'uprisings' of their ilk) or whether there is something more powerful about the current shifts. There seem to be convincing points of view on either side, but I'm not sure a consensus has been formed.

It's not that neat, it's a 'for profit' organisation which takes advantage of the fact that places like Afghanistan don't have a stable, quality health care system. In fact, patients in Afghanistan and the other countries it 'serves' have to pay for the service.

Private healthcare is a dangerous concept whether it's here or in Afghanistan.

I'm a little bit confused. Firstly I can't see anywhere on their site where it says about their business model. They may be for profit, but I can't see anything to that effect. Secondly, a major part of the concern over the shifts in the economy is that people are often doing work for free that would otherwise have attracted a salary, which I think you believe is a bad thing. Do you want doctors to work for free now? If not, then who pays for it?

I know in India for instance, the Devi Shetty hospitals provide heart surgery to the poor for free because the wealthy pay. That's a privately run operation, and they provide heart surgery for (on average) about 10% of the cost of surgery in the west. Doesn't have to be black and white

I don't think it's that funny. I think that the government should have 100% control of the NHS, while I hate the Tories for their 'privatisation by stealth' dismantling of the NHS in front if our eyes.

http://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/5yfv-web.pdf

That's the five year plan for the NHS, published last autumn by the CEO of the NHS. I don't think there is any mention in there of this privatisation you speak of. You will see however that it mentions things like diverse solutions and accelerating the spread of useful innovations. I wouldn't listen to the twaddle churned out by politicians that should know better.

I'm sorry, are you implying teachers don't do anything? Okay, people might 'actually be doing stuff' in your world, but Clint is teaching the next generation of children. How disrespectful.

In the second pat I've bolded there, you make a sweep generalising statement than teachers cannot treat things on their merit. Clint is absolutely right. Do you have a problem with the teaching profession?

I'm not implying anything. Clint suggested my world was full of reports and research rather than anything practical (it's ok, I didn't expect you to regard that as disrespectful ), I was merely point out that that is far from the case.

Re your second comment, I'm not sure how you read that as a statement about teachers. I was talking to Clint, therefore it was a statement about Clint. No more, no less.

 

[Clint Planet]

One thing there doesn't appear to be is a consensus, and it seems to be falling into almost familiar Malthusian patterns, with optimists suggesting that mankind will adapt to this change as they have to most other ones over the years, whereas pessimists suggest that this one is very different and more far reaching than previous ones.

I don't suppose anyone really knows for sure, but it seems prudent to be aware of what's happening and how it might impact upon your livelihood. As with most of these kind of things, having the ability to adapt is a distinct advantage.

Getting back to this (because it is hugely interesting and also hugely worrying):

Sean makes an excellent point with this comment:

"By creating self serving products, such as driverless cars or even self service checkouts, people are fast moving from suppliers and consumers, to consumers only. These things are invented to make our modern lives easier, when in fact, they are making our lives much more difficult. The only lives they are making easier are the few who own them.

Like Clint said, the economy will just collapse in on itself if this continues to a grande scale.

The onus on society needs to be to support its people. That's the problem with current mega companies, their onus is ultimately on making as much money for its owners as possible. This is the point I was making in previous posts regarding large companies. If we take large supermarkets and their use of self service as an example; their purpose is to replace humans in order to maximise profits. Tesco wasn't operating a loss before self service came into play. You can only see it going one way, and that is purely self service supermarkets manned by a couple of staff. Nobody on checkouts. This is one example which isn't good for society. It isn't providing jobs. It's turning the suppliers into the consumers. It's making the man at the top more money."

It suggests that the model is broken, or, at the very least, wonky. It also raises the important question of - Just what benefit is hugely profitable multinationals to the man in the street and to society as a whole? Multinationals are, almost by their very nature, antidemocratic and yet we don't seem to be that bothered about it.

Then there is the population explosion:

.....coupled with the fact that we are now at peak oil production:

....and it's clear that we as a species face enormously challenging times ahead and, I believe, if we don't change tack, the very real possiblity of political and economic collapse.

I say all this because of your comment about our ability to adapt to change. As you can see, I'm a bit pessimistic on that one because the coming change will very likely be so fundamental that adaptation within the current socio-economic-political framework will not be an option. The framework itself may well have collapsed.

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

 

[Clint Planet]

In that sense, we are all fiddling while Rome burns.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Yes, there are certainly an enormous amount of decent size shifts happening around the world, and I don't know how things will pan out. I know peak oil had a lot of attention (amongst those in that field anyway - less so in the mainstream press) a decade or so ago. Is it still a thing or has fracking and shale gas (which is a dirty process and no mistake) put things off for a bit longer?

It's going to be an interesting time though for sure. Governments (or any big oranisation really) are not known for their agility so I'm not convinced they can adapt to what's happening with any great speed. What implications that may have is obviously hard to say.

I agree with the original point about increasingly seeming to be a society of consumers rather than producers, and worryingly so much of what we consume seems done on credit. I'm not sure at all that any growth we've seen in the UK economy since 2010 has been achieved by increased productivity but rather flooding the economy with printed money (and therefore cheap credit).