Hymenoplasty operations women virgins again increased NHS costs

Because the NHS has a bottomless pit of money to spend! Hymenoplasty and breast enlargement are generally not necessary medical procedures, but are for religious, cultural or personal pride reasons.
I don't want to pay for others to have this sort of operation, especially when people are dieing because the NHS won't fund life saving cancer treatment. Priorities, priorities...
More here http://www.closeronline.co.uk/2012/06/rise-in-ops-to-make-women-virgins-again

It's that time of year

Everywhere I go in London at the moment I am confronted by roadworks, I suppose it's that time of year when local councils highways departments work extra hard to spend all of their budget before the end of the financial year. That's one of the differences between the public and the private sector. In the private sector, departments try to cut expenditure and waste in order to increase profitability. In the public sector departments have to spend their whole budget so as to justify no reduction in budget next year.

Why bother to vote in local elections?

Why indeed, when so much of the areas that local councils are meant to control or manage are in fact controlled by the EU.

'This video aims to highlight a sample of just 8 local issues upon which the EU Parliament has usurped the control of central and local government in the UK - often to disastrous effect. Some appear scandalous, others farcical, but all illustrate that the EU is the hidden local issue. www.hiddenlocalissue.co.uk

This film was produced by the Europe of Freedom & Democracy Group in the European Parliament. It incorporates EU-critics, eurosceptics and eurorealists. The main goals of the Group are to reject the Treaty establishing a constitution for Europe and to oppose all forms of centralisation.
www.efdgroup.eu'

Europe, and by that I mean the EU, is not a marginal issue; it is the main issue in the UK as it affects so many aspects of our lives. So you have a choice in the upcoming local elections: vote for a pro-EU Labour party, vote for the mostly fanatically pro-EU Lib Dems, vote for a Conservative party with many EU-realists in the party but lead by pro-EU people or vote for a truly EU-realist party UKIP.

EU extravagance

The EU 'need' a larger headquarters and back in 2004 they ordered one. Now the plans have been made public and at a time when national governments and more importantly ordinary people across the EU are having to tighten belts, our EU masters have no such plans.

The design was presented to David Cameron and the other EU leaders at a summit in a brochure rumoured to have cost £100,000 itself. The building is budgeted to cost £280 Million; I bet it costs more.

What a waste? Of course. But whilst the Euro collapses alongside Greece, the EU-philes are still out there, indeed Tony Blair has lifted his snout just long enough to talk up the EU on this morning's Politics Show. The oh so pro EU BBC are already reporting what he said thus:

'Former prime minister Tony Blair has said there might still be a case for the UK joining the euro in the future.

He told the BBC he did not agree with people who argued joining would be a disaster, but there had to be a compelling economic case for doing so.

He said he believed the euro would eventually resolve its problems and the case for Britain joining may become "compelling ... at a certain point".

David Cameron said it would be a "dreadful idea" for Britain to join.

The prime minister, in Brussels for an EU summit where Greece's debt crisis is among items on the agenda, said: "Britain is out of the euro - I think we will stay out of the euro and certainly as long as I am doing this job there is no prospect of Britain even contemplating joining the euro."

...

Mr Blair told BBC One's Politics Show, in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday, he had backed the idea of Britain joining the euro when he came to power - but had accepted that the conditions had to be right.

...

"Now I don't actually take the view that some people take, that Britain joining the euro, in the past or now, will be a disaster. However I always said, unless you can make a compelling case for it economically you were never going to win a referendum on it.

"And the case for Britain joining isn't compelling. Now it may become that at a certain point."

...

Mr Blair said the problems with the eurozone were "fundamental" and there had to be changes - to align fiscal and monetary policy across the single currency area, and to make changes in those countries with problems.

"If people are retiring in their 50s on large salaries in the public sector, in circumstances where, in the end, you know, life has changed, demography has changed, people are living longer and so on - at some point you've got to reform."

But he said he did not think the euro would collapse, adding that the logistics of recreating individual currencies were "immense".

"For Europe, no I don't think they're going to give up the single currency. Now that's not to say there aren't huge issues to do with how you get through the next months." '

I presume that The Politics Show will not question Tony Blair too hard about his enthusiasm for the Euro. Questions like 'would the UK be better off now if it had joined the euro?' will not be asked. Questions like 'does monetary and fiscal union mean that political union is inevitable?' will also not be asked.

The BBC is pro-Labour and pro-EU, so Tony Blair will have got an easy ride this morning and this anti-Labour and anti-EU NotaSheep will not raise my blood pressure by watching the interview...

Labour paying off its historic debts "bit by bit", unfortunately not the country's

This morning I hear that Harriet Harman has said that the Labour party is paying off its historic debts "bit by bit".That's good to know but it is a shame that they cannot also be called upon to pay off the debts they built up for the country "bit by bit". The last 11 years of the last Labour government saw an increase in public spending that was beyond anything the UK has seen before. This expansion of the state was supported by a bubble of debt and the policies of above all Gordon Brown and his right-hand men Ed Balls and Ed Miliband. This triumvirate of wasters should never, ever be allowed to forget or be forgiven for their role in screwing up the UK economy. However their friends and allies in the BBC will do their best to ensure that the Labour mantra that it was all the fault of bankers and the US economy becomes the accepted truth.

The BBC waste money - Is this really news?

'The BBC's ten-year long Digital Media Initiative has already fallen tens of million of pounds short of achieving cost saving, a study by the National Audit Office for the BBC Trust has found.
Described as a "technology transformation project" the DMI is intended to achieve efficiencies and "prepare us for an on-demand digital environment" by allowing staff "to develop, create, share and manage video and audio content and programming on their desktop". It was announced in 2007 and has a price tag of £133.6m, and Siemens was appointed contractor.

Instead of saving £17.9m, the DMI instead cost the BBC £38.2m net – an impressive overrun. The NAO found that the "early stages of the programme were not value for money", even after some £27.5m was clawed back from Siemens when the contract was terminated.'

For more details take a read of this article from The Register

Hardworking Eurocrats

'1,962 of EU's most senior civil servants have been allowed to join a "flexitime" scheme, originally meant for lower paid secretarial staff, that gives an extra 24 days off work every year for those that put in an extra 45 minutes a day in the office.

The perk comes on top of annual holidays of 24 days as well as seven days off for public holidays, and in 2010, 11 "non-working" days out of the office when the Brussels institutions are closed in summer and at Christmas.

The allowances mean that last year many EU staff were entitle to 66 days or 13 weeks or a quarter of the year off work. '

The Telegraph has more details.

The ninety-third weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

This week's award goes to management consultants Knox D’Arcy, as reported in The Telegraph for their simply incredible research to discover that found that council staff 'waste two-thirds of their day'.

A large number of public sector employees are wasting their time and our money - "No shit, Sherlock"

Labour's legacy - "We have spent, spent and spent again"

Saving the NHS money

As well as reducing the ridiculous cost of IVF to the National Health Service, an inability to breed should not be paid is not something that the NHS should treat, stopping spending money on virginity repairs would be another place to start. Reading that there has been a surge in demand for this operation driven largely by Muslim women desperate to preserve the illusion that they have not had sex before their wedding night, does not make me feel cheerful. Nor does reading that:

'There have been calls for a ban on NHS surgeons carrying out the operations for women wanting to marry as virgins.

But a Department of Health spokeswoman insisted that hymen repair operations only take place on the NHS to ensure a patient's 'physical or psychological health'.

She said: 'The NHS does not fund hymen repair operations for cultural reasons. All operations on the NHS are on the basis of clinical need.

'Operations to repair the hymen are only carried out exceptionally to secure physical or psychological health.''

I'd like to know what the cultural background is of doctors who deem there to be 'clinical need' for hymen reconstruction surgery, because I cannot envisage there ever to be a 'clinical need'; van you?

Another two sensible policies from this Conservative/LibDem government

1. International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell said aid recipients must demonstrate value for money. The UN, World Bank and other international bodies that receive money from the UK must therefore prove they deliver results or face cuts.

2. Mark Hoban, Financial Secretary to the Treasury has said that despite Herman Van Rompuy's recommendation that national budget plans are shared at EU level before they are presented to national parliaments, the British will not accept it. "The budget will be presented to Parliament first... there is no question of anyone other than MPs seeing it first".


Add this to sensible policy announcements on ID Cards, HIPS, bin collection and speed cameras and I feel a more cheerful NotaSheep.

More EU aggrandisement

The BBC proudly report that:

"A German/UK consortium has been asked to supply the first operational spacecraft for Europe's Galileo satellite-navigation system.

OHB System and Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) will build 14 satellites in a contract valued at 566m euros ($811m; £510m).

The contract was announced by the European Commission in Brussels.

Galileo is intended as an EU version of the US Global Positioning System (GPS), but with significant improvements.

Its more advanced technology should give users quicker, more reliable fixes, and enable them to locate their positions with an error of one metre compared with the current GPS error of several metres. "

So when you are driving how many times has your Sat Nav's 'innacuracy' caused you a problem and had you wishing for a more accurate version?

In May 2007 I blogged that:

"in 1999 the EU started planning a rival system. The original plan was for this system to cost £0.7bn and be privately funded and run; the latest estimate is £2.7bn and costs will no doubt rise again. This is surely not a problem as this is a privately funded project? Well it was to be privately funded, however now the EU have realised that there is no real market for a charged for untested competitor to compete with a free to the end user working system "

Hidden at the end of that BBC piece is this news nugget:

"The venture came very close to being abandoned in 2007 when the public-private development-and-business model set up to build and run the system collapsed.

To keep Galileo alive, EU member-states had to agree to fund the entire project from the public purse. What should have cost European taxpayers no more than 1.8bn euros will now probably cost them in excess of 5bn euros. "

So in 1999 the budget was £0.7bn of private money, in 2007 it reached £2.7bn of public money and now it's £5bn and the project is not finished yet.

So at a time when the EU's economies are screwed we are wasting money on a vanity project.

Say hello to your own rats

Read and weep at the control over every aspect of our lives that this Labour government want to have. I really have had enough of the interfering, meddling and control-freakery of this Labour government.

Stop spending our money!

The BBC report that:

"House of Commons Speaker John Bercow has appointed a former Times journalist as his special adviser and spokesman.

Tim Hames, who is currently a director of communications for a lobby group, was chosen without anyone else being interviewed for the post.

It is thought to be the first time a Speaker has taken on someone with the job title of special adviser.

Mr Hames will start work on 2 November and is expected to spend about a third of his time dealing with the media.

He will be a special adviser on a Grade 1 status, meaning he will get a salary of between £87,000 and £107,000 a year. "

I presume that John Bercow (ex CINO MP) is not paying Tim Hames from his post tax income and so I resent this addition to the public purse. The Speaker should get on with being The Speaker, he has clerks to advise him on Parliamentary business, he does not need any other advisers. This should be another nail in the coffin of John Bercow's career as an MP as I am sure Nigel Farage will skilfully use it at the coming general election.

It's only taxpayers' money after all

I note that two swine flu call centres are to close just weeks after opening because staff have been spending most of their time playing cards and board games as the number of calls has not met expectations. The two call centres that will close are in Farnborough and Watford are run by NHS Professionals which supplies temporary-workers to the health service.

So we have call centres allegedly staffed by 16-18 year olds with minimal training and according to The Mail play games when there are no calls to answer.

A Labour government wasting money on a scare story; what a shock.

The envy of the world?

The NHS is the envy of the world? Really? The Mail reports that:

"Surgeons from Sweden, Denmark and Finland were flown into Britain between 2003 and 2006 as part of a £3million scheme to speed up hip and knee replacements.

But concerns were raised about the quality of the work carried out and many patients fear the surgeons were insufficiently trained or skilled.

More than one third of people operated on at Weston-super-Mare General Hospital (WGH), Somerset, had an unsatisfactory result and six legal cases are now being considered."

Read the rest of the story.

Stephen Pound at it again

Rent-a-quote Ealing North MP, Stephen Pound< has been at it again. This time he was spouting rubbish in The Mirror. Apparently The Mirror has discovered that

"The Tory leader, an outspoken critic of "waste and inefficiency", also has four speech writers among the 28 staff working for him in Parliament."

Stephen Pound, who should know quite a bit about waste is quoted as saying

"Not even the President of the United States needs 12 secretaries... This must be the biggest job creation scheme in the country."

First of all that is factually incorrect, here is a list of the 487 people working for the "WHITE HOUSE OFFICE and OFFICE OF POLICY DEVELOPMENT". Of these over 50 seem to be working in the areas of press and diary work. As an aside I blogged last week about the 22 staff on Michelle Obama's staff; 11 of which seem to be concerned with her diary and press matters.
I wonder if Stephen Pound could tell us how many "secretaries" Gordon Brown has working for him. Maybe Stephen Pound could also tell us how many of Gordon Brown's are being paid for by the taxpayer and how many by the Labour Party. Maybe he could then tell us how many of David Cameron's staff are being paid for by the taxpayer. So where's the waste?

London issues

1. "London's £10 billion pensions timebomb"

"A PENSION funding shortfall of £10billion threatens local government services in London, the Evening Standard reveals today.

A detailed investigation of council finances shows for the first time how all 33 local authorities now have deficits in their staff pension funds.

But while the funds have shrunk, the retirement benefits due to be paid to local government's highest paid workers have never been more generous. At least seven current chief executives are heading for final salary pensions of at least £100,000 a year.

Experts warn that the scale of the underfunding, equivalent to more than £3,000 for every council tax paying household in the capital, makes sharp increases in council tax or cuts in services all but inevitable."

2. "Day of the long knives at City Hall as Boris axes 120 jobs"

"CITY Hall staff today told of a "climate of fear" as up to 120 positions were cut as a result of Boris Johnson's restructuring plans.

The Mayor wants to save about £7.5million from an £80million budget by the cuts, many of them middle managers earning about £40,000.

The main cuts are expected to be among administration staff. Short-term contracts will not be renewed. "

Lest we forget Tony Blair's promises

Tony Blair's 1996 speech to the Labour Party Conference was a classic Tony Blair speech, here's a rather pertinent excerpt (my emphasis):

"Today we compete in the era of global markets. There is no future for Britain as a low wage, low skills, low tech economy. We compete on quality or not at all. This means a stable economy long term investment and the enterprise of the people set free.

First get the fundamentals right.

Two recessions, one which wiped out a third of our manufacturing base.

Borrowed their way into the record books.

The pound devalued.

North Sea Oil money gone.

Assets all sold and squandered.

It's sometimes said the Tories are cruel but efficient. In fact, they are the most feckless, irresponsible and incompetent managers of the British economy in our history.

Labour will be the Party of sound finance and good housekeeping.

World interest rates and inflation rates are low. In Britain, under Labour we will keep them this way.

These will be defined targets set and kept to. Losing control of public finance isn't radical, It's just reckless.

Gordon Brown is the Iron Chancellor. They say it's easier to get past security at our Conference without a pass, than get a spending commitment past Gordon.

And that's how it will stay."

I'd almost forgotten Tony Blair's odd sentence structure but more striking is his admission that "Losing control of public finance isn't radical, It's just reckless" - So was Tony Blair reckless or did he just let Gordon Brown be reckless at home whilst he plotted the invasion of Iraq and bestrode the world like a colossus?

The Tony Blair/Gordon Brown Labour government, protected by their friends at the BBC, have nearly destroyed the UK economy (let alone the Country). The incompetence, the waste, the inefficiency are almost beyond belief; unfortunately they are real as is the culpability of the dire duo.


If you want to have an insight into the waste and mismanagement of the UK economy under Labour, watch the Channel 4's Dispatches programme from last night - "How they squandered our billions. You might also want to follow some of the links, including on the NHS IT balls-up, The Taxpayers Alliance and the Tax Credits Casualties organisation which I think might be worth following.

Is it odd that just as with the subject of Islamic extremism in UK Mosques the story has to be reported by Channel 4? Not that odd really, because the BBC are too busy pushing their own agenda including that of the absolute benefits of multiculturalism, and of course the need for perpetual Labour government, to even think of questioning their own orthodoxy.

Democracy Labour style

The Mail reports that:

"Millions of voters are to be deprived of their say over how their rubbish is collected.

Their councils are first in the queue to hand over their refuse operations to quangos that will not be answerable to residents at the polls.

Local elections in the past two years have seen heavy punishment meted out by voters to councillors who have abolished weekly collections and brought in the highly unpopular fortnightly schemes and their accompanying complicated recycling rules.

The new unelected bodies - to be called Joint Waste Authorities - will be able to introduce fortnightly rubbish collections without fear of a backlash from voters.

They will run waste 'police forces' which can punish householders who break bin rules.

The quangos will also be able to introduce bin taxes. Ministers mothballed immediate plans for wheelie bin 'incentives' last week after elected local councils proved reluctant to volunteer for trials.

The first Joint Waste Authorities are likely to be established next year, according to documents published yesterday by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). "

So to avoid democratic accountability this Labour government introduces more unelected quangos. This Labour government must be got rid off whilst there is still the remnants of democracy left in the UK.