While we were all in shock after the Supreme Court ruling that Boris Johson is an idiot we missed this part of Corbyn’s speech If I understand it correctly a Labour Government would use to current public sector research and purchasing spend on pharmaceuticals to create a public sector owned pharmaceutical company which will compete … Read more
Anne Widdecombe announced her arrival in the European Parliament this week with a speech that made a spectacularly ill judged comparison between Brexit and the abolition of slavery. Widdecombe’s views on slavery, the British Empire and the last few hundred years of British history maybe eccentric and unpleasant, but she isn’t the only person with … Read more
Croydon Health Services NHS is about to advertise for a new Chief Executive. This isn’t unusual. It’s been a troubled Trust on and off for a while, formed from the merger of Mayday Healthcare NHS Trust with Croydon Community Health Services. It operates University Hospital Croydon along with lots of Community Services, and a Community Hospital. The … Read more
First of all an apology. There is a lot on at work, and a lot of stuff happening behind the scenes, and this has got in the way of blogging. The data from the last set Social Attitudes Survey is out, and people aren’t happy with the NHS. This might not come as a surprise … Read more
People in the NHS continually complain about re-organisations. The endless churn and change of job titles, letterheads and lanyards. The reason for this continual mess can be traced back to the original sin of NHS management – the introduction of the internal market – the purchaser/provider split in the 80s. Pretty much ever re-organisation since … Read more
A month ago I wrote about the weird world of Student Loans and how they are accounted for by the Government. /https://jon-chadwick.com/2018/11/17/the-great-student-loans-swindle-its-a-swindle-a-swindle/ Today the Office of National Statistics published their review of Student Loans accounting, which makes some big changes to how the Government calculates the deficit (but not national debt) https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2018/12/17/accounting-for-student-loans-how-we-are-improving-the-recording-of-student-loans-in-government-accounts/ In short an … Read more
My last full length blog was a deep dive into the weird world of student loans financing, a mess so big that it will take years to unwind. Two people separately approached me and raised the issue of the Apprenticeship levy. You know who you are. For those who don’t follow education policy the levy … Read more
A few months ago I wrote about the collapse of Carillion, and drew comparisons between their collapse and the Government outsourcing industry in general. https://jon-chadwick.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=946&action=edit This week Interserve have announced they are negotiating a financial recovery package. This news led their shares to slump to 24p each, down from 660p 3 years ago. Interserve turn … Read more
A few weeks ago I wrote about the way that the 1930s has become a ubiquitous metaphor for people who want to make a point about modern politics. Not just any 1930s but the Hitler/Mussolini version. Simon Sharma, who knows better, referred to Trump as a “Yankee Duce” in this weekends FT. Tonight we’re going … Read more
Bloody immigrants eh? Coming over here, driving down wages, destroying terms and conditions of employment. Over the last few days British politicians have debated Brexit in the House of Commons, while their parties respective spin Doctors have filled the airwaves and provided content to partisan websites with endless drivel. The arguments about Brexit are tangled … Read more