ECCOnoob

You do realise that the NHS budget gets more than double the entire estimated costs of high speed 2 each and every year. If you want to break that down. Based on current figures of a £120billion NHS annual budget, that would mean that by the time HS2 is built the NHS would have piddled away £1,560,000,000,000. HS2 is not even pocket change. HS2 or its equivilent is an investment in future infrastructure. An investment that is desprately needed. Its not as simple as these moronic statements as "getting to London quicker". That is just one part of it. Its about dragging our railways out of the 70s (or in some cases even 60s) doldrums and creating a tiny fraction of the sort of system that other countries have had for decades. Inverstment has to start start somewhere and taxpayer monies cannot always be diverted to what the ill informed masses think. The "public" are dumb. The "public" never understand nor care about the bigger picture. There is more to this country than just the NHS. Its a bottomless money pit and year on year screams its not getting enough. There are other things that money needs to pay for. We cannot let every other piece of infrastructure and investment die just to feed it. Im sorry but your "cunning plan" is the sort of child like and ill thought out simplistic response that a student debating society would have or Jeremy Corbyn would come out with.

Social care no . learning dis service yes central transport yes leasehold services yes corporate finance yes. Would it make a different to your unnecessarily rude post I had spoken to that specific team anyway. You clearly made your judgement on me and clearly decided I knew nothing so what's it matter. ---------- Post added 02-04-2017 at 21:07 ---------- I disagree. I am certainly not an apologist but I consider myself a realist. These particular civil service organisations have always had problems. They are always the ones who demand more and more money year on year. That eventually has a breaking point. I am not saying that the government is blameless in this. There are definitely things that need to be done however I will never ever agree that the fault lies solely with the current government. You say I ignore things that don't suit my agenda but what about some of the Rose tinted opinions all over this forum. Why is it that its always the evil Conservatives taking the criticism. Its never labour's fault. Its happened every time a Tory government gets into power before and its happening right now within this one. All failures in the civil service suddenly emerge and the left wing press and their Union stirrers fuel the fire as if nothing ever went wrong when the other side was in charge. I am not denying problems and i have sympathy for your wife who is working and dealing with such issues. However I maintain that this is not a new thing. It is not a simple as "it's the worst it has ever been". I simply do not believe that. There have been periods like this before and they will be some like this in the future ---------- Post added 02-04-2017 at 21:12 ---------- I disagree. I am certainly not an apologist but I consider myself a realist. These particular civil service organisations have always had problems. They are always the ones who demand more and more money year on year. That eventually has a breaking point. I am not saying that the government is blameless in this. There are definitely things that need to be done however I will never ever agree that the fault lies solely with the current government. You say I ignore things that don't suit my agenda but what about some of the Rose tinted opinions all over this forum. Why is it that its always the evil Conservatives taking the criticism. Its never labour's fault. Its happened every time a Tory government gets into power before and its happening right now within this one. All failures in the civil service suddenly emerge and the left wing press and their Union stirrers fuel the fire as if nothing ever went wrong when the other side was in charge. I am not denying problems sympathy for your wife who is working and dealing with such issues. However I maintain that this is not a new thing. It is not a simple as "it's the worst it has ever been". I simply do not believe that. There have been periods like this before and they will be some like this in the future

Don't you dare tell me what I know and don't know about social services. I have two relatives who are both service users, one of whom I am legal guardian for and has been a protected party all of his life. I speak to people in social services on a weekly basis, I attend carer forums, I know several people who work for learning disability services and before I completed my studies and started working full time I used to assist running summer play schemes and worked with Mencap. My opinion is just valid as much as anyone else. Don't start arrogantly pretending you know all about me just because I have a different stance to others. This is a discussion forum and this is a debate. It might shock you to realise that just because some people are users or even workers of a service that doesn't mean that they think it's beyond criticism nor think that the entire failure sits with the current government - a position which unfortunately is played by far too many people on this forum What gives you the right to even think about calling me every name under the sun? I'm never going to deny that there are problems but I ask again when hasn't there been. Horror stories of people being neglected in care come along all the time. There is a history of it. There has been care home scandals before and there is very likely to be more in the future. NHS scandals have happened before and though I hate to say it there will be some more in the future.

No. Why? Are they going to tell me anything different to the same complaints they have been coming out with 5, 10, 20 years ago? When I worked in legal aid in the 90s I heard plenty of conversations from support workers going on about the crisis with funding and not enough staff and how there was never enough money to fund all the projects they needed to do. When I talk to my relative's support workers now they complain that there's not enough money and our contributions have got to be increased and they have to cut certain project because there's no staff. I've also seen plenty of repeated and almost cut and paste protest from unions and leaders in the industry complaining about the same issues right back to the late 70s through to present day. Like I said earlier there is nothing new here. Its always allegedly been in Crisis. Their staff when you ask them will never say anything other than they are not paid enough they are not funded enough and they are not staffed enough. The more you become like a broken record the less people listen. The more you treat an organisation like a bottomless Money Pit the less people feel inclined to contribute. Getting the balance right is a very difficult position for lots of government organisations. They might very well think that they are have priority over each other but in reality something has to give. Despite the fantasy the so called leader of the opposition wants to portray you cannot fund everything unlimited forever. There is no money tree.

Yawn. When have they not been "in crisis" or "on the brink of collapse" or "massively underfunded" or "totally neglected" or "destined to fail" or "facing closure" Been that way since gods dog was a puppy thanks to an obsessive an sensationalist Media agenda doing it because they know it makes headlines and sells their product. It must be a miracle that despite all the multiple whines of being in crisis over the decades they are all still functioning.

There is no such thing as spirit of the law - something is either legal or it isn't. If a company is doing the former then there is nothing wrong. Your focus on what city is doing is about to fall apart as is your insistence that cross border is somehow a bad thing. What is to stop a city driver from Chesterfield taking up work in Sheffield and Barnsley. What is to stop City expanding even further and having regional or national operations with centralised call centres. Does that become a chauffer company such as black line who already do this. Maybe at that point we are straying into the ride sharing territory. I'm no expert in these boundaries but those in the know certainly are and they will be fully aware of what they can and can't do. These arguments regarding regulation and safety or wholly subjective. To me, maybe the biggest problem is that the government hasn't developed the regulations to allow for such companies. If you run a hotel there are a 1001 regulations that you have to jump through in order to comply with HSE, tourism board standards and to get your ratings but that never stops people going for airbnb accommodation instead. I can only speak from an end user basis but in my opinion there are just as many potential safety concerns with black cab or minicab drivers as much as a ride share service. When using uber every vehicle I've had so far has been a lot newer than most of the mini cabs and has often been better service to some of the hackney carriage drivers particularly those who choose to be on their mobile phone yakking throughout the entire journey barely paying me attention. Uber is not a perfect model and is subject to many grey areas that I will fully argue need sorting. However when looking through some of the aggression these threads there is no doubt to me there are signs of sour grapes due to potential competition against the overprotected bubble that is licensed drivers. Ultimately it will be for the customers to decide. Time to stop the moaning and to embrace the new regime. Why can't the licensed drivers use their unique selling points and be better than the competition. For a simple start it's about time that we had a blanket acceptance of credit and debit card in taxis and more firms developing a proper app based booking system. That's clearly how people are living their lives now and definitely will be going forward. Until the regulated trade get the basics sorted uber is only going to get bigger. ---------- Post added 02-04-2017 at 18:01 ---------- There is no such thing as spirit of the law - something is either legal or it isn't. If a company is doing the former then there is nothing wrong. Your focus on what city is doing is about to fall apart as is your insistence that cross border is somehow a bad thing. What is to stop a city driver from Chesterfield taking up work in Sheffield and Barnsley. What is to stop City expanding even further and having regional or national operations with centralised call centres. Does that become a chauffer company such as black line who already do this. Maybe at that point we are straying into the ride sharing territory. I'm no expert in these boundaries but those in the know certainly are and they will be fully aware of what they can and can't do. These arguments regarding regulation and safety or wholly subjective. To me, maybe the biggest problem is that the government hasn't developed the regulations to allow for such companies. If you run a hotel there are a 1001 regulations that you have to jump through in order to comply with HSE, tourism board standards and to get your ratings but that never stops people going for airbnb. I can only speak from an end user basis but in my opinion there are just as many potential safety concerns with black cab or minicab drivers as much as a ride share service. When using uber every vehicle I've had so far has been a lot newer than most of the mini cabs and has often been better service to some of the hackney carriage drivers particularly those who choose to be on their mobile phone yakking throughout the entire journey barely paying me attention. Uber is not a perfect model and is subject to many grey areas that I will fully argue need sorting. However when looking through some of the aggression these threads there is no doubt to me there are signs of sour grapes due to potential competition against the overprotective bubble that is licensed drivers. Ultimately it will be for the customers to decide. Time to stop the moaning and to embrace the new regime. Why can't the licensed drivers use their unique selling points and be better than the competition. For a simple start it's about time that we had a blanket acceptance of credit and debit card in taxis and more firms developing a proper app based booking system. That's clearly how people are living their lives now and definitely will be going forward. Until the regulated trade get the basics sorted uber is only going to get bigger.

They would be right in that "cry" wouldn't they. God forbid that its possible to have an alternative to the closed shop that is the private hire industry.

On two separate threads now I have seen comments from lots of Doom mongers. I have got to ask what exactly are we supposed to do? Do we stop inventing and creating new things. Do we halt any advances in technology and just dismiss it in order to simply preserve a few jobs. This is not a new story. These predictions and tales of woe happen all the time. The invention of machinery removed all the jobs previously done by labourers and animals, the invention of the typewriter removed all those hundreds and thousands of jobs done by those clerks with their pens and ledger books, the development of the computer removed all those hundreds and thousands of jobs done by great typing pools of secretaries, the development of robotics is now starting to eat into service jobs, the development of AI will inevitably start eating into the jobs done by legal financial and other professionals. A rolling cycle throughout the ages and yet somehow we are still here, we are still surviving and the majority of us are still working. How on earth can that be if we are all supposedly doomed. Enough with the prophecy. Its simple. As one generation of jobs become obsolete a whole generation of new ones come along. Been that way for centuries.

No it's not but perhaps Aldi might think that their branch up the road in Ecclesfield or perhaps their branch at masbrough, or Hillsborough or handsworth is close enough. Big businesses don't just make decisions on a whim. I'm sure they will know their potential catchment area - it's also not smart to have too many branches competing against each other - something that Tesco is recently finding out the hard way. All this about staff being treated badly or lying or the stores being boycotted is just silly. It's all Hearsay and nobody knows what the staff were told, how they were told or what they told customers. From what I understand discount supermarkets like this normally treat their staff well. They are paid a lot more than other retail workers and they pay supervisors and managers very good rates. So what if the staff have to jump around from stacking shelves to being on the till to cleaning. Its what they get paid for and it's better than other shops where some checkout worker is sat idle waiting for a customer. It's that very reason i.e. keeping the minimal overheads they can offer such cheap prices in the first place

Firstly Anna, nobody just gets "given" a chance. You make your own way in this world. We all get schooling. We all have access to higher education. We all determine how hard we choose to work and what type of career we set. We can at any time in our adult lives learn, retrain or do something to improve and progress. People born with a silver spoon jammed up their backsides dont automatically get a perfect life. People can have rich parents, the best schooling, a job handed to them on a plate and still throw it all away and end up on the streets. Others born into proverty, scrimp, save, have years of hard graft and self development and can become successful financially and in status. There will always be some unfortunate people who through illness or disabilty never get those opportunities BUT those are the exceptions to the rule. Those are the people the government should be focusing on. Those are the people who deserve the attention and sympathy. We all take responsibilities for our own lives. Enough with the self pity and looking for a target to place the blame. Poverty never is a permanent position for those prepared to do something about it. The family in the programme proved that by working and earning. If they want the lifestyle they have had a taste of, there is absolutely nothing to stop them having a chance of getting such a life. He can bobby off and set up a successful company or 1001 other career choices to build up his assets and income. IMO whilst they were clearly on a low income they were nowhere near what would be deemed in my mind "POVERTY" anyway. £440 a month net spending money is still a good amount and a figure that millions of lower grade workers will be living with too. Hardly some shocking figure. The channel 5 definition of the word to boost their ratings and fuel their endless parade of povo porn programmes is absolutely warped.

What on earth are you talking about. Do you serious think that the NHS in its so called heyday did not have managers? They may well not have been called that by job title but the organisation was filled was Directors, Administrators, Matrons, Heads of xxxx, Chiefs of xxxx. Plenty of suits and bow ties wandering around with their clipboards. Even the satire shows of the day would jibe about the NHS just as much as they do now. Lets not get all romantic about this. Just like people who bang on about the "glory days" of British Rail. There was none. Its was just as badly run, overfunded, overprotected and taken for granted as it is now. It was also not the flabby oversubscribed mess it is now with dozens and dozens of additional minority community specialist services, non-essential healthcare centres, government initiative programmes, support services and partnership projects which the organisation has to deal in present days.

I have no idea, I am not a surveyor nor do I care. What I do think is that the location we are talking about is NOT some world heritage vital piece of forestry. Ainceint it might well be, but so were lots of things which have long since been developed. Its progress. As I said earlier, the development proposals seem to have very little impact on the majority of the woodland and the specific location will have been chosen for very specific reasons. Big companies are not stupid. They dont just pick a location with a pin and map. They will have their reasons for picking J35 over J33 or any other location and from my review of the plans, have done all they can to maintain the woods as much as possible and have gone beyond the minimum to develop other facilities for the community. There is no denying that this particular tiny section of these so precious woods is stuck between an industrial park and motorway. Hardly a prized asset. Can we stop pretending that the entire Smithy Wood is somehow going to be destroyed or the entire planet's resources will be compromised by the building of a small service station. Its rediculous. I for one welcome the investment and development but no doubt the NIMBYs will shout it down just like they did with the drive through restaurant and mini bus station proposed developments.

Calm down a bit. The proposed development affects a small percentage of the woodland (less than 3% according to the plans) in a tiny area between an industrial park and the M1. Its hardly the Great Barrier Reef or the Amazon Rainforest.

Well whatever our opinions its clear around 20k people voted for him when he defected to UKIP. That's how he managed to become the party's only elected MP. A result that the parties leaders never achieved including mug of the party Farage who failed in his own attempts 7 times and golden boy Nutall who spectacuarly in Stoke. I dont like the man I have to admit he has a point. People ask why he joined and is now leaving. He says he joined to support getting out of the EU. Now its happening. He probably knows UKIP is a dying animal.

What are you on about? This thread is specifically about another potential scottish referendum right? Nicola Sturgeon is the face of and protagonist of that campaign right? You were the one who commented with comparisons and opinion against Teresa May and now you have seemingly spat your dummy out becuase people are counting your opinion. What exactly is this bigger picture you speak of?

:hihi::hihi::hihi: You have got to be kiddin' me. Nicola Sturgeon is a reactionary, short tempred, lying one trick pony. She would say and do anything to push her agenda and screw over her so called people. May is calm, calculated and decisive. She is not one to be rushed and not one to get rattled. She of course has her own agenda but is also big enough (as has been proven categorically with Brexit) to put that aside to get on with the extremely difficult job she is paid to do. Sturgeon has one thing on her desk and one thing only. By being so narrow minded and stubborn she is failing the very country she is supposed to represent, even going so far as to speak directly against the seemingly wishes of the majority. Jeanette Krankie can blame Westminster and the so called Elites all she wants, but perhaps she needs to take a look around her every now and then and see what her poorly led government has actually done. In democracy you sometimes have to deal with things YOU dont agree with. YOU are not the only one who did not vote for brexit BUT the majority of voters did. We have to accept that now. May has to get on with doing exactly what she is paid to do. Be Prime Minister of the UNITED KINGDOM. That is the UNITED KINGDOM that the majority of voters in Scotland agreed to remain part of. If Sturgoen actually got over her independance tantrum she might realise she has enough to be getting on with trying to fix the SCOTTISH failures with the devolved powers they so heavilly demanded. Perhaps she is too busy with her referendum to fix the failing Scottish NHS or the demands by teachers to fix the scottish education provision or the dwindling oil monies or the make believe figures as to how wealthy scottish industries are......just a thought.

What exactly do you think buses and trains run on? Pixie farts? Public transport kicks out just as much "fumes" as my car does. My car is also sat nicely in a car park spewing out nothing for 10 hours a day unlike a stinking bus which is trundling round or sat ticking over a bus stops all day every day of the week. Now, I am no petrol head but not everyone can nor wants to use public transport. It is often not practical or feasible. How exactly do you expect people to get to work? Horse and Cart? You scream about air being toxic now. Try back in the 50s when smog was commonplace and buildings were covered in soot and dust. Try the late 60/70s at the height of the allegedly so longingly missed steel works spewing out their fumes, heat and debris all over the roads. You live in a city. They ARE toxic. Any urban environment is. If you really are that sensitive move to the countryside.

Yes of course its too simple. Those consultants serve a purpose. They are giving professional advice, analysis and insight to fix the £900m financial black hole that the NHS currently suffers with. They are trying to make some small steps to correct the decades of ever spiraling expense, waste, oversubscription, being taken for granted, being badly run and being completely unworthy of its seemingly untouchable status. "...the public want doctors, nurses and paramedics.." Yes of course they do. That's because the "public" are dumb and they think that's all the NHS requires to work. They think that doctors, nurses and hard working support staff are the ONLY parts to the NHS that should ever have money spent on it. The mere rumour of a new manager or administrator or office block or computer systam and you can hear the screams about ".....waaa waaa how many doctors would that pay for.....waaa waaa..." Its pathetic. The "public" never know the reality. They never know nor care that an organistation with 1.6 million employees and a £136 billion budget actually does require management operations, directors and leadership to function. Sometimes, despite what the Daily Mirror and the Labour party scream from the rooftops its badly run and overfunded. Some of us have no issue with criticising it when its deserved nor cutting its massively inflated funding when it should be. Those decisions are huge and do not get done by some dusty civil service clerk sitting in a hospital basement. It needs suitably qualified and suitably skilled professionals. Like I have said before on this thread, nobody knows every single aspect about every single circumstance in their field of industry.

Funny thing about terrorist responses they generally happen without warning. Goodness sake calm down. So you had a do a bit of walking around planned perimeter route supervised and monitored by stewards. Hardly the end of the world. Its not like they just chucked people out of some back door and left them to their own devices. I am rather glad to know that they do such things particuarly with the current state of the world. Its sunday, after the main store hours and outside peak time. Sounds like the perfect time to do such a thing.

Have you seen the Evening Standard? Its a selection of cut and paste articles from the Daily Mail handed out for free to every Tom, Dick and Harry catching the tube every evening. I dont think this editing job will detract too much from his MP role. I really dont know what the outrage is here. MPs are allowed to have second jobs. Lots of them do from all sides of the House. I have no doubt that the mere fact that its Osborne involved in this story is a reason for it is seemingly disproportionate negative reaction. When Compo does his articles for the Socialist Worker and Mirror or his paid interviews for eastern bloc television stations or consultancy work with protest and campaign groups does the world kick off?? When so called "man of the people" t'old Nige Farage was being paid by our monies to work in the European Parliament did everyone go mad when he was earning bucks from his writing for the Express, talking crap on LBC, publishing books and even doing Adverts for bookies. The sort of jobs that MPs do outside varies hugely. Here is an old article which perfectly shows just how diverse they are.... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31619780 Out of interest, if Osborne was working part time as a Doctor or perhaps a Director of a homeless charity - would there be all this fuss??

But he was quite happy to expose all to a media organisation and tell the world his "story"?? Also, he says he wants to tell his tale to stop it happening to others... How exactly? The police like everyone else are human beings. They have to make very difficult investigations on evidence and information provided by other human beings. Nobody is infalable and nobody is free from making mistakes. Reading through the "story" there seems to me to be far more here than just the police forces' mistakes. His own attitude certainly didn't help his cause. It is clear there is a complete lack of co-operation at the time of the initial arrest with plenty of "its coz im black init" thrown around. 3 WEEKS was the investigation duration and 3 WEEKS later he was found innocent able to return home. That's when he could have started to re-build his life, not seemingly, 5 years later. I have no objection him pursuing the police for their mistakes. I have no objection to him receiving every single penny of the compensaton for his ordeal. I would even go so far as to agree with others that I would have expected such compensation to be at least in the low £100k bracket, but if he CHOOSE to accept it, that's his business - he cannot now start whining about that. What I will not accept is his seemingly entire life collapsing because of this. It may well be an easy excuse but 3 WEEKS was the investigation time. 3 WEEKS and his name was cleared and life back. If he really was so ruined by this ordeal then he has far more problems going on than just police failures. Lets not get too finger pointy. Lets also not forget that at the time of this incident the paedo hysteria was at maximum level. Newpapers, internet forums and thousands of people (including I bet many from this very forum) were screaming "...string them up..." to any lone male who so much as looked at a child passing, let was alone was proven guilty. The hysterics would have screamed the place down if there was word that an alleged paedophile was not investigated because the police were worried about potential typing errors or protecting themselves from getting sued due to wrong information. The police are there to INVESTIGATE where they believe they have good reason to. The CPS decide on whether to charge. The COURT decide whether to convict. Yes, sometimes it goes wrong. Sometimes its hugely wrong - that's why there are complaint procedure and access to compensation. However, do we really want a force who become so scared to do anything just because the lawyers are circling. Arrest withdrawn, charges dropped, investigations made, complaints responded to, legal liability accepted, compensation paid, responses provided and report of what went wrong with apologies. What more do people want here?

Calm down a bit. Its been running perfectly well for 25 years - hardly a white elephant. Thousands of people have and still do continue to use it. Just because Leeds finally gets round to building one of their own and as usual the knee jerk response is waaa waaa ours is rubbish waaa waaa why cant we have a shiny new one.

Old article but quite interesting (not one for the sensitive types) The list of words accepted by broadcasters for daytime/pre-watershed even surprised me. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/nov/21/britishidentity.features11

I would fully agree regards acoustics. Its a problem which attaches to many other multi-purpose arenas. They are far different in build to a concert hall. On the flip side, places like the City Hall only hold around 2500 people whereas the arena and similar venues have to hold about 6x that number. Concert halls also dont have to be flexible in design order to provide space for ice shows, basketball, hockey, boxing matches, non seated exhibitions, trade fairs, motor events and national conferences. Knocking it down seems a bit extreme realistically. It might not be as shiny and new as Leeds arena but then again, it is 25 years old so its not going to be. There is also no guaranteee that a newer venue would have any better acoustics with respect to music performances unless it is only built in a specific way for that one specific purpose - which would not be commerically viable for a arena venue.

No im sure its not. On the flip side though, some of those employees might find it a lot tougher to live on a minimum wage rather than a nice steady income of £600 a week like their self employed counterparts. Swings and roundabouts isn't it. Good for you. I'm sure SOME companies dont have any such clause. Parcelforce in this instance does. The good and bad points of working with a company is wholly subjective. The terms depends on the contract doesn't it. Fact is simple. If they dont like it they shoudn't have signed up to it. That's good business sense. Read a contract before you sign it. Why should they? The work needs doing. If their contractor fails to fulfill it, it costs them time and money. Should they just absorb that costs and forget about it?