2018 – Things Just Keep Getting Better

Lighten up Peeps. Things are getting better. OK? Yes really! 

Things ARE getting better (and better and better) as the years roll on. There may be dips and troughs. But really, things are getting better. Much, much better.

Relentlessly better.

You know - serious things – like infant mortality.

In 1917 infant mortality in the UK was 130 per 1000 live births. Now it is less than 4.

GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, England and Wales Dep through time | Historical Statistics on Life and Death for the Country | Rate: Infant Mortality Rate, A Vision of Britain through Time.

URL: http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/unit/10001043/rate/INF_MORT

In 2014 it hit an all time low of 3.6 and has wavered around this figure ever since.

But here's even more good news. There is a significant strategic push in the NHS to get this down further so expect further falls in coming years.

Which brings us to the NHS.

What about NHS cuts? Closures?. Is it about to collapse? 

No. In fact it is all of the above are just a set of politicized  doom-mongering bollocks designed to frighten you.

It is true the NHS has a lot of strains. But it is absolutely nowhere near collapse. In fact the amount of money allocated to the NHS year on year has been going steadily up since the aftermath of the financial crash.

Expenditure in 2006/7 was £79Bn. This year it topped £120Bn. That is in real terms too.

Rather than a failing and diminishing service, last year there was an increase of 5.1% in people starting treatment in the NHS.

Read This Astonishing Document on the statistical performance of the NHS. Some things are up and to be fair, some are down but only by a little. The through-put is breath-taking.

People telling you the NHS is about to fold are lying through their teeth. They should be ashamed of themselves.

There is still a lot wrong with the NHS especially the almost random bureaucratic and automotive treatment of front line staff. We really need to treat front line staff better, and I do not just mean money. Some of the management practices in the NHS are incredibly damaging and demoralising.

Couple that to a raft of political appointees to top management roles who got there by entitlement rather than ability and you end up with the occasional horror like Staffordshire NHS trust.

But even so, this is NOT a failing service. To suggest it is failing is unfair and dishonest.

Crime has remained low. Again we have dips and troughs and nasty abominations but according to the independent crime survey (CSEW) it is going down.  Yes really! Look!

A deep injustice was (partially) righted with the release of Sgt Blackman. Now he deserves some heavy duty compensation in 2018.

Employment has hit an all time high and the economy is doing well despite all the doom-serring over Brexit.

Let us just remember the fear-mongering that went on before the EU referendum. Look at this. Today we can see the dark fantasy it was. (notice the "immediate impact of a vote to leave" - full Treasury document Here) 

Negotiations with the EU over Brexit have been unpleasant. But that is hardly our fault. I think it is beginning to dawn on many people that the best thing to do would be to just go to WTO rules and then afterwards maybe negotiate (or not) a potential trade deal with the EU. The new year will tell.

Energy-wise Hinkley C is doing well. While I've not heard of anyone who thinks it is the best reactor design choice, we are where we are and so it deserves our support.

It should be remembered that the last six commercial reactors built in the UK (2 each at Heysham 2, Torness and Sizewell B) were all built on-time and to-budget. So why shouldn't Hinkley C?

We've had more shenanigans from the wind fantasists with a clever yet illusionary piece of propaganda promising £57.50 MWh at Hornsea 2. The way it has been presented is in my opinion not far off pure fraud. So no change to the wind industries methods then.

Frankly, we are about as likely to get wind at £57.50 MWh as we were to get solar at £50 MWh. Remember all the hype about that? It has now been quietly dropped.

Finally I just picked up that Australia has licensed Golden Rice . This is a major step forward for combating Vitamin A deficiency that causes an horrendous level of childhood blindness among the poor in the third world. Its also one in the eye for the anti-humanitarians in Greenpeace. They have dogmatically fought tooth and nail to prevent Golden Rice development. They bear a heavy responsibility for the 100,000's young lives blighted by blindness in the last few years.

But anyway, its a new year! 2018 promises to be a a real roller coaster, but that will just make things more interesting!

Let us all saddle up and push things forward. After all, things only get better because we work to make them better. There is still plenty of work to do!

Happy New Year.

Love & Kisses

Billothewisp

Why Microsoft Shares the Blame for the Cyber Attack.

Many folk have poured derision on people/business's still using Windows XP. After all, general support for XP was discontinued three years ago. Some further support was available to large organisations but essentially the operating system was abandoned by Microsoft in 2014. So,
many would say it would be foolish to continue with XP and anyone still using it deserved to get caught by this criminality.

Yet there is another story here.

Windows XP came out in 2001 and was initially truly awful. Yet over the following 13 years bugs were fixed and back doors closed. By 2010 Windows XP had hardened and was ( and still should be ) a robust and bug free operating system. XP has many applications far beyond mere desktop and laptop PCs. It is also extensively used for equipment control.

As an example, I understand that one of the problems that hit the NHS was the crippling of some body scanners that had Windows XP integrated into their design.

Microsoft abandoned XP because they wanted to force people to buy their later operating systems and associated products.  They ignored the fact that many could not afford the change (which usually required a hardware switch as well).

But as well as poorer desktop/laptop users, many companies/organisations simply could not move long established and complex equipment to a new operating system.

Microsoft could have easily offered (and profited from) an annual support fee of (say) $5 per machine. Bear in mind that after 16 years since it was launched, the code base in XP was hardened and reliable. New patches would be far fewer than with a new product. Code maintenance would require a smaller team. They would be working on an known and well established code base.  

But No. Microsoft decided to walk away.

Microsoft's action to stop publishing updates/bug fixes was both immoral and irresponsible.

In my opinion, if you produce a product on which people lives and livelihoods depend, irrespective of whether it is hardware or software you have a moral obligation to offer support for that product for more than a mere 6 years after it becomes obsolescent.

It appears Microsoft have now relented and produced a new security patch for XP (I wont comment on Horses and when to bolt gates). I hope they now realise the foolhardiness of their abandonment and step up to their responsibilities by re-instigating support for XP.

AS for the scum-bags who used this exploit I do hope they are caught and go to jail for very many years, or catch a bullet. Preferably the latter.

European Health Insurance Card Expired?

So, you Sour Faced Grubby Little  Englander, you thought that if you got one of the European Health Insurance Cards then your health needs in European Mega-State would be secured.

You know -  the pinkish credit card sized ID that so "conveniently" replaced the E111 form.

Maybe you even hedge your bets and plan to take out some private insurance as well. You know - Just In Case.

Billowthewisp has some very bad news for you.

These are a couple of itsy titsy issues with the European Health Cards.

The first issue is that they expire. (unlike the old E111)

Waddya mean they expire? (I hear you say)

Have you checked yours recently? (Ah No. Thought not.)
Didn't you realise they expired?

Now come on. Get a grip.

Why do you think they were issued in the first place?

All you cynical bastards here can now chime in together  - "So they could be charged for at a later date"

After all, why do you need a card when you have a passport? As I remember when you apply for a passport you provide your National Insurance Number.  So this little card is just another redundant bit of pointless bureaucracy. Something to expire, something to get lost or whatever.

At the moment more than 3.3 million Brits have expired European Health Cards. ( See Here ) Only 220 thousand people have realised they need to be renewed and have actually renewed this useless and pointless piece of jobs worth empire building.

But without it you could end up knee deep in the shite, far from home, with no health cover and very large bills.

No doubt, literally millions of Brits will be going abroad this year with NO VALID RECOURSE to on-demand health care.

This will not be because they are feckless imbeciles.

It will be because some idiot in government has decided that:

a. Having yet another useless piece of ID is a "good idea".
b. Making this useless piece of ID expire out of sync with your passport is also a "good idea".
c. Not publicising the fact that they expire is also a jolly money saving wheeze.
d. Making folk jump through a few more hoops really does show who is on control.
e. This new little empire will create lots of pointless wealth shrinking McJobs.

The second issue concerns Private Medical Insurance.

Do I detect a level of smugness amongst some of you who hedge their bets with private insurance?

Well, take that smile off your face matey. You insurance is probably null and void - if your European Health Insurance card is not valid.

You know as well as I do that Insurance companies are about as honest and compassionate as a Columbian drug Cartel.

Many Insurance policies are only valid if you have a valid European Health Insurance Card. Read it in the small print.

How crap is that.

So, as an aid memoir to you my fellow English Barbarians and ne'er do wells.....

CHECK THAT YOUR EUROPEAN HEALTH INSURANCE CARD IS VALID. DO IT NOW! (You know it makes sense.)

The NHS and Ugly Bribes

A few posts ago I pointed out how Gordon Brown and cohorts were peddling a series of little bribes to key groups of swing voters. Roughly one a week. But I never thought that even our Magnificent Citizen One would sink as low as this.

His target this week is cancer patients. The offering is treatment in the community with a dedicated nurse. Although, he has been in office for thirteen years, this “good idea” has obviously not been a priority until now.

There is a big issue here. It is avoided by all parties. This is whether politicians, especially dishonourable one like Brown, should ever control what the NHS spends its money on.

This would not be an issue in France or Germany. There, politicians have much less say or control over their national health care systems. Incidentally the French and German health care systems still knock spots off ours. That is not because of the medics or the money spent. But it is a lot to do with the politics, spin and bureaucracy. Not to mention the bright little ideas spawned by the likes of the Great Leader. Especially when he needs to buy a few votes.

What would really get my attention would be if somebody stood up and announced that they were going to remove the NHS from political control. Then Brown and others would not be able to use it like a political football.

If freedom from political control is good enough for the Bank of England and even the Great and the Good at the BBC then why should our health service suffer the indignities of the dirty little publicity stunts of Gordon Brown?

Gastric Bands on the NHS

The has been a great deal of debate recently on the radio regarding the irregular allocation of gastric band operations across the NHS. (see here). Some areas, I imagine English health authorities, are finding it increasingly difficult to provide these operations. As any fellow cynic would suspect, the desperate measures invoked to avoid providing these operations is more due to unfair financial allocation than medical need.

I know a lot of people who read this blog feel that people who get themselves in trouble should really fix it themselves. I would therfore suspect that there may not be a great deal of sympathy for those who are massively overweight.

But think on this.

Some of these massively overweight people cost the NHS, other social services and you a fortune. They live in misery due to their condition. They need our support, but arguably not our National Insurance contributions.

Here is an idea that stands as much chance as a snowball in hell of getting actioned. You will see why in a minute.

Lets say anyone who needs one of these operations is instantly put on the list to have it done.

So, How do we pay for it. Rather, why should we pay for it?

We lend money to students, businesses, asylum seekers and dodgy foreign governments so why not lend money to the overweight so they can rectify the problem they have got themselves into. Interest free. Long payback terms.

For the massively overweight there are other questions. How much is your health worth? Why should other people pay to rectify your self imposed problems. Solving a lifestyle problem comes down to self respect. If you have a problem, you should primarily bale yourself out. That means paying for the operation.

At this point , this is where we should step in, and offer a soft loan.

Lets face it how much money has the average gastric band patient spent at Weight Watchers or on special diets? I would bet it comes down to significantly more than the cost of a gastric band operation.

Of course the concept of people paying for operations that will massively improve their lives is totally and utterly taboo. So what do we offer in exchange?

Nothing.

If you are lucky and you live in Scotland you will get on a list. Otherwise be prepared to die early.

What am I suggesting? Simply this. We give people who need these operations a loan which they can repay later. This loan is used to pay for the operation. Their lives are improved without damaging the ability of the NHS to address its usual health issues.

It is dishonest to pretend that the NHS can cope with every situation. It is also morally wrong for the NHS to curtail (example) cancer treatments to fund self abuse victims.

It is further, also morally wrong to discourage those same self abuse victims from solving their own problems because of political dogma.