RANDOM THOUGHTS

Thanks to Craig Dempsey on Twitter for this.

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Well, that’s one you won’t be able to scare us with this time… and we won’t believe you about B & Q, either. They threatened to stop investment if we left and when we didn’t they shut a pile of stores anyway.

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If Michael Gove is the next Tory leader, he intends to take back control… not just from Europe, but from Scotland. So maybe we can look forward to joining England with 58.1 doctors per 100,000 of the population!

He does seem to think that London should take back control of everything. I wonder if he has a Queen Victoria complex, or maybe that’s his wife!

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❌ Ruth Davidson and the Scottish Conservatives aren't putting forward one single policy or idea because actually, they don't have any. #FMQs pic.twitter.com/4yAQMLnMux

— The SNP (@theSNP) May 9, 2019

To be fair, according to Gove, they do have a policy. It is to take money away from the devolved governments (steal it) and spend it on our behalf (but if agriculture is anything to go by, not necessarily in the devolved nations).

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So talking about the Tory leadership contest which is surely only a few weeks away, what do Munguinites think? Will it be Batshit Boris or Awful Andrea, Ghastly e Gove…or who?

Could it even be Egregious Esther, who has confirmed that she has received sufficient support to warrant putting her name in the hat?

Well, we’re talking the Tories! Anything is possible…even her, god help us.

David Mundell will NOT stand for Tory leadership.

The Scottish Secretary @DavidMundellDCT tells @petermacmahon 'I'm not throwing my hat into the ring' pic.twitter.com/fYkG0WSsTV

— Representing Border (@ITVBorderRB) May 9, 2019

To save himself further embarrassment, Dreadful David has ruled himself out.

No matter how bad it is, remember, the more ridiculous and extreme, the more likely we are to break free.

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It’s fair to say that, no matter how underfunded the NHS is in Austerity Britain, it is still one of the few things in the UK that is pretty universally popular. It is, therefore, as Sir Humphry would have said, “courageous” of Nigel to suggest it should be funded by private insurance, just as he is heading into an election.

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Ah, he probably thinks that Scotland is just a shooting estate… and shooting estates don’t have football teams of any gender!

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NOW HOW DOES THIS WORK EXACTLY?

Let’s see if I can get this right.

The Daily Mail told us that Brexit was a good idea. It even seemed to go along with the notion that we should get £350 million a week for our health service. This picture was taken from the Mail.

So with all that extra money that we will have to spend as of the 29th of March, why on earth would we need to have volunteers. Surely we will be able to pay people to work in the NHS.

If we get volunteers to do all the work, what will be done with the £350 million a week that is coming as what Mrs May calls the Brexit bonus? I mean there are only so many royal palaces we can do up, and we’ve already set aside the money for Buck House and the Palace of Westminster so that our royals and MPs and lords should be housed in a fashion suiting their own sense of magnificence.

I suppose we might just put the dosh toward the HS2 railway line from London to Birmingham, which seems to have fallen flat on its butt, along with Crossrail in London. (You’d have thought that all the sneering they do about Scottish projects, they might have managed to get their own projects finished not too much over budget and not too late.)

Anyway, if you have any suggestions as to why we should seek to recruit volunteer nurses and doctors, porters and cleaners… please let me know. Maybe it’s something they did in the war and they hope it will work in the wilderness that is Brexitland… I don’t know.

But if I were a retired brain surgeon (which I’m not), I’d make sure they didn’t know my address, otherwise, I might find myself volunteering for 60-hour a week shifts for not a penny piece, while we punch on above our weight.

Dr Philippa Whitford‏Verified account @Dr_PhilippaW

FollowingFollowing @Dr_PhilippaW

Dr Philippa Whitford Retweeted James O’Brien

To replace the EU nationals that this Tory Government is driving away after Daily Mail campaigned for #Brexit #Hypocrisy

Oh look, Phillippa has come up with the answer while I was out for Munguin’s milk.

You see, it doesn’t much matter how much money you have if all the staff are leaving and you have no one trained to replace them… so maybe you will be having your x-rays read by auld Mrs McTomshie fae doon the road. I mean she was good on the tea leaves!

Did someone say Brexshit?

RANDOM THOUGHTS

So, Conservative Central Office is bragging the government has brought in new legislation protecting people who buy their package holidays on line.

“We are introducing new rules to protect package holidaymakers and save customers tens of millions of pounds”

“The government has today (Sunday 1 July) introduced new measures that will protect an extra 10 million UK package holidays a year and help save British holidaymakers tens of millions of pounds a year with strengthened rights for consumers and new protections.” They say.

Awww. Isn’t that kind of them?

Well, no, it isn’t, as it happens.

LIARS!

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So hardliners (30 or so of them) have told May that this is the deal they want.

Ooooops.

Dear Prime Minister,

At this critical moment in our country’s history, the time has now come to get tough in your negotiations with the European Union. We are looking to you to demonstrate courage and leadership in the face of those who seek to undermine the express wish of the British people in the 2016 referendum.

In order to satisfy this result and uphold our promise to the British people, after our formal departure on the 29th of March 2019, we will not accept:

• an extension of the transition period beyond 31st December 2020
• any extension to the two-year withdrawal period as stated in Article 50
• the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice over the UK in any form beyond the transitional period
• remaining part of a customs union or other similar entity
• any departure deal that prevents us from forging new trade deals
• free or preferential movement of people from the EU
• any deal without robust conditionality, linking the £39 billion financial settlement with a satisfactory free trade agreement
• any part of the United Kingdom being treated differently from the rest

Our departure must be absolute. We must not remain entangled with the EU’s institutions if this restricts our ability to exercise our sovereignty as an independent nation. Anything less will be a weakening of our democracy. Britain must stand firm.

Yours sincerely

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Wow!!!! Listen to this.. Speaking with GP @drbobgill “do not be fooled by the £20Bn, it’s for Simon Stevens to pump prime the NHS, it’s for the wrecking ball” #OurNHS70 #marr pic.twitter.com/b5pVQg3dwL

— ARTIST TAXI DRIVER (@chunkymark) July 1, 2018

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SO MANY QUESTIONS

Even the Brexit Express says so!

Philip Hammond has reportedly warned that finding the extra money for the NHS (because the Brexit Dividend is fantasy) means taxes will rise and that other areas of government spending will have to be reduced. 

If this is true, then which taxes will rise and what government funded services will we have to do without?

And, while we are looking at this, what other changes will be made to our lives because of the Brexit Dividend? How will we replace the vastly reduced number of people from all walks of life, who will no longer want to make their homes in the UK? Will it be, as Mr Gauke suggests, prisoners, who fill that gap? Or as Paterson suggests, pensioners.

We should be in no doubt that a post-Brexit Britain could be a very different place. A place apart. A place that has taken back control maybe. But clearly, as we have seen, that control taken back and kept for a select few in Westminster and Whitehall.

Well, we could write all day on the subject…

But Munguin suggested that you guys might like to do the hard work.

Obviously, this is the answer…

If, by some evil chance, we are still in this union and under this insufferable government with its joke of a prime minister, cabinet and a Secretary of State who was deemed unfit to lead for his government on a debate on devolution, when the cliff edge comes, as it will…

Is bringing the health service funding a little closer to the levels of other western countries a priority for you?

If so, how should it be funded? Tax rises, so derided by Scottish Tories recently when the SNP did it? Cuts to services, so derided by every opposition party? Increasing our already massive debt burden?

How should we make up the labour shortage? Continue to accept people from the EU (if they are prepared to come to a ”foreign” country)? Look for immigration elsewhere? Make prisoners/retirees/sick people work for their benefits?

And, what taxes should rise? What services should be cut?

A Brexit Dividend may not be measured in cash terms, but as we said, changes are coming!

So what is your Brexit Dividend? What do you want to see happen? What do you dread happening?

Munguin says Tris can put his feet up for the rest of the day… or rather for 10 minutes, then start sorting out the mess in the grounds of Munguin Towers, devastated for the second time in a week by high winds.

Wealthy Britons have stashed about £300bn in offshore tax havens…

That’s the equivalent of £350m being paid into the NHS every week for the next 16 years.

STICK THAT ON THE SIDE OF A BLOODY BUS.

Embarrassingly for the government, the head of NHS England has told the government that they must honour that pledge. The head of NHS Scotland, NHS Wales and NHS Northern Ireland should join him.

When you fail to get a job that you have interviewed for, you have nothing left to prove. When you lose an election you can sit in opposition and carp. When you lose a referendum, you can criticise all you want.

The trouble only really comes when you get the job, win the election or the referendum.

Then you have to put your money where your mouth was.

That’s something that on just about every single issue, the Brexiteers have failed dismally to do, just as the British government failed to do when it won the Scottish referendum.

JAMIE AND HIS TWEET

Jamie Greene MSP‏ Verified account @jamiegreeneUK

This week we’ll find out if the #SNP have tipped Scotland into recession. Time to take #indyref2 off the table and start listening.

So it seems that the Scottish economy grew at 0.8%. Hardly a startling figure, it has to be admitted, but it compares very favourably with the UK figure of 0.2%.

Of course, as always with these figures, it has to be remembered that both Scottish and English governments have input. In fact, that majority of levers for controlling the economy are held at Westminster. But the unfortunate tweeter, Jamie, was happy enough to blame an expected (by the Tories) downturn on the SNP, so it’s not unreasonable to expect him to now praise them for a performance from which his Tory counterparts in Westminster might well learn something.

And, just in the passing, we note from the illustration that the Scottish National health service has done so well that even the BBC had to admit that the rest of the UK could learn from it. Take a bow, Shona Robison. I’m not sure that Jeremy Hunt can share in that praise.

And since we are commenting on the news, it would be remiss of Munguin not to mention that the so-called (by Murdo Fraser, tweeter of this parish) her majesty’s Eleven has been found guilty (by her majesty’s supreme court) of trying to stuff her majesty’s treasury for rather a lot of tax. She must be particularly hurt by that, Murdo, with them being almost family!

It’s not been Rangers’ finest 24 hours. They lost 2-0 to Progres Niederkorn, a small team in the Luxembourg league. Part-timers, Niederkorn had never won a match in European competition before.

Maybe it’s retribution for stealing all that money from their most important supporter and Granny, Liz.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

 

Anyone know if she’s supporting Corbyn this week?

Goodness me, they must be perfect.

Yep, well, that’s what we thought, Ken, but Mrs May knows better.

Funny how the elderly readership of the Mail hark back to the good old days when they were young. The Tories are going to grant them their wish…rickets anyone?

Nothing about the bins, or education, or roads or libraries or housing…?

And 22.5% is, as we all know, a resounding win.

EASTER fox hunts, EASTER killing and tearing to pieces by hounds.  EASTER!!

We’ve not had a “Strong and Stable” all of this post. Has anyone read the rest of Mein Kampf?

Your choice.

Doesn’t hurt to remind them sometimes.

Proud record.

Bless her. There she is with all these ordinary people, being strong and stable all over the place.

 

 

SNAPS ON SATURDAY

 

One of these days this man is going to take responsibility for something. If I worked for him I’d be seriously considering my future.

 

 

The crisis in the NHS won’t go away. It’s largely down to inadequate spending, an ageing population, more treatments being available, and staff leaving because of job insecurity (Hunt said he would replace then as soon as he trained some Brits up), racism or overwork. Maybe Mt Westminster’s totally legal tax dodge being challenged would be a start to solving one of these problems. Or maybe the government needs to find that £350 million a week that it promised the taxpayers.

 

 

Of course one of the reasons we are short of staff may be that Europeans don’t want to work here anymore, and who could blame them when all you need to deserve to be murdered is a fluent knowledge of Polish or any other foreign language?

 

 

I’d be inclined to suggest that Ruth speaks for herself. I think that by and large most Europeans and those from farther afield think we are rather nice. Maybe Ruth’s experience is down to something more personal.

 

 

WHO EVER THOUGHT MUNGUIN WOULD REPOST JOHN MAJOR?

Amazing how, when they no longer have to obey the whip and say what they are told to say, they seem to get so much brighter…and so much more honest.

Talking of stupid, I read on Twitter (maybe someone can confirm it) that Boris has said if Scotland gets independence he will rebuild Hadrian’s Wall. Now, I know Boris is a buffoon, but I’d  have thought that, with his education, he might have known that Hadrian’s Wall is in England. Is he intending to cede part of his country to us?

Finally, this is not really connected at all, but Niko sent me this on the last thread and you may not have seen it. It’s hilarious.

 

Always said there was something fishy about him.

 

WELL, THAT EXPLAINS A THING OR TWO

There have been a variety of scary headlines in the press about the dire state of the Health Service. With the BBC and some of the papers, this means the Engish Health Service, as largely the BBC don’t make distinctions and papers that don’t bother, or don’t bother much, with Scottish Editions are the same.

Overcrowded corridors full of patients on trollies waiting for beds; all non-emergency operations cancelled; beds blocked by elderly or convalescent patients because they have nowhere to go; doctors on strike…

So, we see that since 2009, when the bankers broke the country and were punished by the removal of a knighthood, the percentage of GDP spent on the NHS has dropped with a small exception of  2016, and is set to drop again until 2020 and a general election.

For UK, read England and consequential for other nations.

 

The UK seems to come somewhere about the middle of the range for spend as a percentage of GDP, on around the same level as Finland, Slovenia, Iceland, Australia, but lower than Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and France. (These are 2013 figures and the first table shows that the spend is likely to drop. However, given that the GDP may well also drop, the question is will the percentage stay the same?) The disparity in % between the tables is likely to accounted for by the second table including private healthcare.