It's fucking disgusting. The councils who are in the trial areas are warning it's a disaster that's killing people, yet we're rolling it out nationwide.

Fucking hell, this country. Full of selfish pricks who keep voting for this shit just to keep their own costs of living a few quid lower.

Meanwhile, the government wiping its hands of the NHS....

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/10/theresa-may-tells-nhs-boss-he-will-be-accountable-for-nhs-winter-performance

That's not what he was told

That was supposed to be dosh, not fish. But maybe he has pissed fish up the wall too.

Being accountable is all well and good as long you are supplied with the resource to achieve whatever goals you are set. But then isn't that what the argument is about?

Unfortunately there is a separation of so-called professional management and subject matter experts and it is my belief that managers do not believe the experts when it comes to knowing what is required to achieve a goal.

A small proportion of experts can become effective managers and those people are to be cherished. However it is also my belief that those people are not trusted by those from outside their industry to accurately and truthfully state what is actually required.

Too many people in position of influence either think they know better or simply don't trust "the natives" as it were.

Of course with respect to the NHS it isn't unreasonable to believe that its failings are part of a plan - a manufactured crisis - that only privatisation can save us from.

The problem is of course that many public services are a cost centre, not a profit centre. They can be profitable but only if that service is not offered universally. And that's missing the point of a public service.  A classic example of that is public transport or a postal service. There are profitable routes that can subsidise the loss making ones. The public sector can manage that but the private sector can't because of its demand for ever increasing profit - not to mention an increasing rate of growth of profit.

The NHS is a bottomless pit - you could never pour enough resource into it - and its range of services widen while we get older - it's demand is growing in 2 dimensions. Without extending our working life it isn't sustainable. The NHS itself provides the means to extend life but consumer habits add additional stresses - the modern maladies such as diabeties produce enormous pressures.

The benefits system. Universal credit is probably a good concept. However it is clear that it's a fuckup with respect to its implementation. Again - the mistrust of professional management occurs and they step in with their checklist mentality. People who aren't experts evaluate claims because its cheaper (and can be controlled easier) and of course it's a "big IT" public sector project which is an almighty fuckup as usual. I have a theory about that. I believe public sector should develop its own software. Public sector is simply too big and too complicated and therefore the requirements specification is incomplete or simply wrong when the contract is awarded. Private sector knows this then bid low and buy the business. Every sizeable public sector IT project quickly becomes a prolonged exercise is managing change controls - so much so that budget is knackered and the end solution is so far from the original spec that its architecture is creaking and is unfit for purpose.

Then legislative changes occur which need further mandatory software changes and your balls are in a vice - you have to pay to get them done at ludicrous rates.

Public sector should create its own IT resource to develop its own solutions. That will come at a fixed cost - the salary bill + staff overheads. And if they recruit correctly they will have a crack resource. I've seen this happen often enough - I've built software in the public sector and supported it for a fraction of the cost. I've seen too many modest projects go tits up because of requirement creep and screw down charges for change requests.

But - maybe government don't want that. They want to throw their money around - big contracts for big companies. Shrug.

Meanwhile back with public services - the private sector cannot suffer a profitable sector subsidising another for any reason for any length of time. It works against what capitalism is good at.

Also capitalism works well (with respect to benefit to society) when a market is a true market. A true market accurately reflects the value of a product, service or commodity when it is populated by competent people. It requires an informed set of consumers. And unfortunately capitalism eventually reaches a point where it doesn't want an informed, competent consumer.

So it manufactures demand under false pretences and sells things we don't need. And you can never have enough of what you don't need. The result is a feeding frenzy of consumption and disposal which isn't good. We see it everywhere now.

I hear talk of the new circular economy - the recycling of goods - and green tech etc. But that is in direct opposition to how our economy currently works. So not sure how much of a trend that really is. It can work - at least there are examples of green tech recycling and it being profitable - but I'm not sure how it scales.

Nothing new here - but just felt the need to say it.

BREAKING NEWS: Person accused of thing denies thing.

I wear one. For me it's about the soldiers. There's no celebration.

In fact I'm off to a remembrance service now. I think it's important my kids know about the past, about the bravery of the people who defended this country, and about the horror of it all. It will be a pretty sombre affair, certainly not a celebration.

I’ll buy a poppy as a donation for veteran support, I’ll wear it on the day and do the silence, but I don’t wear it all week and I certainly won’t give anyone shit for not wearing one or not taking part in the remembrance.
TBH, I missed the 2 minutes yesterday because I was digging a hole in the garden so I could concrete in a new clothesline - which is kinda symbolic I suppose.

Kow wrote:

I suppose I see the sense in remembrance days but there is something odd about remembering people who were often forced to fight in wars started by dumb fuck politicians, which in many cases were over nothing and in some cases made everything worse. Thank you for being mugs, remembering you makes it alright that we're cunts.

Yeah, that’s pretty much my take on it too.

It's important to remember mankind's darkest hours, but I don't feel obliged to buy a poppy to show that I'm doing that. 
Still, if one small child asks their parents why people are wearing poppies, and their parents then tell them about it, then that's probably not a bad thing.
I wouldn't want to live in a world where the young were allowed to grow up oblivious to the horrors of the past.

A short, but good read on the history of the poppy from the British Legion site.

EDIT: I don't wear a poppy anymore, I stopped a few years ago, it seems like in some dickhead parts of society it's getting a bit co-opted into some kind of patriotic nonsense, but I'm not sure that's why I actually stopped. I think it is a contributing factor in me not wanting to wear one at the moment though. 

I do think about all of the wars and all the people out there from all countries laying down their lives for hopefully the greater good occasionally so I guess I'm just doing it my own way these days.

Thats not quite true.  Kaiser Wilhelm who was the main driving force in expanding the German empire lost power. Had they won it's likely be would have aimed for a British empire 2, so it was a good thing they were stopped. There's no argument that it was an unimaginable waste of lives, though.

Ww1 marked the end of an era and the fall of:
The German empire
The Russian empire
The Ottoman empire
The Austrian/Hungarian empire

Massive shifts in power and fall of the old eurasian monarchy.

I wont wear a poppy because I disagree with the poppy fascists trying to force everyone to wear one. The people who we're remembering died to preserve our freedoms.

People should wear one because they choose to do so.