The British Politics Thread - The Bear and Badger

Escape

Starmer's to the right of Major, where pockets of blue crusties are now occasionally surprising us.

Gremill

Jesus fucking Christ. Remember the government's attempt in 2014 to harvest your medical records to sell them off to 'researchers' (ie. Private companies like Google)? Well, they're at it again.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/04/tories-nhs-data-grab-pandemic?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Opt out here

You've got 26 days to do so.

Wookienopants

Will do.

Typical Tory scum move

handsofblue

And no one told GPs about it either. So not only are they doing the day job and vaccinating the country with no extra resource, now they have to deal with people shoving paper in their faces and forking over masses of data with 6 weeks notice.

I'm hoping my practice will accept an email.

Wookienopants

Fucking hell. Im going to punch my local Tory MP

poprock

Can you punch him (or her) again for me? I’m too far away from any Tory MPs to join in myself.

tin_robot

handsofblue wrote:

And no one told GPs about it either. So not only are they doing the day job and vaccinating the country with no extra resource, now they have to deal with people shoving paper in their faces and forking over masses of data with 6 weeks notice. I'm hoping my practice will accept an email.

Yeah, we had a big debate about this at our practice meeting today. We're contacting every patient with explicit details on how to opt out if they want to. Makes a lot of work for us (because we have to process the opt outs), but it seemed the right thing to do. It is, of course, something the Government should be doing - as a bare minimum - for this already.

handsofblue

That is really a great commitment to your patients, Tin. I read that some practices in London (I wanna say NW London but not sure) are going to refuse to hand over the info as they believe it's an illegal data grab. It was a Guardian Opinions article but I've only read the first few paragraphs.

monkey

Yeah that’s good work Tin.

JMW

It should have been opt in. I’m hoping a lot of our patients opt out, but it is going to mean a fuckton of work.

g.man

Would I be correct to presume this is an England thing rather than a Britain thing?

monkey

Yup.

monkey

Devolving power to Scotland was the best thing England has ever done for Scotland.

g.man

Ta. One less thing for me to worry about for now then.

handsofblue

I've just got really annoyed that the government have made me do more admin. The info on this right now is so poor I'd be surprised if any significant number of people know about it. Also, lots of people getting confused with the more legitimate research and planning use of data, which actually does have a role in informing care (this data can be used by organisations and companies that use big pseudonymised data sets for audits, care improvements and clinical research <-- this area of research is interesting).

Commentators pointing to NHS Digital deliberately misleading the public which, given the quality of information available so far, I am inclined to give credence to.

So, if you're a sap living in England, your options for opting out: https://medconfidential.org/how-to-opt-out/

My form is completed. Now I'll have to call my practice on Monday (who have better things to do than answer my stupid question) and either email it in or hand it in.

Yossarian

I’d be happy enough for the NHS to use my data for whatever they like, it’s the sharing with private companies that I take issue with.

handsofblue

Oh, yes, and this: https://twitter.com/DrLindaDykes/status/1400529633070702592

Twitter has become my news source for this kind of shit. I know The Guardian has had some coverage of this, wonder if any other outlets have picked it up (but not enough to do my own search).

handsofblue

Yossarian wrote:

I’d be happy enough for the NHS to use my data for whatever they like, it’s the sharing with private companies that I take issue with.

Type 1 opt out is your option then.

I don't mind my properly pseudonymised data being used for research as that's directly improving our standard of care, either.

poprock

Yossarian wrote:

I’d be happy enough for the NHS to use my data for whatever they like, it’s the sharing with private companies that I take issue with.

Yeah, but the NHS is largely delivered by a load of private companies now, right?

acemuzzy

This tax thing actually sounds good, right? Certainly better than nothing? Surprisingly un-Tory. But maybe there are strings attached, I've not actually read that much...

Yossarian

poprock wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

I’d be happy enough for the NHS to use my data for whatever they like, it’s the sharing with private companies that I take issue with.

Yeah, but the NHS is largely delivered by a load of private companies now, right?

Not sure of the extent of it, but in that case, an NHS owned and run service that would hold the data, run queries on behalf of companies who need it and provide them with the results would work for me.

poprock

I was being facetious, but you’ve given a good answer. I like that plan. Make it so.

Lord_Griff

acemuzzy wrote:

This tax thing actually sounds good, right? Certainly better than nothing? Surprisingly un-Tory. But maybe there are strings attached, I've not actually read that much...

Nah, it is a good thing and pretty non partisan.

Funkstain

15% minimum is a good result - it’s also a way of wedging the door open to this sort of thing: once they’ve got 15% sorted they can go to 20% or whatever in a few years, or agree a global crackdown on something else

Lord_Griff

Fuck Luxembourg and Ireland.

RedDave2

Lord_Griff wrote:

Fuck Luxembourg and Ireland.

Hey!

Well.... yeah...

monkey

The U.K. were the last holdout. Johnson was saying earlier this week or maybe last, that they didn’t want to lose the capability to set their own tax rates. Maybe they were playing hardball, or Sunak’s gone ahead with it anyway, or they’ve seen sense, or they were spooked by Labour indicating they were going to turn this into an issue, or all of the above. Seems like a decent result for the good guys for once.

Lord_Griff

monkey wrote:

The U.K. were the last holdout. Johnson was saying earlier this week or maybe last, that they didn’t want to lose the capability to set their own tax rates. Maybe they were playing hardball, or Sunak’s gone ahead with it anyway, or they’ve seen sense, or they were spooked by Labour indicating they were going to turn this into an issue, or all of the above. Seems like a decent result for the good guys for once.

Where did you hear that the UK was the last holdout?

LivDiv

This is a very good thing.
Let's start the rhetoric that any country not complying is stealing because thats what it is really. Imagine if Luxembourg tried to take the equivalent value in oil from the Yanks. There wouldn't be a Luxembourg.

monkey

Lord_Griff wrote:

monkey wrote:

The U.K. were the last holdout. Johnson was saying earlier this week or maybe last, that they didn’t want to lose the capability to set their own tax rates. Maybe they were playing hardball, or Sunak’s gone ahead with it anyway, or they’ve seen sense, or they were spooked by Labour indicating they were going to turn this into an issue, or all of the above. Seems like a decent result for the good guys for once.

Where did you hear that the UK was the last holdout?

All over the place, but there’s an Independent article here.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/corporation-tax-biden-johnson-brown-b1853611.html

Ahead of the Carbis Bay summit, momentum has been building behind the proposal for a minimum corporation tax rate of as much as 21 per cent, with support voiced by G7 members Germany, France, Canada, Italy and Japan.

With finance ministers from the group of leading economies meeting virtually on Friday and in person next week to finalise their positions for Cornwall, Mr Brown said: “It is time for the UK to take on the role the chair of the G7 should play and ensure an ambitious outcome.

“It must abandon its current public stance, which looks more like a wrecking tactic, designed to protect the tax avoidance practices of British overseas territories, than a genuine attempt by the G7 president to break the impasse.”

Howdy, Stranger!

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