Thursday 13th November 2014

Post by **refitman** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 7:28 am

Morning all. Labour lead at 3 points on Yougov:

Latest YouGov / The Sun results 12th November -

Con 32%, (-1)
Lab 35%, (+1)
LD 7%, (no change)
UKIP 15%; (no change)

APP -25 (+1)

Post by **PaulfromYorkshire** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 7:45 am

Morning!

And phew that poll is getting back to normal

Post by **PaulfromYorkshire** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 7:46 am

Not often I quote the Devil, but…

JP Janson De Couet retweeted
alan rusbridger ‏@arusbridger Nov 11
The tale of 1 MP (on £2m of benefits) & the people he's trying to make homeless is going a bit viral http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ard-benyon" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

Post by **PaulfromYorkshire** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 7:47 am

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 57234.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

ed-miliband-goes-on-the-offensive-to-win-back-wavering-voters

Lonewolfie · Post by **Lonewolfie** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 7:47 am

Morning all...many thanks to those who tried to introduce some clarity into my confusion around the unemployment figures - basically I think it's as I suspected - no-one in the Coalition of Clowns really knows or is that bothered, as long as they can shout playground slogans about a pretend fact....this came out yesterday and reflects, I think, what was said here -

http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2014/11/1 ... res-claim/

Lonewolfie · Post by **Lonewolfie** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 8:05 am

PaulfromYorkshire wrote:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 57234.html

ed-miliband-goes-on-the-offensive-to-win-back-wavering-voters

Although it's good to see some vaguely positive reporting I find it galling in the extreme that the language is all about 'fightback', 'in a rallying cry to his demoralised party' and 'his Labour critics insist the attempt to oust him was not media-driven' - repeatedly reaffirming throughout the piece all the perceived media-invented anti-Ed bullsh1t.

Mind you - there's nothing to get their teeth into WRT the current Government, as everything in the Rose Garden is just peachy and going absolutley fantastically well.

Post by **letsskiptotheleft** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 8:10 am

After years of denigrating the Welsh NHS and their cancer drugs policy the Tory led one appears to be going down the same route.

yahyah · Post by **yahyah** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 8:27 am

Morning !

Peter Jukes ‏@peterjukes 7h7 hours ago
Fake Sheikh commissioned PI through Ian Edmondson to follow Tom Watson at 2009 party conference

giselle97 · Post by **giselle97** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 8:29 am

Lonewolfie wrote:
PaulfromYorkshire wrote:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 57234.html

ed-miliband-goes-on-the-offensive-to-win-back-wavering-voters
Although it's good to see some vaguely positive reporting I find it galling in the extreme that the language is all about 'fightback', 'in a rallying cry to his demoralised party' and 'his Labour critics insist the attempt to oust him was not media-driven' - repeatedly reaffirming throughout the piece all the perceived media-invented anti-Ed bullsh1t.

Mind you - there's nothing to get their teeth into WRT the current Government, as everything in the Rose Garden is just peachy and going absolutley fantastically well.

I've been avoiding news so was really cheesed off to accidentally catch BiaseBeeb saying about fight back. Admit I hadn't heard any Ed news for a week - which I was considering as good news. Now, as you say "fight back" is not right. I think another week of quiet after the slammers probably realised they had gone too far and were at risk of making people think/feel sorry about Ed would have been OK, or maybe not!

yahyah · Post by **yahyah** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 8:32 am

Heard an ad for a programme on Radio 4 that said Labour's front bench had been critical of Ed's leadership last week, words implied all of Labour's front bench.

I admit I was a bit distracted last week but don't think that was true ?

But have I got the energy to make another complaint to the BBC for them to ignore ?

yahyah · Post by **yahyah** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 8:45 am

A case for Lewis & Hathaway...

Scotland Yard searching the Bodleian Library for Dickens Dossier on alleged child sex abuse
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cr ... 57200.html

RogerOThornhill · Post by **RogerOThornhill** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 8:52 am

Morning all.

I have to go to a meeting at school but was just reading the NAO report on related party transactions at Durand Academy and this caught my eye:

1.6 Durand plans to educate pupils in years 9 to 11 in new boarding facilities outside South London. It has purchased a site for this, a vacant boarding school, in West Sussex, which it plans to develop and expand. The Department has agreed to provide £17.34 million towards the cost of this redevelopment, subject to the granting of planning permission for the necessary building works and the approval of a final business case. The National Audit Office has received correspondence which outlines
value for money concerns about the boarding school, and the Comptroller and Auditor General has committed to review the business case for the boarding school in due course.

Excellent. Another one to look forward to - the DT had a puff piece on it the other day which could have been written by the HT and didn't mention the fact that it had been delayed because of VFM concerns.

Lonewolfie · Post by **Lonewolfie** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 8:56 am

yahyah wrote:Heard an ad for a programme on Radio 4 that said Labour's front bench had been critical of Ed's leadership last week, words implied all of Labour's front bench.

I admit I was a bit distracted last week but don't think that was true ?

Well if you listened to or read the MSM, the only reason Mr Ed survived was because of the 'ridiculous' rules to choose a leader - meaning they couldn't actually replace him in time for the election (even if any of it (the 'rebellion') were true) - they (the MSM) managed to rustle up a whole 3 MPs as sources, although off the record of course, so with 258 MPs, Mr Eds' approval rating with the PLP is 98.4%....terribly bad news for Mr Ed!

Every Labour frontbencher I've heard (or heard about) being interviewed has been unequivocal in their support - from Tristram 'Tories hate me because of my name' Hunt to Ed 'that's really rather a silly question, Martha' Balls...doesn't follow the narrative the MSM have assimilated though.

I've sen a couple of statements over the past couple of days (one here from a Labour MEP) that have been of the strength and clarity that we (anti-Coalitionistas?) have been asking for - so in that sense, maybe it is a 'fightback' - but one where Labour begin the deconstruction of the myths - slowly, methodically and purposefully...in the image of their leader.

As you know, I live in Hope (just North of Peterborough)...and the light at the end of the tunnel seems to be getting brighter

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 9:12 am

PaulfromYorkshire wrote:Not often I quote the Devil, but…

JP Janson De Couet retweeted
alan rusbridger ‏@arusbridger Nov 11
The tale of 1 MP (on £2m of benefits) & the people he's trying to make homeless is going a bit viral http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ard-benyon" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

It's been upsetting me for days, the further adventures of a corrupt Tory MP & his empire of doom

Lonewolfie · Post by **Lonewolfie** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 9:12 am

yahyah wrote:Morning !

Peter Jukes ‏@peterjukes 7h7 hours ago
Fake Sheikh commissioned PI through Ian Edmondson to follow Tom Watson at 2009 party conference

This is all going remarkably well for Murkydochia. An uncharitable soul might think there's a chain of events with obfuscation, corruption, bribery and shiny squirrel manufacture, produced to replace actual politics and actual investigative reporting within the MSM. For one, I can't think of anything that could have been cooked up between the union-hating Uncle Rupert, the society hating (~~and paedo-sadist condoning~~) Thatch

, various police services and Southern Investigations...as Newcorpse say - everyone is just jealous of their success.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 9:15 am

yahyah wrote:Heard an ad for a programme on Radio 4 that said Labour's front bench had been critical of Ed's leadership last week, words implied all of Labour's front bench.

I admit I was a bit distracted last week but don't think that was true ?

But have I got the energy to make another complaint to the BBC for them to ignore ?

~~It's untrue Labour's front bench had a squall with Ed Miliband.~~

After having walked from my reply to Yahyah, I've noticed my meaning may be unclear.
There's no truth to the allegations of Labour's shadow team were discontented with his Miliband's leadership.

PorFavor · Post by **PorFavor** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 9:19 am

refitman wrote:Morning all. Labour lead at 3 points on Yougov:

Latest YouGov / The Sun results 12th November -

Con 32%, (-1)
Lab 35%, (+1)
LD 7%, (no change)
UKIP 15%; (no change)

APP -25 (+1)

Yes, I know, thanks. It was a front page splash in the Guardian.

Good morning, everyone.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 9:22 am

giselle97 wrote:
Lonewolfie wrote:
PaulfromYorkshire wrote:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 57234.html

ed-miliband-goes-on-the-offensive-to-win-back-wavering-voters
Although it's good to see some vaguely positive reporting I find it galling in the extreme that the language is all about 'fightback', 'in a rallying cry to his demoralised party' and 'his Labour critics insist the attempt to oust him was not media-driven' - repeatedly reaffirming throughout the piece all the perceived media-invented anti-Ed bullsh1t.

Mind you - there's nothing to get their teeth into WRT the current Government, as everything in the Rose Garden is just peachy and going absolutley fantastically well.
I've been avoiding news so was really cheesed off to accidentally catch BiaseBeeb saying about fight back. Admit I hadn't heard any Ed news for a week - which I was considering as good news. Now, as you say "fight back" is not right. I think another week of quiet after the slammers probably realised they had gone too far and were at risk of making people think/feel sorry about Ed would have been OK, or maybe not!

I've been vigilant watching, reading the manufactured crisis - there's no substance to rumours Labour's leader has serious problems with his team. I've used profanity more than usual. Listening & reading made up stories isn't pleasant, particularly when so much work needs to be done.

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 9:32 am

‘Vested interests’ trying to scupper Miliband to prevent Labour victory
Andy Burnham says recent attacks on Labour leader are an attempt to destabilise the party in runup to the general election
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... l-election

Just up.

Morning all.

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 9:38 am

: ToriesTellTrussNotToQuitEU.jpg (49.32 KiB) Viewed 17211 times

Huw Irranca-Davies ‏@IrrancaDaviesMP 6m6 minutes ago
Top Tory Truss told Brexit Bad for Britain (rural Tories tell gov't to wise-up on EU before they do something stupid)

Think there might be more than a few (including Benyon) that might stand to lose a lot of their 'benefits'.

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 9:44 am

Diana Johnson retweeted
Richard Corbett ‏@RCorbettMEP 1h1 hour ago Brussels
Packed early morning briefing re #TTIP protection of #NHS, public services, standards, rights, etc. UK minister not convincing.

pk1 · Post by **pk1** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 9:46 am

In a spat on twitter last night, I came across this journalist & a Scottish Labour MP.

Which journo said to MP:

Stephen. People like you have nearly exterminated the Labour Party in Scotland. I'll listen to you when you learn humility.

How rude, how incredibly patronising !

Ahhh, I hear you say, that's bound to be DFH or some other right-wing sarky journo reporting 'news' to make his daily corn.

Well I can report actual news that it was none other than 'our own' Owen Jones !

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I admit to never being able to quite agree that Owen is the God of the Left. To me he's another journo wrapped a bit t o o tight in the Westminster bubble - a bubble he claims to despise.

Regardless of my own opinion of him, I was momentarily silenced at his response to that MP (whom I have no idea if he does a good job or not).

Owen later went on to declare that what he wanted was

societies run in the interests of working people

- guess that counts people like me out in his society then, regardless of how much I contributed in my working life. I did ask him 'what about the non-working people Owen, what about the people that can't work' but got no reply.

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 9:49 am

Tim Shipman @ShippersUnbound · 2h 2 hours ago
Finally Sean Duffy admits "it is a possibility" cancer drugs will be cut. NHS England do themselves no favours with this slippery approach

Tim Shipman @ShippersUnbound · 2h 2 hours ago
Will there be cuts to cancer drugs? asks @JustinOnWeb. Sean Duffy offers waffle. We'll take that as a yes then

pk1 · Post by **pk1** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 9:50 am

rebeccariots2 wrote:
‘Vested interests’ trying to scupper Miliband to prevent Labour victory
Andy Burnham says recent attacks on Labour leader are an attempt to destabilise the party in runup to the general election
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... l-election
Just up.

Morning all.

The bait for this morning's feeding frenzy to keep them hooked until Ed begins his speech at noon.

Another twitter storm for today to begin as Ed starts talking. Today's is #6monthstowin

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 9:52 am

pk1 wrote:In a spat on twitter last night, I came across this journalist & a Scottish Labour MP.

Which journo said to MP:

Stephen. People like you have nearly exterminated the Labour Party in Scotland. I'll listen to you when you learn humility.
How rude, how incredibly patronising !

Ahhh, I hear you say, that's bound to be DFH or some other right-wing sarky journo reporting 'news' to make his daily corn.

Well I can report actual news that it was none other than 'our own' Owen Jones !

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I admit to never being able to quite agree that Owen is the God of the Left. To me he's another journo wrapped a bit t o o tight in the Westminster bubble - a bubble he claims to despise.

Regardless of my own opinion of him, I was momentarily silenced at his response to that MP (whom I have no idea if he does a good job or not).

Owen later went on to declare that what he wanted was
societies run in the interests of working people
- guess that counts people like me out in his society then, regardless of how much I contributed in my working life. I did ask him 'what about the non-working people Owen, what about the people that can't work' but got no reply.

He's been pretty anti Labour in tone for quite a while. I'm not sure what he suggests people who don't want another vicious right wing government should do at the election ...

Lonewolfie · Post by **Lonewolfie** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 9:53 am

I don't what it is about the CSA Inquiry and some MPs - as we know, Danczuk is pretty much the leading Red Tory, Tom Watson is a bit of a renegade but they are well and truly on the case wrt Survivors (apart from TWs Twitter faux pas - he insulted a high profile Survivor)...and Charlotte Leslie - horrendous, IIRC...but on ConHome...

http://www.conservativehome.com/thecolu ... utory.html

The worlds gone mad - I even had a feeling of warmth towards Teresa May yesterday

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 9:57 am

George Eaton @georgeeaton · 11h 11 hours ago
Anyway, back to holiday. But I'd bet on a tax rabbit from Miliband tomorrow.

George Eaton @georgeeaton · 11h 11 hours ago
Miliband attacks those who pay "zero tax". Could he propose UK version of the Buffett Rule (minimum tax rate)?

George Eaton @georgeeaton · 11h 11 hours ago
Based on early extracts, I expect Miliband will have something new to say tomorrow on reducing tax avoidance.

Lonewolfie · Post by **Lonewolfie** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 10:01 am

pk1 wrote:In a spat on twitter last night, I came across this journalist & a Scottish Labour MP.

Which journo said to MP:

Stephen. People like you have nearly exterminated the Labour Party in Scotland. I'll listen to you when you learn humility.
How rude, how incredibly patronising !

Ahhh, I hear you say, that's bound to be DFH or some other right-wing sarky journo reporting 'news' to make his daily corn.

Well I can report actual news that it was none other than 'our own' Owen Jones !

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I admit to never being able to quite agree that Owen is the God of the Left. To me he's another journo wrapped a bit t o o tight in the Westminster bubble - a bubble he claims to despise.

Regardless of my own opinion of him, I was momentarily silenced at his response to that MP (whom I have no idea if he does a good job or not).

Owen later went on to declare that what he wanted was
societies run in the interests of working people
- guess that counts people like me out in his society then, regardless of how much I contributed in my working life. I did ask him 'what about the non-working people Owen, what about the people that can't work' but got no reply.

He really has gone to the other side, hasn't he?

Owen Jones ‏@OwenJones84 10h10 hours ago

@kilmacolm1 I spend my life doing politics all over the country. You seem unable to even accept or understand the disaster you are in

Owen Jones ‏@OwenJones84 10h10 hours ago

@kilmacolm1 the polls have Scottish Labour winning 4 parliamentary seats. Change radically, or your party will die

Owen Jones ‏@OwenJones84 10h10 hours ago

@Irpicus @kilmacolm1 not in the Scottish Labour Party? As I say - you are in a catastrophic state and have to change drastically

I dunno about anyone else but that really p***** me off

pk1 · Post by **pk1** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 10:02 am

Ian Dunt with hopes Ed will stick up for immigration:

http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2014/11 ... -see-it-th" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 10:06 am

Owen Jones probably actually believes those Scottish MORI figures, God bless 'im

StephenDolan · Post by **StephenDolan** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 10:10 am

Morning all.

Those OJ tweets are slightly strange. Does he want the Labour Party to change from within or is he leaning towards the Russell Brand 'none of the above, but get organised, energised and active in local issues'?

ephemerid · Post by **ephemerid** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 10:11 am

Fun and games on CIF this morning.

YouGoReborn - Hugo back for gazillionth time.....

I think I'm being stalked on CIF by TwiggyWiggy. This is the 4th day running that he/she/it has either responded to me on various different threads with some nasty personal crap or referred repeatedly to posts I make in reply to others by selectively quoting them. Weird.....

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 10:11 am

Chris Bryant retweeted
Naushabah Khan ‏@naushabahkhan 3m3 minutes ago
Really disappointed to see Tories attack Strood again- likening it Benefits Street! shows that they just don't have a clue #ImProudOfStrood

Lonewolfie · Post by **Lonewolfie** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 10:13 am

StephenDolan wrote:Morning all.

Those OJ tweets are slightly strange. Does he want the Labour Party to change from within or is he leaning towards the Russell Brand 'none of the above, but get organised, energised and active in local issues'?

It's not as coherent as Russell Brand!

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 10:15 am

ephemerid wrote:Fun and games on CIF this morning.

YouGoReborn - Hugo back for gazillionth time.....

I think I'm being stalked on CIF by TwiggyWiggy. This is the 4th day running that he/she/it has either responded to me on various different threads with some nasty personal crap or referred repeatedly to posts I make in reply to others by selectively quoting them. Weird.....

That's because you write seriously well informed posts that really cut through the right wing rubbish - and it's threatening to them. You come across as really knowing your stuff. (Same happens with Steb1 on every environmental story they comment on.) So whoever or whatever TwiggyWiggy represents would like you gone - off the boards - would like you so seriously peed off that you don't post.

That's my interpretation anyway.

So I hope you don't quit Ephemerid. But will understand if you feel you have to for your own health and wellbeing.

pk1 · Post by **pk1** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 10:15 am

rebeccariots2 wrote:
Chris Bryant retweeted
Naushabah Khan ‏@naushabahkhan 3m3 minutes ago
Really disappointed to see Tories attack Strood again- likening it Benefits Street! shows that they just don't have a clue #ImProudOfStrood

That's in relation to a piece reported somewhere (Graun maybe ?)

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 10:18 am

pk1 wrote:
rebeccariots2 wrote:
Chris Bryant retweeted
Naushabah Khan ‏@naushabahkhan 3m3 minutes ago
Really disappointed to see Tories attack Strood again- likening it Benefits Street! shows that they just don't have a clue #ImProudOfStrood
That's in relation to a piece reported somewhere (Graun maybe ?)

Chris Bryant ‏@ChrisBryantMP 3m3 minutes ago
What is it with Tories? They scorned Clacton & not content with leaving Strood off map they now call it "Benefits Street of the south"!

Bit more info. Have to see if we can ferret the story out PK.

Editing to add:
Yes it was in the G yesterday:

one Tory MP reflected on the rebellion of 2014, which is centred across the River Medway in the more deprived Strood area of the constituency.

The MP said: “Rochester is only one part of the constituency. There is Strood which is the Benefits Street of the south east. They are really angry over there. They are ready to punish us.”
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... sus-tories

Post by **adam** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 10:38 am

RobertSnozers wrote:
letsskiptotheleft wrote:After years of denigrating the Welsh NHS and their cancer drugs policy the Tory led one appears to be going down the same route.
I have no emotion left on this particular issue. The cancer drugs fund was only ever intended to help negate Labour's advantage on the NHS at the last election. It scared Labour into shutting up about the NHS, and its only purpose was short term electoral gain. It was cynical in the extreme, I suspect cooked up because there was a story at the time about a woman whose PCT (mine) had refused her a drug that her clinician wanted her to have. I had my suspicions that it was developed by a SpAd, possibly even Andy Coulson. No proof of that, of course, because it could have been made for the Daily Mail.

The truth behind this story is a sad one. Sometimes there's nothing more a clinician can do for a patient with a terminal illness and for whom all reasonable options have been tried. What sometimes happens is to salve their own conscience, to give the patient and family something to focus on, and (much) more in hope than expectation, the clinician suggests that another treatment might help. (Occasionally the clinician might have a conflict of interest, such as a financial interest in that particular treatment). This might be an experimental treatment, a treatment approved for other conditions but not tested in this particular case etc. The problem in these cases is that there generally isn't any evidence that the treatment will do any good. Often there isn't any evidence that it won't do more harm than good. Evidence for the effectiveness of medical treatments is accumulated in a very structured way. It starts with limited trials looking at individual 'case studies'. If these looks good, more trials are carried out in a more scientific way on more people, right up to the 'gold standard' which is a double-blind randomised control trial - i.e. a fully scientifically selected sample of patients is tested against a 'control' with known parameters, usually the established 'conventional' treatment.

Back to our last-chance saloon cases. Even if there is some evidence that the treatment might help, it's usually low-quality evidence (i.e. not especially reliable by the standards of these things) and often - particularly in the case of this generation of cancer drugs - the cost of the treatment is so stratospherically high you might be talking about an outside chance of giving someone another two weeks of poor quality life for the same money that could otherwise be spent on more reliable treatments giving better outcomes to more people. This is not money the NHS can magic out of nowhere, and you only get to spend it once. Part of the problem is that expectations were raised with a particular generation of cancer drugs that were billed as wonder drugs and ended up never having the kind of effect the early results suggested they might. Cynically, the drug companies had to make their money back on a product that wasn't as good as they thought it would be, so I suspect there was a lot of pressure on clinicians.

...So for those reasons, the cancer drugs fund was already problematic. There should never have been a need for it if individual funding request procedures were working properly, and generally, they were. It was even more problematic when you consider that it was just for cancer. What about other terminal conditions where these decisions were being made? So it was inequitable from the start.

Outstanding post. The cancer drugs fund was a real daily mail headline of a policy - a government with any courage would have tried to patiently explain what the problems with this approach were, as you've done here.

ohsocynical · Post by **ohsocynical** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 10:43 am

yahyah wrote:Heard an ad for a programme on Radio 4 that said Labour's front bench had been critical of Ed's leadership last week, words implied all of Labour's front bench.

I admit I was a bit distracted last week but don't think that was true ?

But have I got the energy to make another complaint to the BBC for them to ignore ?

I was in the car when I heard that. So many people still rely on them for their news. It's the equivalent of brainwashing.

Once upon a time I'd have defended the Beeb to the death. But not any more.

Tubby Isaacs · Post by **Tubby Isaacs** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 10:44 am

yahyah wrote:Heard an ad for a programme on Radio 4 that said Labour's front bench had been critical of Ed's leadership last week, words implied all of Labour's front bench.

I admit I was a bit distracted last week but don't think that was true ?

But have I got the energy to make another complaint to the BBC for them to ignore ?

Christ almighty.

It wasn't true, as you say.

Tristram Hunt seemed to be the only one named. He didn't even make it into Nick Watt's conspiracy at all, I don't think.

Tubby Isaacs · Post by **Tubby Isaacs** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 10:51 am

RogerOThornhill wrote:Morning all.

I have to go to a meeting at school but was just reading the NAO report on related party transactions at Durand Academy and this caught my eye:

1.6 Durand plans to educate pupils in years 9 to 11 in new boarding facilities outside South London. It has purchased a site for this, a vacant boarding school, in West Sussex, which it plans to develop and expand. The Department has agreed to provide £17.34 million towards the cost of this redevelopment, subject to the granting of planning permission for the necessary building works and the approval of a final business case. The National Audit Office has received correspondence which outlines
value for money concerns about the boarding school, and the Comptroller and Auditor General has committed to review the business case for the boarding school in due course.
Excellent. Another one to look forward to - the DT had a puff piece on it the other day which could have been written by the HT and didn't mention the fact that it had been delayed because of VFM concerns.

There's some great stuff in the report.

When Durand Primary School transferred all the land and buildings at its site in
Lambeth to the Durand Education Trust (paragraph 2.2), it was required to seek the
Secretary of State’s approval to the transfer, but failed to do so.4
The Department did
not challenge the transfer on learning of it in 2010 as it considered that the public interest
in the land was fully protected under Schedule 1 of the Academies Act 2010. It still
considers that this is the case in October 2014.
2.5 The assets transferred in 2010 were estimated at the time to have a market
value of £15 million.

£15m. What's that between friends?

StephenDolan · Post by **StephenDolan** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 11:12 am

RobertSnozers wrote:
letsskiptotheleft wrote:After years of denigrating the Welsh NHS and their cancer drugs policy the Tory led one appears to be going down the same route.
I have no emotion left on this particular issue. The cancer drugs fund was only ever intended to help negate Labour's advantage on the NHS at the last election. It scared Labour into shutting up about the NHS, and its only purpose was short term electoral gain. It was cynical in the extreme, I suspect cooked up because there was a story at the time about a woman whose PCT (mine) had refused her a drug that her clinician wanted her to have. I had my suspicions that it was developed by a SpAd, possibly even Andy Coulson. No proof of that, of course, because it could have been made for the Daily Mail.

The truth behind this story is a sad one. Sometimes there's nothing more a clinician can do for a patient with a terminal illness and for whom all reasonable options have been tried. What sometimes happens is to salve their own conscience, to give the patient and family something to focus on, and (much) more in hope than expectation, the clinician suggests that another treatment might help. (Occasionally the clinician might have a conflict of interest, such as a financial interest in that particular treatment). This might be an experimental treatment, a treatment approved for other conditions but not tested in this particular case etc. The problem in these cases is that there generally isn't any evidence that the treatment will do any good. Often there isn't any evidence that it won't do more harm than good. Evidence for the effectiveness of medical treatments is accumulated in a very structured way. It starts with limited trials looking at individual 'case studies'. If these looks good, more trials are carried out in a more scientific way on more people, right up to the 'gold standard' which is a double-blind randomised control trial - i.e. a fully scientifically selected sample of patients is tested against a 'control' with known parameters, usually the established 'conventional' treatment.

Back to our last-chance saloon cases. Even if there is some evidence that the treatment might help, it's usually low-quality evidence (i.e. not especially reliable by the standards of these things) and often - particularly in the case of this generation of cancer drugs - the cost of the treatment is so stratospherically high you might be talking about an outside chance of giving someone another two weeks of poor quality life for the same money that could otherwise be spent on more reliable treatments giving better outcomes to more people. This is not money the NHS can magic out of nowhere, and you only get to spend it once. Part of the problem is that expectations were raised with a particular generation of cancer drugs that were billed as wonder drugs and ended up never having the kind of effect the early results suggested they might. Cynically, the drug companies had to make their money back on a product that wasn't as good as they thought it would be, so I suspect there was a lot of pressure on clinicians.

...So for those reasons, the cancer drugs fund was already problematic. There should never have been a need for it if individual funding request procedures were working properly, and generally, they were. It was even more problematic when you consider that it was just for cancer. What about other terminal conditions where these decisions were being made? So it was inequitable from the start.

Another excellent post.

This illustrates why I frequent FTN. I find it such a great resource for reading informed postings from the many knowledgeable people.

Tubby Isaacs · Post by **Tubby Isaacs** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 11:18 am

Jeremy Hunt claiming the Nicholson Challenge has been "more or less delivered".

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014 ... eremy-hunt" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

ohsocynical · Post by **ohsocynical** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 11:21 am

Jon Swindon ‏@jon_swindon 2h2 hours ago
Excellent work being done by those spreading the #6monthstowin word, keep it going so we are ready for 12.00

Rebecca · Post by **Rebecca** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 11:36 am

The CPS has decided,sensibly,that the Alex Salmond effigy was not a crime.
Starting to froth about it at the Scotsman,the usual stuff,it would be a crime if it was the queen,cameron etc etc.regardless of the fact that they have all been so favoured in the past.
Massive sense of humour failure.
Morning all.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 11:49 am

pk1 wrote:In a spat on twitter last night, I came across this journalist & a Scottish Labour MP.

Which journo said to MP:

Stephen. People like you have nearly exterminated the Labour Party in Scotland. I'll listen to you when you learn humility.
How rude, how incredibly patronising !

Ahhh, I hear you say, that's bound to be DFH or some other right-wing sarky journo reporting 'news' to make his daily corn.

Well I can report actual news that it was none other than 'our own' Owen Jones !

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I admit to never being able to quite agree that Owen is the God of the Left. To me he's another journo wrapped a bit t o o tight in the Westminster bubble - a bubble he claims to despise.

Regardless of my own opinion of him, I was momentarily silenced at his response to that MP (whom I have no idea if he does a good job or not).

Owen later went on to declare that what he wanted was
societies run in the interests of working people
- guess that counts people like me out in his society then, regardless of how much I contributed in my working life. I did ask him 'what about the non-working people Owen, what about the people that can't work' but got no reply.

Emissary from Elysium is Owen Jones - he's too nice to talk to sometimes, I'm blinded by his zeal. Okay, maybe too I'm harsh - or I'm not humble enough - I concur with your opinion with the proviso I know a little of his work, not a lot.

Pk1 - your posts are fine work.

TheGrimSqueaker · Post by **TheGrimSqueaker** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 11:56 am

rebeccariots2 wrote: He's been pretty anti Labour in tone for quite a while. I'm not sure what he suggests people who don't want another vicious right wing government should do at the election ...

He doesn't care. In many ways a catastrophic defeat would suit his agenda just as much as it would suit that of Hodges. Jones could (would) claim that they failed because they were insufficiently radical, and offer to lead people off to the socialist paradise that only the People's Assembly will offer; Hodges, obviously, will go down the route of Labour being too radical/socialist and that they should bring back The Right Brother, with Dan to act as his Prophet. It was noticeable that both were openly sneering about the whole #webackEd thing.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like the People's Assembly; pushing for an end to austerity, something that clearly hasn't worked (and never has - as Harry Leslie points out, it was a busted flush in the 1920s-1930s, let alone now) is vital and something the Labour Party could do well to take onboard. Balls, or whoever is Chancellor in the Labour Government which will be (hopefully) elected next year, are restricted in what they can do in Year One but that doesn't stop them being more imaginative from then on.

What I don't like is people such as Jones very obviously using it as a springboard for their own ambitions, and so working actively against the Labour Party because it doesn't live up to their exacting standards. We've been here before, so many times, over the years; the most obvious example that springs to mind is Militant during the 70s-80s who derided Michael Foot as being too right wing - my grandfather knew Foot (I met him once, when he was visiting Grandad) and right wing/moderate was one thing he was not! If Jones wants to take us back to the good old days of an unelectable Labour Party just so he can prove how pure his socialism is then he deserves, and has, my utter contempt.

Sorry, rant over. These people playing these silly games have no thought for the consequences of their actions; while they sit comfortably inside the Westminster Bubble people are suffering outside of it, and that suffering would increase exponentially under another Tory administration.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 12:06 pm

Wholeheartedly agree with your post, GS, well said.

ephemerid · Post by **ephemerid** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 12:18 pm

rebeccariots2 wrote:
ephemerid wrote:Fun and games on CIF this morning.

YouGoReborn - Hugo back for gazillionth time.....

I think I'm being stalked on CIF by TwiggyWiggy. This is the 4th day running that he/she/it has either responded to me on various different threads with some nasty personal crap or referred repeatedly to posts I make in reply to others by selectively quoting them. Weird.....
That's because you write seriously well informed posts that really cut through the right wing rubbish - and it's threatening to them. You come across as really knowing your stuff. (Same happens with Steb1 on every environmental story they comment on.) So whoever or whatever TwiggyWiggy represents would like you gone - off the boards - would like you so seriously peed off that you don't post.

That's my interpretation anyway.

So I hope you don't quit Ephemerid. But will understand if you feel you have to for your own health and wellbeing.

I don't intimidate easily, RR. I won't be quitting any time soon.

There's an old saying in AA that if someone makes you angry or resentful, you should pray for them. I don't do God, but I've been known to attempt to connect with a higher power that may understand and invoke the principle of karma........

I appreciate your kind words - for every troll, there's someone who teaches me something.

The sad thing is that the mods let these dipsticks play their shoddy little games.

MorganLlan · Post by **MorganLlan** » Thu 13 Nov, 2014 12:19 pm

Hello. I'd like to introduce myself. I am a long time lurker here and former infrequent poster on CiF. I would be happy to provide more info on who I am and where I am coming from (both geographically and politically) if there is a private way of doing so.

I was motivated today to sign up - and wanted to start by sharing this with you - picked up from the #webackEd,
http://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2014/ ... nt-at.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;