Friday 9th January 2015

[citizenJA]

Morning all. Conservatives and Labour tied on Yougov:

Latest YouGov / The Sun results 8th January -

Con 33%, (+1)
Lab 33%, (nc)
LD 8%, (+1)
UKIP 13%, (-2)
GRN 7%; (nc)

APP -21 (-1)

What happens when the sample surveyed includes Labour voters?

[pk1]

Ellen Coyne ‏@ellenmcoyne 54m54 minutes ago
Police investigating threats to pipe-bomb office of Rhondda MP Chris Bryant which were sent on twitter last night " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

[ohsocynical]

https://audioboom.com/boos/2782796-hain ... thing-else

Interesting.

[ohsocynical]

Morning all.

Thanks to all the excellent posters with their excellent postings today. This is why FTN is such a crucial resource for yours truly.

I very much second this.

Me too.

I'm a chronic button-thanks thumbs up pusher. Sometimes the page takes too long to re-load on my computer. I'm going to stop doing it so much. It doesn't mean I don't thank you or I haven't read your post.

love
JA

I use it a lot too. I like to acknowledge I've read a post as well as using it for approval.

[danesclose]

Seems that Cameron has pulled out of the Leaders Live debates too, no reason given.

Must have been because Natalie Bennett wasn't invited onto that either.
Surely can't be because he's frit (to use the word of his heroine)?

[citizenJA]

Thanks ephie for the comments on Sue's blog, polite, informed and to the point as usual. If she does end up being assimilated into the Borg collective of Maximus/Atos/DWP then we have lost an important cog in the machinery of fighting for what is just and right.
What a beast of a year, with Bob Crow & Tony Benn no longer around too our voices are getting a bit thin on the ground.

No one can be the magnificent people or have the voice of Bob Crow or Tony Benn. We cultivate & grow justice-seekers & righteous in this time.

You all know my respect for Ed Miliband - I'll not bore you with further praise.

I like Andy Burnham. Does his work conscientiously without throwing curves - nothing counterfeit in Andy Burnham. I'm not confused after I've read his work or hear him speak. He knows what he is, he's taken responsibility for himself & his job. I trust him. There's no evidence to suggest he'll change once he's in government coming May. Excellent person.

[citizenJA]

I very much second this.

Me too.

I'm a chronic button-thanks thumbs up pusher. Sometimes the page takes too long to re-load on my computer. I'm going to stop doing it so much. It doesn't mean I don't thank you or I haven't read your post.

love
JA

I use it a lot too. I like to acknowledge I've read a post as well as using it for approval.

I tried to resist but I couldn't not thank you!

[pk1]

Seems that Cameron has pulled out of the Leaders Live debates too, no reason given.

Must have been because Natalie Bennett wasn't invited onto that either.
Surely can't be because he's frit (to use the word of his heroine)?

Nah, Bennett did the first one back on 26th November so he's going to have to come up with a better excuse than that, this time !

[AnatolyKasparov]

Interesting, and surprising, news about Sue Marsh. I hope she has done the right thing, but am optimistic enough to think that might be the case

[letsskiptotheleft]

https://audioboom.com/boos/2782796-hain ... thing-else

Interesting.

When Hain told the closest around him in his constituency office he was close to breaking down, I was told by someone who was there, so yes it does all fit in.

If only Ed suggested the same to Abbott and Danzcuk.

[seeingclearly]

Re. Sue Marsh.

I've read her blogpost about her new job. I'm not sure what to think about this, frankly.

Maximus are not a nice company. Their record in the US shows that. They have also somehow finagled a deal that involves about £100 Million more a year than Atos got for the WCA - and Atos itself has a new £10 Million contract to supply the IT for Maximus (which I believe is due to the fact that they own or lease the LIMA software from Unum)

Maximus have also appointed Mike O'Donnell - previous medical director of Atos and before that clinical director of Unum in the UK - as their head of medical services in the UK. The CEO of Maximus in the UK has also said that all the Atos staff working on DWP assessments will be employed by Maximus, the Atos assessment centres will be taken over by Maximus.......basically, it's all pretty much the same.

However Sue intends to "improve the customer journey" or whatever blue-sky-thinking-management-speak-bollocks is the order of the day, she cannot do what needs to be done - ie. she cannot influence or change the WCA itself, the draconian rules, the ridiculous descriptors, the targets imposed on the assessors, or the stucpidity of DWP decision makers. It's the WCA that has to change, not who delivers it.

I have every expectation that she will be required to adhere to the company line and will be expected to sign some sort of gagging contract.
I suspect that this appointment is a cynical move by Maximus to pretend that they care about sick and disabled people, and by placing a well-known campaigner on these issues in this job they probably think that people like me are reassured.

Well, I'm not reassured. I think Sue may well lose a lot of respect for this - I'm certainly not convinced by her arguments, though I appreciate that she has every right to believe otherwise.
Of course she will be paid a substantial salary, and that must always be a consideration for anyone with a family; but her role will be to research "customer experience" and suggest improvements (as the job description says) and for the life of me I cannot see how that squares with all her previous campaigning.



I feel we have lost a powerful voice - time will tell.

I have mixed feelings to be honest, i was a bit taken aback when she first announced it this morning.She does have a huge online presence, and she also does have some important government contacts in her address book, she can only work within the boundaries and framework of what the assessment is. The WCA is the WCA is the WCA, the qualifying criteria or the 'descriptors' are set by the DWP.
On one hand I fear she will be constrained, and frustrated because of this, the department didn't listen to the Professor Harrington, in fact Grayling when he was IDS' understudy actually lied about the advice given and rolled it out from a pilot scheme for new applicants into a full blown monstrosity effecting millions of people.
The original, perhaps biggest petition against the WCA of recent years - the WOW petition started out as Pat Onions petition, we didn't even get the required amount of signatures in a year despite a heavy campaign, until it was relaunched for a second year by Francesca Martinez, even then after the debate that it triggered nothing much has changed.
Only the other day Samuel Miller tweeted 'This campaign is too reliant on social media and ends up preaching to the converted' which made me ponder a bit, I began to think that maybe we have gone as far as we can, and now in a bit of a rut or dead end do we we need a new approach ?
Maybe Maximus are thinking along the lines of Lyndon B Johnson when he said "Better to have your enemies inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in" but I don't think Sue is that gullible, she might make just that bit of difference especially if we do get a change of government in May, alongside the announcements on the WCA which Reeves has made.
Sue sure knows her stuff, my only concern is would it still be possible to have someone with her high profile working for the company performing the WCA while at the same time being a thorn in the side of whichever minister or secretary of state is going to ultimately be running the show. I don't think she has gone over to the dark side just yet, but she might find her hands are now tied.

Good afternoon.

Some great posts about the Sue March blog today. The elephant in the room is the original purpose of the assessments, not the niceties of delivery, even though they could make the process less intimidating. Regardless of Sues expertise and undoubted good, informed intent, if the prime motivation of the DWP, under whoever might be in charge, is to remove support from sick and disabled people who need it on spurious assessment criteria then everything else is cosmetic.

I spent part of yesterday reading about claimant experiences of assessment, and the latitude there for interpretation of claimant work is so great that anyone, no matter how sick or unable to function can fail. No matter how this is disguised it won't fool claimants, who will return home falling in one side or the other and knowing that assessments are a lottery. and eligibility for benefits should not be a lottery, it should be a right.

[AnatolyKasparov]

https://audioboom.com/boos/2782796-hain ... thing-else

Interesting.

When Hain told the closest around him in his constituency office he was close to breaking down, I was told by someone who was there, so yes it does all fit in.

If only Ed suggested the same to Abbott and Danzcuk.

They would just ignore him, tbf - though Abbott must be a possibility to retire in 2020? Hope so, she has long outlived her usefulness

[StephenDolan]

I very much second this.

Me too.

I'm a chronic button-thanks thumbs up pusher. Sometimes the page takes too long to re-load on my computer. I'm going to stop doing it so much. It doesn't mean I don't thank you or I haven't read your post.

love
JA

I use it a lot too. I like to acknowledge I've read a post as well as using it for approval.

Being on mobile view there's no button available. Having given no thank you's I apologise for my terrible manners

[Toby Latimer]

Like Anatoly I was vaguely optimistic earlier- thinking that we have to trust her decision but the more i think about it, the fact remains that whoever has the contract to operate the WCA for DWP, their remit will be to save money, end of.
The biopsychosocial model as it is will still be adhered to no matter which government is in, for Sue to deliver anything like a better 'customer experience' then the first thing that should happen is for that flawed, preloaded test to be put in the dustbin of history.
Something she will have no control of.

[rebeccariots2]

Seems that Cameron has pulled out of the Leaders Live debates too, no reason given.

What a prize plonker he is. He may have never intended to do the Leaders Live debate anyway (wouldn't put it past him to agree even when he wasn't going to do it) but now he probably knows he can't possibly do this debate - which the Greens have already done of course - without looking even more stupid if he carries on refusing to do the mainstream media leaders debates.

[danesclose]

Seems that Cameron has pulled out of the Leaders Live debates too, no reason given.

Must have been because Natalie Bennett wasn't invited onto that either.
Surely can't be because he's frit (to use the word of his heroine)?

Nah, Bennett did the first one back on 26th November so he's going to have to come up with a better excuse than that, this time !

Thanks for correcting me - can only apologise for not bothering to look.

[yahyah]

The text from everyone's posts has disappeared.

[PaulfromYorkshire]

The text from everyone's posts has disappeared.

Oh no it hasn't

[Willow904]

On the Guardian news ticker:

IIRC, the reason for 'privatisation' was a £120m 'black hole' in the hospitals' funding....created by 'management accounting error' (but of course, now referred to by the MSM as 'debt-ridden' Hinchinbrooke) ......

Slightly more complicated than that, and there is a lot of disinformation floating around so it is difficult to get a clear story uness you knwo some of the people on the ground; which I do, so .....

Hinchingbrooke was administered by Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust and although it was running at a deficit (as were most trusts) things were manageable and plans were in place for continued growth; HHCT's debt was around £14m, and the people running it were actively tackling the problem. But then they were forced, shotgun wedding-style, into a merger with Cambridgeshire PCT (who were £51m in debt, and still digging) with the rationale that savings could be made by economies of scale; part of the deal was that the Cambridge hospitals would refer patients to Hinchingbrooke's Treatment Centre which, under the Payment By Results scheme, would mean the Hospital would actually be running at a surplus.

Of course nobody at HHCT believed for one moment that would happen, and management and unions alike fought against the merger, to no avail. And, predictably, the Cambridge hospitals reneged on their side of the deal which meant that Hinchingbrooke, saddled with extra Cambridgeshire debt, saw their funding cut further and then still further to provide money for NHS patients to use private hospitals. So the hole got deeper and deeper and, by the time Burnham came along, something drastic needed to be done. So he started the process that led ultimately to Circle taking over, but my friends are clear that their impression was he intended it to be an NHS provider most likely to get the contract, and that this was a way of ensuring the hospital was adequately funded.

Of course when the Coalition took office the NHS provider was squeezed out and the contract was given to Circle with all sorts of sweeteners involved; despite commercial confidentiality it seems that Circle were being given at least 50% more per annum in funding compared to HHCT and, of course, that announcement about the closure of the Stroke Unit just prior to the contract announcement was no coincidence - stroke care is long term, intensive work thus not cost effective or revenue earning, so had to go. Despite all of these sweeteners Circle have had to go back cap in hand to the DoH for extra funding more than once, have closed wards, demoralised staff and made it clear that big question marks hang over the future of both A & E and the Mat Unit.

With that level of funding the old HHCT would not have got into the debt problems, and could certainly have run the hospital better than Circle have; they proved that, over a long & difficult period. This morning I fear for the future of my friends, as their jobs are obviously now at risk (I can't imagine Hunt coming up with a sensible solution) and I feel for the people of the Hinchingbrooke area. Such a shame that Rusty is no longer in evidence at the Guardian, as I would have taken great delight in tearing him a new one this morning - you don't play these sorts of games with people's health, and it is long past time to stop doing so. We need Burnham now, instead we have a proven liar who believes in magic water.

I've just got back from shopping and would like to join others in thanking you for this post, it's very informative. I actually signed up to the Guardian website originally to comment on articles about Circle taking over Hinchingbrooke. The main element that occupied me was the fact that without knowing how much the PCT previously running it spent annually and how much Circle were spending annually, it would be impossible to evaluate Circle's performance. It was the lack of transparency that infuriated me. I'm not ideologically opposed to privately run health care - I would be quite happy to live in Germany or Canada and use their healthcare systems. I'm not precious about the NHS in that sense, it's just that I've never seen any evidence that any other system would be more cost effective, so can't see the point in changing. If people feel the NHS isn't good enough, then the first thing to do would be to try spending per capita as much as the countries we do think have health care that is good enough. 2011 figure for Germany was $4,495, UK $3,405, for instance. None of the countries that spend less than us, like Spain or Portugal, are particularly revered for their healthcare. Even so, if a UK government convinced the voting public to make a wholesale change to a privately provided universal healthcare system such as Germany's I wouldn't make such a fuss. The reason I get so incensed about what is happening now is that by inviting private competition into a nationalised public service in such a piecemeal manner you are guaranteeing that you will get the worst of both worlds. As always with the Tories, it's not just that they privatise, but that they privatise very badly, leaving UK citizens some of the most ripped off by privately provided public services in the world (though I accept that the US probably wins top prize on this one!).

Anyway, rant over. I know none of these things is news to anyone here, but I'm always staggered by how few people really understand numerically what good value the NHS is. As such it's remarkable that the British public still instinctively stick by it and stand up for despite decades of right-wing propaganda. I really, really, hope they choose to put the NHS first and vote Labour in May.

[PaulfromYorkshire]

And you can't reply with "Oh yes it has" without lying

[rebeccariots2]

Jamie Reed retweeted
David Singleton ‏@singersz 3h3 hours ago
Excl: Cameron’s former chief of staff predicts Tories will lose election due to "collapse" in grassroots support http://polho.me/1BTzyJL" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[HindleA]

Mail alert ,article about Hinchingbrooke last May.Thought it might be interesting given announcement.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... -firm.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[ephemerid]

Re. Sue Marsh and her new job at Maximus.

She has posted the job description and person specification (but not the salary) on her blog. As with all these things, it's got a lot of management-speak bollocks, but there are a few important things in it.
She will be expected to research and report on "customer" experience - whether she'll have the power to change the way claimants are treated remains to be seen.
She'll have her work cut out - after all the HCPs delivering the WCA are the same people who did that for Atos, and many of them are not appropriately trained or qualified for the job.

She says that delivery is important - whilst she has a point, having a nice cosy WCA with lovely people and nice curtains won't alter the fact that it's the nature and purpose of the WCA which is wrong.
As that is what she has been campaigning about for the past 6 years, I find it odd that she is now suggesting that how this warped and flawed system is delivered is equally important. It isn't.
If you have cancer, you can go to a scruffy old NHS unit for your chemo and if you go private you'll get a comfier chair and pretty cushions - but you'll still have cancer and you'll still throw up and be at risk of losing your life.

I don't know is Sue was approached for this post, or if she decided to apply for it. I appreciate that a good salary will make a difference to her and her family, and I can't blame her for putting that first.
However, she has already stated on her blog that lots of Support Group claimants "want to work" which is an opinion based on no evidence and one which I do not agree with - you have to be pretty damn sick to get an allocation to the SG and although people like me may well prefer it if we were capable of work we really aren't, however much we might "want" to be.

Red North is Red miner. He's a good bloke, and although he won't post on the G any more, remains a thorn in the flesh of politicians of all parties and he is tireless in pestering both them and the media with Tweets and emails etc. with evidence of the appalling treatment the sick and disabled are suffering at the hands of this government - he's not impressed with Labour either and doesn't give them a free ride.

It is possible that Sue will do her research and make her recommendations - she might even be able to use her findings to convince her new bosses to improve the way they deliver the WCA.
But - and it's a big but - she has joined what is a rogue company, an asset-stripping private company which has a pisspoor reputation elsewhere.
There is no way, unless Maximus changes its entire ethos, that she will be able to make them influence the nature and purpose of the WCA with whatever government happens to be in office.

Maximus are being paid handsomely to deliver the WCA, and Atos are in cahoots even now. Appointing a respected disability campaigner may well be something that they have decided to do (or even been told to do) to boost their credibility and pretend they're different from Atos.
Well, they're not. They're the same people, doing the same stuff with the same staff in the same places for MORE of our money.

Sue may think she can do something useful, but all she can change here is the delivery.
The problem is not delivery of the WCA.
The problem is ESA, the whole premise of the benefit, the groupings, the WCA itself, the descriptors, the targets, the HCPs, the DWP decision makers, and successive governments who will never - whatever new benefits or rules they impose - stop people getting sick.

I am disappointed. Personally, I doubt Sue will be able to effect the change she claims she hopes to; even if she does, it doesn't alter the fact that ESA is based on a warped interpretation of the bio-psych-social model of disability, which takes no account of illness and is based purely on what a person can do with zero relevance to how they feel and what their actual illness is.

Maximus have a contract to do the bidding of DWP. DWP is intent on cutting the spend on benefits for sick and disabled people. If I employ a builder to re-tile my kitchen, I would not be influenced by his apprentice telling me my choice of tiles is wrong.
Even if Sue is allowed to approach DWP with her "customer service" hat on as a representative of DWP contractors, which I doubt, what will she achieve? It won't be change of or abolition of the WCA - which is what she's been campaigning for.
Maximus has employed someone who may well give them a bit of credibility, and some people may be naive enough to think she can influence what they do, but they remain a rogue company in the employ of a rogue department headed by an ideological fuckwit.

I think we have lost a powerful voice. And I am saddened by that.

[rebeccariots2]

Fox Hunting Ban Support By Party.jpg (40.23 KiB) Viewed 7870 times

Mike Smithson ‏@MSmithsonPB 52m52 minutes ago
Lifting the ban on fox-hunting - how supporters of the main parties divide pic.twitter.com/YTq1r57Eff

How depressing.

[rebeccariots2]

Maximus appear to have pulled off an enormous PR coup ... and so have the government by default. Expect them to use this appointment in some way.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Gah, ignore

[AnatolyKasparov]

Some polls show much higher support for a ban (depends partly on the question wording, interestingly) but even that has more people backing it than not

And this is something that highly motivates a small but significant group of voters (some Tories have cited it as a factor in their not getting a majority last time)

[MsChin]

On the subject of Sue Marsh & her decision to work for Maximus ... I think it's very naive of her to think she can change this company's practice from within in the way I think she believes is possible. Customer service is all about setting standards which show the organisation in a good light while reducing the number of contacts a customer has to make with the organisation when they have an enquiry / complaint preferably through 'channel shift' to on-line or automated phone systems. This is 'lean' management in practice with a few measures of customer satisfaction / engagement to show things have improved. Satisfaction measures are weird things - eg: when the police phoned me to ask if I was satisfied with their service I had to say 'yes' even though the criminal wasn't brought to justice so I'm not satisfied with the outcome.

[rebeccariots2]

David Lammy ‏@DavidLammy 17m17 minutes ago
Cameron refusing to take part in #LeadersLive shows complete disregard for young people and big failure of leadership http://www.buzzfeed.com/sirajdatoo/davi ... f-the-lead" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

[rebeccariots2]

That last post I did re Cameron pulling out of Leaders Live had a link to an article ............... with this picture, which for some strange reason made me almost piss myself laughing. Maybe he's realised he is no spring chicken ... no match for those spry, quick witted youngsters on Leaders Live.

ROFL.jpg (119.11 KiB) Viewed 7809 times

It's the hand on the ground behind him that finished me off ....

[Toby Latimer]

That last post I did re Cameron pulling out of Leaders Live had a link to an article ............... with this picture, which for some strange reason made me almost piss myself laughing. Maybe he's realised he is no spring chicken ... no match for those spry, quick witted youngsters on Leaders Live.

ROFL.jpg

It's the hand on the ground behind him that finished me off ....

I could do wonders with that pic in photoshop. Probably using a picture of Lynton Crosby with his naked butt facing the camera.
Got to be careful with the libel laws and such though.

[TheGrimSqueaker]

Interesting Miliband piece in the Mirror, billed as his "first interview of 2015". Puts some flesh on the bones of Labour's plans for tackling the NHS issues.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nh ... nt-4945356" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[rebeccariots2]

Afua Hirsch ‏@afuahirsch 22m22 minutes ago
Reports of ongoing incident at Trocadero in Paris @KayBurley holding up pix of what appears to be armed confrontation w police right now

[StephenDolan]

Interesting Miliband piece in the Mirror, billed as his "first interview of 2015". Puts some flesh on the bones of Labour's plans for tackling the NHS issues.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nh ... nt-4945356" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Scary polling BTL.

[gilsey]

I've never seen any evidence that any other system would be more cost effective, so can't see the point in changing. If people feel the NHS isn't good enough, then the first thing to do would be to try spending per capita as much as the countries we do think have health care that is good enough. 2011 figure for Germany was $4,495, UK $3,405, for instance.

You've nailed it.

[rebeccariots2]

That last post I did re Cameron pulling out of Leaders Live had a link to an article ............... with this picture, which for some strange reason made me almost piss myself laughing. Maybe he's realised he is no spring chicken ... no match for those spry, quick witted youngsters on Leaders Live.

ROFL.jpg

It's the hand on the ground behind him that finished me off ....

I could do wonders with that pic in photoshop. Probably using a picture of Lynton Crosby with his naked butt facing the camera.
Got to be careful with the libel laws and such though.

It's alright Toby ... I can imagine your wonders! Like I can also imagine that Cameron has just walked all over the person that hand belongs to ... and probably not even noticed.

[TheGrimSqueaker]

Interesting Miliband piece in the Mirror, billed as his "first interview of 2015". Puts some flesh on the bones of Labour's plans for tackling the NHS issues.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nh ... nt-4945356" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Scary polling BTL.

Didn't bother looking at it. Those sorts of polls are easy to rig, and tend to have the self righteous clicking themselves into a frothing mess; you remember how easy it used to be to bork the Guardian's 'Recommend' figures. Best avoided.

[rebeccariots2]

Why not to vote Conservative, by @twlldun
An exhaustive, possibly definitive list of reasons not to vote Tory, from the inimitable @twlldun.
https://storify.com/portraitinflesh/why ... by-twlldun

(And to those amongst us who speak Welsh, I'm assuming that twitter username is as rude as I think it is?)

[ohsocynical]

That last post I did re Cameron pulling out of Leaders Live had a link to an article ............... with this picture, which for some strange reason made me almost piss myself laughing. Maybe he's realised he is no spring chicken ... no match for those spry, quick witted youngsters on Leaders Live.

ROFL.jpg

It's the hand on the ground behind him that finished me off ....

I could do wonders with that pic in photoshop. Probably using a picture of Lynton Crosby with his naked butt facing the camera.
Got to be careful with the libel laws and such though.

It's alright Toby ... I can imagine your wonders! Like I can also imagine that Cameron has just walked all over the person that hand belongs to ... and probably not even noticed.

Foot prints all up the poor bloke's back...

[rebeccariots2]

Iain Dale retweeted
Alan Cochrane @Alan_Cochrane · 2h 2 hours ago
Desperate Nats sabotaging my book 'Alex Salmond My Part in his Downfall' all over Scotland by removing covers. They don't like it up em.

Iain Dale @IainDale · 1h 1 hour ago
Some Nat idiot in Scotland is going round branches of @Waterstones putting Katie Price books inside the cover of @Alan_Cochrane's book!

[rebeccariots2]

GENERAL ELECTION PREDICTIONS 41: WALES - SOUTH GLAMORGAN
http://www.iaindale.com/posts/2015/01/0 ... um=twitter

Cardiff Central
Sitting MP: Jenny Willott (LibDem)
Prediction: Labour gain

Cardiff North
Sitting MP: Jonathan Evans (Con)
Prediction: Labour gain

[Toby Latimer]

It's being said online, so it might not be reliable - is that Sue's salary with Maximus will be £75.000 a year. She said on her blog that her husband will be giving up his job, and that she will be working full time which i find strange given that she has spent most of the last 12 months in and out of hospital, i didn't think she would be fit for work just yet.

There is a lot of venom being directed at her in the comments, not only on her own blog but a few other places and twitter, she says she's thought it through, only she knows what her motivation for this is but i'd like Mrs Merton to ask "What was it about the seventy five grand a year that first attracted you to work for Maximus?"
This won't end well I fear.

[refitman]

Is Poultice, on the Graun, Rusty?

[letsskiptotheleft]

CQC recommends Hitchingbrooke be put into special measures.

[letsskiptotheleft]

GENERAL ELECTION PREDICTIONS 41: WALES - SOUTH GLAMORGAN
http://www.iaindale.com/posts/2015/01/0 ... um=twitter

Cardiff Central
Sitting MP: Jenny Willott (LibDem)
Prediction: Labour gain

Cardiff North
Sitting MP: Jonathan Evans (Con)
Prediction: Labour gain

I still hold that Alun Cairns is vulnerable in the Vale, Chris Elmore is working his balls off there, always appears to be Labour activity going on, Cairns scalp would just about take away the disappointment of that village idiot from Monmouth holding on, who let's face it is nothing but a joke.

[StephenDolan]

That damned Labour lead is still "stuck"...
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index. ... t-rampant/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[AnatolyKasparov]

Is Poultice, on the Graun, Rusty?

More likely to be him that the oft-mentioned Sanguine, IMO.

[LadyCentauria]

So, ç'est finis. The Kouachi brothers are dead, their hostage is free, GIGD are securing the area in Dammartin. The helicopters are all landing and further police/gendarmerie standing down. And the remaining hostages at the supermarket in Paris are also free. Wish the Kouachis had been taken alive, though, to face a criminal trial.

[TheGrimSqueaker]

Is Poultice, on the Graun, Rusty?

More likely to be him that the oft-mentioned Sanguine, IMO.

On past form more than likely to be both of them, and others besides.

[AnatolyKasparov]

So, ç'est finis. The Kouachi brothers are dead, their hostage is free, GIGD are securing the area in Dammartin. The helicopters are all landing and further police/gendarmerie standing down. And the remaining hostages at the supermarket in Paris are also free. Wish the Kouachis had been taken alive, though, to face a criminal trial.

At least they have got one of them alive.