Graduate debt and nurses' salaries

It was recently reported that the trade union Unison had claimed that many nurses in the United Kingdom are living in poverty, and that some of them are even using food banks.

While I don't doubt their findings, the fact remains that the starting salary for a nurse in this country is nearly forty percent higher than the minimum wage.  In other words, many people in Britain earn less money than a nurse, and yet many of those people enjoy a lifestyle which is far from impoverished.

The point is that the cost of living in this country varies considerably, and is affected by such factors as whereabouts you live, what type of housing you occupy, and whether or not you have to travel to work.

For example, a person who lives in private rented accommodation in Greater London and travels a long distance to work will almost certainly have a much higher cost of living than someone who lives in social housing in a provincial city and walks to work.

When people argue the case for student loans, they often assert that the repayment of graduate debt is related to the ability to pay.  This however is quite simply not true.

If the ability to pay means anything at all, then it must relate to your disposable income - the amount of money you are left with after deduction of taxes and your necessary cost of living. The repayment of graduate debt is based on how much you earn, and not on your disposable income, and so is not related to the ability to pay.

Related previous posts include:
Glamour model with student debt

The demonisation of Josie Cunningham

Josie Cunningham is a young British woman who is famous for having had her breasts enlarged at public expense.  I can understand that this might not endear her to people who are waiting for hip replacement surgery, but on the other hand it was not by her choice that the taxpayer paid for her breast enlargement.  You might like to remember that next time you vote in an election.

It is now reported that Josie Cunningham- a mother of three - had an abortion after being denied cosmetic surgery on the grounds that she was pregnant.  Apparently she wanted the cosmetic surgery so that she could pursue a career as a pornographic actress. At the time of writing, the comments in the newspaper are overwhelmingly negative.

Since 1967, around eight million babies have been slaughtered in abortion clinics in this country.  Does anyone know how many of those babies died so that their mothers did not have to adjust their career plans?

We live in a society in which we are expected to condemn murder, except when our political masters want us either to condone it or ignore it. Josie Cunningham is a product of a society saturated with hypocrisy, and she is no more worthy of demonisation than millions of other people.

Related previous posts:
A stupid fuss over immigrant abortions
Do we really want what we vote for?

Facing facts about HIV and AIDS

A black man called Mweetwa Muleya has been jailed for seven years for the crime of deliberately infecting two women with HIV.  Muleya had unprotected sex with both women, but failed to tell them that he was HIV positive.  Both women have now been tested positive for HIV, and one of them has said it has ruined her life.

It is fair to point out that both women appear to have consented to sex, and it is also fair to point out that sex can have such consequences as  pregnancy, chlamydia, gonorrhea, genital herpes, and syphilis.  Contraception reduces the likelihood of pregnancy, and barrier contraception reduces the likelihood of infection, but no method of contraception eliminates risk altogether.

However it is also fair to point out that Muleya's prosecution and conviction is founded on some very dubious science.  This quote is from Wikipedia:

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a lentivirus (a subgroup of retrovirus) that causes HIV infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). AIDS is a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and  cancers to thrive.

There is however a lot of debate on this topic, although this debate is rarely if ever given coverage in the national press.  Here are some of points of contention.

HIV may not actually exist.

HIV - even if it does exist - may be unconnected with AIDS.

HIV test procedures vary from country to country.

Even if HIV exists, and even if tests are accurate, then the HIV test indicates the presence of an antibody, suggesting that the person is no longer at any risk.

AIDS is a syndrome rather than a disease, and so cannot be diagnosed in the way a disease can be.  A person who is diagnosed as having AIDS may well be ill, but the illness will often be something identifiable like pneumonia or dysentery.

Many doctors are unwilling to diagnose someone as having AIDS unless that person is HIV positive, which is tantamount to concocting evidence.

AIDS may not exist at all in Africa, even though some scientists think it may have originated in Africa.

In short, it can be argued that a person who is HIV positive may or may not have a chemical in his body which may or may not be an antibody to a virus which may or may not exist, and which may or may not be connected to a medical condition called AIDS which may or may not exist.

Since the 1980s, successive British governments have happily assisted in perpetuating the belief that some people are HIV positive and that some people have AIDS.  I can only wonder how many people have had their lives quite needlessly blighted as a result.

Is alcoholism a medical condition?

It is reported that Charles Kennedy died in large part as a result of his excessive drinking over many years.  It is also reported - or at least implied - that his death may have been linked to his failure to be returned to parliament at the recent general election.  This is questionable, however, given that Kennedy had apparently been a heavy drinker for many years prior to his death.

Kennedy was an MP from 1983 to 2015, and was the leader of the Liberal Democrats from 1999 until 2006.  I met him once many years ago, and knew he was a cigarette smoker.  Reports of him having been a heavy drinker did not emerge until 2003, but were not confirmed until 2006.  Kennedy was replaced as Liberal Democrat leader by Ming Campbell, who was himself replaced by Nick Clegg the following year.

The former MP Lembit Opik has written of the ousting of Charles Kennedy from the Liberal Democrat leadership, and he concludes that:

Only Nick Clegg - and others - can explain what truly possessed them to dismiss Kennedy in the fateful winter of 2006.

I was under the impression that Opik supported Nick Clegg's leadership bid in 2007.  It is worth noting that Opik - having been elected to parliament in 1997 - held his seat in the general elections of 2001 and 2005 (when Kennedy led the party), but lost his seat in the 2010 general election (when Clegg was the leader).

Opik's commentary refers to alcoholism as a medical condition, but this is misleading.  The word medical derives ultimately from the Latin word for a physician, and so a medical condition is one we might reasonably approach a doctor about.  But what medical treatment is a doctor supposed to prescribe for a patient who drinks too much?

It occurs to me that about the time I met Charles Kennedy I also met a man who had previously been an alcoholic.  He gave up drinking - completely - after walking out of a pub one evening before closing time.  No medical intervention was required.

Opik also notes that: Alcoholism is not a choice, any more than other medical conditions are a choice.  Does he have any evidence to support this assertion?  Surely a lot of medical conditions are to some extent at least a matter of choice.  No one chooses to have cancer, but many people choose a lifestyle which makes it more likely that they will have cancer at some point.  No one chooses to suffer from food poisoning, but many people choose to eat food which is past its best before date.

If people do not choose to become alcoholics, then how is it that many people - whether or not they drink alcohol - manage to avoid becoming alcoholics?  If people do not choose to become alcoholics, then do people who are alcoholics choose to continue or to quit?  When an alcoholic quits drinking, is this a matter of choice?  Or does he quit because a doctor prescribed a medicine which cures him?

I will add that at the time Charles Kennedy was ousted as Liberal Democrat leader, Opik was dating Sian Lloyd, who has since accused him of having been a drunkard.  She notes that: The amount of alcohol MPs of all parties drank blew my mind.

Are we to believe that Opik was at this time suffering from a medical condition?  Or was he just being obnoxious?

Devolution: a very British disaster

I am not opposed in principle to devolution.  It may work well in other countries, but in this country it has been a disaster.

A Labour administration in Wales and a Scottish Nationalist administration in Scotland enjoy power without responsibility.  They know that many voters will blame their failings on the Westminster government, and in a sense they are right.

The Westminster government knew earlier this year that Scotland wanted independence, albeit by a narrow margin.  With just a few days left before the independence referendum, the government - with a lot of support from the media - issued lots of promises as well as lots of threats, and managed to pull the vote back from the brink.

Why?  If the union is such a fragile entity that it needs to be held together with a combination of threats and promises, then it is probably not worth saving.  Let it go.

As the Welsh NHS descends further into failure, the Westminster government has a simple remedy.  It should expel Wales from the United Kingdom with immediate effect.  The advantage would be that the Welsh people would pretty soon realise that they have nothing to gain by electing idiots to rule over them.

Neither the Scottish Parliament nor the Welsh Assembly has yet managed to produce a great politician, and I'm not sure either of them will while the United Kingdom remains intact.  However I am confident that an independent Scotland and an independent Wales could produce politicians of considerable merit.

A culture change is needed, and that is why the United Kingdom must come to an end.

Related previous posts include:
Independence versus devolution
Independence: Scotland must vote yes

The science of salt consumption

It is reported that not enough restaurants and fast food outlets are doing enough to reduce the amount of salt in their food.

I remember many years ago seeing a poster in a hospital about good eating habits.  It recommended eating at least five portions of fruit and vegetables every day, and it dawned on me that I often went for whole days at a time without eating any fruit or vegetables.  I have heard this dietary advice repeated many times, and eventually I became fastidious about my fruit consumption, and am still fairly fastidious to this day.

At some point - I cannot remember when - I became aware of advice about salt consumption. The advice is that men should consume no more than 6 grams of salt each day (or 7 grams, depending on who you believe); that women should consume no more than 5 grams of salt, and that children should consume no more than 3 grams.  What I do recall is that I did not give the matter any thought until one day I watched a television programme which stated that there is a gram of salt in a bowl of a popular brand of breakfast cereal.  I investigated, and was alarmed to find that I had probably been consuming far more than 6 grams of salt each day for as long as I could remember.

Another piece of advice we often hear is about alcohol consumption.  We are often told that men should drink no more than fourteen alcoholic drinks each week, with a lower limit for women.  I find these limits confusing, because it is based on an assumption of a standard alcoholic drink, but how many alcoholic drinks really are standard?  For example, beer is commonly served either by the pint or by the bottle.  Surely a pint of beer contains more alcohol than a bottle.

So far as I am aware, not one of these three recommendations is based on any actual science, in which case we are entitled to ask why they are often publicised as if they are.  We could argue that the recommendations make sense even if they are not strictly true.  We could argue that it makes sense to eat at least some fruit and vegetables every day, and that it makes sense not to drink too much alcohol.

Then again, most of us probably know at least one person who either is or used to be a heavy drinker, but who enjoys good health.  Likewise, most of us probably know at least one person who often goes for whole days at a time without eating any fruit or vegetables, but who enjoys good health.  In fact I used to be such a person.

The recommendation I find most bizarre is the one about salt consumption.  Do you know how much salt you consume each day?  The loaf of bread in my kitchen right now contains just 0.3 grams per slice, but I have known bread to contain as much as 0.7 grams of salt per slice.  That means that a child who eats just five slices of bread in a day might be exceeding the 3 grams limit.

Suppose a young boy eats a bowl of Frosties for breakfast along with two slices of buttered toast.  That alone probably equals at least 0.9g of salt, even if the butter is unsalted.  Add in the biscuits and crisps he will probably eat for a mid-morning snack, and any processed food such as pizzas that he will eat later in the day, and it is not too hard to imagine that there may not be one child in the whole country who consumes no more than 3 grams of salt in a typical day.  In fact many children in developed countries probably consume far more than 3 grams of salt pretty well every day.

It also appears likely that a lot of adults routinely exceed their supposed limits on salt consumption on a typical day, and yet we remain a fairly healthy country.  Some readers may be thinking that by eating too much salt we are not exposing ourselves to short term medical risks, but that we are nevertheless contributing to long term health problems, and it is absolutely true that we will all die one day.  As a nation we tend to live for many decades, and our hospital wards tend to be occupied mainly by people who are elderly.

In short, the recommendations on salt consumption are quite obviously a load of cobblers.

Where do these inaccurate recommendations come from?  I read once - I can’t remember where – that the recommendation that we should eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables every day was originally a marketing gimmick by the fruit and vegetable industry.  I have no idea where the other two recommendations come from.

If you eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables each day, then companies like Del Monte and Dole which sell fruit can hope to benefit as a result.  By contrast, if you consume less fruit and vegetables, then you will presumably eat more of other foods to compensate, but more of what exactly?  Biscuits?  Pasta?  Tinned pilchards?  It appears that no one in the food industry has any obvious incentive to persuade you not to eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables each day.

There is therefore a simple logic to the fruit and vegetable recommendation.  Some people benefit from you believing it, but no one obviously stands to gain from you not believing it.  It is a very different story with the other two recommendations.

I am not sure that anyone obviously stands to gain from me being careful about my consumption of either salt or alcohol.  Can anyone put me right here?  Nevertheless there are a lot of companies which potentially gain from me not caring about how much salt or alcohol I consume, and many of those companies are not short of money.  Major brewing companies like Diageo (which makes Guinness) and Heineken would presumably have no trouble in employing scientists to argue that it is in fact safe to drink sixteen or even eighteen standard alcoholic drinks in a week.  Likewise, processed food companies like McVitie’s and Kellogg’s would presumably have no trouble in employing scientists to argue that it is in fact safe for a child to consume 4 grams of salt each day.

As with my previous essay on science, comments are invited.  If I’ve got anything wrong, then please let me know.

Update: since writing this, I have become aware of a major study into diet which suggests that eating up to five portions of fruit and vegetables in a day boosts longevity.  Nevertheless this is a recent study, whereas the advice itself has been widely publicised for many years now.  I may therefore be correct in assuming that the recommendation to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables each day was not founded on any science when it was first promulgated as truth. 

Another update: it is now reported that the average adult in the UK does not eat five portions a day.

A stupid fuss over immigrant abortions

As a result of open door immigration, large numbers of women in Britain have a cultural dislike of giving birth to daughters.  Not surprisingly, this has led to a rise in gender-selective abortions.

Of course a lot of people in Britain do not have a cultural dislike of daughters, and many of them find gender-selective abortions distasteful.  Nevertheless they are happening and cannot easily be stopped.  Don't believe me?

The government said recently that gender-selective abortions are illegal, but it is reported that the the British Pregnancy Advisory Service has published a pamphlet which claims the exact opposite.  Now consider this quote from another national newspaper:

In Britain abortions are legal only where the mother’s physical or mental health would be risked by continuing the pregnancy, or where the child would suffer ‘seriously’ with physical or mental abnormalities if born.

This means the Abortion Act 1967 technically bans abortions on the grounds of the baby’s sex alone.

So let's get this straight.  If an immigrant woman asks to be referred for an abortion on the grounds of gender-selection, then she will apparently be turned down.  However if she then asks to be referred for an abortion on the grounds that her mental health would otherwise be at risk, then she will be allowed her abortion.

The plain fact is that abortion is available on demand in this country.  Any woman can claim to be at psychological risk, and there is no objective test that her doctor or anyone else is required to carry out in order to assess whether or not she really is at psychological risk.  In fact the government has recently stated that a woman seeking an abortion is not even required to meet either of the two doctors who refer her for an abortion.

In other words the ongoing debate on gender-selective abortion is pointless.

As an aside, it appears that almost ten percent of couples in this country are mixed race.  Nevertheless more than ninety percent are not.  Surely gender-selective abortions among certain immigrant groups are likely to result in a large number of young men from those immigrant groups being celibate for life, and either living their entire lives as virgins or else having sex only with prostitutes.

Let's be honest.  There are only two ways in which to stop gender-selective abortions from happening.  One is to amend the abortion laws so to preclude abortion on demand.  The other is to change the cultural values of the immigrant women who dislike giving birth to daughters.

I repeat: gender-selective abortions cannot easily be stopped.

Update:  an abortionist called Dr Rajmohan has been suspended for three months for persuading a woman who wanted a gender-selective abortion to ask for an abortion for another reason.  It appears that his offence was dishonesty.

Related previous posts include:

How immigration changes countries

Patriots are not to blame for malaria

Now that the furore surrounding Sport Relief appears to have died down - and it certainly extended beyond the actual weekend - I want to make clear where the blame lies for the existence of third world poverty.

In preparation for Sport Relief weekend, four impressionable young women were sent out from the United Kingdom to visit the west African country of Liberia.  There are a number of videos of their visit available to watch on the internet, and I link to just one of them below.

The most harrowing part of their time in Liberia was a visit to a hospital where three or four out of every ten children admitted with malaria will die.  We are told that across the whole of Africa one child dies every minute from malaria, and yet a mosquito net costs just five pounds.

Time for some number-crunching.  There are just over one billion people living in Africa.  Let us assume that exactly one billion mosquito nets are needed.  The total bill is five billion pounds.  If every man, woman, and child in Britain were to donate seventy-eight pounds to Sport Relief, then that would raise the necessary money.  Child mortality across Africa would fall drastically as a result.

An obvious problem is that many people in this country are struggling, and cannot afford to donate money to help children in Liberia.  The video below gives an idea of the level of poverty in Scotland, and probably gives a fairly accurate picture of the level of poverty across the whole of the United Kingdom.

Another important point to consider is that for many years now Britain has been giving billions to the third world in aid each year. Some of this represents money donated by ordinary people to charities working in poor countries, but a lot of it is money spent by the government - money we pay for in our tax bills.

The amount of money the British government is currently spending in aid each year is roughly twice the amount of money needed to provide the whole of Africa with all of the mosquito nets it requires - but how much of that money is spent on mosquito nets?

If Britain were to abolish overseas aid, then the billions of pounds saved could be spent on lifting the British people out of poverty through a combination of tax cuts and worthwhile spending.  The British people would then have far more money to spend on non-essentials, and it is perhaps inevitable that more money would be donated to third world charities.

Money donated to charities is money that is far more likely to be spent on useful things like mosquito nets than on useless things like enriching dictators.

People who vote Labour or Conservative or Liberal Democrat are to blame for the deaths of children in Africa.  Patriots are not to blame.

Update: this press report gives an example of how aid money is wasted.

Another update: this press report gives an example of what happens even when mosquito nets are supposed to be provided.

Related previous posts include:
Black violence: a black woman speaks out
The lawsuit of Mr O
How the ConDems waste your money

Will we now have to pay for hospital treatment?

The government is planning to make people pay to use NHS hospitals - even though they are supposed to provide treatment free at the point of use.  Some of you may think I have got it all wrong.  The government is planning to make immigrants pay to use some NHS services.  That surely is only right and proper.

Actually no it isn't.  The government wants to crack down on illegal immigrants getting a job, and so now we have to be able to produce a passport in order to get a job.  The government wants to crack down on illegal immigrants getting a home, and so now we have to be able to produce a passport in order to rent a house ... or even perhaps a room.  Now it seems that we will need a passport in order to get hospital treatment.

Some of you may think I am exaggerating the problem.  Earlier this year my passport ran out.  I applied for a new one, and the new passport duly arrived in a matter of days.  Where is the problem with that?

The problem is that the renewal fee plus the cost of passport photos plus the postage set me back nearly a hundred pounds.  I am lucky.  I can afford that.  But many people are struggling to pay for basic essentials like food and heating.  How are they supposed to afford to renew their passport when it runs out?

Update: it has occurred to me since I originally wrote this that a British passport does not prove your right to treatment on the NHS.  Nevertheless I can only assume that David Cameron envisages a system whereby you either prove your entitlement to free treatment or else pay a fee. 

I fail to see how I can prove my entitlement without producing a document of some kind, and I would be interested if David Cameron would tell us what that document would be, how to obtain one, how to renew it, and what costs if any might be involved.

Do we really need foreign nurses?

The NHS is thinking of recruiting nurses from Portugal.  This is not the first time that Britain has stolen talent from other countries.

I say stolen with good reason.  Many people in Poland struggle to find a builder, because so many Polish builders have gone to live in western Europe. Teachers and nurses who come to Britain from abroad leave vacancies for teachers and nurses in their home countries which are not always easily filled.

Being a nurse is not a hugely difficult job.  On the one hand you might need to administer an injection, but that is only one part of the job.  Nursing work in a hospital often amounts to such things as changing bed linen, helping patients to wash, handing out meal and then clearing away afterwards, and so on.  Is that so difficult?

Florence Nightingale did not have anything like the qualifications expected of nurses today, but she saved the lives of huge numbers of people.

Meanwhile, many young people in Britain go to college to study for degrees which will be of very little use to them, while many older people languish on the dole queues.  Maybe NHS hospitals should recruit our own unemployed as assistant nurses, and let them carry out basic tasks like making beds.  Then over time they could be trained in how to carry out clinical procedures like injecting.

Surely it makes more sense than recruiting nurses from abroad ... or have I missed something?

Dentist commits suicide

Dr Anand Kamath, an immigrant who worked as a dentist in Yorkshire, killed himself after allegedly being pursued by the NHS over some errors of record-keeping.

I cannot comment on all the issues here, as I do not know all of the circumstances, but I am curious about one or two things.

At the last general election, did Dr Kamath vote for a political party which supported running the NHS in the most efficient way possible?  I do not know for certain that he could vote, but I expect so.

Also, when he faced problems with his dental career, why did he not simply quit his practice and look for a job stacking shelves in Tesco?  Of course doing so would have left the community with one less dentist, but so did his suicide.

As it is, his widow has no husband and her children have no father.  The family has also lost an income.  If he were still alive and stacking shelves, then his family would be so much better off.

Some people ... I don't know.

How immigration changes countries

Two news items strike me as being of particular interest today.  The first is that children at at least one primary school in the UK are being denied water during Ramadan because it might upset Muslim pupils who are fasting.

Are Muslims who fast during Ramadan really upset by the sight of non-Muslims not fasting?  Do I care?

The other news item is that Ireland has legalised abortion.  The act allows any woman to have an abortion if she is suicidal, and of course any woman can pretend to be suicidal.  This legislation basically paves the way for a holocaust of the unborn, and was enacted following the death of immigrant Savita Halappanavar last year.  Apparently she and her husband were offended at being told that Ireland is a Catholic country.

Dear immigrants, please do not live in Catholic countries if you do not like Catholic values.  Dear Ireland, please tell your legislators to stop kowtowing to immigrants.  Dear Muslims, please stop being Muslims.  The sun does not set in water.

Glasnost in the NHS

The ConDem government is apparently taking action to reduce the number of people who die needlessly in NHS hospitals.

Some people might see this as a reason to vote Conservative, but it is fair to point out that talking about action is not the same as actually doing anything, and also that the last Conservative government did absolutely nothing about this.

I also think it is rather hypocritical of the government to want the NHS to be open and honest about its various failings, given that the government is not exactly known for being open and honest.

Will the NHS kill your loved ones?

Evelyn Agbeko, a nurse at Stafford Hospital, failed to notice that an elderly patient had died.  She puts this down to the stress of a busy night shift, and I am quite prepared to believe her.

Are the British people going to go on forever voting for revolting Labour or Tory or coalition governments which do not care about ordinary people?  Or are they at some point going to start putting themselves first for a change?

How long will it be before someone you care about dies needlessly in an NHS hospital?  Do yourself a favour, and stop voting LibLabCon before it ever happens.

Another NHS horror story

A former NHS employee has described the hospital where her elderly father died as the worst she had encountered during her 30-year career, reports The Daily Mail.

James Bollen, 92, died last week after contracting three illnesses during a four-week stay at Weston General Hospital in Somerset.

Readers of this blog who live in the UK will presumably know that this is far from being an isolated case.  The NHS is increasingly being run for the benefit not of patients but of selfish staff.

While there are still many good NHS hospitals in the UK, I fear that the situation will continue to decline until we elect a government which will take a stand on ensuring good standards in all hospitals - but will that ever happen?

The Craig Alexander saga does not surprise me

Craig Alexander first made headlines in a local newspaper in 2007 when he was convicted of an armed robbery committed six years earlier.

At the time of his prosecution, Alexander was a project manager with the NHS, but it is not clear how he obtained such an advantageous position at such a young age.  Although project management can be studied at university, Alexander had little in the way of academic qualifications.  One possibility is that he lied about either his qualifications or his experience when applying for the job.

Depending on when he secured the post in question, such an act of dishonesty would have put him in breach of either Section 16 of The Theft Act 1968 or Section 2 of The Fraud Act 2006.

Alexander was dismissed from his job with the NHS, and spent nearly two years in prison for the crime of armed robbery.  Nevertheless upon his release he quickly returned to employment as an NHS manager, and held four lucrative jobs over the next four years.

The Daily Mail reports that: in the four years or so since his release, he has been a senior executive with Bristol Community Health, NHS Sutton and Merton, South West London NHS Cluster and the Brent Primary Care Trust.

The last became NHS Brent in March when responsibility for patient care was transferred to new clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) across the country.

The major issue here is that a convicted armed robber was able to secure one senior post after another within the NHS without anyone bothering to check his background.  He was eventually uncovered by a junior staff member.

Another issue is that Alexander was paid an obscene salary, and was expected to implement budget cuts, but apparently saw no reason to seek to reduce his own salary. In that respect at least, he may be very typical of public sector management.

My own view of the public sector - as a former employee - is that it is full of people, even at the highest level, who are completely out of their depth.  The public sector ought to exist to serve the public interest, and yet far too many of its employees are obsessed with their perceived divine right to a taxpayer-funded salary.

In many cases these salaries are huge - way in excess of what most ordinary people can ever hope to earn.

There is very little accountability in the public sector.  Why should there be?  If you are an elected politician with your snout in the trough, then why should you want to tackle the pen-pushers who share the trough with you?

Some readers may be thinking that large public sector salaries are justified on the grounds that you have to pay well if you want to attract talent, but that is just plain silly.

Paying large salaries makes it more likely that you will end up employing people who are just in it for themselves.

Update: I can find no mention of Craig Alexander having been prosecuted for fraud.  I wonder also if the junior staff member who exposed him as a convicted criminal was rewarded in any way for doing what others far senior to her should have done.

Health tourism - another benefit of enrichment

At least one newspaper today is reporting an increase in health tourism, and the fact that many people from foreign countries who come here to use NHS services then return to their home countries without paying for their treatment.  Also, some are unwilling either to return home or to pay.

One solution would be to make it harder for foreign nationals to enter Britain in the first place, although this would not go down well with people in Britain who have family living abroad.  Another solution would be to make it harder for people to get NHS treatment if they cannot demonstrate their entitlement, although this might make life difficult for people who are legally in the country.

Would you, assuming you are entitled to NHS treatment, be able to prove your entitlement? Could you prove it today?  Tomorrow? Next week?

One option for the government is to allow health tourism to continue unchecked, regardless of the cost.  It would be expensive, but any other option might cause unexpected problems.