Would you agree that the situation vis a vis our public liabilities has hardly been helped by the eagerness of recent Prime Ministers to involve this nation’s armed forces in expensive (in terms of materiel and – which is worse – in terms of the lives and well-being of our servicemen and women) conflicts in far-away nations, in which this country’s interest is marginal at best?

The survey does indeed makes some encouraging noises but the sample was not large. I am sure if you asked 20 people at random you would have 20 different responses.

This is a fair point.

How many times have we seen “NHS-knockers” assemble similar anecdotal evidence to demonstrate that the NHS is an inefficient and ineffective juggernaut on the point of collapse?

I don’t think slagging off the NHS is in the same league as complaining about the weather. I think it is/has been slagged off because it has perfomed inconsistently and often poorly. And I am not even sure we hold it dear. We have no choice.

Some cannot afford the luxury of choice when it comes to healthcare.

The NHS is something we should all be able to take pride in, a physical manifestation of the basic decency and fairness that was once the hallmark of British society.

The past few governments have turned it into a political football and piggy bank for snake oil salesmen, and the real tragedy is that we have all sat idly by and watched it happen before our eyes.

Of course not. Surely the general point is that the proportions of suited management to clinical staff and clinical managers has changed in recent years in favour of non-clinical staff.

And this is the crux of the issue.

Successive UK governments – Labour and Conservative – have meddled about with…. er, I mean “improved” the NHS, and each round of tinkering has brought with it new tiers of management and rank upon rank of private-sector management consultants eager to suck upon the NHS teat.

This is why overall spending on the NHS has increased year on year without delivering widespread and tangible benefits to the end user who, coincidentally, funds the whole shebang.

I agree with Sandy.

How many concurrent threads do we need on an aircraft that is yet to carry a revenue-earning passenger?

Let’s have a single “news” thread, and only start new threads for major milestones such as entry into service, etc.

What salaries?

You’ve just stood the entire payroll team against the wall and shot them.

And then shot them again.

There aren’t going to be any salaries for a while……

Sorry GA, but that did make me smile ! 😀 Nice to have you back though !

It’s victimisation, I tell you! 😡

😉

Ritual slaughter is an unpleasant business, and let’s not pretend that the ritual slaughter prescribed by Religion A is in any way less unpleasant than that prescribed by Religion B.

Only someone with an agenda would try to make such a claim, and we can discount that sort of twaddle from the outset.

If animals must be slaughtered for meat – and, until such a time as the whole world turns vegetarian, they must – then it has to be done quickly, cleanly and with the minimum of stress and suffering for the animal.

Anything less would constitute wilful cruelty.

IMHO, of course.

Damn!

Beaten to the draw by Kev. 🙁