Showing posts with label Junior doctor strike. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Junior doctor strike. Show all posts

Tuesday, 16 February 2016

Move Britannia

Brits have always worked abroad. We had freedom of movement long before it was available to most of the rest of the world. We used it well, too. Firstly, in bringing civilisation and light to the dark continents then, much later, showing our dissatisfaction with state socialism here in Britain by joining the brain drain to escape punitive taxation that was crippling Britain under the last Labour government to operate on its founding Marxist principles. That was, of course, when we were at the forefront of educating the masses, when grammar schools produced scientists and engineers and bright, young, employable things.

Although some left for good many came back of course, the pull of our glorious sceptred isle proving irresistible; deep-veined patriotism drew this happy breed of men back to our little world, this precious stone set in a silver sea. And for a while it really looked like we had it all again... until the displaced socialists resurfaced in their sheep’s clothing and shouted ‘Cool Britannia!’ even as they began dismantling Britannia’s realm forever. Come one, come all, they cried and come they did. Wages plummeted, education slumped to a shameful low, Britain’s streets and housing estates turned into war zones and this royal throne of kings turned into rows and rows of Burger Kings.

Many of those who could, left these shores. Those with average means retired to the sun and took their pensions with them where their capital could buy their own blessed plots. The best and brightest were drawn to prestigious foreign universities. Tech start-ups made independent wealth for a very few.  The rest clung on, out of lack of means, out of patriotism or xenophobia, or dependence on the bloated welfare state which systematically turned workers into an underclass of low-worth breeders, serially ignored by successive administrations because it was cheaper than the alternative – to admit they were wrong and do something about it.

Instead of training our own we imported cheap labour and perpetuated the rot. Manufacturing declined, the city flourished but went rogue and slowly but surely Britain changed. A dwindling tax base for a burgeoning welfare bill and no plan to take control; just the Ponzi scheme of open-doors immigration. Things can only get better, said New labour, as they watched their plans fall into place. ‘New hospitals!’ they cried and piled up the public debt! ‘More doctors!’ they demanded and imported them from afar, from countries less able to replace them. And somewhere in there (for surely there was a plan?) they presumably called for ‘More administrators!’

Now the junior doctors are threatening to leave and work overseas and their places will be taken by foreign-trained medics because – just as in practically every industry - we haven’t preserved the status of home-grown talent. As the top guys leave we’ll receive the cream of the second divisions and more Brits will feel displaced and forgotten and seek their own exit by whatever means. The health service will suffer and social cohesion will worsen, which will further increase the demand for health services, because poor people cost so much more to keep well.

Rude Britannia...

And future governments will continue to import more poor people to maintain their doomed economic model and still try and spin the discontent as an irrational fear of foreigners, all the while squeezing the funding while trying to cope with an increasing burden. Training could eventually be abandoned altogether, relying entirely on ever cheaper, part-trained, non-English speakers and hiring more and more interpreters to cope with the Babel-chatter of alien labour. Is Brexit the answer? It will never be allowed to happen. But, look on the bright side: Brits have always worked abroad; there won’t be any decent ones left here to suffer.

Wednesday, 13 January 2016

Doctor, doctor!

The doctors have been on strike. How dare they, people ask? How very dare they? But in the greater scheme of things, doctors don’t become doctors to earn vast wealth, they do it because they are ridiculously fond of the human race, or intensively curious about their insides – something like that. Yes, there is potential for some doctors to become filthy rich in the private sector after expensive training at the expense of the public purse, but I don’t believe this is the motivation of all but a very venal few. There are plenty of other routes to riches for those with the mental wherewithal to withstand medical training.

So, if you have even a shred of faith in the human race, you’d have to conclude that they have a legitimate reason to engage in withdrawing their labour. I don’t pretend to know much about medicine, but I do know that if you offer a human something for ‘free’ there’s a fair chance they’ll perk up: welfare, entertainment... healthcare. The National Health Service creaks at its seams because too many people expect too much without taking any responsibility. It’s always up to the government to pour in more money, isn’t it? And as the government hasn’t any money of its own it has to take it from those of us too busy to go to the doctor.

So it strikes me we can kill two birds with one stone here, three in fact... hell, we can crack shitloads. They say work sets you free and it really could. Fuck the EU, sod the environment (it will take care of itself) and pay no heed to the howls of the progressives. Leave the Deutsche Eurocratic Projekt, seal off the borders and let’s go self-sufficient for a while. Stop bowing to the deity of globalisation and start to consider not what citizens of the world need from their home country, but what we all need from each other, right here in the UK.

Open up the mines, re-fire the furnaces, get people back on the land and back in industry and flip a big fat bird at all the new-age, iMoney, eCommerce, everyone’s-an-entrepreneur, every kid's-a-coder nonsense. Start making stuff again, kickstart construction; get people grafting for a living. We'd regain a measure of independence and solve many of the problems of full employment and energy security and we would have to address our own skills gap... and we’d once again have something to occupy the laggards rather than just paying them off, writing them off, as we do now.

There should be no dole when there’s a harvest to be gathered in or black gold to be hauled to the surface. Work hard at school or work hard with your hands; instil a work ethic and make it shameful to claim special treatment for all but those who genuinely need it. Ah but, the mark of a civilised country is how it treats its needy and its minorities, they’ll say. Okay, so let’s reduce their numbers by rolling back on what is considered a ‘need’ as opposed to a lifestyle choice.

This won't hurt a bit...

Oh, it might not be pretty and we’d have to forego strawberries in December and three thousand varieties of breakfast cereal. Our treatment of indolence and sloth would necessarily be forthright and everybody would have to pull their weight, but speaking of weight, obesity may once again become a thing of rare luxury. Fitter, leaner, more active people would become the norm and the threat of striking doctors would recede with every pound of fat shed. What’s not to like? A self-reliant, healthier population and a return to community coherence...

But first, as Shakespeare famously said, we would have to kill all the lawyers. It’s never going back to the way it was, is it?