Sir Jimmy Saville.

Some moons ago I was watching an episode of Never Mind The Buzzcocks presented by Simon Amstell (so somewhere between 2006 - 2009, or was it earlier and Mark Lamarr?)  where the general dirge of conversation turned to a still alive Jimmy Saville.

After a few mandatory funny jokes about the weirdness of Sir Jimmy I noticed that the show had been cut and pasted to a different point in the episode; panel contestants had shifted in their seats massively, their character and behaviour having gone from lively to calm and sedated; the conversation that had started on Jimmy Saville had been promptly cut short and the take restarted at the next round of the quiz.

Whilst I am certain cutting panel quiz shows down to size is common practice I have never in several years seen it so obviously done.

Aunty Beeb knew about this. A huge number of entertainment professionals in the industry knew about this (hence the redirection of the panel from engaging in mere innuendo about Mr. Saville's proclivities to something more meaty) - the scandal was big enough for a relatively minor BBC2 panel show could get some exec/producer killing the unsavoury bits (and as any avid watcher will know this show can get unsavoury) before broadcast.

More to come methinks.

One Before Bed

Have just finished watching Thursday's BBC Question Time in which Mark Littlewood from the IEA gave an impassioned defence of free market economics in a hall of question time's usual swivel-eyed left-wing lunatics.

What was particularly interesting was the rousing debate on the future of the NHS - it doesn't take much to raise the ire of the assembled state-paid paper shufflers, diversity coordinators & 5-a-day managers.

What was particular interesting was the widespread detachment from reality about the state of our healthcare; it soon degenerated into "no, the NHS's outcomes are better than [insert evil private/any other healthcare system]'s".

He pointed out that he was not going to bite into the usual canard of "you just want the NHS to be the US healthcare system" and pointed to other systems like Singapore's, only to be shouted down saying it was even worse.

Apparently the WHO disagree; it ranks Singapore at #6.

The UK? Number 18.

Emotionalism aside how about we go for reductionist's approach: we simply copy what the WHO's #1 healthcare system is doing: France.


So how does this system work then (note: links wikipedia, emboldened/underlined text my own)?

France has a system of universal health care largely financed by government national health insurance. In its 2000 assessment of world health care systems, the World Health Organization found that France provided the "best overall health care" in the world.^[1] In 2005, France spent 11.2% of GDP on health care, or US$3,926 per capita, a figure much higher than the average spent by countries in Europe but less than in the US. Approximately 77% of health expenditures are covered by government funded agencies.^[2]

Great so let's spend more money on healthcare! A chorus of praise for this action goes up amongst of Britains established medical monopoly!

Oh wait:

Most general physicians are in private practice but draw their income from the public insurance funds. These funds, unlike their German counterparts, have never gained self-management responsibility. Instead, the government has taken responsibility for the financial and operational management of health insurance (by setting premium levels related to income and determining the prices of goods and services refunded).^[1] 

So the government operates a virtual monopsony on healthcare spending just not on healthcare provision ("we are willing to pay this for that treatment"). It also garners the costs back from people in a manner in which they only pay what they can afford, very progressive.

The French National Health Service generally refunds patients 70% of most health care costs, and 100% in case of costly or long-term ailments. Supplemental coverage may be bought from private insurers, most of them nonprofit, mutual insurers. Until recently, coverage was restricted to those who contributed to social security (generally, workers or retirees), excluding some poor segments of the population; the government of Lionel Jospin put into place "universal health coverage" and extended the coverage to all those legally resident in France. Only about 3.7% of hospital treatment costs are reimbursed through private insurance, but a much higher share of the cost of spectacles and prostheses (21.9%), drugs (18.6%) and dental care (35.9%) (Figures from the year 2000). There are public hospitals, non-profit independent hospitals (which are linked to the public system), as well as private for-profit hospitals.
Average life expectancy in France at birth is 81 years.^[3][4]

The average, reasonably healthy health consumer has to pay some of their costs, ensuring that that consumer is at least  sensitive to the price of it, either in noticing which way their health premiums are going or how it hits the wallet if they have to pay the difference, and as we know human beings are very sensitive creatures - they want to command the maximum number of high quality goods or services they can with the resource available to them (this is actually the real definition of wealth - getting something more valuable in return for something less; in this case lower healthcare costs for same/better healthcare). Those who can't pay or will have chronic long term costs are fully covered.

And the state doesn't massive intervene in who provides the healthcare.

I think we could with that level of choice too; let's hope that Lansley's tome goes some of the way to providing that. Not holding my breath.

Killing Aunty Beeb

Gawd bless my lil Sis; convinced her to get me a subscription to Reason magazine for my birthday and she pulls through (a little over 6 months late but who's counting.

Anyway a brilliant column on the makeup of new agencies and how this correlates with the behaviour of the host state:

In a paper published in the spring issue of the journal Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, Pal analyzed data from 98 countries. Her goal: to see if there were statistically significant correlations between press freedom and seven measures of instability, including ethnic tensions, external and internal conflicts, crime and disorder, military participation in government, and religious tensions. An increase in press freedom, she concluded, reduces all seven measures of instability. (emphasis mine)

Now I think we are far from being able to say explicitly that one causes the other; more likely there are synergies at play that won't show up on an initial analysis but the results are compelling: greater press freedom skews attempts at government at closing down alternative lines of debate (why I feel the internet is so important and rightly feared by our current political elites).

This is particularly interesting though:

Pal also noted that state ownership of media is associated with higher corruption, weaker civil liberties, insecure property rights, lower education and life expectancies, and higher infant mortality and malnutrition.

And yes I realise that Aunty Beeb is not technically state owned, but it does derive it's powers of coercion from the state so will be less likely to bite the hand that feeds it (nibble mildly in the case of the Squandervative coalition maybe, but only because they lack the prerequisite spine to do anything about it).

Worth a try killing the Beeb in any case though eh?

Quote Of The Day (Goebbels Warmong Edition)

"We have used the best available data [and] the conclusion is that shale gas may indeed be quite damaging to global warming, quite likely as bad or worse than coal," he told BBC News.

- Robert Howarth from Cornell University in Ithaca, US on his report as reported here.

Yeah, I'm sure it's quite bad "to global warming"; you schills have been disabusing climate science of any credibility for decades.

Where Are They Going With This?

Day off today getting my car cleaned and checked over then into sunny Bradford with my little girl for a day out; one thing picked up this morning from Aunty Beeb concerning cancer rates in homosexual men being higher than their heterosexual counterparts:

Homosexual men are more likely to have had cancer than heterosexual men, as US study has suggested.

Now it easy for a Christian to be tarred with the gay-bashing brush, to gloat over the misfortune of someone with a particular lifestyle - I prefer consistency in my belief in ideological freedom and so won't be doing that; besides I think the following author's comment might provide the clue as to why:

The authors speculate that the difference in the numbers of cancer survivors could be down to the higher rate of anal cancer in homosexual men or HIV infection, which has been linked to cancer.

Jason Warriner, clinical director for HIV and sexual health at the Terrence Higgins Trust, said: "We know that HIV can cause certain types of cancer, and that gay men are at a greater risk of HIV than straight men.

"Another factor potentially having an impact is Human Papilloma Virus, which can lead to anal cancer in gay men.

"The government currently runs a national vaccination programme for young girls, but we think recent figures on oral and anal cancers justify taking another look at whether the programme should be extended to include boys."

HIV is linked to a higher incidence of a cancer known as Kaposi's Sarcoma, which, like Human Papilloma Virus, can potentially cause cancers (in both cases sarcoma, cancers of connective tissues). My contention would be this is less "gay linked" and more an aspect of a person's sexual activity; the village bike would likely die from this family of cancers than their chaste neighbour for example.

This is all contention; what I am curious about is this comment:

Jessica Harris, senior health information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: "There is already evidence of some health inequalities as a result of sexuality, for example, smoking rates are higher in homosexual men and women than in heterosexual people.

I'm sorry, are we saying that the free action of homosexual men smoking is somehow linked to me being heterosexual and a non-smoker? That my not smoking is linked to a homosexual taking up the habit?

I really don't understand this, but if the contention that somehow my not smoking causes homosexuals to smoke, or increased use of nicotine is linked to homosexuality I have to call bullcrap.

This is almost as preposterous as The Spirit Level's authors claiming my rich europeaness causes poverty of a tribal Amazonian who has never seem civilisation.

A Letter To Aunty Beeb

Hello,

Lately I have read several articles on the BBC website and associated media outlets that have left me puzzled; as the BBC is committed to impartiality and explanation of daily current affairs and the provision of supplementary explanations of certain concepts and words I wonder if it might define, or direct me to its chart-agreed definition of the following:

1. "Inflation" as regards to finance, business and monetary and government policy.

2. "Anarchist"/"Anarchism" as regards to the ideology.

3. "Right-wing"/"right-leaning"/"of the right-wing [name] party..." as regards to its reports on the actions of various political groups.

4. "left-wing"/"left-leaning"/"of the left-wing [name] party..." as regards to its reports on the actions of various political groups.

5. "conservatism"/"conservative"/"tory"/"tory-led" as regards to description of the UK Conservative Party and in description of the Republican Party in the USA.

As a dutiful licence fee payer I look forward to a timely reply and explanation of these points at your earliest convenience; in addition I look forward to your explanation of the editorial process that assures us that these terms are used in the correct context and what schemes/measures are in place to castigate staff for deliberate mis-representations of these meanings.

Yours sincerely,

They're unlikely to answer due to the "volume of correspondence" I was informed they apparently get upon completing the contact form; why not do your own letter and maybe ask for some definitions of your own.

And if they are supposed to be the Oxford Dictionary definitions then they are in a lot of trouble.