visible views

Public service pensions, NHS and 'radical' solutions

There have been a spate of articles in newspapers, 'documentaries' on TV etc all about the problems facing the NHS. There was one last night, very well put together and cogently argued, based on the Queen Elizabeth and Selly Oak Hospitals in Birmingham. Last week there was a three page spread in the Daily Mail all about NHS problems. I'm always suspicious when I see that sort of thing. I know how the public relations business works and I see the hand of the government PR machine at work, creating the impression of an impending crisis that requires 'radical' solutions. They did it over Iraq, as we all know. They are doing it at the moment over pensions, especially public service pensions, and they've obviously got a plan in mind for the NHS. They think that privatising everything is the answer. They are more Tory than the Tories!

The basic argument is that with a population that is increasingly growing top heavy with non-productive elderly people, who are living and collecting pensions for longer, and a workforce that is getting smaller, because people aren't having so many children, there will be too few working people paying taxes to support the future costs of healthcare and the basic state pension. This is all made worse by the extra burden of healthcare caused by elderly people who want to be kept alive, and the cost of advanced drugs and diagnostic techniques like PET scans at £500 a time!

Sounds simple doesn't it? All very matter of fact and logical. However, the conclusions that one chooses to draw can be very different depending on one's viewpoint. If you are a businessman who is trying to maximise profit for shareholders and high salaries and benefits for fat-cat directors, you might take the view that low taxation is preferable to high taxation with health care and pensions paid for by everyone out of income. On the other hand, if you believe in a social market approach, you will accept that some things are better delivered by the state, either alone or in partnership with providers, and paid for by some form of taxation to ensure equal access and universal provision.

But you can do anything with figures and the truth is that how much the NHS, or the basic rate old-age pension, will cost in real terms, compared with now, depends on a wide variety of different factors. A few less stupid military adventures in different parts of the world and we'll have saved a large part of the money needed. And who's to say that people wouldn't be willing to pay more in tax to see the kind of society that provides enhanced healthcare and pensions for all that need them? America, France, Germany and Denmark all have better healthcare than we do, and pay more for it. We've had the NHS on the cheap for too long, largely because of the selfless work of unsung thousands who put in overtime without getting paid for it and who put up with low pay too. Most of the problems that bedevil the NHS today are due to under-investment. It's not too long since I used to read that hospitals were sacking cleaners to help balance the books - and what have we got now? The highest rates of MRSA ever!

Gordon Brown has been remarkably effective at increasing the tax take without raising the basic rate of income tax. His tax on pension funds has caused great damage to the pension funds of millions of ordinary investors and new accounting rules on the liquidity of pension funds have been instrumental in depriving some workers of their paid-for superannuated pensions altogether, due to firms that have gone into receivership because they can't finance the extra amounts to restore value to funds whose nominal value has been depressed by current low share prices - a completely artificial problem that has played havoc with pension funds operated by firms. My view is that we are wealthy enough as a nation to afford proper levels of basic state pension for old people and that the healthcare burden is still best delivered by a properly-funded NHS. Whether we will stay wealthy depends on whether we can rebuild our manufacturing industries. We make less and less. The next body blow will be the demise of Rover Cars, the last remnant of British-owned car manufacturing in Birmingham, which is about to be sold to the Chinese (if they want it). We can't sustain the wealth of the nation simply by being good at buying and selling money itself, or insuring the world through Lloyds. In an electronic age, people can buy shares, insurance, foreign exchange etc in seconds over the Internet. So it only a matter of time before we lose our dominance in the so-called 'invisibles'. We really will wish we had something to sell that the world wants when that revolution happens.

posted by longfuse @ 10:40 pm 0 comments

Peace in the Holy Land?

The news from Sharm el Sheikh about the Middle East ceasefire is potentially very good - maybe it will amount to something and develop into a regional peace treaty as well as one between Israel and the Palestinians. Trouble is, it's hard for militants to let go of their way of life and learn the ways of peace. Time is not on the side of the peacemakers. It could go either way. And just in case you thought the militants were all Palestinian, think again. There are rabidly fanatical militant Jews living in Israel who don't want to give up an inch of the biblical land of Israel.

If peace breaks out, and lasts, you'll probably find that Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria will become new hot-spot holiday destinations. People who have stayed away from the region will flock to it in droves and the potential for industrial and agricultural development will be immense. I'd love to go again to Israel, as a tourist, and see all the important biblical and archaeological sites. I left Jerusalem when I was four and when I was there between 1954 and 1955 I saw nothing very much except Haifa, when we arrived and left by sea, the coast road from Haifa to Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv itself, Jaffa Old Town and part of Jerusalem on a day trip.

Mind you, a holiday in Israel costs a fortune. It will never be a cheap destination because property prices are astronomical. That's one reason why the Israelis keep trying to build settlements on cheap virgin land. However, nicking the land off the local Palestinians on the pretext that it's not cultivated is a bit rich.

posted by longfuse @ 10:36 pm 0 comments

Black triangle UFO!

Codsall, Staffordshire, England – 12 June 2001

DAYLIGHT OBSERVATION REPORT OF LOW-LEVEL SMALL BLACK TRIANGLE UFO

A black triangular aerial object was observed on 12 June 2001, near our house in Codsall, Staffordshire, England. The object was seen first by my wife as she looked through our rear patio door while she was ironing in the living room at about 1300hrs BST. She called me from upstairs to see it. When I got downstairs it had disappeared out of sight obscured by our large oak tree. Within a few minutes or less it had reappeared and we were both able to watch it, initially with the naked eye and then I alone was able to see it using 10 x 50 binoculars. It was a fine summer day, with very little cloud and at no time was my vision of the object obscured by anything other than the oak tree in our garden. Once it was in view, it stayed in view until it was too far away to be seen even using 10 x 50 binoculars.

The object, when first seen by my wife, was at about 40deg. to 50deg. elevation roughly NNE of Codsall, a dormitory village next to Wolverhampton and on the edge of the West Midlands conurbation. The object had seemed to appear suddenly in the sky above the roofs of houses fronting a main road some 100-200 yards away and then disappeared from sight, obscured by the large oak tree in our garden. Within a minute or so we were both able to see it, this time at an elevation of about 70deg. as it climbed above the oak tree, now slightly west of NNE. I estimate that it was between 200 to 300 yards away when first seen, with the object itself measuring between ten and fifteen feet wide. It was matt black in colour and showed no lights and made no noise.

The object also appeared to be “tumbling” or “rocking”. More precisely, it was rotating through as much as 70deg. about its longitudinal axis (if it was a conventional aircraft, its wings would tip up 35deg. on one side, then up 35deg. on the other side in a rapid and rhythmic regular way. It was not, however, pitching and tossing (going up and down at the nose end). The object was also moving in a steady upward spiral, pretty much like a bird in a thermal. However, the object was rigid, triangular with rounded points, very thin in sideways view and dull black. Through 10 x 50 binoculars, one edge seemed to have a yellow flare. The flare was unlikely to be chromatic aberration (flare is not observed when using these binoculars to look at other “normal” objects such as high-flying aircraft, micro-lites or hot-air balloons) but neither did it look as though it was a definite part of the object's colouring. It did not seem to be an emanation associated with propulsive energy. It looked like a diffused or out of focus yellow stripe along one edge of the triangle. Apart from the yellow “flare”, there were no distinguishing features.

The object continued to spiral and climb in height, at a constant rate of climb, until it could no longer be seen with the naked eye. After reaching a certain height, the object began to move horizontally, no longer spiralling, and was tracked traversing the sky to the north east until it could not be seen any longer. At no time did its speed appear to increase once it had attained horizontal flight.

We made no note of wind direction at the time. The object always presented the same size and form, just different aspects depending on its position relative to the viewpoint. It continuously seemed to move with a circular motion, about a relatively tight, small radius, and kept presenting a different angle of view so that the impression gained was that it was "tumbling". This may have been an optical illusion due to the differences in aspect ratio as it moved.

I got the impression that it was definitely a man-made aerofoil of some kind. I think that what we saw may have been an unmanned remote-controlled reconnaissance craft that had temporarily lost the ability to control its performance. It seemed unstable and out-of-control to some extent. However, it sought a safe altitude, and once out of visual range it was able to fly slowly in a straight line. The yellow line on its rear edge suggests that it could be man-made and possibly a prototype that was testing new flight technology.

A later search for "black triangle ufos" on the web revealed nothing from a UK search, and two interesting bits of information from a world-wide search. The first claimed that such sitings were increasingly common over the United Kingdom, even over built-up areas, and that the UK Government had issued a D-notice to editors "encouraging" them not to publicise reports. The second suggested that the USA had been experimenting with neutral buoyancy gas-filled aerial craft for reconnaissance missions. This second explanation put together with what is now known about American "stealth" technology lends credence to a view that this was a stealth aerial device.

The object was seen some time between 13.00 and 14.00 hrs approx. BST. We didn't notice the exact time or make a note of it but remember that we had a late lunch afterwards.

The news desk at the Wolverhampton Express & Star was telephoned shortly after the sighting, to see if anyone else had seen it but they had had no reports and were not interested in taking any details. Which fits in with the D-notice claims. Having said that, the same local newspaper has printed reports of black triangle UFOs from time to time, including one from some years ago, of a man who reported seeing one stationary over the Sandwell Valley Country Park in West Bromwich, West Midlands, right in the centre of of Britain's second largest conurbation and industrial heartland. Just as in the case described above, no-one else apparently reported a similar sighting, despite the fact that the UFO was unmistakable and at very low altitude.

I've made this story my first blog because it was such a unique experience. Ever since I first became interested in UFO's, after having read George Adamski's book "Flying Saucers Have Landed" I've always taken time to look at the sky. Most times, there's been nothing unusual to see, but from time to time I've seen or heard things that have made me think "What is that?"

If you've got any answers, let me know.

posted by longfuse @ 5:35 am 0 comments