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Where the money goes

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  1. chdot
    Admin

    Yesterday the budget for the next year was passed by the Scottish Parliament.

    This Scotsman graphic shows the basic split.

    http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/news/SNP-spends-spends-spends-to.6715026.jp

    Local Government gets quite a big chunk for educating children, filling potholes (and much more). The largest segment (as usual) is "Health" for hospitals, doctors, drugs etc.

    It is often suggested (with a mix of cynicism and truth) that the UK doesn't really have an NHS but an N Illness S.

    'We' all know that cycling is good for health (mental and physical) - so do a lot of health professionals and civil servants.

    But 'cycling' is still/always mostly pigeonholed as 'transport' - and usually way down the the priority list there.

    The NHS's future is set to include dealing with the realities of over-eating and under-exercising and (unless these cause a reverse in the trend) an increasingly ageing population.

    A long term view might include ways of encouraging walking and cycling (which might need to include more restrictions on motor vehicles in town/city centres).

    But politicians seldom look beyond the next election. The next Scottish one is less than three months away.

    I wonder how many parties/candidates will be proposing things that alter the way resources are allocated - which might have longer lasting benefits.

    Posted 13 years ago #
  2. chdot
    Admin

    "
    CyclingScotland: On yer bike: it's official - cycle to work increases employee engagement and wellbeing... http://bit.ly/gbyay9
    "

    Original Tweet: http://twitter.com/CyclingScotland/status/35638167184875520

    Posted 13 years ago #
  3. chdot
    Admin

    Just noticed this -

    "We endorse British Medical Association president Sir Michael Marmot’s view that in modern communities “every minister is a health minister”. For effective and efficient public health and healthcare, emerging market countries must co-ordinate policies and programmes across ministries and between national and local governments."

    Letter in the FT

    Don't think it's just "emerging market countries".

    Posted 13 years ago #
  4. chdot
    Admin

    "No such thing as being fat and healthy, warn doctors"

    "Scotland is now a nation that tips the scales with the second highest level of obesity in the developed world, with only the US having a higher percentage of overweight adults. A Public Health Information for Scotland report in 2007 found that one man in four and one women in five was obese."

    http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland/No-such-thing-as-being.6718267.jp

    Posted 13 years ago #
  5. Min
    Member

    Of course this is in obesity, not in being a wee bit overweight in which case being fit will help you stay healthy.

    "You can speculate as to what that reason is: is it some kind of inflammatory chemical that makes their blood stickier or whether their hearts are different? We know their hearts are under stress - they have a lot more body to pump round."

    Its not that much of a mystery. Your school biology book will have told you that plasma is a "straw coloured liquid" but as someone who look at plasma a great deal I can tell you that in obese people, plasma is a "fat coloured gloop". I sometimes think people should be made to look at their own plasma. Not so I don't have to (though that would be nice) but because it might shock them into eating more healthily and exercising. It actually shows just how robust the human body really is because it is astonishing how their hearts can cope at all.

    Posted 13 years ago #
  6. chdot
    Admin

    "Of course this is in obesity, not in being a wee bit overweight in which case being fit will help you stay healthy."

    Yes, I think Scotsman headline writer Is trying to grab attention...

    I heard someone on the radio yesterday (not related to this report) saying that excessively overweight people should stop blaming their genes for eating too many packets of crisps (paraphrase).

    Posted 13 years ago #
  7. chdot
    Admin

    It is hoped up to 3000 people will take part in the centrepiece of the new £250,000 festival, which is being funded by the Scottish Government and Edinburgh City Council.

    https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/inspire-me/festivals/new-robert-burns-festival-to-feature-speed-whisky-tasting-and-silent-disco-1-4839960

    Posted 5 years ago #
  8. chdot
    Admin

    Delighted to invite the Maybole Bypass Committee to @ScotParl to meet with the Transport Secretary @MathesonMichael . The @ScotGov is committed to delivering this £30m project which will help kick start a £6m town centre regeneration plan

    https://mobile.twitter.com/jeanef1msp/status/1073238556615819266

    Posted 5 years ago #
  9. acsimpson
    Member

    Is that a realisation that getting traffic out of a town is the first step to serious regeneration?

    Posted 5 years ago #
  10. chdot
    Admin

    I suspect more a notion of ‘get through traffic out so that people who want to shop can drive in more easily’.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  11. acsimpson
    Member

    Indeed. That strategy has works so well for so many places that Pixar even made a film about it.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  12. chdot
    Admin

  13. chdot
    Admin

  14. chdot
    Admin

    In Wisconsin, Walker claimed we couldn’t afford to fix our roads and bridges for our families’ use, but had money to expand the expressway from the airport to Mt Pleasant in order to accommodate Foxconn’s automated trucks that may now never come. Foxconn and their enabler Walker promised 13,000 jobs; fewer than 260 people were hired in 2018.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/31/what-happened-to-foxconns-plan-to-build-a-10bn-factory-in-wisconsin

    Posted 5 years ago #
  15. unhurt
    Member

    The Americans I follow on Twitter call that "corporate welfare". Something both the Republicans and Democrats seem very keen on.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  16. chdot
    Admin

    The second incident caused the motorway to be closed at Winchester for 11 hours leading to major delays and causing £40 million damage to the economy.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/12/intelligent-public-schoolboy-threw-bombs-motorway-jailed/

    Posted 5 years ago #
  17. gembo
    Member

    These Wykehamists when they prank the school they go for the max.

    Caught by a "schoolboy error" not even a flicker of irony in the torygraph, he typed his blackmail letters to the head master but wrote address In his own distinctive handwriting.

    Talented chemist, hence the bombs. Asked for £10k in Bitcoin. Which is about as odd as the claim he cost £40million damage to the economy

    Posted 5 years ago #
  18. chdot
    Admin

  19. chdot
    Admin

  20. chdot
    Admin

  21. chdot
    Admin

  22. chdot
    Admin

  23. chdot
    Admin

    Even at Whitechapel, one of two stations significantly behind schedule and over budget (by a staggering 500% to £659m)

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/26/elizabeth-line-looks-pristine-but-opening-may-be-delayed-for-two-years

    Posted 4 years ago #
  24. LaidBack
    Member

    Hope there is going to be an enquiry about Crossrail?
    One station in London costs £659m - must rank as most expensive on planet.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  25. chdot
    Admin

    Either way, the most powerful industry lobby in modern history has already walked away with £8bn of public money, with not a yard of track laid.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/24/hs2-politics-boris-johnson

    Posted 4 years ago #
  26. chdot
    Admin

    “This sort of thing really gets my goat - the taxpayer being fleeced by consultants while the scheme languishes in limbo for years.”

    http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=18147&page=4#post-321534

    Posted 4 years ago #
  27. chdot
    Admin

  28. gembo
    Member

    Ah yes the private company that keeps on Not Giving

    Posted 4 years ago #
  29. chdot
    Admin

    Pressed on what a hypothetical Tory voter in Doncaster or Ashfield might think about Desmond’s ability to directly lobby the minister making the planning decision, Zahawi said they could consider doing the same thing.

    “Well, if people go to a fundraiser in their local area, in Doncaster, for the Conservative party, they’ll be sitting next to MPs and other people in their local area, and can interact with different parts of the authority,” he said. “The important thing is the access didn’t buy this billionaire a decision.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/25/minister-suggests-voters-could-raise-planning-issues-tory-fundraisers

    Posted 3 years ago #
  30. chdot
    Admin


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