Tangled Webs

If you think this is just political, stick with it till the end, you may be surprised.

Reading THIS in the Daily Mirror:

DAVID Cameron tried to put a brave face on Tory election results yesterday as his hopes of a landslide failed to materialise.

and THIS in the Soaraway Sun:

DAVID Cameron turned the map blue last night as he showed the Tories are finally back in business. The Conservative leader was celebrating after winning a whopping 875 council seats in the town hall elections.

did make me wonder if the political journalists had been reporting on the same election, though I think the map below probably tells the story (look away if blue isn’t your favourite colour)

And initially I got quite cross, railing internally and occasionally vocally at the Mirror, Guardian, BBC etc.

But consider the following statements:

“I’m afraid you have lung cancer. The prognosis is very bad-most people will live less than a year. The best treaments we have is chemotherapy but that will only add about 8 weeks to your survival time on average (the chemo is a 12 week course) and there is a significant risk of side effects”,

and

“I’m afraid you have lung cancer. Although some people have bad outcomes, many people now live for 2-3 years after the diagnosis. I would suggest you have some drug treatment (chemotherapy). We know that the majority of people will see improvements in their quality of life and symptoms, and a significant minority (probably 30%) will also get a major response to chemotherapy and will live longer as a result”

I use both these sentences (or at least some variation on them-I probably wouldn’t use the first one as it stands) quite often. I use the first when my assessment is that a given patient is not likely to benefit from treatment-for example if they have other major illesses which increase the risk of side effects from treatment. I use the second when I think that people are likely to benefit. Both are true. Both rely on the same data, but it will not surprise you to hear that recipients of statement 1 rarely ask for chemotherapy whereas recipients of statement 2 rarely decline treatment

So now who’s the spin doctor?

What makes a good day?

Well, waking up to THIS, for a start.

Even the rather bizarre BBC reporting doesn’t seem to affect the general aura of well-being. Does make you wonder what would be classified as a good result in BBC-land though!

I suspect even Patricia Hewitt’s parliamentary researcher hates her after Patsy promised to answer any emails with queries or concerns about the health service on Question Time last night. I bet they are having rather a busy day

But I did wonder if she had a hand in introducing the new electoral system in Scotland, after I heard the man from the electoral commission on the Today programme explaining how they had expressly told the government that they should not hold the parliamentary and council elections on the same day as it would inevitably lead to confusion and problems with the new voting system. What did the government do-you guessed it. Result? 100,000 disenfranchised Scots. Are you sure you weren’t involved, Patricia

Down came a spider

Just getting out of the bath this evening after a hard day’s golf when I noticed Lola smuggling something furry into the bed. Never one to miss out on a joke (especially one of Lola’s) I chanced a peek-Imagine my surprise when I saw this little fellow:

Phoneutria nigriventer unless I miss my guess. Can’t imagine what she wants it for.

The Midas Touch?

Curriculum Vitae: The Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt MP

Current position: Secretary of State for Health

Current Salary: 136,677

1948: Born in Australia into a privileged family

Education: Canberra Girls Grammar School, Australian National University, Newnham College Cambridge, Nuffield College Oxford

1971: Press officer, Age Concern

1973: Press Officer, UK National Council for Civil Liberties (Liberty)

1974-83 General Secretary, Liberty

1981: Backs Tony Benn for Labour Deputy Leadership

1981: Tony Benn loses deputy leadership

1983: Stands for parliament in safe labour seat of Leicester East following defection of sitting MP to SDP

1983: Leicester East elects Peter Bruinvels (Conservative) to parliament

1983: Appointed press secretary and chief policy adviser to Neil Kinnock

1992: Neil Kinnock unexpectedly loses general election due to disastrous PR campaign

1989-94 Deputy head of institute of public policy research (leftwing thinktank)

1994-7: Head of research, Andersen Consulting (later Accenture-watch this space)

1997 : Elected MP for Leicester West

1999: Minister of state, DTI

2001: Secretary of State for Trade and Industry

Summary of manufacturing sector in the UK 1995-2003

Year	Number of enterprises	Total turnover	Total employment - average during the year
		(£ million)	(Thousand)
1995	171,518	425,963	..
1996	164,808	450,177	..
1997	169,663	469,787	..
1998	169,376	460,677	4,416
1999	170,196	461,771	4,269
2000	167,289	469,146	4,143
2001	164,718	461,898	3,969
2002	162,212	450,090	3,762
2003	158,528	447,178	3,534

(yes, we were doing all right until she walked into the DTI)

2003: Accenture awarded £1.9 billion contract to provide NHS IT infrastructure

2005: Britain’s last major car manufacturer (MG Rover) goes bust. Hewitt precipitates this by saying company had gone into administration while directors were still trying to work out a rescue deal. First airing of phrase “Hewitt Blewit”

2005 Appointed Secretary of State for Health

2005-6 NHS goes into deficit by £623 million

2006: Loses confidence of nursing profession: Heckled at conference after 7,000 redundancies announced

2006: Accenture pulls out of NPfIT citing losses of 1.1million per day (thanks Patsy)

2006-7: Loses confidence of medical profession: Attacks GPs for daring to hit government targets, hospital consultants for not working hard enough

2007: Creates Debacle in junior doctor training by implementing disastrous MTAS application process

In short she has turned almost everything she has touched to dust. What do you think: would you give her a job? I’m pretty sure she won’t be going back to Accenture