The NHS Is On It's Knees, Yet Has Time For This?

The HIV action plan, to be unveiled on World Aids Day on Monday, aims to re-engage the thousands of people who have left HIV care, bringing them back to lifesaving treatment. The £170m package also includes funding for opt-out HIV testing at A&Es during routine blood tests in areas with the highest rates, including London and Manchester.

I thought the NHS was struggling to treat the people that WANT to be treated, without worrying about the ones that don't want to be treated? 

A steady decrease in HIV diagnoses was recorded in England from 2005, but progress faltered during the pandemic, with testing disrupted and an increase in the number of new cases. As a result of new treatments, HIV is now a manageable condition.

Given the plethora of evidence around to show how to avoid infection, why is it rising? New ‘Britons’, perhaps. 

There are also as many as one in 10 people living with diagnosed HIV who are not under medical care, according to a National AIDS Trust report published in September. The latest action plan aims to renew efforts to re-engage people with treatment and boost testing to ensure that transmissions continue to be pushed down.

Why do they need to be reengaged?

The Department for Health and Social Care said it would target its support towards the approximately 5,000 people living with HIV who had fallen out of medical care, for reasons including mental health issues, addiction, poverty and fear of judgment. Hospital staff in trusts where the opt-out scheme is in place will receive anti-stigma training, so patients can access care without fear of being judged for their HIV status.

So what demographic area are we focussing on here? 

Prof Susan Hopkins, the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, said the latest figures showed progress towards the 2030 target, with about 95% of those living with HIV now knowing they have the virus. “But about 4,700 people remain undiagnosed, including one in three in Black African communities and higher rates of late diagnosis in older age groups,” she said. “People need testing that meets them where they are, in ways that feel safe and accessible.”

I say we cut them loose, if they don't want to benefit from modern medical advances, that's their choicw. 

Probably need to address the allegedly inveterate liars

It's all been said in the MSM and across soc-med ... I can't imagine anything more boring right now ... so why not just quote The Taxpayers' Alliance newsletter? As they do not grace subscribers with a url ... no url ... you can find it easily enough elsewhere.

It’s fair to say Rachel Reeves’ second budget has been about as controversial as her first one. The chaos in advance of the budget has continued after with blame games and briefings, the head of the OBR resigning, an emergency press conference from the prime minister and the PM’s chief secretary blowing apart their previous claims of a £22 billion black hole. While the optics and politics might be bad for ministers, the budget itself is unravelling before our eyes.

While the chancellor and her team have stressed the £21.7 billion of headroom, as Adam Smith explained in the Telegraph, this figure is “built on sand”. In order to maintain this headroom, Reeves is now committed to cutting departmental spending, increasing energy bills, and reining in welfare spending (not really, just slowing its increase).

While we’d certainly cheer on two of those - you can guess which ones - does anyone really think Labour backbenchers would tolerate any of it, beyond the reimposition of green levies on energy bills that is… And that’s before her back-loaded tax rises kick in.

Elsewhere, Reeves delighted in cutting business rates for pubs by 5 pence, but as ever it was just more smoke and mirrors. The loss of rate relief combined with new rateable values mean pubs will see their tax bills sky rocket. Throw in minimum wage increases and bigger national insurance bills and you get 90 per cent of pubs now expecting to hike the price of a pint while the hospitality sector could lose 100,000 jobs. Not forgetting that taxes already account for 28 per cent of your pint!

Just a quick word about fair usage ... ordinarily, I go with up to half the post from the source but in this case, as it's a newsletter with no url, it seemed to be a reasonable way to get it to readers. 

Poor document issued by the White House ... misses so much of the danger

Many pundits, from majors to us minors, have been virally spreading the NSS document issued by the White House.

As Laura Loomer said about this near worthless document: "I have read the entire 29 page NSS that was just released ... ZERO MENTIONS about the threat Islamic terrorism poses, ZERO MENTIONS about the threat the CCP and Communism poses to our national security."

Unbelievably poor in scope, a usually sound Xer, Islander, posted:

The White House just published what Brussels has spent a decade censoring: Europe has shrunk from 25% of global GDP to 14%, is drifting toward “civilizational erasure,” and on its current course “will be unrecognizable in 20 years.” Not Russian intelligence. Not dissident analysts. Washington, in its own national strategy, marking the time of death. Europe’s tragedy isn’t that it was defeated by an external force. Its tragedy is that it volunteered for collapse, mistaking moral vanity for strategy, self-harm for principle, and neocon applause for sovereignty. 19 rounds of sanctions meant to cripple Russia instead detonated inside Europe’s own chest cavity; industries fleeing, energy gutted, borders unmoored, farmers revolting, wages eroding, dissent criminalized under “values” crafted by technocrats who have never worked a real job, with utter contempt for Europeans. And while Europe recited slogans, Russia built substance, built an economic juggernaut. The “gas station with nukes” they mocked is now the 4th largest economy on Earth by PPP, expanding faster than the entire European Union since the SMO began, reindustrializing, reorienting, rewiring Eurasia. The target of Europe’s crusade grew stronger, the crusaders grew poorer. This wasn’t irony. This was inevitability. Now comes the most brutal line in the US strategy: the warning that some European states soon “may not be strong enough to remain reliable allies.” This is Washington stepping back from a burning house with the calm of an arsonist writing the incident report. The very patron that pushed Europe toward confrontation, long before Trump, is now drafting its alibi, framing Europe’s collapse as an unfortunate accident rather than the predictable consequence of policies its Deepstate encouraged and Brussels enforced with missionary zeal. The EU won’t recognize the downloading of humiliation, because it arrived disguised as loyalty, and because the script being used to abandon the continent is the same script Europe still insists on performing. A continent that once birthed Western civilization now prosecutes its citizens for speech, crushes its own farmers under riot shields, torches its industry for green dogma, and markets the whole spectacle as enlightenment. It surrendered its energy to ideology, its industry to Davos hallucinations, its security to America's whims, and its future to compound interest. A civilization cannot live on abstractions, but its elites can, because they have engineered a system where the costs fall on the people and the graft float upward to those who never bear the consequences. The NSS isn’t a strategy. It’s a confession in plain sight; Russia absorbed the blow, recalibrated, and rose; Europe dissolved into the very illusions it mistook for strength, while Washington, already preparing the next chapter, quietly wipes its hands of the consequences. Continental Europe once held 25% of global GDP. Today it clings to 14%, nearly half its global weight erased in a single generation. Not by invasion. Not by Putin. By decisions its own elites made freely. Europe was no prisoner. It was not dragged into this. It chose ideology over energy security, fantasy over industry, obdience over sovereignty. It had the power to act like a civilization, and acted instead like a petulant, arrogant vassal. They swore Russia would disappear.

Yet she stands rooted, sovereign, expanding, the Eurasian pole they insisted could never exist. Its economy rises into the world’s top four while Europe implodes. Its industrial base grows while Europe’s corrodes.

And it is Europe that dims: censored, exhausted, directionless, governed by elites who call obedience maturity and dependency enlightenment. A continent once central to world history now drifts unrecognizable even by the ally that encouraged its self-destruction and now drafts the alibi from afar. The EU tried to erase Russia. In reality, Europe erased itself. And Washington just wrote the obituary.

It was obviously aimed at the EU and yes, the sooner their honchos are behind bars the better but it also missed key, core threats, plus let's add male-female relations between generational westerners, muddying of the gene pool, the overrunning by the hordes, let alone the evil western honchos at the top pushing it ... the quislings, the Benedict Arnolds.

If There's No Stigma Why Are You 'Working To Break The Cycle'?

The Princess of Wales has called for an end to the "stigma" surrounding addiction, and urged people to offer "empathy and support" to those dependent on alcohol, drugs or gambling.

Another mistake, abolishing shame as the Left wanted us to do hasn’t ushered in a paradise on earth, has it? 

Catherine, who sent the message to mark Addiction Awareness Week, said "significant progress" has been made to better understand addiction, but warned more needs to be done. The princess is the patron of The Forward Trust, a charity that tries to break the cycle of addiction and is behind the campaign running from 23-30 November.

Ah, a mouthpiece and figurehead, like her long lost mother-in-law-who-never-was. Just another modern example of why the Monarchy is no longer something we can be proud of.  

She said addiction was "not a choice or a personal failing, but a complex mental health condition that should be met with empathy and support".

We have enough of those going untreated and their sufferers free to spread misery already, don’t we? Why add more? 

She added: "But still, even now in 2025, people's experience of addiction is shaped by fear, shame and judgement. This needs to change. 

"The stigma surrounding those who face addiction allows it to thrive behind closed doors, impacting families and communities, and ultimately ruining lives."

Are the progressives determined to strip every last vestige of personal choice from everything? Sorry, rhetorical question, I guess…

On big name pundits and on the NHS

This is going to be a long post because it covers two topics ... one completing the post from Tuesday, correcting an error ... the other about the NHS.

First the Tuesday post ... I was criticising big name alt-pundits with "shows" on TV and radio ... mentioning Benny Johnson and Emerald Robinson in the States but I was also thinking Hannity and Beck, even Alex Jones.

Though still not enamoured of "empire builders" on the back of news, there is a flip side to the argument ... the big names do attract the attention of people like ... for example ... DJT:

And the fact is ... "smaller" pundits do not. There it is.  Meanwhile, back over here in Blighty ... if Rupert is to be believed ... don't get ill. If you do, your chance of treatment is slim, unless you go private:

I find it so difficult to believe that in 2025 Britain, different parts of the NHS just refuse to talk to each other. The lack of joined up thinking in the health service is just remarkable. Sheer incompetence at every turn, and we're expected to be grateful for this third world level of service?

These Aren't 'Examples Of A Concerning Staff Culture'

...one of them at least is something everyone is entitled to think!

Home Office contractors are over-using restraint in immigration detention centres and failing to tackle the toxic culture behind bars, according to the findings of a new watchdog report described as “deeply concerning”.

Oh, boo hoo!  

It highlighted how routine handcuffing, particularly during hospital transfers, appeared to have become the default rather than the exception. In one case, a frail 70-year-old man was handcuffed despite paperwork noting no evidence of risk.

What about the risk of escape?  

The IMB national chair, Elisabeth Davies, said: “It’s about operational force being used for operational convenience.” She added that she has written to the Home Office “numerous times” raising concerns about the high levels of handcuffing and the lack of clear justification provided.

Frankly, operational convenience should always win out over the feelings of these bleeding hearts.

The report provided examples of restraint IMB is concerned about, including a man who was on constant suicide watch who was screaming and resisting removal. He took off his trousers and was carried naked from the waist down to a plane. Staff took turns to push his head against his seat. The report found the impact on his dignity to be “profound”.

What about the impact on the rest of the passengers? Or don't they count?  

It also reprinted a note on a detention centre staff whiteboard saying: “Thought of the Day: Handle Stressful situations like a dog. If you can’t eat it or hump it, piss on it or walk away.” Davies said the sign was not hidden in any way. She has called for changes in staff culture and said the sign was an example of staff culture: “I think that offers little reassurance.”

There are worse motivational signs and at least this one wasn't purchased in a job lot by an office dresser.. 

Another example of a concerning staff culture highlighted by the report involved an incident where a personal protection trainer told officers: “If someone’s coming at me, I’m going to keep myself safe. I don’t worry about what’s proportionate, I won’t worry about Serco or my job, my priority is to look after myself.”

Who could possibly argue that this was the wrong attitude? Well, except the bleeding-heart female manager of this wretched organisation, of course. 

Missed opportunities for de-escalation are also identified in the report, including a case where a man was restrained after failing to obey an instruction to stand up. The report finds no evidence of a trauma-informed approach, despite many detained people having experienced trauma, including torture and trafficking, with nothing to indicate that this was being considered when planning or executing force interventions.

If an order is given and someone fails to obey it, what should they do, Lizzy? Just wait until he feels like doing it?  Why is this wet blanket in her position, anywway? Were there no male ex-prison governors available for the job?

“We need meaningful cultural change and robust accountability to protect the rights of highly vulnerable people in detention. As national chair, I call on the Home Office to act urgently to strengthen oversight, embed trauma-informed practices, and ensure that force is only used when absolutely necessary.”

I call on the Home Office to ensure the right people with the right attitudes are given the job of IMB chair! 

Stating the obvious and building an empire

Xer Camus quotes Lara Logan stating the obvious to those who stop and think ... which at the same time is a huge scoop for those who hitherto have not thought much about such things ... or disinformation in the eyes of the bad players themselves. Even today, Macron is trying to create an Official Information channel, a la Ahern in NZ ... a single point of Truth.

Look particularly at the first para below ... the tone.

Lara Logan delivered one of the clearest, most powerful breakdowns you’ll hear this year — and it’s only 2 minutes long. Her core argument: many of today’s biggest “crises” share the exact same pattern on purpose. They take something natural or unavoidable… → label it a fatal flaw → declare it impossible to ever fully fix → and then demand endless control to “manage” it. Examples she gives: • Breathing out CO2 (essential for plants & all life) → framed as planetary poison • Natural human tendency to feel most comfortable around shared culture & values (Chinatown, Little Italy, every diaspora ever) → branded as bigotry • Normal masculine or feminine instincts → called “toxic” • Even consciousness itself → “unconscious bias” you can never fully escape “Create a problem that can never be solved,” she says, “and you can rule through it forever.” Once you hear her explain the tactic, you start seeing it everywhere — climate, identity, food, energy, speech. If you’ve felt something was off for years but couldn’t quite name it… this is it.

Why do I not provide links above, though naming and attributing, should you wish to explore?

Answer is because there's a phenomenon we're being drawn into, antiWoke pundits, in playing the feted Superjourno, a la MSM style, using the same sensationalist rhetoric, with the whole purpose building huge "reach", huge numbers, then changing the names of these Uberjournos to "Influencers" ... and that's all the game is ... getting you, the bunny, to subscribe and "buy them a coffee".

Two names are Emerald Robinson and Benny Johnson in the States. They have "shows", the idea being that you sign up for their "exclusive" content, thereby building their empires.

I was banned, long ago from what was Dorsey's twitter for supporting Derek Chauvin over Fentanyl Floyd, plus last year I had the blog N.O. stolen by a nameless platform, for nominal reasons but the real reason was increasing reach. Too many "impressions". Julia's had bans too over time.

Yesterday, I had "visibility restricted" in a generated letter to the mail inbox over some post they'd chosen to hit ... might have been any. There was even a phase we pundits went through where we'd call it a "badge of honour" to be banned.

Not much point in that though, dear reader, if no one at all can read your posts.

Yes, Camus and Lara are correct in what they say ... but it's hardly new ... in fact, Emerald was complaining that she was not invited on Benny Johnson's "show". It was over Patrick Byrne's revelations (real ones) about the old admin ... but Mr. Benny was presenting it, though attributing to be fair, as his "scoop".

The Woke and globopsycho, plus the deathcults, are grinning fit to burst ... the "far right" eating itself.

My advice for what it's worth? Beware of any pundit self-aggrandising, building a brand name on the back of "news". Be careful of substack in that respect ... it attracts them. Because the central thing then is not getting a discovered morsel out to the online public ... it's personal empire building.

But It's A Totally Different Demographic Now..

When HMT Empire Windrush arrived on the shores of Tilbury Docks in 1948, over a thousand migrants, mostly of Caribbean descent, answered the call from a government and an NHS unable to fill posts in the aftermath of World War 2.

Today, there are well over 200 nationalities working in the NHS, with one in four of the entire workforce coming from overseas. When you include those who came as migrants but have since acquired British citizenship, the figure is higher still. Migration is part of the very DNA of our health service and social care services.

Maybe so, but we have to also face the fact that the modern influx of black and brown faces is a very, very different beast to that long-ago migration. 

No longer are we importing former colonial subjects, inculcated with the 'British way of doing things', able to speak clear English and with a work ethic that made them valuable. Things their descendents sadly often appear not to have inherited. 

No, the modern influx is often of those with little to no work ethic at all, from cultures that hate us or our freedoms, and who are little more than fifth columnists.

I have had the privilege of working with some amazing nurses during my career — including those who have trained all over the world. What unites nursing staff, whether British born or from across the globe, is care of the patient and a commitment to public service.

Maybe ask us 'customers' if we agree, eh? 

As Chief Nurse at King’s College Hospital, one of the largest hospital trusts in London, I saw selflessness and bravery every day.

In truth, our health and care services wouldn’t have survived the pandemic without our international colleagues.

Strange how no-one feels the same for the farmers, power station workers, highway maintenance men and shop workers, who surely are equally as deserving and actually worked to keep the nation running, the lights on and food on the shelves, while the NHS was manning empty hospitals, a fact even BBC Verify knows they can't challenge. 

For me, two things are true at the same time. We must welcome, treasure and respect our migrant nursing staff. We also need our government to recognise the value of nursing by investing to make it a more attractive career for young people from the UK.

We must, must we? No.  

It's not just about an incompetent, lying Chancellor

It's much, much more, as we all know.

But firstly ... which topic to go with this Sunday morning? Could have been abandoned pets, Patrick Byrne/Emerald Robinson/DJT, something nasty about Trudeau, something less nasty about Danielle Smith ... or maybe this below, not strictly Sunday fayre. As this is now ultra late (slept in, yes), here tis:

Not sure I could have put it better.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do

Not being completely up with these things, I had to look up when Advent starts ... it's tomorrow, Sunday. I was once in a Mosque as guest of a dignitary of a Russian Republic, taking the shoes off. Many years earlier, downunder, I was in a Synagogue during a new campaign for a super chandelier ... again as a guest, wearing a kipar or skullcap.

My gf and I were in a Buddhist temple a couple of decades ago, lighting a candle. I've also lit a candle in a Roman Catholic church. I have a tiny Orthodox cross for a pendant, bought in a Khram, the main one in a city. I've a vague memory of being in Westminster cathedral. I've been in the middle of Stonehenge many decades ago now near dawn. I've been in a Masonic Lodge for a concert by Talking Heads.

Point of all this? What to do when in a temporarily elevated position as a guest? How to react?  Obviously, in my mind at least, when in Rome, do as the Romans do ... yes, in the Sistine Chapel, I did lie on the floor and look up ... no one told me off.

How deeply? How far to get into it?  Depends on which country it was. In Sicily, it was obviously a Catholic church building or nothing. In Westminster Cathedral, it was obviously CofE.  One does as one must as a guest.

Christmas is an awkward time for the various hordes in Britain, inc. the atheist horde, although the latter have an escape valve ... Santa, reindeer, presents around the tree, Christmas stockings. By the way, I've been in Santa's workshop in Rovaniemi, Suomi, said hi to a reindeer as I went in. Ate a reindeer sandwich some days later with my hosts at a farm ... that bit I do regret, feeling they and I had crossed some red line.

I failed to unsubscribe from Quora, never got into Reddit ... they cater for the same normie crowd that Readers Digest used to ... very middling, secular ... types of people who watched Days of our Lives or listened to the Archies. My parents were avid Corrie fans.  One does as the Romans do, when in Rome.

This was in Quora this morning, from one Andrew Wright:

I’ve seen a couple shows that I can describe as being “disappointed” or “let down” by, but “ripped off?” One, and only one famous musician earns that lowly distinction.

This was at least 30 years ago. It’s Christmastime in Chicago and the iconic Chicago Theater is hosting for one night only, “The John Denver Christmas Show!”

Me? Not a fan. But I’ve gone to see plenty of acts where I “wasn’t a fan” and more often than not I come away pleasantly surprised. So, who was a fan? Grandma was! So…this’ll be awesome. We’ll pick up Grandma, take her out to dinner, and then enjoy a Christmas concert as a light snowfall gently meanders through the twinkling downtown lights.

John Denver had other ideas. On stage was a stool, a guitar, and a spotlight. No color. Not even a sprig of holly. The place is full. We’re near the front. Maybe 20th row or so. John comes out and starts to play. There’s plenty of hardcore fans who know every word and are singing along. Yep ok, fine. Pretty standard stuff.

Christmas? Zero, zip, nada. Maybe a generic, “Happy Holidays?” Again, no. What seasonal wishes, one might ask,John Denver want to convey?

Oh, why, politics! It wasn’t more than twenty minutes or so before the “John Denver Christmas Show” became long lectures/rants punctuated less and less frequently by an occasional (politically-tinged) song

 

As the show approached the one hour mark, we decided we’d had enough. I’m not sure I’ve ever walked out on a show before or since but we stood up from our seats and turned to do just that. Amazingly, we were the hold outs! As we walked up the aisle we discovered that 3/4 of the theater had already beaten us to it!

So, obvious next question is ... how much respect to show other people's commemorations and festivities? Well this of course includes this Ramadan and Diwali thing. Purim and other festivities from Judaism get a mention, someone writes an online piece ... as far as we're concerned, fine. I have two Romanian friends so I say Buno Diminatsa, transliterated, out of courtesy.

Two lots from the subcontinent though and the middle-east are seriously extracting the micturation, putting it politely. They can F off in my book because they've seriously crossed a line, they need stopping.

Question is ... how?  They're obviously aided and abetted by a traitor govt.