THE DANISH MODEL (3)
In May the union representing family doctors took soundings from its members about returning their public sector licences on 31 August and charging patients thereafter. Well over 90% backed the idea.
Yesterday there was a meeting of the union to take the next step. In a surprising and dramatic twist, it voted 25-24 not to get its members to return their licences. The union's hardline Chairman resigned and was replaced by a moderate.
It's not easy to read the internal workings of another organisation; but it seems that the family doctors have looked long and hard at what happened to the teachers, and decided that it is better to spend the next nine months negotiating a new contract to come into force on 1 September 2014 than to incur the wrath of a united Parliament that wants more control over what doctors do.
I suspect that that was a smart move. United Parliaments have a habit of getting their way, particularly where spending money is concerned.
Walter Blotscher
Sunday, 30 June 2013
Friday, 28 June 2013
RURAL SERVICES (2)
The local post office has gone, and local post is following it. At least on Mondays. From 1 June 2014 no ordinary post will be delivered on the first day of the week, though newspapers and parcels will be. It will be possible still to get a letter on a Monday, but it will cost more. Quite a lot more, in fact; around kr.50.
Post Danmark claim that there are valid reasons for doing this, but I have to say that I don't understand them. If the postman is putting a newspaper in your letter box on Monday morning, then how difficult is it to pop a letter in with it?
Walter Blotscher
The local post office has gone, and local post is following it. At least on Mondays. From 1 June 2014 no ordinary post will be delivered on the first day of the week, though newspapers and parcels will be. It will be possible still to get a letter on a Monday, but it will cost more. Quite a lot more, in fact; around kr.50.
Post Danmark claim that there are valid reasons for doing this, but I have to say that I don't understand them. If the postman is putting a newspaper in your letter box on Monday morning, then how difficult is it to pop a letter in with it?
Walter Blotscher
Thursday, 27 June 2013
THE CIRCUS
The circus is a summer tradition in Denmark. Every year a number of companies tour round the small towns, playing to capacity houses. The full occupancy is due to the fact that it is usually for one night only. As soon as the performance is over and the audience has filed out, everything is taken down, packed away, and taken to the next town, 20 km away. It's impressively efficient.
Tonight the circus came to the small town where I live. I couldn't go, but my wife did, along with her small nieces and nephew, who all enjoyed it. And now it has gone until next year.
Walter Blotscher
The circus is a summer tradition in Denmark. Every year a number of companies tour round the small towns, playing to capacity houses. The full occupancy is due to the fact that it is usually for one night only. As soon as the performance is over and the audience has filed out, everything is taken down, packed away, and taken to the next town, 20 km away. It's impressively efficient.
Tonight the circus came to the small town where I live. I couldn't go, but my wife did, along with her small nieces and nephew, who all enjoyed it. And now it has gone until next year.
Walter Blotscher
Wednesday, 26 June 2013
REVENGE
Some three years ago Julia Gillard, then deputy leader of Australia's Labour Party, organised a palace coup that got rid of her then boss, Kevin Rudd. In doing so, she took over his other job and became the country's first ever woman Prime Minister, a position she has held ever since.
Until today. The problem with Ms. Gillard's plan was that Mr. Rudd wasn't going to take the result lying down, particularly since opinion polls consistently showed that he was the more popular amongst voters. Since 2010 there have been three further party leadership elections, all of them pitting the two against each other once more. The one this spring gave Ms. Gillard a walkover, since Mr. Rudd realised he did not have the necessary votes, and so withdrew. However, with a general election due in September, which Labour is widely expected to lose, some Labour MP's decided to try and save their jobs by switching sides. Today's vote was 57-45 in favour of Mr. Rudd, who thereby becomes Prime Minister again. Ms. Gillard will leave politics for good.
Mr. Rudd probably won't lead Labour to victory in September, but he may well minimise its defeat. However, that is not the real issue. This was a personal, and very bitter, feud between two people who wanted the same job. Mr. Rudd had to wait a long time for his revenge, but he has now got it. Whoever said that politics was a nice business?
Walter Blotscher
Some three years ago Julia Gillard, then deputy leader of Australia's Labour Party, organised a palace coup that got rid of her then boss, Kevin Rudd. In doing so, she took over his other job and became the country's first ever woman Prime Minister, a position she has held ever since.
Until today. The problem with Ms. Gillard's plan was that Mr. Rudd wasn't going to take the result lying down, particularly since opinion polls consistently showed that he was the more popular amongst voters. Since 2010 there have been three further party leadership elections, all of them pitting the two against each other once more. The one this spring gave Ms. Gillard a walkover, since Mr. Rudd realised he did not have the necessary votes, and so withdrew. However, with a general election due in September, which Labour is widely expected to lose, some Labour MP's decided to try and save their jobs by switching sides. Today's vote was 57-45 in favour of Mr. Rudd, who thereby becomes Prime Minister again. Ms. Gillard will leave politics for good.
Mr. Rudd probably won't lead Labour to victory in September, but he may well minimise its defeat. However, that is not the real issue. This was a personal, and very bitter, feud between two people who wanted the same job. Mr. Rudd had to wait a long time for his revenge, but he has now got it. Whoever said that politics was a nice business?
Walter Blotscher
Tuesday, 25 June 2013
TURKEY AND THE EU (3)
I don't know if E.U. Foreign Ministers read my blog (yes, I know they should, but ...), but they have just decided to put accession talks with Turkey on ice for four months. That means that they won't start again until after the German elections in September. Angela Merkel is the most influential sceptic about Turkey's place in the E.U., and she doesn't want the Turkish issue to flare up during the campaign. Recent events in Turkey will have strengthened her view that Turkey should remain outside. Austria and the Netherlands (plus others?) seem to agree.
Although they officially continue, the accession talks look further and further away from completion. They started for Turkey in 2005, at the same time as those for Croatia. Yet while Croatia will join as the 28th Member State on 1 July, Turkey's talks have been stuck for the past three years. Only thirteen of the 35 "chapters" have been opened, and eight are completely frozen because of the Cyprus dispute. Only one chapter, on science and research, has been closed.
Saying no to Turkey would be the right decision, in my view, as I have said. But the E.U. seems loth to say it. I suppose Member States are hoping that Turkey will eventually get the message and break off the talks themselves.
Walter Blotscher
I don't know if E.U. Foreign Ministers read my blog (yes, I know they should, but ...), but they have just decided to put accession talks with Turkey on ice for four months. That means that they won't start again until after the German elections in September. Angela Merkel is the most influential sceptic about Turkey's place in the E.U., and she doesn't want the Turkish issue to flare up during the campaign. Recent events in Turkey will have strengthened her view that Turkey should remain outside. Austria and the Netherlands (plus others?) seem to agree.
Although they officially continue, the accession talks look further and further away from completion. They started for Turkey in 2005, at the same time as those for Croatia. Yet while Croatia will join as the 28th Member State on 1 July, Turkey's talks have been stuck for the past three years. Only thirteen of the 35 "chapters" have been opened, and eight are completely frozen because of the Cyprus dispute. Only one chapter, on science and research, has been closed.
Saying no to Turkey would be the right decision, in my view, as I have said. But the E.U. seems loth to say it. I suppose Member States are hoping that Turkey will eventually get the message and break off the talks themselves.
Walter Blotscher
Sunday, 23 June 2013
SANKT HANS
Likes most countries, Britain took heathen festivals and adapted them to the Christian religion; Christmas, for instance. However, there is a notable exception. Unless you are a druid or decided pagan, a Brit is unlikely to celebrate Sankt Hans ("Saint Hans"). Scandinavians and other northern Europeans, on the other hand, have all been out this evening doing just that.
Hans is the name for John the Baptist, whose festival day is tomorrow. But that is just an excuse. In the same way as Christmas took over the heathen festival of the winter solstice and moved it a couple of days, so Sankt Hans has taken over the heathen festival of the summer solstice and moved it a couple of days. Midsummer was the time of the year when magical spirits - both good and evil - were at their most powerful. So peasants built a bonfire to frighten away witches and other bad things. Just in case the message didn't get through, a figure representing a witch was put on the top, and burnt.
So it was this evening. The bonfire had been ready for some time, after I had chopped down the fruit trees. My wife and I made a witch out of newspapers and some of my son's old clothes, filled it with fire crackers so that it would scream when burnt, and attached it to the top. Together with some of our neighbours, we had coffee and cake in the house, and then went down to the paddock at 9pm in order to light the bonfire and have a few drinks.
It was a lovely summer evening, but unfortunately, it has rained a lot here recently. Despite straw from my neighbour, fire lighters and pieces of dry wood, it took a fair amount of petrol to get the bonfire going. However, get going it did eventually. And after everyone had gone home, my wife and I spent an hour or so under a full moon watching it crackle and splutter while drinking a glass of wine. It was very hyggeligt.
Walter Blotscher
Likes most countries, Britain took heathen festivals and adapted them to the Christian religion; Christmas, for instance. However, there is a notable exception. Unless you are a druid or decided pagan, a Brit is unlikely to celebrate Sankt Hans ("Saint Hans"). Scandinavians and other northern Europeans, on the other hand, have all been out this evening doing just that.
Hans is the name for John the Baptist, whose festival day is tomorrow. But that is just an excuse. In the same way as Christmas took over the heathen festival of the winter solstice and moved it a couple of days, so Sankt Hans has taken over the heathen festival of the summer solstice and moved it a couple of days. Midsummer was the time of the year when magical spirits - both good and evil - were at their most powerful. So peasants built a bonfire to frighten away witches and other bad things. Just in case the message didn't get through, a figure representing a witch was put on the top, and burnt.
So it was this evening. The bonfire had been ready for some time, after I had chopped down the fruit trees. My wife and I made a witch out of newspapers and some of my son's old clothes, filled it with fire crackers so that it would scream when burnt, and attached it to the top. Together with some of our neighbours, we had coffee and cake in the house, and then went down to the paddock at 9pm in order to light the bonfire and have a few drinks.
It was a lovely summer evening, but unfortunately, it has rained a lot here recently. Despite straw from my neighbour, fire lighters and pieces of dry wood, it took a fair amount of petrol to get the bonfire going. However, get going it did eventually. And after everyone had gone home, my wife and I spent an hour or so under a full moon watching it crackle and splutter while drinking a glass of wine. It was very hyggeligt.
Walter Blotscher
Saturday, 22 June 2013
POPULATION GROWTH
The U.N. has just issued its latest forecast for the world's population. Two years ago, it thought that the planet would have 10.1 billion people in 2100; now it thinks that there will be almost 11 billion.
Most of the difference is due to Africa; the statisticians have hugely underestimated the number of African children. Africa is the one continent where there will be major population growth this century, from around 1.1 billion today to 4.2 billion in 2100. By then Africa will have almost as many people as Asia, whose population will grow only slowly, from 4.3 billion today to 4.7 billion in 2100. China, currently the world's most populous nation, will see its population fall by 22% to just over 1 billion, as the consequences of generations of one-child families take full effect. By contrast, Nigeria's is expected to rise by 425%, to almost 1 billion. And Tanzania, a rather sleepy place when I was there in the 1990's with some 20 million people, will by 2100 have 275 million people and be the sixth most populous country on the planet, after India, China, Nigeria, the United States and Indonesia. Three other African countries, Ethiopia, Congo and Uganda make up the top ten, along with Pakistan.
As well as major population growth, there will be population declines. Indeed, some 40 countries are expected to have reduced populations by 2100. As well as China, they include Russia, most of Eastern Europe, Japan and Cuba.
Population shifts of this order of magnitude will have huge economic and political effects. The influence of Europe, the only continent that will have fewer people overall, will surely decline. While African consumers, hitherto an exotic and barely understood lot, will increasingly become the saviours of multinational businesses, as well as providing a greater proportion of the world's sports stars.
With so many people, the planet will become more and more urban. And it will be difficult to find places not already occupied by lots of others. Thankfully, by 2100, I am unlikely to be around.
Walter Blotscher
The U.N. has just issued its latest forecast for the world's population. Two years ago, it thought that the planet would have 10.1 billion people in 2100; now it thinks that there will be almost 11 billion.
Most of the difference is due to Africa; the statisticians have hugely underestimated the number of African children. Africa is the one continent where there will be major population growth this century, from around 1.1 billion today to 4.2 billion in 2100. By then Africa will have almost as many people as Asia, whose population will grow only slowly, from 4.3 billion today to 4.7 billion in 2100. China, currently the world's most populous nation, will see its population fall by 22% to just over 1 billion, as the consequences of generations of one-child families take full effect. By contrast, Nigeria's is expected to rise by 425%, to almost 1 billion. And Tanzania, a rather sleepy place when I was there in the 1990's with some 20 million people, will by 2100 have 275 million people and be the sixth most populous country on the planet, after India, China, Nigeria, the United States and Indonesia. Three other African countries, Ethiopia, Congo and Uganda make up the top ten, along with Pakistan.
As well as major population growth, there will be population declines. Indeed, some 40 countries are expected to have reduced populations by 2100. As well as China, they include Russia, most of Eastern Europe, Japan and Cuba.
Population shifts of this order of magnitude will have huge economic and political effects. The influence of Europe, the only continent that will have fewer people overall, will surely decline. While African consumers, hitherto an exotic and barely understood lot, will increasingly become the saviours of multinational businesses, as well as providing a greater proportion of the world's sports stars.
With so many people, the planet will become more and more urban. And it will be difficult to find places not already occupied by lots of others. Thankfully, by 2100, I am unlikely to be around.
Walter Blotscher
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
