Catchment areas are a joke and here's why

I picked up a copy of the Times this morning unaware of plans to end the catchment area arrangement that define which GP and/or surgery you can access dependant on your home address but I wish I had known about it yesterday.

Andy Burnham's announcement was particularly galling as I had spent half of yesterday trying to reason with my student’s only practice that I as a student might be allowed to continue to register there. I was chucked out five minutes later after being continually registered at the practice for 8 years.

The difficulty was that the surgery operates on the same catchment area principle as any other which is meant to limit over crowded patient lists in popular surgeries and/or in high population density areas of the country.But as a student practice, this surgery doesn't have a popularity issue or a population issue, the number of students attending various institutions in the area is known in advance and one cannot attend the surgery without prior academic registration. In terms of the surgery, it can offer a quick method of contacting your department or tutor if they wish to know about absences, exam attendances etc. It was and is a superb service and recognizes unusual illnesses predominant in young people (and saved my life once in doing so) and the risks of illness in cramped accommodation and lecture halls setting up flu jabs and various other services.

So why throw me out for living 500 yards outside their catchment area? They even knowingly made it harder to access other services where NHS Leeds take up patients on site in the surgery for other treatments. There is no such option in surgeries closer to my home address which the GP I saw yesterday acknowledged (just before I left). It’s not as though the area is very wide, my postcode has many students ineligible to attend the student practice living there as my new practice confirmed. (I went and registered yesterday as well.)

My home address is approximately 3 miles from uni. The student practice is 500 yards from the uni. Great if I'm ill when I'm in uni all day, yet there was no acknowledgement that the catchment area arrangement was about to end. They surely must have known there was consultation or plans to modernize it anyway. Had I known, I would have phrased my conversation with that GP completely differently.

While I try and fix the blog...

...here's another cut and paste job. A very good summary in the current edition of Total Politics on the Yorkshire ‘battleground’ seats. I don’t agree with every word, but it’s well argued. There are few Iain Dale fans here in a certain Leeds seat (see right), but the magazine is well balanced and has consistently interesting and quirky articles. Annoyingly.

http://www.totalpolitics.com/magazine_detail.php?id=589

Media storms blow though media land

Two in fact. It gives the poor dears something to write about.

And I f**king wrote about it then Blogger ate my post. No, I didn't back it up, so hopefully it can be retrieved.

Speaker unopposed -Times Online

Morning comrades...

Just to add to my previous post, a letter in the Times, written by Vernon Bogdanor, on the situation of the Speaker at a General Election.

Speaker unopposed -Times Online

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The politics of opportunity

Nigel Farage has today confirmed he's stepping down from his post as leader of UKIP to fight John Bercow's 18,000 vote majority in Buckingham. This is rich coming from someone who as leader (until today) was always the first jumping up and down in the media for British values or the British way of life, whatever that is, has decided to break British political convention on a whim. He will know full well the only way he can expect to overturn such a majority is hope the longstanding convention that the Speaker is returned in his or her seat with major party candidates not standing against them gives him a major advantage in picking up votes. It would still be an incredible result should he win, but he's clearly weighed up which seats he could win as a 4th party candidate (in England anyway).

Either, he doesn't see UKIP as a major political party, so hey, it's fine to ignore convention, which is unlikely as their own website bills them as Britain’s 4th party (just don't tell Alex Salmond). So logically, this convention is breakable if you just happen to be Nigel Farage and fancy your chances in Buckingham, or he has previously hidden a long standing disregard for British political convention which would be strange coming from someone who lead a party strongly linked with British history.

Which is it I wonder?

Lest we forget...

...this used to happen quite a bit on the news in the 1980's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m50rq6BgQg

A warning from history. Well, Canada.

I thought this was an interesting  politics piece from BBC online. It covers a R4 programme that went out this afternoon (Sunday) recounting the collapse of the governing party in Ottawa to only seats in the space of a single General Election. I worked in the Canadian Parliament a few years ago as an intern, so it was easier to understand the state of the parties and the politicians involved, but the comparison is clear for the UK Labour party. The Canadian parliament is bicameral, based on the UK system and the procedure and terminioogy are similar, making the comparison even more real to the listener.

The politics  page piece:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8226525.stm

The iplayer link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00m8p81/The_World_This_Weekend_30_08_2009/

Ted Kennedy by Lucy Mangan

In my opinion, a very brave and accurate appraisal of the late great, but flawed Ted Kennedy. I also share her view of Dylan and Big Brother covered in the same colunm:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/aug/29/lucy-mangan-this-week

Another football related post

Sorry for the lack of posting today- nothing to report except this man is still a legend. My team Spurs have won every game under Harry Redknapp (below) as manager this season. The sequence up to now has been 2-1, 5-1, 2-1, 5-1, 2-1. This suggests Spurs will win 5-1 at Manchester United next Saturday!

West Yorkshire Young Labour

West Yorkshire Young Labour (WYYL) Treasurer and Publicity officer Alex Ross has created four different posters which can be printed out for campaigning purposes and also be used for blog/website/Facebook thumbprints etc, highlighting the real concerns of Cameron's happy shiny new Tories. The latest one refers to Cameron's education policies. Another three were all options as posters for use on our WYYL website at http://www.westyorkshireyounglabour.co.uk/

Enjoy pursuing those and for the record, ‘nice guy, shame about his party’ was the favourite poster. Please contact us with any ideas and/or queries. Alex can also be found at http://alexross.wordpress.com/

WYYL are also at http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=59035038279&ref=ts Not to be confused with West Yorkshire Young Labour Club also on Facebook. This was an earlier, discontinued page!

The intention of the group is to meet up for a drink, a meal or occasionally even at party events and allow younger party members to engage with and debate political issues. There may be the odd bit of canvassing on an add hoc basis as well, but this isn't compulsary.

Still funny

I blame Thatcher

Those of you familiar with my earlier work that is my Facebook status update will know I don't like Margaret Thatcher and blame her for many things in life. Rain. Uncovered bus stops. Standing in the rain at an uncovered bus stop. Standing in the rain at an uncovered bus stop because I live in a part of Leeds where the ideally placed local train station 500 yards away was shut many years before (Kirkstall, yes it's on the map). That last one has nothing to do with her, but it's still her fault.

I was reminded of everything being her fault when the marvellous Gavin Hayes popped up on my Facebook feed saying his local pool is shutting and everyone should stop following Barnet council's lead in "no frills" services. Lord Northern of this parish has the same Guardian link.

I grew up in Finchley under Thatcher as both the PM and my MP. I've recently returned to Leeds after 6 months living in Finchley again under said Barnet borough council. Finchley used to have a nice Lido, built in 1932 when Finchley was itself a borough council and no-one knew Thatcher would be their MP for 33 years. That's it above.

The Lido was closed in 1992 and demolished, later re-opening as a leisure centre still using the Finchley Lido name but with no Lido. I should say that this had nothing to do with Thatcher, but who cares, it's still her fault!

Just to prove my point

Zoom in to see what remains of the Leeds local railway network. As I understand it, Leeds is the largest city in Europe without a tram or underground network. As this map illustrates, we barely have a local railway network either.

A new high speed rail link for Leeds!

Ha ha, not really.

Reports of the latest rail link to slash journey times between London and (insert random group of northern cities here) inevitably doesn't include the UK's 4th largest city. No, not Sheffield, Leeds.

Today's Independent says that the link would create £31.4bn worth of benefits to the economy nationally over a period of 60 years. I have no idea where these benefits arise exactly or why the plan includes a stop at Preston, the last before the line diverges to terminuses in Edinburgh and Glasgow much further north.

Warrington, a few miles south of Preston, will also benefit where the line would stop there at that well known metropolis and also diverge, to Liverpool and Manchester respectively. This rather leaves Preston redundant, but not as redundant as the chances of a fast train to Leeds from London or indeed anywhere else any time soon.

Legend*

*This blog will make reference to the Labour party as soon as possible.

The demise of Steve Harmison

I was listening to Sky Sports News (yes, again) after watching Spurs demolish Doncaster at the Keepmoat Stadium and heard an interview with Harmison. He wasn't prepared to play only an occasional role for England. This is what he was doing effectively in the current Ashes series, coming in for his Durham team mate Graham Onions for the last test and covering for Andrew Flintoff at Headingley before that.

This news if true, is a great shame. Harmison has had a poor press throughout his Test career, never quite living up to his ranking as the world's greatest bowler following his 7 for 12 at Sabina Park. He wasn't always at his best touring in recent years, missing his family in the North East and being publicity shy in general- not good news for hacks following England over many months abroad, hungry for insider quotes on tour.

I hope Onions can replace him successfully in South Africa if Harmison should retire and Stuart Broad can replace Flintoff likewise, at least at Test level. Both Harmison and Flintoff have recently said Broad can bat well at seven- not a problem with Graeme Swann at eight!

Sky Sports News takes on Crimewatch...

Continuing with sport for a moment, I watched the footage on Sky (provided by the police via CCTV) of the outbreaks of violence at the West Ham/Millwall fixture played last night. I'm not sure why the footage was offered to Sky at all or why they felt they needed to use it. Sky were covering the game themselves and also offered their pictures and lead with the story on Sky Sports News last night and this morning.

Two issues I thought stood out- the SSN presenters referred to the violent incidents as "shocking"- which I think is hyperbolic and inflammatory in itself and secondly, why were the police offering CCTV footage to Sky anyway? For what purpose was it shown? To add to the shock value, for for the police to say football is heading back to the dark ages (both clubs have historically had hooligan elements and violence of the sort last night was commonplace in the 70's and 80's) is completely over the top.

The assumption that violence is to be expected at football grounds appeared to be the tone of the coverage and of that in tomorrow's press. Football has vastly improved as a safe spectator sport since the days of violence flaring every week. This should be the media angle to take, not violence as a spectator sport bought to you by Sky.

The first post

Welcome to this, my attempt to be more interesting on the web than I'll ever be in real life. This blog is part of 'LOVE YOUR POLITICS' blogging co-operative, full of interesting Labour supporting opinions, but mainly about sport so far.

So, starting with the Ashes then. That's them just on the right. Did anyone notice Ravi Bopara wasn't mentioned as the medals were given out at the Oval by England captain Andrew Strauss? He mentioned all the other players involved in the series, who were all present at the final test and received medals. Bopara was playing for Essex in a county level game elsewhere at the time. It will be interesting to see if he plays another Test after his omission from the Oval squad and a singular lack of recognition after the Ashes were won on Sunday.