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If you keep referring to racists then it suggests you agree with their ideas (ie. Katie Hopkins and Londonistan) and your policies target particular groups of people based on their race then you are a racist. Trump is a racist. Are African Americans the only race? Can you talk me through why Trump keeps tweeting about the Mayor of London?

And if those demonstrators didn't move on as in Extinction rebellion, what is he supposed to do? Most demonstrations do end on the day. Again what is Khan supposed to do other than ban protests to cut the cost, he isn't creating the issues (they are national/global issues) that people are demonstrating about yet you blame Khan?

So the Police are looking at knife crime, so the organisations under Khan's remit are doing their job and focusing on it.

You know Khan hasn't tried to bring the different organisations together as I'm not the one saying he hasn't provided leadership? Based on my reading (as explained above) and my experience working in local Govt, bringing together different public sector organisations is not a short process and not straightforward as you seem to be implying here. The cross working partnerships I was involved in took years to come to fruition and that involved far less organisations (that also assumes those organisations are willing to be involved) than Khan would have to work with to get this off the ground. As an example of the risks from Essexyellow's NHS link above:

"Partnership working is vulnerable, given that partnerships are not statutory bodies and face significant challenges. Three-quarters of partnerships have a deficit when the finances of their constituent trusts and CCGs are added together. Even the most advanced partnerships face significant challenges in managing demand within the resources available. The areas we visited all reported making progress on partnership working within the existing legal framework. However, the need for organisations to meet their own statutory requirements may hinder partnership working. Partnerships are not statutory bodies supported by a legislative framework, and so require the goodwill of all involved. Continued financial pressure will test this goodwill. National bodies, in discussion with NHS colleagues, have developed a provisional list of potential legislative changes for Parliamentโ€™s consideration to support better integration in the best interest of patients (paragraphs 3.7 and 3.8)."

Without your link, I don't know which comments of Khan's you are claiming are left wing gibberish.
As with that far right retweet, I don't think Trump fully gets it or has the attention span to. It's not an excuse, but the reality of 73 year old pensioner with itchy trigger fingers and a love of bad cable news. I did cringe reading Londonistan, but that is Katie Hopkins. Re: Khan and tweets, see the above post to TonyW. And I did say minorities BTW to include the various non-white groups. This is just one example: https://eu.desmoinesregister.com/st...n-presidential-race-iowa-caucuses/3649719002/

As I say, it's more complicated because he says incredibly large amounts of dumb stuff, but the actions are different.

You're saying the London Mayor can do nothing within his organisation about moving people on from a disruptive protest. Ok, fair enough.

If the Mayor had brought people together, he would be rightly crowing about it, and Labour would be using it to say, look how incompetent the Govt are, we are doing this even though it will take years to fully form. We need a general election. Something Labour are really, really good at.

The silence is therefore deafening?
 
Trump is great man..end of.
Khan (of "Khanage" fame) is a lightweight non-contender. A loser as Trump so accurately described him

..and he's losing it on a regular/daily basis on the streets of London. Replace him asap..not fit for purpose..hardly fit to drive a bus (like his old man LOL?)
 
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@Marked Ox , we probably agree that the NHS should be "de-politicised" but that will never happen. Even with a fixed term government the budgeting prevents proper long term planning.

The local councils all (barring Northampton!) sit on under used reserves, often invested "unwisely" (Kent CC & Woodford Equity). Then point at central government to "blame".

They will do their best to avoid raising council tax by more than the amount required to trigger a local referendum (eg: 2.99%!)

Maybe, if they trusted their competency, they could say to us (the payers) "We need to increase Council Tax by 5% to invest in Social Care" unfortunately they chicken out on that one!

In my utopian world "the system" is built from the bottom up, looking after the public first then worry about "the rest" later. ?
 
In my utopian world "the system" is built from the bottom up, looking after the public first then worry about "the rest" later.
And you defend Trump? Lol - heโ€™s laughing all the way to the bank and definitely not looking after his public.
 
There is always somebody at the top of the pyramid...... its a consumption driven world.
What on earth is that supposed to mean? Your utopia is a strange place, where the public comes first, but whoeverโ€™s at the top is fine however they act because ... something ...
 
As with that far right retweet, I don't think Trump fully gets it or has the attention span to. It's not an excuse, but the reality of 73 year old pensioner with itchy trigger fingers and a love of bad cable news. I did cringe reading Londonistan, but that is Katie Hopkins. Re: Khan and tweets, see the above post to TonyW. And I did say minorities BTW to include the various non-white groups. This is just one example: https://eu.desmoinesregister.com/st...n-presidential-race-iowa-caucuses/3649719002/

As I say, it's more complicated because he says incredibly large amounts of dumb stuff, but the actions are different.

You're saying the London Mayor can do nothing within his organisation about moving people on from a disruptive protest. Ok, fair enough.

If the Mayor had brought people together, he would be rightly crowing about it, and Labour would be using it to say, look how incompetent the Govt are, we are doing this even though it will take years to fully form. We need a general election. Something Labour are really, really good at.

The silence is therefore deafening?

I think Trump fully gets it and his actions (targeting Islamic countries/his comments about Mexicans etc) rather suggest he is a racist as does his courting of far right (his comments around the Dixie flag etc).

On Khan bringing bringing people together and partnership working:


This was the type of strategic vehicle that Glasgow used and really wasn't difficult to find. So maybe Khan is just doing his job rather than going big on publicising things before anything has happened unlike previous London Mayors. The size of the task is a magnitude bigger as well (purely on an organisational basis) than Glasgow because of the size of the population and the breadth of separate organisations involved (as an example which doesn't even cover Education Authorities/no. of schools):

London has:

32 Councils
32 Clinical Commissioning Groups
34 NHS Trusts
3 Mental Health Authorities
2 NHS Community Trusts
The London Ambulance Service

Glasgow has:

One Council, 1 NHS Trust and the Scottish Ambulance Service.

So I refer you to the risks of Partnership working in the paragraph I quoted from the NAO NHS Report above as considering the organisations involved. Any successful outcomes will take time to come to fruition.

So Khan has taken leadership by starting the steps needed with the VRU and hopefully it becomes a success.
 
@Marked Ox , we probably agree that the NHS should be "de-politicised" but that will never happen. Even with a fixed term government the budgeting prevents proper long term planning.

The local councils all (barring Northampton!) sit on under used reserves, often invested "unwisely" (Kent CC & Woodford Equity). Then point at central government to "blame".

They will do their best to avoid raising council tax by more than the amount required to trigger a local referendum (eg: 2.99%!)

Maybe, if they trusted their competency, they could say to us (the payers) "We need to increase Council Tax by 5% to invest in Social Care" unfortunately they chicken out on that one!

In my utopian world "the system" is built from the bottom up, looking after the public first then worry about "the rest" later. ?

I believe the NHS can be de-politicised and the method for doing I've already explained so won't bore you again with that other than at its basis is a long term spending settlement and oversight board (like the BBC). There actually is a growing support for this in parliament from the last reports I've seen (admittedly a while ago now). I'm glad we agree on the principle though. :)

Councils have reserves for good reason and that is Northampton!

Lets analyse Leicestershire CC's (LCC) reserves as an example as you linked their accounts, and they aren't unusual:

LCC in 2016/2017 had a base budget of ยฃ346.7m which was uplifted by ยฃ13.8m (the previous year's underspend brought forward from reserves) to ยฃ360.5m. LCC had a reserve of ยฃ213.4m in 2016/17 of which ยฃ156.2 is classed as "usable". So usable reserves equates to 45% of the base budget.

So to breakdown the usable reserves of ยฃ156.2m further:

- ยฃ21m relates to Capital and can't be used for revenue.
- ยฃ109.4m has already been earmarked for use (Self Insurance fund, renewal of Vehicles/Equipment, project funding etc)
- ยฃ25.8m General Fund

So that leaves the General fund of ยฃ25.8m and of this ยฃ11m of this has already been earmarked. So we now have ยฃ14.8m unallocated which represents a safety net of approximately 4.3% of the annual budget.

So where are these under used reserves?

I'd like to see a few Councils go down the route of taking on the vote for a greater % rise but unfortunately political expediency and almost certain likelihood of defeat will sadly mean they won't do it.
 
@Marked Ox we are almost agreeing!
The 4.3% safety net is dead money, its money provided by "us" to fund services not sit in a pot "just in case".
Prudent maybe, but at the cost of services like Sure Start that are proven to benefit other parts of the public sector economy like the NHS?

Joined up thinking... properly funded...... that`s where it should start! As you said political expediency stops reality!
 
@Marked Ox we are almost agreeing!
The 4.3% safety net is dead money, its money provided by "us" to fund services not sit in a pot "just in case".
Prudent maybe, but at the cost of services like Sure Start that are proven to benefit other parts of the public sector economy like the NHS?

Joined up thinking... properly funded...... that`s where it should start! As you said political expediency stops reality!

The safety net is there otherwise you have Northamptonshire CC! There are other Councils getting close to that point elsewhere in the

Not all spending can be anticipated and planned for, such as a bad flooding event or a harsh winter causing greater transport/social service cost, and a contingency is required (4.3% is not unreasonable). Councils are required to set a balanced budget by the rules and accounting policies they have to follow, overspends have to be covered by reserves as Councils can't roll forward deficits like the NHS can under their rules.

Overspends can happen quite easily even with budget systems in place*, certainly on a departmental level for numerous reasons so an unallocated reserve is essential and as you say prudent. Prudence is an essential part of Local Authority finance and runs through the accounting/finance regulations they follow.

*Some of the budget holders in the authority I worked for were a nightmare and would spend their budget after about 8 months, meaning everybody in the Dept or Authority had to sacrifice some of their budget causing massive resentment.
 
I think Trump fully gets it and his actions (targeting Islamic countries/his comments about Mexicans etc) rather suggest he is a racist as does his courting of far right (his comments around the Dixie flag etc).

On Khan bringing bringing people together and partnership working:


This was the type of strategic vehicle that Glasgow used and really wasn't difficult to find. So maybe Khan is just doing his job rather than going big on publicising things before anything has happened unlike previous London Mayors. The size of the task is a magnitude bigger as well (purely on an organisational basis) than Glasgow because of the size of the population and the breadth of separate organisations involved (as an example which doesn't even cover Education Authorities/no. of schools):

London has:

32 Councils
32 Clinical Commissioning Groups
34 NHS Trusts
3 Mental Health Authorities
2 NHS Community Trusts
The London Ambulance Service

Glasgow has:

One Council, 1 NHS Trust and the Scottish Ambulance Service.

So I refer you to the risks of Partnership working in the paragraph I quoted from the NAO NHS Report above as considering the organisations involved. Any successful outcomes will take time to come to fruition.

So Khan has taken leadership by starting the steps needed with the VRU and hopefully it becomes a success.
I think Trump is a contrarian who targets subject areas and principles over being firmly in one camp. He's uncouth, unremitting, but his opinion changes so much, when you compare him to alleged racists like Tommy Robinson, David Dixon, then he's a rich buffoon with a limited world knowledge. His lack of attention span is well known, he wants bullet points over detailed briefs. If he hated Muslims (for example), he'd have waded into Syria and Iran like Bolton and Pompeo want him to or dealt more harshly with the Saudi and Qatri regimes to reassert America's power and remove terrorism.

Further, if he was racist, he'd have deported the "Dreamers" and illegal immigrants in the US. He's done neither.

So perchance, a more complicated individual?

So why has it taken you to find it? Why isn't he pushing this each day his mug on TV? I'm sorry, as London Mayor, part of the job is co-ordinating and leading. If he can't do it in London, says little for his prospects of being PM.
 
So perchance, a more complicated individual?
Or maybe just a lazy rich boy. He's a racist, but hasn't got the motivation or capability to actually achieve any of the things he'd like to. He tried for the first couple of years and was surprised that he couldn't just push everything through that he wanted. Now he doesn't even bother. He's happy playing fantasy politics through twitter. The sooner he's moved out of the way for someone with a bit of vision and conviction the better. He's the US's equivalent of brexit - the thing that sits in the way of government actually doing some things that need to be done.
 
I think Trump is a contrarian who targets subject areas and principles over being firmly in one camp. He's uncouth, unremitting, but his opinion changes so much, when you compare him to alleged racists like Tommy Robinson, David Dixon, then he's a rich buffoon with a limited world knowledge. His lack of attention span is well known, he wants bullet points over detailed briefs. If he hated Muslims (for example), he'd have waded into Syria and Iran like Bolton and Pompeo want him to or dealt more harshly with the Saudi and Qatri regimes to reassert America's power and remove terrorism.

Further, if he was racist, he'd have deported the "Dreamers" and illegal immigrants in the US. He's done neither.

So perchance, a more complicated individual?

So why has it taken you to find it? Why isn't he pushing this each day his mug on TV? I'm sorry, as London Mayor, part of the job is co-ordinating and leading. If he can't do it in London, says little for his prospects of being PM.

We'll have to agree to disagree because Trump's actions and words are that of a racist.

So all you want is a bit of hot air on TV from a politician about knife crime then.

Maybe Khan isn't pushing this on TV each day as he is spending his time where it matters by leading the VRU. Unfortunately, there aren't simple, instant solutions for the knife problem, so how refreshing that a politician isn't spending his time doing soundbites on TV.

You suggested Khan hadn't done anything, well that was patently wrong so now he isn't being noisy enough about it?!
 
We'll have to agree to disagree because Trump's actions and words are that of a racist.

So all you want is a bit of hot air on TV from a politician about knife crime then.

Maybe Khan isn't pushing this on TV each day as he is spending his time where it matters by leading the VRU. Unfortunately, there aren't simple, instant solutions for the knife problem, so how refreshing that a politician isn't spending his time doing soundbites on TV.

You suggested Khan hadn't done anything, well that was patently wrong so now he isn't being noisy enough about it?!
I'd like him to lead and use the media time in the right way - sod Trump and his words and hiding from certain media outlets. It appeared he does nothing because all I see him do is slag off Trump, pontificate on Extinction Rebellion and find suitable media outlets to go on to vacillate on something like stop and search. How many other people look at think, what does he do all day? Where is the leadership? Why is he getting into a spat with Trump when kids are dying on the streets?

We all know there are no instant solutions to knife crime, but equally, wavering on stop and search and then effectively saying we can't do anything in the short term gives the wrong message and perception - if that was Johnson, you'd be all over him for that same thing right? He makes himself look useless and as I was told at one job, perception is reality.

So where you perceive things about Trump, I perceive them about Khan. I assume he's a nice chap, but a useless leader in a crisis and middling one day to day. He has a communication problem too.

BTW, did you hear Trump say all African American people looked the same?
 
I'd like him to lead and use the media time in the right way - sod Trump and his words and hiding from certain media outlets. It appeared he does nothing because all I see him do is slag off Trump, pontificate on Extinction Rebellion and find suitable media outlets to go on to vacillate on something like stop and search. How many other people look at think, what does he do all day? Where is the leadership? Why is he getting into a spat with Trump when kids are dying on the streets?

We all know there are no instant solutions to knife crime, but equally, wavering on stop and search and then effectively saying we can't do anything in the short term gives the wrong message and perception - if that was Johnson, you'd be all over him for that same thing right? He makes himself look useless and as I was told at one job, perception is reality.

So where you perceive things about Trump, I perceive them about Khan. I assume he's a nice chap, but a useless leader in a crisis and middling one day to day. He has a communication problem too.

BTW, did you hear Trump say all African American people looked the same?

If Johnson set up a VRU to solve the knife problem, I'd actually be happy as action is being taken rather than spouting soundbites in the media.

You accused Khan of doing nothing and Glasgow was mentioned, well he is doing something significant and appears to be following the Glasgow model.
 
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