What on earth is a British accent?

We've seen in the press over the last few days reports of a survey which states that around the world a 'British' accent is considered the 'most dateable' and the sexiest.

But what on earth is a British accent? I am English - I don't talk with any element of a Scottish, Welsh, or Northern Irish accent. I have never heard anyone speak where I could identify accents from all of these together. We all speak English in our own ways, and sound different from each other, sometimes not much but different nevertheless, and where there is no trace of an accent, it has to be said the language is truthfully English english, and others will not wish to own it. What do the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish people think of the report?

For me the difficulty here with the authors is that for politically correct reasons they have probably said British because they dare not say English, because there would be an outcry from everywhere else, or maybe they do not understand the country. It is a common phenomenon.

Maybe they could explain, but I venture that is what they mean because overwhelmingly the people of the rest of the world hear English english more than any other.

Some change in the NHS

Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Health has an enormous task on his hands in England to bring about change in the NHS. We have seen how a state bureaucracy can fall to the grotesque and criminal when left untouched, and where dishonesty is rife with individuals being bullied and threatened.  I hope he can rely on the full support of Prime Minister Cameron.

Yesterday in a TV interview a doctors' receptionist described mornings at her general practise surgery - 'the phone never stops ringing and reception is full of patients - it's terrible', she said. She went on to say that she was the 'barrier' between the patients and the doctors. When appointment slots are filled 'what can I do'?

The discussion was about the '8 o'clock rush' which leaves patients angry and receptionists frustrated, and a training programme was being promoted for receptionists on how to handle these emotions. This was not a pretty sight, seeing a person set in her ways with no way out, except councelling.

I suggest a remedy - I hope this does happen in some places already - to alleviate the early morning desperate rush to get an appointment, and that is for doctors to collectively man the phones for their practises for the first hour or so, and maybe again later in the day, making appointments for each other for the urgent and important cases; ‘reception’ can then be asked to ring other patients back for future dates, maybe on some coded priority system.

It may take a while to bed in, but they can responsibly prioritise and reassurance with authority can be given to patients who may need nothing more than this. It will take pressure off receptionists who are probably being expected to do too much.

I would like to think that in time many of the problems currently experienced by the practices over demands for their services, and the worries and anger of patients will eventually diminish considerably.

Tax evasion and tax avoidance

There is something unsavoury, if not malevolent, about using tax evasion and tax avoidance in the same sentence, as if they were one and the same, as Prime Minister Cameron did in Prime Minister's Questions today in the House of Commons.

Miliband, leader of the Opposition Labour party also referred to avoidance as if it were illegal.

You would expect this from Miliband, who is generally seen to be a Marxist and class warrior, but Cameron and Osborne jumped on this populist bandwagon of 'cracking down' on avoidance some time ago because they thought - if they did in fact think about it at all - that it might bring some voter support their way. Another example of Cameron's irresponsibility.

It appeals to the envious and stokes social division, and it may well be that it will be coming back to bite them, and the Tories as a whole. Ironically the whipped up 'scandal', about who had accounts at Swiss banks - another thing which is perfectly legal - covers a period well before the present government was elected in 2010, and when the Labour party was in power, and with its leader Miliband as a Minister.

The questions from the Labour opposition nearly all referred to avoidance, not evasion, forcing Cameron to attempt to clarify, being in something of a fix, but most people won't notice and probably now see no difference between the two and won't give any thought to the facts.

Buggin's Turn

A not much used phrase now, once used to describe the right to promotion of a long-serving employee say, merely because he or she had been waiting a long time. It was subject to criticism, often hypocritically by the liberal Left, who complained it excluded those allegedly better qualified, either from elsewhere, or younger.

It is interesting to read then, that the concept is being resurrected in a new guise by Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who also chairs an important Parliamentary Select Committee, who has decided that 'it is time for London to have a non-white mayor'. I won't go into which racial profile she thinks would be best among the mixed origins of people who now live in London; she has deviously ducked this problem by saying 'non-white'. If it is important to her, she should explain.

She thus attempts to display her ever-so liberal and patronising values by defining people by their colour only, that is as long as it's not white, on the basis that it's 'their turn'.

Wages and Employment

Prime Minster David Cameron has urged private sector employers to pay higher wages because the oil price is down and inflation is low. Thus they are much better off and 'Britain should have a pay rise'. He also wants the minimum wage to rise to £8.00 per hour, the same figure favoured by the leader of the Labour party.

If Cameron was a genuine believer in the free market he would be campaigning for the abolition of the minimum wage, not wishing it to become even more embedded. Abolition is more likely to raise wage rates more quickly than state intervention. It is an excuse for lazy employers, and unions for that matter, to keep the market under control, and to give them an easy life into the bargain.

A freer market in the workplace both in wages and freedom of contract of employment would not only give much-needed flexibility and more freedom for the individual but render many of the doubtful practices used to get round it  un-necessary.