Rowlands Focus on Life Today: Health Visitor Costs

Rowlands Focus on Life Today: Health Visitor Costs: Now we are told that it will save £500M if we charge non EU for health services Why, I ask, has it taken so long for this to be dealt with?...

Health Visitor Costs

Now we are told that it will save £500M if we charge non EU for health services Why, I ask, has it taken so long for this to be dealt with? Does no one in government worry about spending our money? Or where they afraid to stand on the toes of the NHS management! Many think that the NHS [and other government bodies] is run for the sole benefit of the workers and not us the ‘customers’ I am a great supporter of the NHS: well I would be at my age!! But does it mean that over the last decade £5 BILLION has been lost to NHS services because no one bothered to charge visitors for our health services! Easy to blame the politicians but the blame lies with NHS management for allowing it to happen in the first place Why should we heal the world, other countries do not heal us when we visit them!

Romanians who come to UK

Times today displays interviews with 5 Romanians who plan to come to UK. All looking for opportunity, not benefits. They want to come because we are a great country to live in and they know that there are jobs for them. These type of people contribute to the economic wellbeing of us locals and without them UK would probably grind to a halt The issue is not ‘immigration’ it is bad administration of our welfare and health services Jobs for the Romanians are available for two reasons: first because our locals won’t work at those jobs. Second because our economy needs appropriately qualified workers so that it can grow which our education system does not seem able to produce! Making our locals take up available jobs is easy; don’t work then no money Welfare benefits are for those who ‘cannot’ work not those who won’t If there are no jobs for Romanians they won’t come or very few and if we had a sensible welfare system even these would stay away!

Liverpool Top at Xmas

Wow! it's been a long time since my home City has been top of the Premier: is this a new beginning? Strange but just as Man U start to fall away Liverpool takes over. This will certainly annoy the southern clubs!! Keep scoring goals and we are in with a chance!

Bulgarian & Romanian immigrants

So the Bulgarians and Romanians immigrants are coming! Good or Bad? Most of the comments I hear are: send the Bulgarians and Romanians back, too many already! But the fact is that UK as, we now know it, cannot exist without them as our young and middle aged locals will not do the jobs at the same rate of pay as the immigrants A life on the minimum wage to many of them is a good life compared to where they come from and what they are used to The stats show conclusively that the % who exploit our over generous benefits is very low. Most after all come to UK to better themselves and their family. Work hard to make a new life and make sure that their children exploit our education system to the maximum so that they can move up in life But our age group seems to ignore this when expressing their opinion. Now I live in an area where the influx of Bulgarians and Romanians has little impact but the debate and anti- immigration attitude is still very strong Are we really harping back to the good old days when England was England and everyone knew their place in life. Well the old days were not good for the majority, when I left University in 1965 most of the house in Liverpool lacked basic facilities! Perhaps it is not the benefit culture that attracts all the Bulgarians and Romanians but the relative high minimum wage and all the vacant jobs which gives them the opportunity to make money out of by working hard It seems to me that everyone want to come to UK because deficit or not, social problems or not, we still appear to many in the EU, Bulgarians and Romanians and the World to be the best place to live especially if you want to improve yourself and your family Now we can deal with this by making our country less attractive but that may have consequences for all us existing citizens! Clearly for political purposes the benefit situation has to be resolved and that applies across the EU-perhaps for a given period new Bulgarians and Romanians should only be able to receive benefits equal to what they would receive in their home country And any benefits we pay straight away to new arrivals should be reimbursed by the Home Country and/or EU The complaint that immigrants place an onerous burden on local services has to be put in perspective: the majority of Bulgarians and Romanians will work here and pay NI and taxes so contribute to our economy and enable it to function Whereas the locals who will not or are not persuaded by indirect means, to do these job filled by immigrants do not contribute: just enjoy our over luxurious benefit system and local service Nobody complains about the costs if a school is full of children from benefit families but they do if it is full of immigrant children the majority from working families! We are all at fault I know, because we did not complain at the right time but it is amazing that this benefit culture was allowed to get out of hand so that jobs have to be filled by Bulgarians and Romanians So we need and will continue to need as our economy grows immigrants of all types and we may as well accept that situation and concentrate on the important and difficult task of integrating them into our society and culture And that is an English society and culture. So for starters the language is English and we only provide for other languages when absolutely essential We are a Christian society and allow all other religions to live in peace unfettered by restrictions of worship but we do not alter our society to be multi religious. We respect their beliefs but do not allow them to change our society Welcome economic immigrants but they must embrace our culture not change it

Focus of Life and News-the generation born in 40's & 50's

Starting 2014 with a new Blog about the Focus of Life and News of my generation born in the 40'and 50'S. Why? Because, we are not fully represented by the political leaders of the day, whilst we are a growing social group in today's society. We are diverse and naturally all have different views. My views are dictated by my history and social group. Some would describe me as middle class and privileged which is probably correct but my views are I think pragmatic and reflect my experience. I have like many of my generation lived through massive changes in the living conditions in the country and I hold the view that the young generation today have the prospects of having a great life, provided they take up all the opportunities open to them. Better opportunities than at any time in the history of this country! Many of my generation do not agree with this and perhaps this will be a topic for expression by anyone who reads this blog Another main topic is that our generation are ignored. We are treated as old when we are not and whilst public expenditure seems to be freely available, even in these difficult financial times, to those who want to exploit the benefits system and to illegal immigrants, money seem to be no object! Whether because we have EU responsibilities or the politicians refuse to face up to the reality that the ‘Nanny State’ is old hat How often do you hear the words ‘ money is handed out to everyone except us ‘ who have worked hard all our lives, paid our taxes and now find as we reach a mature age and approach the first time for many that a ‘little bit of state help’ is needed, you find that it is not forthcoming! The subject: Old Age Care Costs The purpose of the first Blog is just to get started and from now on I shall express my opinions on Current Topics each week as and when they arise I think that on some you may think me Right Wing, sometimes Left Wing or not enough of each But remember that as a conservative I supported Ted Heath whose policies, retrospectively, where more left wing than today’s Labour Party! And Churchill’s views that ‘ we provide a ladder for people to climb up, but do not hold their hands all the way up’ [not exactly his words, just my version!]