Rank On

0 Comments | Herald, The; Glasgow (UK), Jul 30, 2010

promised in England, would leave other departments shouldering cuts of more than 20% by 2014 and the reports says alternatives to ring-fencing must be considered.

The NHS, with a budget of around pound(s)11.5bn, accounts for 30% of public spending in Scotland.

The authors say free or subsidised public services such as free personal care for the elderly or free eye tests have benefited a wide range of people including those who might have had the resources to pay for them.

Because of an ageing population, demand is likely to grow to unsustainable levels.

Free personal care currently costs pound(s)350 million a year; scrapping plans to fully abolish prescription charges would save pound(s)25m; while it’s estimated introducing fees for eye tests on the NHS could save between pound(s)46m and pound(s)93m over four years.

The report says the issue is “not one of desirability but of affordability” and suggests the selective introduction of means testing.

The report also says the Government should consider the possibility of introducing tuition fees at universities and colleges, or alternatives such as graduate contributions.

Swinney yesterday pledged to protect the policy of free personal care, saying that the Government “will preserve existing eligibility”.

He also offered the same guarantee for another flagship policy – concessionary travel.

Raising money through the sale of Scottish Water featured heavily in public submissions to the panel with strongly held views that it should not be privatised.

The report also called for a reduction in the “plethora” of public bodies and revising the role of the Scottish Futures Trust.

Labour spokesman Andy Kerr called on the Government to hold a debate on the report in the first week after the parliamentary recess.

Derek Brownlee, the Conservative finance spokesman, said: “This is a total vindication of everything we have said in the Parliament for years and a wake-up call to the other parties.”

Jeremy Purvis, for the Liberal Democrats, welcomed the report and “its clear call that the Scottish Government now needs to take seriously the task of shaping the choices it will make to reduce the budget”.

Trade union Unison branded the measures an assault on public services.

Scottish organiser Glyn Hawker said: “We should not be hitting ordinary people with cuts to services they rely on, with cuts to pay and jobs and family income when bankers still pick up huge bonuses and don’t pay their fair share towards services we all rely on.”

Grahame Smith, Scottish Trades Union Congress general secretary, said there is “little that is new or different” in the options set out.

John Dickie, head of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, said any cuts must take into account the impact on the worst off.

And the University College Union (UCU) hit out at the call to consider introducing tuition fees.

However, the report was praised as “bold and imaginative” by CBI Scotland assistant director David Lonsdale.

Scottish Building Federation chief executive Michael Levack also welcomed the report. “I am very pleased to see the report recognises the crucial role of capital expenditure in creating jobs and driving economic growth,” he said.

Taken in by China’s scamsters

0 Comments | DNA : Daily News & Analysis; Mumbai, Jun 19, 2010 | by Jain, Mimmy

I am beautiful. No, don’t look at the photo printed here. Really, I am beautiful. I was told so – more times during my 10-day stay in Beijing than I have ever been in all my 45 years. The comment usually preceded another one about my big eyes and then a congratulatory comment to my husband, who was “so lucky” to be married to me.

To be brutally honest, we fell for it on Day 1. The husband and I had landed in Beijing at an unearthly hour, woken up what felt like 10 minutes later to have breakfast, and then plunged straight into meetings. So, at sunset, when we strolled down from our hotel to see the flag being taken down at Tiananmen Square, we were not, to put it mildly, 100% there.

Several guides approached us with offers to take us on tours, take us for tea ceremonies, all of them warning us against

other similar offerings that were scams.

The husband, with his trademark disingenuous smile, was the perfect target. I had

to pull his elbow and hiss a no at our potential guides.

A young Chinese girl came up to us and said, “Excuse me, where are you from?”

“India,” we said. By that time, another girl and a boy had also come up to us.

“India? Beautiful country. You have Buddhists there?”

The disarming had begun. “Buddha was born in India,” I said proudly.

“Oh, you speak such beautiful English. We are Buddhists. We are students, we learn English. Maybe we can speak English with you and learn?” An earnest discussion ensued. They were from a small town in China, in Beijing for the first time. And they were so lucky to have met us. Maybe we could have dinner together?

The husband agreed immediately. I was not so sure, but mainly because they were rather noisy and I was still in jetlag mode. They took us to what looked like a little house, but turned out to be a restaurant, but with separate rooms instead of tables. Maybe this was what restaurants in China were like?

We went through a tea ceremony and then the menus came around. No prices on the menu. I dug the husband in the ribs. “Don’t worry,” he said benevolently. The students ordered dinner. It didn’t seem like an extravagant order, so I relaxed a bit. Finally, the bill came around – 2,250 yuan. More than $300!

That was when the husband had the first flash of common sense he’d had all evening. “So,” he said, “our share of this would 800 yuan?” The boy in the group said, “1,000 yuan.” So we paid up. As they walked us to the end of the street, the boy went off to use a public toilet facility.

Luckily, the bill had sobered us and we declined all offers for further interaction. Back at the hotel, I picked up my wad of Wikitravel notes, which I’d not had the time to read thus far. There it was – the tea ceremony scam, which we’d just witnessed close up. The bladder heavy boy had obviously run back to the “restaurant” for their share of the kill.

There was the young girl who said she could arrange a tour to the Great Wall,

but that’s not how she began. “You have a beautiful wife,” she told the husband. “You are here on honeymoon?” Show me one middle aged couple that could walk away from that. The slightly wiser husband quipped back, “Yes, here on honeymoon, but not my wife, my friend’s wife.” She looked dazed at that little bit of info, but brightened up when he proceeded to quiz her on Great Wall tours.

There were the two men who asked if they could click a photo with us as we sat at an open air cafe on Wanfujing Street. We complied happily, holding their hands and beaming at them. The coin dropped when they asked us for 50 yuan for the pleasure. We didn’t pay up.

When I finally signed up for a Great Wall tour, I went through the hotel where we were staying. The concierge warned me I would be taken to a shop, but there was no obligation to buy. Naturally, I bought a quilt. But it was silk, for god’s sake!

Beijing is full of scamsters – each one more ingenuous than the next
hotels in times square