On Hoy, yes there is a velodrome being built in Glasgow, but to all intents and purposes this is replacing the one Edinburgh City Council are demolishing. Need I mention that we have only one Olympic sized pool in this country.

I guess Hoy may be wanting to compete in certain events that he isnt getting the chance to. But if he isnt getting the chance to then why is that? My money would be on it being because whoever is selecting the competitors thinks someone else has a better chance of a win.

It doesnt really matter if he would have won if scotland was indy, since he did and it wasnt.

As for the colonial point, well there are at least 20 (i got bored counting) from what are de facto colonies. Like the Virgin Islands, both of them. Or special administrative areas like Hong Kong.

Other than your not liking Scots standing behind the Union flag…what exactly is the problem?

How many of those athletes would be getting this chance if they were still under colonial rule or whatever? Bearing in mind there are almost four times as many countries this time as there were the last time the Olympics were held in London.

Would Hoy have won his three golds last time round if Scotland was independent? Depends if Scotland had placed emphasis on cycling (and there’s every chance we may have tried to find the next Obree.) But even if not, he’d still have been able to compete. He’s not even getting to compete in the Individual Sprint this time around. Don’t forget, there’s a velodrome being built in Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games – we may see a whole new generation of Scottish cyclists, trained in Scotland rather than Manchester.

None of what Boyle celebrated has to be chucked into any dustbin of history. Most of it is in the past already, and what remains of the English NHS is very quickly being chucked in the bin anyway by the Tories and Lib Dems, thanks to the work done by New Labour before them. But to say that people who want Scottish independence can’t feel an emotional attachment to any of that is something I would disagree with wholeheartedly.

Scottish NHS Boards like non-FT English NHS Trusts don’t have a cap – they can earn as much private patient income as they like.

And it’s a cap on income, not “beds being reserved” – quite an important distinction since a very significant proportion of PPI has nothing to do with beds.

The cap can include income from associated charities (e.g. GOSH or the Sick Kid’s Friends Foundation), treating foreign patients where there is no bilateral agreement, using excess laundry capacity, income from joint ventures, and royalties for IP generated by research in the NHS.

That last one is a biggie – even here. After all, it’s more or less the raison d’etre for the Little France. University Medical Schools, Bioquarter, TMRI, SHIL…

And that’s not even mentioning the “private” income that isn’t included in the cap. Claiming the cost of treating road accident victims back from motor insurers, providing ambulances to private events for a fee, to name a few. And if receiving income from non-NHS bodies distracts NHS bodies from their NHS duties then we better close the Armed Forces centres too – we can’t have hospitals prioritising the Armed Forces over NHS patients can we?

As for “very limited use of private facilities to keep down waiting lists” that’s precisely how they started in England (well, not counting all those private services that have existed in all 4 National Health Services since Day 1 almost).

And if it’s acceptable to use private facilities to reduce waiting lists, why isn’t it also acceptable to use private facilities when they can improve patient care in other areas too?

Perhaps because politicians care more about waiting list promises than actual patient care. (just like they did in England).

Like I said, in political circles the NHS isn’t about clinical evidence and patient care; it’s about structure and politics. And that is the biggest threat to our Health.

If we had an English Parliament we wouldn’t have Foundation Hospitals or a University Tax.

The WLQ at work

Anyway whats wrong with private care in otherwise NHS hospitals? If someone wants to pay twice for medical care why is that a bad thing? It means more money in the healthcare buget over all.

If a hospital think it can raise money that way, and as such invest in facilities and staff that will also benefit other patients where is the problem?

Short of banning every hospital doctor in the UK from doing private work you cant get the private sector out of healthcare. And if you did i dont think you would like the standard of doctor that we would be left with.

Instead we get the utter stupidity of free prescriptions.

Surely we would have more athletes as an independent country – because Scottish athletes would be competing to qualify for team Scotland not team GB.

Look at it another way. Imagine British athletes competed as part of Team USA. Would there be as many British athletes competing in the Olympics as there are now?