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steve the skeptic @policyskeptic.bsky.social · 8h

More innovations like this would be welcome, especially compared to expensive cancer treatments that add merely months to life for narrow groups of patients and still cost a bomb.

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steve the skeptic @policyskeptic.bsky.social · 8h

Indeed, the problem with the current industry isn't high prices, it is poor value. Expensive cures like Sofosbuvir cost £35k per course but are cures for hepatitis C which save the NHS a ton of money over a patient's life...

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steve the skeptic @policyskeptic.bsky.social · 8h

Indeed. I've quoted it recently to demonstrate the absurdity of raising the QALY threshold since NICE already approves too many low value (high cost/QALY) interventions.

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steve the skeptic @policyskeptic.bsky.social · 16h

Unless, of course, the industry is making irrational investment decisions to blackmail the government into granting them higher profits. But they would never do that, would they?

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steve the skeptic @policyskeptic.bsky.social · 16h

Not a bad idea. Encourage the things we are good at like R&|D, trials and manufacturing.

The NHS is a small part of industry revenue/profit anyway so higher prices is the weakest way to encourage investment...

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Phil Jones' body double @philsbodydouble.bsky.social · 21h

Global Britian doesn't need people with an English degree!

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steve the skeptic @policyskeptic.bsky.social · 16h

BigPharma priorities are not NHS priorities or patient priorities. There is no justification at all for higher drug prices which don't translate into more, useful drugs, just even more monopolistic behaviour to push for higher profits.

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Daz @dazwright.com · 20h

Is that the same performing arts which is one of the UK's most productive industries?

Tim Worthington @outonbluesix.bsky.social · 21h

How is this repeatedly made into a policy issue - by *all* parties - when the blunt fact of the matter is that grown adults who are obliged to pay for their own education, and relentlessly pursued to repay their loans, should be able to study whatever the fuck they want.

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 20h

If you want to win over younger voters, telling them they can't go to university is probably not going to help.

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Giles Wilkes @gilesyb.bsky.social · 20h

The Conservatives' assault on what they see as worthless degrees sounds like an excellent answer to the question, if that question is "how can we possibly alienate young aspiring voters even more?"

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James O’Brien @mrjamesob.bsky.social · 21h

One significant - & dangerous - thing to watch for is professional commentators objecting to words rather than examining the evidence. It's pearl-clutching & cowardly, obviously, but also a deliberate attempt to avoid confronting exactly what they themselves are facilitating and often cheering on.

BBC Newsnight @bbcnewsnight.bsky.social · 1d

“You described Reform and other parties across Europe today as among the 'right wing equivalents of the fascists in the 1930s'. Why?”

“Because that’s what they are”

@vicderbyshire.bsky.social asks Lord Heseltine about remarks he made at Conservative Party Conference.

#Newsnight

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Steve Senior @stevensenior.bsky.social · 20h

Hot take: we should lower the £/QALY threshold, not increase it.

Jack Serle @jackserle.bsky.social · 20h

“There is a fixed budget and these are all trade-offs.” Evergreen statement on policy formulation.

This time from Lord Vallance on medicines pricing row between DHSC and HMT.
www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Billions more to be spent on medicine as Keir Starmer rips up rules

NHS chiefs and Treasury at loggerheads over who will pay pharmaceutical companies more money for the most up-to-date and effective medicines

www.thetimes.com

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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 1d

“.. On closer inspection, however, it turned out that the image was not a photograph of a real event in Portland, but instead a fabrication created by combining two photographs of scenes that unfolded in South America nearly a decade apart ..”

@theguardian.com
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

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steve the skeptic @policyskeptic.bsky.social · 1d

no. It is the anniversary of the murder of a load of innocent Israeli civilians.

Israeli actions are unjustified by what Hamas did, but failing to admit what Hamas did is pure biased disinformation.

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Stansaid Airport @stansaidairport.bsky.social · 1d

This has just arrived for Kev in Air Traffic. It's a very unusual gift for his girlfriend's birthday, but he's adamant it's what she wants. He checked her search history and he says it's what she googles the most.

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 1d

The UAE is an authoritarian autocracy, a petro-state with no income tax for citizens, to bribe them for the lack of democratic voice or free speech

It is 85% migrant, a segregated society with a ban on integration in principle and practice, few rights, equal opportunities, nor voice for incomers

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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 1d

“Who was president in 2020?” is the question of our time

Senator Jim Banks V
@SenatorBanks
Follow g..
The 2020 Census was a fraud. The Biden admin used a shady "privacy" formula that scrambled the data and miscounted 14 states.
It included illegal immigrants and handed
Democrats extra seats. Americans deserve a fair count and l'm fighting to fix it.
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MASHNORON DEYNN
October 6, 2025
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Socretary
U.S. Department of Commerce Washington, DXC 20230
Dear Secretary Lutaick:
I urge you to investigate and correct erroes from the 2020 Census that handed disproportionntd political power to Democrats and illogal alicns. The Census Burcau adoptod a now and opaque
voting districts. As preparod by the Biden administration, the 2020 Censas roports miscountod the population of fourteen states, ' wrongly allocating six congressional scats aod Electoral
xx conwuu tmora uy, toc taroro tu mot đoo tnn Cunu lc pung t imber of votine districts. And the reoorts de aniovety inchaded ilecnl nhens widhout track those aliens' citiz enship status, If left uncorrected, these erroes will coetinue diluting the political power of American citizens.
Consus data plays a crucial role in allocating political roprescntation and goverment funding
Under the Constitution, cach state gets Congressional represcotutives and Electoeal College votes- based on "the whole number of persons" within the state." The number of persoes is in
tum clabaabod by a consttubocalty-mandalcd dcccacaal ccavas. Pcual agcco nely on census data to allocate billions of dollars in federal funding, much of which hinges ee opulation. And states use consus data to deaw congrossicnal and voting districts, »hich the
The it eiy of tie soaren alie n tor dur at ce hor inc ae oam toy ee n
nght wilbout statsica ly signilicant ciroo.
Diffcrcntial privacy is opaque and liable to mistakcn count totals. Sure cnough, the 2020 Ccnsus ovarocunted the noculation in cicht states and undercounted it in six." Tihe most extrcmi andercount was Arkansas, at 5.04%, and the larg…

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The Secret Barrister @barristersecret.bsky.social · 1d

This is a lie.

There are many criticisms you might sensibly and truthfully make of the Sentencing Council and the Sentencing Guidelines. I’ve been making them for years.

But this is an outright lie. Pure fabrication. A fraud on the public.

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 1d

Party donor Nick Candy says "I cherish the values we grew up with here in the West. But today you are more likely to find the values we grew up with in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.’

Via Sam Leith in the Spectator
www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-...

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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 1d

I know statistics are poorly understood and are misused. But facts matter

Between the 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2021 Census *every* ethnic group in the UK has become *less* geographically segregated and *all* groups, majority and minorities, are more likely to interact with people not like them

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pissed-off-g.bsky.social @pissed-off-g.bsky.social · 3d

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Steve Senior @stevensenior.bsky.social · 2d

Yeah, something comparing different offers might be helpful.

I think my issue with this is not that exercise doesn't help, it's that the bias makes the effect look bigger than it is. And that leads to over optimistic estimates of how much the NHS could 'save'.