I personally don’t feel that capital punishment is the answer:

• In some cases people are wrongly convicted, if they are executed there is no way to put it right.
• Isn’t ending someone’s life essentially making you as bad as the person who committed the crime in the first place?
• There is also the fact that if you end that person’s life they don’t have to live with what they have done
• Most executions are done publicly which to me seems like a barbaric spectators sport.

I think this is going to be one of those topics that is never going to be resolved one way or the other.

Overall I have to confess that I prefer Love Film to sky movies because I think that it is better value for money and you choose the titles it is really simple and would definitely recommend it, there are hundreds of promotional packages available so you can try it for FREE! The initial trial I took out was 30 days free and £15 Amazon voucher.

Have only had to contact the customer service team once as there had been an error in the postal address so the 1st 2 discs were sent to my next door neighbour instead. I spent less than 5 minutes on hold and the woman who answered the phone was both friendly and efficient and the problem was resolved instantly, I was also offered and extra 14 days free by way of an apology. Unlike where we have had to contact Sky and spent a long time on hold and then to be told that it will cost you to have an engineer out or that it can take up to 28 days for them to resolve an issue.

Ideally all members of the group should share the same ideas and goals. However in reality often the goals are shared within the team but the ideas about how to achieve that sometimes differ. This can be a good thing as long as there is good clear communication and the ability to compromise in order to get things done.

The team dynamic usually consists of degree of hierarchy, where each person is assigned a role. In a medical setting you can see this within individual departments which are smaller teams within a larger team, that is the hospital, which is a smaller team with a particular trust and so on until you get to the largest team of all the NHS.

Now we’ve all seen the stories on the news about the NHS failing, this is because their are parts of this team that are not working effectively. If you think about it logically each department is essentially a business if it does not work effectively then it loses customers this can then impact on the hospital as a whole because if you have a bad experience in one department then you are not likely to go back or at the very least reluctant to go to the hospital where you had the bad experience fearing that if you do the same thing may happen again.

There are a number of options that can be applied to rectify the situation:

• Change the Team
• Alter the hierarchy
• Take Courses in team management and effectiveness

If you decided to take the 3rd option then your next question is who/where can i find these courses. Well there is a company called Medicology Ltd. This company offers a diverse range of tools to help you make your team the best it can be.

RBS reportedly wants to pay a total of £1.5bn in bonuses to investment banking staff, and the board has threatened to quit if the government blocks the move. The Treasury said it would intervene if it was in the interest of taxpayers.

Meanwhile, Barclays is planning on increasing the non-variable element of staff pay at Barclays Capital, its investment bank, the BBC’s business editor Robert Peston says. The Government is caught between a rock and a hard place. Many voters cannot understand why taxpayer supported banks should pay their staff any extra bonuses.

In January the Chancellor will have to approve the bonus pot at RBS. Any increase could generate a backlash against the government. But the City doesn’t like what’s seen as interference in the boardroom. Looks like this will run and run. Barclays maintains that by pushing up salaries, it is only doing what G20 governments have asked it to do, by shifting the weight of pay from the variable portion – ie bonuses – to fixed.

Lord Myners has estimated that at least 5,000 bankers in the UK will earn more than £1m this year. He told the BBC that the median wage in the UK was just over £20,000 a year, and yet some bankers expected as a matter of course to receive bonuses, in addition to their salaries, of millions of pounds.

He also said banks needed to be mindful of the fact that much of the profit they were now making was due to “the benign conditions” created by the government pumping billions of pounds into the economy to stimulate demand. RBS directors say it is their legal duty to act in the interests of shareholders, and that if they do not pay competitive bonuses, top talent will leave the bank.

This would have an adverse impact on profitability, and therefore the bank’s ability to repay the taxpayer, they argue. Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said: “I understand the point that RBS directors are expressing – they say they have to remain competitive in the market in recruiting senior executives, and this is why it’s important that all the banks are equally restrained, and RBS is not singled out.”

The Conservatives said the government was sending out mixed messages. Shadow financial secretary Mark Hoban said: “The government’s policy on bonuses is a muddle. The city minister claims he will veto big bonuses only to be superseded by the business secretary calling for banks merely to show restraint.

“We have been clear – no significant cash bonuses should be paid out this year and that money should go towards increasing lending to the families and businesses who propped up the banks in the first place.”
Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said the government should “call the bluff” of the RBS directors and accept their resignations. “The government has to impose itself and must not be pushed around,” he told the BBC. One banking analyst went a step further, suggesting the directors should be sacked. “Their job is very simple – to fulfil the requirements of the shareholders. If we tell them to paint everything blue, everything has to be blue,” said Ralph Silva at SRN. “They should not be going up against shareholders. I think we should fire them [before they resign].”

But he also argued that the government would be making a mistake if it told the bank not to pay bonuses. The best bankers who brought in the most profit would leave, he said, and for this reason he thought the bonuses would be paid. But others took a more sympathetic line with the RBS directors. Stephen Regan at the Cranfield School of Management said that shareholders could not call the shots and only had the power to call an extraordinary general meeting, at which they could vote on whether to oust the board.

“Ownership is with the shareholders, but control of the business is with the directors,” he said. The government owns 70% of RBS after bailing out the bank during the height of the financial crisis, a stake that is set to rise to 84% following the Treasury’s recent pledge to inject billions more into the bank.

Last month, Chancellor Alistair Darling announced that the Treasury, as the major shareholder in the bank, would have the “right to consent” to how much RBS pays in bonuses and how they are paid. RBS is said to want to pay £2bn in bonuses across the group for its performance in 2009, with £1.5bn going to its investment banking division, which is expected to make £6bn in profits this year.

Head of financial services consulting at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Andrew Gray says: “For the first time since June 2007, banks are experiencing an upswing in confidence, confidence is, in part, offset by concerns of further impairments and the impact of ‘tougher’ regulation.”

The UK’s five largest banks recently accepted curbs on bonuses agreed by G20 leaders at the recent Pittsburgh summit, and stronger rules on overall banking are likely to follow. Building societies were feeling downbeat about their prospects, partly because of difficulties with funding. However the satabilisation in the housing market did cause some cautious cheer.

It would seem that the main institutions are looking positive but for the average person, there is still a long way to go. It is hoped that a valuable lesson has been learnt from this financial crisis, and that is to only borrow what you can afford and for financial providers to only lend what they can afford and not to go mad in order to line some beurocrat’s pocket.

The aim is to fast track new medicines that could be blocked by NICE on the basis of cost and effectiveness. A former drug company boss, Lord Drayson, has been given the task of promoting life sciences as potential big earners for Britain with the backing of Lord Mandelson, who sees pharmaceuticals as key to the revival of the UK economy.Reports suggest that Lord Drayson favours a system where NICE would appraise the drug after 3 years in the hope that the company would have made substantial profits and so may be willing to drop the price.

Based on the evidence, if Lord Drayson is successful we could see pharmaceutical companies rushing drug after drug in quick succession without them being thoroughly tested. Another big concern is that the prices of these drugs will have very little regulation, these costs are likely to be passed on to patients by taxes being raised which would make them experience even more financial hardship. So the theory that they could be the revival of the UK economy is flawed. Granted they may make more money but that doesn’t really help the general public.

Maternity Leave also known as Statutory Maternity Pay can be paid for up to thirty nine weeks after the birth of the baby. As a working parent a mother is entitled to maternity leave and statutory maternity pay if she has been in constant employment with the same company or organisation for twenty six weeks prior to the fifteenth week of her pregnancy.

In the last few years the legislation controlling the rights of fathers has changed to ensure that fathers can have paid leave to spend with their children after they are born. This is referred to as paternity leave and is paid at the same rates as maternity pay although only for one to two weeks. A father can spend one to two weeks at home with his newborn child if he is the child’s biological father or married to the child’s mother.

Although adoptive leave is right of any parent it is not always paid for and will only be paid for if there are already arrangements and agreements in place with your employer. As with maternity and paternity leave you must be employed by your current employer for twenty six weeks prior to becoming the child’s adoptive parent. An adoptive parent is entitled to up to thirty nine weeks leave which is paid at a flat rate known as Statutory Adoptive Pay. In order to qualify for adoptive leave you must notify your employer well in advance that you are being matched to a child for adoption. This allows them to make the necessary arrangements but also if their terms and conditions state you are entitled to Statutory Adoptive Pay.

In addition to these laws if you are entitled to Working Tax Credits you can claim up to 80% of the childcare costs providing that your childcare provider is registered (most nurseries, playgroups and after school clubs are registered) if you are unsure if your daycare provider is registered just ask them.
All of the aforementioned rights are afforded to working parents in the United Kingdom and if you are an expectant mother or proud father-to-be then you should investigate the terms and conditions of your employment and enquire as to whether or not these working rights are supported by your employer.

If however you are not sure then you should contact your local Citizen’s Advice Bureau who will be able to help you find out what you are entitled to and will also be able to help with understanding the terms and conditions of your contract of employment.

Your local office of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) will also be able to assist you with advice on benefits and additional monies for low income families.

As well as the falling energy prices, the reduction in VAT from 17.5% to 15%, announced in the pre-Budget report in November, also had an effect. A zero or negative RPI could result in the extraordinary occurrence of average pay increases also falling towards zero with the current strain on government finances some are calling for a freeze on public sector pay.

The decline in CPI wasn’t expected – the consensus forecast among analysts had been for an annual rate of 2.7%. the decline in energy bills were slightly offset by rises in the price of household equipment, such as furniture, and alcohol, clothing and footwear. the smaller than expected drop was also due in part to a reluctance by retailers to slash prices further after heavy discounting in December. One of the reasons why the Bank of England delayed cutting interest rates last year was concern over inflationary pressures in the economy; the bank has already cut interest rates to 1% in an attempt to stimulate the economy. They believe that CPI inflation will drop to 0.5% this year and will remain below its 2% target for two years.

Some workers will go to extreme lengths to convince their boss that their are indispensable:

• An attorney, who wanted the boss to think he was working late into the night, brought an oscillating fan to his office so that it would produce movement and the lights wouldn’t dim when he left his office.
• A sales associate refolds clothes even though they are folded perfectly already.
• A worker in the financial industry scatters papers on his desk.
• An advertising executive is busy but not at the advertising business. While at the office, he is designing toys for the baby he is expecting. His computer is facing toward the window in his office building so no one can see what he has on his computer screen.

In some cases spend their time with busywork because they have no real work to do. A professor argued that busywork probably does more for the individual’s psyche than for the company’s productivity. Some claim that busywork may have an individual value for the person who is doing it because it’s difficult going into work and having nothing to do, particularly if the person is used to having a substantial workload.

Basically if you are not productive the company will cease to exist as it is highly likely that you are not the only one doing busywork instead of work that is productive thus beneficial both to you and the company.

Small UK firms are struggling to get the loans they need to grow or even survive. A lack of funds means that banks are being more selective over who they lend money to, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) says: “Those who could get loans now faced paying interest rates in excess of 10%.”

Matthew Knowles claims that: “one of the reasons Banks often see small businesses as more of a risk. The issue is that the banks are being more choosy over who they lend money to until they ride out the storm.”"The reason that banks tend to see small businesses as more of a risk – and because they aren’t able to tick all the boxes which the banks set out, they struggle to borrow.”

The credit crunch has followed woes in the US sub-prime mortgage sector, which specialises in loans to people with poor credit histories or on low incomes. Rising interest rates have led to record levels of loan defaults and home repossessions – and that has sparked fears about which lenders might be exposed to the bad debts.