Off Topic Great Britain General Election May 7th 2015.

I am looking at it from a historical point of view mate. That's all. I've worked in enough corporations over the years to know how this goes. The savings are grossly overestimated and the savings will impact the service.

Every new guy that comes in to oversee it gets his kudos by saving money not making the services great.

it is one of the most unimaginative things you can do, as in start slashing costs.

No 8 hour A&E wait for me, been in twice in the past 3 years, back home within an hour. Back home in Ireland, if your head is not hanging off, you wait 6 7 8 hours

 

Tobes m'lad, you couldn't be more right

 

All the other parties have said they can't even afford to throw the 8 billion at it. UKIP (3b) labour (2.5b), lib dems (2b). Unless I've misread the information?

 

To be fair mate the thought of UKIP running anything is just scary.

They (Tories and Labour) should stop buying bombs and bombing countries and then they can put 50 billion into the NHS and properly overhaul it.

Instead, aircraft carriers are being built ready to sail by 2020. Wonder how much that little project cost.

 

Sorry but I think your wrong. Getting rid of our nuclear capabilities completely would be foolish. I'm all for finding a cheaper alternative to trident but getting rid of our nuclear deterrent and/or cutting our armed forces isn't the answer.

 

Yes, all that work over the past few decades to lower nuke arsenals.. stupid right?

The only nukes on this planet that matter, are Russia's and America's. In case you don't get what I mean, in any nuke war those two will launch, and that is the end of the world. Literally. Both have enough nukes to wipe out every country on the planet.

There is NO situation where the UK will be the first to launch nukes and in a war of that kind between Russia and the US UK nukes won't make a lick of difference.

It is a pointless arsenal, deterrence? Any nation that threatened the UK with Nukes has NATO nukes to contend with.

In short, your nuclear arsenal is POINTLESS.

 

This is my take on the NHS:

The whole country loves it so no party can be seen to threaten its existence otherwise they are toast.

The nhs uses up >£100bn of public money so the wish from many that the nhs is taken out of politics (executives taking responsibility ) will never happen.

The conservatives see themselves as weak on the NHS so they overcompensate and fund more than the others include Labour. Labour on the other hand feel strong and feel free to fund less and to tinker without being accused of things like privatisation etc" we invented the nhs so how can anyone accuse us of such a thing"

The nhs is a huge public sector employer with a huge budget. Massive inefficiencies and wastage are inevitable. The fragmentation of the organisation will lead to more efficiency but to more disparity in care because the more autonomy and less centralisation lead to more variation in provision. Hence you'll find people complaining that in Yorkshire you'll get plastic surgery whereas in West Midlands it will be refused. With regionalisation and local autonomy comes different priorities and decision making.

The NHS will need continuous monitoring, improvement and ever increasing funding. We are still paying less as a nation than the us or Germany for example. So we are still in credit.

 

I disagree and no amount of you telling me they are pointless is going to change my view. Whilst a handful of nations have nukes, we should be one of them.

As for your first line about the reduction in numbers, I haven't said that's pointless at all. Why does everyone automatically assume that others sit at one end of a spectrum rather than somewhere in the middle.. I don't think we should get rid of our nukes, I do think we should look at cheaper alternatives to trident and I'm all for global nuclear disarmament treaties to lower the level of nuclear weapons in our world.

 

I agree with you that we need to keep them as there is just too much uncertainty in the world. I'm not sure that there are many better alternatives out there due to their ability to be undetected and so not taken out in a first round of strikes. They are primarily a deterrent not for first strike capability IMO.

 

I am not trying to change your view, stop being slightly belligerent.

I've studied enough about war to know your nuke arsenal is useless. As is almost every other nation's on earth bar 3 countries. It's a simple result of applying logic to how a strategic nuclear war would pan out.

what is sad is any nation thinking "ah well, our population may be wiped out but we'll also wipe out theirs too". Nothing but a weapon of spite.

As for your claim only a handful of nations have nukes, you don't know who has nukes.

We are meant to believe it is
Russia
UK
US
North korea
France
China
India
Pakistan


No one mentions Israel, they have hundreds. Israel may not be the only other nondisclosed nukes and the US has put nukes in countries without their own nuclear arsenal by locating ships and subs in those countries(making them targets). In short there are probably 20 nations or more with nuclear weapons within their borders either their own or someone elses. That's without even getting into "lost" nukes. There are nuke devices in private hands too, believe it.


The UK haivng nukes in a nuclear war is like having a box of matches whilst standing in a blazing house fire

 

I wouldn't let Farage mind my apartment for a weekend

 

I watched a depressing programme the other night about the NHS where the were some incredible predictions for how much obesity, smoking and drinking are going to cost us in the future.

A weapon of spite it may be, but if someone was to think about wiping out another country with nuclear weapons, then they may think twice about it if they know they would get some back, hence a deterent .

 

That unfortunately is a fallacy. Why, if anyone is mad enough to try wipe out 64 million people they would rightly be deemed insane yes? That disproves the "deterrent" reasoning because you are applying balanced reasoning to an insane decision making process.

The US was a **** hair away from launching nukes over Cuba, when not threatened with Nuclear attack.. an example of an insane decision making process that nearly consigned at least half a billion people to instant death with billions more dying thereafter.

Furthermore. In any conventional war a nuclear state is losing, will result in nukes being launched as a last resort to stave off total defeat. Even if the winning nation has no nukes.

If for example Russia and the US engaged in conventional war, with one side losing and looking at defeat, do you think they would not launch.

Nations that now seek nuclear weapons like North Korea do so in order to not be threatened by nuke states like the US. The US will not invade a nuclear power, and so those nukes sought are not a nuclear deterrent, they are an invasion deterrent.

Sooner or later, a nutcase will get in control of a nuke arsenal, it is inevitable. When that happens, having nukes won't save any nation

 

To be fair a nuclear deterent may mean that there is not a conventional war in the first place if it was between two nuclear nations. They may of course use proxies.

It certainly divides opinions and as you pointed out earlier there is a lot of support in the country for them.

 

The nukes are seen by many as deterrent. Yes, it would be crazy to use, wiping potentially millions of people at a stroke on both sides.

But as long as they are seen as a deterrent no one would want to get rid of them and find out what it is like to be a country without them when we have so many around the world with them: India Pakistan Middle East countries etc.

IMO Just does not make sense for the uk to get rid of them unilaterally. If everyone destroys all the nukes yes but that's not going to happen is it?

 

This is shaping up to be the best (excitement wise) election perhaps ever in the UK.

The two party duopoly seems in its deathknell.

The SNP have the power to crown Labour having eroded their Scottish power-base... UKIP will chip into Tory (but perhaps also Labour) numbers in previously 'safe' (hate that idea) constituencies... Whilst the country is finally waking up to the Green movement.

Certainly a Labour/SNP or Labour/Green or even Labour/SNP/Green would be best IMO. Coalitions work fine elsewhere, and are an idea we have to get used to in the UK, as Parliament becomes increasingly federal.

I'd like the next government to be ambitious enough to tackle the UK's constitutional and social issues

- The West Lothian question
- Devolution
- Maintaining the Human Rights Act (or expanding it) and maintaining ECHR membership
- Reform of media standards and ownership post-Leveson
- Maintaining EU membership (would be made easier by above point and could be legitimated by referendum)
- Curing growing societal inequality (foodbanks vs bailouts etc) + regaining public services.
- Structuring the UK military's spending towards defence, humanitarian aid + limited collaborative intervention; improving the UK's foreign aid and affairs to deliver basic humanitarian standards rather than neo-liberal reform.

I'd love to see some sort of federal, socialist UK in my life-time.

EDIT: Being in Northern Ireland I'll be voting Green and Alliance. Otherwise it's fundamentalists, sectarians and ex-terrorists.

Everyone better hope the DUP don't end up giving the Conservatives or Con/UKIP a majority by the way. You think English parties are bad, just wait

 

Sisu is bang on about the nuclear deterrent by the way.

The only 'realistic' chance of a nuclear bomb being used is by an insurgent group.

If I was in a national defence think-tank I'd be more concerned about two things:

1) Why does someone want to nuke us? Is it perhaps due to centuries of colonial intervention? What can we do to change things?
2) Can we disable the bombs before they reach us?

The days of conventional war are over for Western nations. It's all about proxies, technological warfare, drones and economic/cultural mainstreaming now.

 

Milliband??

Why do all the choices have such punchable faces? I would gladly twat each and every one of them. It could be my birthday present, just lock me in a room with the leaders of the parties, and the **** from number 11, just for a bonus. I would emerge with bloody stumps for hands, but very happy.

 

I don't know the best way to govern a country, but what we have, isn't it. The human being seems incapable to leading others for any period of time. Our democracy has inbred and deformed. The new political class are weak chinned untrustworthy and slimy. My MP was Ewen Blair's girlfriend, parachuted in from London, into a safe seat, as all the locals vote labour, as their dad's and generations before have always voted labour. She is being fast tracked for bigger things, and we are just a means to an ends, and we never hear from her or even hear of her until an election rolls around. She had nothing to do with the Hillsborough report, and everyone who has met her get creeped out, as "there is something weird about her".

But what system would be best? Dictatorship? Look at North Korea to see that, that **** doesn't work, talk about power corrupting.