Off Topic Politics Thread

Do you think it is any surprise Leavers won't listen anymore? The last 3 years they have been called all number of names under the sun, been depicted as fascists, idiots and told that they will be dead soon and good riddance.....................and now people want to talk. lol. Roll on Halloween.

 

So we are in agreement other than the figures don't really tell the story seeing as IF<--------per capita, the same service was provided to Brits as in say.........Germany then if 93% of our treatment was provided by the NHS and 7% was provided by private then you would expect the total to be less than a country where the state was a smaller percentage and private was higher. Of course that would also crudely assume that all costs including salaries were equalised between the countries as well.

The reality is that the above could be as simple as saying "Look it cost more so it was better" which ends up being like thinking your item is better than your mate's because you got charged more for it.

 

No, they're just going to leave. They'll find a cheaper cost alternative either through automation or some third world country. Which is good, though people are too stupid to realize it. Either that, or things will get bad enough for British citizens that they will be willing to work for the same price. Which is really bad, but the right has people convinced it's actually good.

It's low-skilled labor. The pool of workers is the entire world. British citizens or British migrants are a tiny proportion of the market, and have no power to dictate anything.

The nationalist strategy that Trump and the UK right are pursuing is laughably stupid. No one wants to be a low-skilled labor economy. That's the lowest denominator. Literally anyone can do those jobs so you are at the mercy of every other country who wants to compete. And the only way to win that competition is to via pricing, so it's a race to see who can pay the workers the least.

China, Korea, Taiwan, and other countries that used to be cheap supplier economies are working their asses off to become the sellers and not the makers. Do you want to have the factories that pay workers barely enough to live with 60 hour workdays so they throw themselves off the factory roof? Or do you want to be Apple, who pays $50 per iPhone and then sells them for $1k to a population that can afford $1k iPhones because they don't have to work at Foxconn?

If your answer is "I want the ****ty factories! I want them so bad that I will pay Foxconn $4.5 billion to come to US and build a factory!" then you are Donald Trump and you're an idiot. If your answer is "I want the ****ty factories! I want them so bad that I will withdraw from the EU so we can build ****ty factories and sell goods to the US even though for some unfathomable reason they also want to build ****ty factories so they don't have to buy from others" then you are Farage and you are even stupider than an idiot.

Migrants come to your country and do the jobs that no one else will do because those jobs we disdain is still a hundred times better than what they have going on in their own country. And then we complain it's unfair. And it is. It's massively, ridiculously, immorally unfair IN OUR FAVOR. But no, it's like "How come those countries get all the sweat shops? It's not fair. How come they get to be the slaves and we have to be the masters? It's a lot of responsibility and work being the slavemaster. Watch us turn our economy to **** and then we'll see who can have the most sweatshops and who are the better slaves!"

 

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Laughable considering the model used for the past 2 decades has been based on this exact strategy. Yes there are more high skilled jobs but the whole exercise has been to turn it into low paid jobs servicing the group above. "Who's going to serve me my sandwiches at Pret after Brexit."

Maybe you are so isolated from reality that you can;t see this happening (happened a long time ago) around you?

We already have them. And those that we don't we don't need. You're all buying direct from China now. Maybe you don't know it. The chit that used to come from those sh***y factories in China into Argos and B&Q now comes straight to you from Amazon and ebay (or other site that may say "UK Stock.") The only factories we will all be left with are the ones producing consumables, foods and other crap. Those factories never left, they are still here and yes we do want them because there aren't many other jobs around.

Virtually everything you buy is made in China and supplied from China, even if it comes straight off a container into a UK warehouse and from there to your door. When I said "I am now working for the enemy" that is what I do. Unload containers straight into a (Chinese owned) warehouse (mega warehouse) and then it goes out to you from there. Health and Safety? chuckle. Lifting up to 60kg items single handedly. Warehouse a tip. Complain to who? Do I want a job or not! Worker's rights? See the previous answer. This argument that keeps coming up from folks is ridiculous. Maybe I should complain, be a whistleblower, Do all my fellow workers a favour and put them out of work too? We're all getting free muscle enlargement for our minimum wage It isn't just crap anymore. If you do up your garden, looking for good prices all that stuff comes from China. Kid's trampolines (big business) from China. Your nice towel radiators or "old style" cast iron radiators, from China. Those posh awnings advertised on the TV? From China. The wood stoves that are so popular among the metros? China. Motorbike helmets, locks, TV brackets........China.

UK Stock? Just means the Chinese ship it to a a Chinese holding house or houses (that in total dwarf that amazon showpiece) and then direct to your door, same day if you want at a top price.

And to think for all the talk of leavers being stupid and not seeing reality it is those who are cushioned from what actually goes on that do not realise that down near the bottom that shiny automated Amazon warehouse with all the health and safety in place, rights abided by etc etc is the example shown on TV ignoring that is nothing like what actually goes on.

Amazon is the platform loved by the metropolitan that rubbishes ebay. They are both the same thing now. AliExpress with a western facia. Who cares? We get to reduce our carbon footprint. Get that same product for half the Argos price direct from factory and then complain about China's carbon output instead

The whole argument from the left about "protecting worker's rights" ignores that the past 20 years has seen them disappear (out of necessity if you want a job) while the left continued to brag about how they secured more and more rights. Rights that only the upper tier can expect. That is why the working class have abandoned the left. Because it is now the movement that promotes itself as for the workers yet cannot see below their parapets to the bottom half and believes its own self praise while lambasting the right for wanting to abandon worker's rights. What rights are there left to abandon for most of us? They've already gone if we want a job. They are trying to protect the rights that only they have.

I worked 62 hours last week. 58 the week before (see the pattern here) for £8.21 an hour, in the UK, with unpaid breaks, often lifting stuff that most folks wouldn't be able to move a yard left lift. I guess I could have stayed at home instead, eh? Ask the question again?

Enjoy your iphone and ignore the carbon outputted from the far East.

 

Imps, you've been mugged off. You and thousands like you are in insecure, low paid employment as a direct result of the economic policy of the Convservatives you voted for.

Now after decades of anti Trade Union legislation has left you with no one to defend you in the workplace, now that you are paying through the nose for poorly managed utilities whilst lining the pockets of shareholders, now that there are no council homes available for your kids to rent when they leave home, now that the NHS in on it's arse, you blame, not the right wing politics that has impoverished you, but instead you have fallen for the oldest con in the ruling classes' handbook - you blame immigrants. Can't believe you've fallen for that one.

 

There's a lot of different ways to pay for healthcare. For example as I understand it in America, their public funding pays for insurance that pays private companies to provide private companies to provide healthcare? (When I did my research on this I looked up charts for various countries on where the money comes from and goes and for USA it was a mess. Not claiming to have a good understanding)
But they don't have a universal healthcare system. Other countries have a mix. So I'm not claiming cost alone tells the who story as countries have different systems.
Also iirc first world countries seems to have pretty similar stats when it comes to key metrics like preventable cancer deaths etc(except Japan which seems to have a few anomalously good results)

What I am claiming is that per person our cost is low compared to others and if we are willing to put more into the NHS then we could get a better service. For example train more doctors and lower waiting times for A&E. Scotland have done this. Why aren't we?

 

Nope it is you that has been mugged off. I have been telling you for a long time that this long march to the bottom started with Blair. It was he who started this migrant influx with his "I didn't know so many would come" charade. Parading out the minimum wage and "more worker's rights" while making sure there was a supply of workers that dared not demand their worker's rights and thus ended up cheaper.

And no here we are with the same Labour party (admittedly under a vastly different guise) banging on about protecting worker's rights that they can;t see are no longer worth anything to those in the bottom half of the work ladder. We are now there having to choose take the job or demand the rights.

Anti trade union legislation? What could a trade union do for me other than to lose me and my colleagues our jobs?

And I will put as many hours as I need to so I can buy my council house. You lot can keep preaching from above with your tidy lives and metro dictates how x is bad and y is terrible while those below will continue to ignore it.............just like you ignore my real world experience as anecdotal when it is widespread (as I said on page 1 or whenever.) This has been normal practice at the low end for the last 14 years or so yet you want to believe it not to be true. It is why I didn't have a job. The growth in it is why I have a job now. If you want to keep ignoring my "anecdotal evidence" because the BBC and John Snow keep on pulling "experts" out to say it isn't true then you will never believe it. Meanwhile I will just plod along earning my money, keeping my head down trying to safe because I want to work.........as lazy Brits all over the country are doing (if they have the chance) and will do once the unskilled supply dries up.

Also at that time people will finally be able to get a full weeek in again instead of having to put up with the lovely benefit of "flexible hours" which don't add up to a full week.

Constantly hearing about what benefits the "workforce" when all these goodies are only available to you, unless you get into a blue chip company, state job or above the lower rung.

It is more spiel telling "us" how all these things benefit us, with no realisation that we can't access it (and keep our jobs) and it goes on and on. Everytime I hear Corbyn state "protecting worker's rights" just goes to show how blind/naive he is below the middle rung of the ladder OR how he is fooled by various analysis or just uses it to try and present some semblance that "all we've achieved is at risk" when for many of us we lost out, what was achieved above was at the cost of those below who lost rights.

But hey ho. Another 60 hours for me. Saves going to the gym and no problems getting to sleep. They have been saying that lifting heavy weights is a good thing for people to benefit from when they get to their later years. I'm doing myself a favour.

You just keep believing the tellybox. Ignore what people tell you about their lives. The BBC know better, they can tell you what life is really like for me.

 

From my understanding Scotland have had to do this to catch up with England. They haven't spent more to get better service. They have spent more to try and get the same service. This is the problem with looking at mere % of GDP or rises in expenditure. It costs more in Scotland to provide the same service as England because of the Geography, demographics and poorer health issues. These numbers just give you a short term soundbite.

What has been used (with the false 43% figure or whatever it was) is an assertion that we should spend more in England to catch up with Scotland. The reality being that Scotland spends more yet is behind England in terms of service. Yes we could spend more but we wouldn't be catching up with Scotland we would be pulling further ahead because Scotland needs to spend more.

If you look at this article the SNP (who constantly moan about austerity) are actually demanding more "efficiency" cuts from their service than in England (1.3% vs 0.8%) and they are manipulating numbers, forecasts, calculations to hide that they are reducing their spending increases. The UK government gives them their barnett money and it is the Scottish government that then budget that out so it can't be laid at Westminster's door. The SNP are choosing to spend in other areas while hiding that they are reducing increases to the NHS by clever accounting. And then someone on here tries to paint Scotland spending more than England in one aspect (elderly was it) as a single pointer to Scotland getting better services. All based on the spend on looking after elderly people in a country where there is a vast amount of remoteness, islands galore, small communities spread all over the place a long way from the nearest urban area. Of course spending on the elderly (and dare I suggest any age group) is a lot lot more than in England where most people are much closer to an urban area. Is that such a surprise?

And this is presented by the BBC to achieve the exact result it has here. For people to see it and immediately take it as "evidence" to attack government policy in England with.

The reality that this article (and those using it for support) should be addressing is rural areas (like Somerset mentioned in the report) should have more spend per person that somewhere like London or Nottingham or for that matter Lincoln. But it doesn't.

So do people now care about the elderly? They wanted them all to die the week before and now they care?

I am constantly attacked for this sort of thing but everyone else on here does it as well. As long as it suits their argument then it is fine. If I do it then I am a stupid ignorant little englander leaver.

From this article:

“As Monica Lennon MSP showed this week more than 20 per cent of patients waiting for diagnostic tests are not seen within six weeks as promised - and throughout 2018 Scottish accident and emergency departments have not met their 95 per cent target - the promise of treatment within four hours - despite the fact Scottish hospitals appear to experience less demand for A & E than England."

https://www.scotsman.com/news-2-150...ependence-than-our-nhs-gordon-brown-1-4837708

 

Just my opinion but it was Murdoch who coaxed some of the right wing voters over Labour, when he threw the weight of his newspapers behind Blair.
I don’t think the media should ever be under estimated in the way it manipulates the way the public think.

 

I was really pleased to see that Farage has met up with Trump this afternoon because I think with the discussions centring along American access to the markets within the NHS this will likely prove to be Farrago's undoing. I cannot recall a more bumptious and obnoxious politician deserving to be brought down a peg or two and I hope that both the public and journalists remind him of this meeting in future elections so that the British people can see that the NHS would be seriously jeopardised in his hands. Hopefully his association with Trump will prove to be his undoing.

 

They were far closer to the targets than we were.

But don't let the fact that none of this affects my argument from continuing your imagined hypocrisy rants that you love so much.

 

Or their contempt for human rights, women, Muslims and anyone who dares to criticise the government. Recent contributions from left wing politicians just brush off any such criticism as ‘the Chinese are a different case, whereas the US is our ‘friend, therefore we can protest etc with venom against them’ type of comment. Emily Thornberry on ‘Today’, as a prime example. We court China with a blind spot and need to be giving them the same hard time that we seem to give democracies that don’t tie in with the hard left. Thanks

 

I think Murdoch jumped when he saw Labour would win. Then claimed the victory as his. Blair promised (and kept his promise) to maintain Tory spending budgets for 2 years which won some over and his overall initial pitch was much more central than previous Labour governments at a time when the Tory party were on their knees. Blaire won the "soft" Tory vote over by not being as Labour as previous Labour.

 

The narrative is "privatising the NHS." The reality is the US just wants the pharma contracts to open up for US pharma. Nothing to do with privatising hospitals. All to do with having access to supply where the real money is - medicine.

Is that a bad thing? Should we not be considering US product when we are giving out tenders? Or should we continue to overpay for products? If the US product is competitive then surely that is a good thing! IF not then it doesn't get bought anyway.

 

Apples and Oranges again.

 

I don't really buy a lot of the super cheap direct from China stuff that's on Amazon. And anyway, China is trying to transition out of that because they aren't stupid. But to the extent I do buy from third world countries, I realize how lucky I have it. I'd rather we up the environmental and human rights standards globally so no one has to suffer. But if that can't happen, I'd rather the bad things happen to them than me.

That's what you're not getting. Somehow you think you're being "cheated" by other people working horrible jobs in their countries and to a lesser extent on your own. No, America and the UK are getting by far the best end of the deal. If you think your deal sucks so bad, feel free to move to a third world country and work in a sweatshop.

To the extent that you feel like you're not getting a share of UK's spoils, then take it up with your government. Mostly the conservatives who don't believe in spreading the wealth. You should be pissed off at all the rich people in government trying to cut off social services and give corporations a break. You should be mad that Nigel Farage has money and you don't. Instead you're mad that some poor immigrant has to work their ass off to barely survive and you don't.

And that's why it's so easy for the Brexit party to win. They're laughing their asses off. They steal all your money and then you blame poor immigrants and vote for them. They're quite happy to accede to your wishes and **** you over instead of some migrants. Why not? It's a better supply chain when you can produce your own slaves instead of having to import them.

 

That post contained no comparisons but your own, but again don't let that get in the way of your imagination.

 

You haven;t read my posts ever I see with this comment:

Quite the opposite............as written in my post above that allegedly you read and were replying to.

 

Pray tell how you can use spending in Scotland and Wales vs England and try and suggest we should spend more to catch up with them, when under the Barnett formula it is set and if the government decides to spend £100 more per head in England then it has to give Scotland and Wales £100 per head more?

They already get more per head BECAUSE that is the barnett formula. If we up it they get more.......

........however as pointed out, because they are a devolved government that doesn't mean they have to spend that extra £100 on health as seen this year where due to the new rises in England, Scotland got an extra £600m which they only allocated £550m to their health service. Think that is in the same article I provided earlier

I would also suggest that some of that extra healthcare spending in Scotland may well be due to free prescriptions rather than "better services." Hurrah you might add to that but that ignores that prescriptions are free across the board for the poor in the form of exemptions cards (now paper.) Thus I don't pay anything for prescriptions nor dentistry IF I am in receipt of an exemption card. So in reality that extra spending on free prescriptions for all is for the benefit of?


Anyway we digress. The point was that England should spend more to catch up. Reality being that England can't spend more without giving Scotland and Wales more and the targets are not assessed in any detail. If 96% of my patients are kept waiting for between 3 and 4 hours while yours are mostly out the door within the hour yet 10% take longer then on that target I win, despite having a lot of angry patients.

The target is not waiting time either. It is the time from admission (seeing the receptionist) to being discharged, whether that be to another department or leaving after treatment. That is purely A&E remember so not outpatients or appointments, merely the "turn up" service.

All the above is not the best to assess who gets a better deal between the nations.