I really hope lib Dems can make the official opposition and then at least won't be ignored in the media quite so much
General Election 2024
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How many people, in the same breath, would condemn with story when told about it and then talk about what a great politician Farage is…
So Arise Sir Lord (of the people) Our Nige Farage. The new leader of the opposition with his 2 MPs.
On a serious note, call me optimistic but I do think Reform’s support is going to fail to get them many MPs at all. Even the 17% they were polling at will have to be concentrated in a limited number of constituencies in order for them to win and I can’t help but think they’re exactly the sort of party that will broadly have quite a consistent support of between 5-25% across all constituencies. The 25% might be enough to win in a few places but I don’t see any scenario where it translates to them being the opposition.
The best result would be him being the only Reform MP and standing alone as Lord of the Twats.
It's more like 50 years and even when in government Labour had little actual power, even when they had a 'smell' of it, it was the 'looney left' inside Labour that frightened the horses and made sure a right of centre programme always played out.
Starmer has culled the more 'left of the left' members in the parliamentary party , made sure his people get in, if he gets the large majority all the polls seem to suggest and with a party totally committed, he has the potential to go to 2 or 3 terms and really 'move the dial' for ordinary people the way Labour did post WW2.
However the country is in debt, it will take time and a no nonsense approach, all sorts of future 'events' could derail him, wars, climate change and yes mass uncontrolled immigration. The Unions need to stay onboard, people need to get back to productive working cycles, controlled immigration is a necessity, the skills and aptitudes of migrants essential in an ageing population, if it is controlled, then immigrants will find themselves a stake, as many have in the past. The 'carpet-baggers' and 'snake oil' salesmen (mentioning no names) will find slim pickings, and get pushed aside.
If the 'dial' doesn't move for working people in the next 15 or so years, it never will. Starmers Labour government may just have the last chance this century, to put decades, if not generations of hurt and denial to the majority of the public, to rest. With everything that's coming down the pike towards us in the next 50 or so years we wont get many more chances.
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You forgot the "Vote Reform"
Why was Tony Blair bad for Britain?
I appreciate the time and thought you put into your replies, but I've read so many times your theory that a Starmer-led Labour will 'move the dial' and do all these things we all want from a true, traditional, socialist Labour party, and there's been absolutely zero indication that they even want to do that, let alone that they'll achieve it.
This week they've released the least ambitious manifesto I've ever seen, and if they move the dial even a degree or two, I'll be shocked.
Is this a genuine question?
They are definitely the most openly corrupt. They definitely are the biggest hypocrites. This modern generation of Politicians around the world have taken outright lies to another level, and the Tories, especially Boris have been world class on that front. The way they treat the rest of us with such obvious disdain, disrespect and disgust is truly unrivaled in the UK's history.
As for destructive... Yeah, possibly. They have decimated the NHS with intentional underfunding and blame shifting. They have also done the same to the Police force and education. However I would still say Thatchers policies regarding council housing and the lack of rebuilding more in place of those sold off, the miners strikes, the hge divide between North and South, the recession that followed... I think maybe hers was more destructive.
The only defence for that though is she did it because of things she and her party believed in. She was honest about it. This lot still blame.it on anyone but themselves. Saying that, with the way Brexit will continue to feck us for years to come, yeah, this lot take that title too.
You got jokes bruv! Wicked.
But it's really not. The vast majority of what you claimed is just absolute fecking bullshit perpetuated by racist media outlets like The Mail, Torygraph or the Express, and wankers like Stephen Yaxley-Lennon... I mean Tommy Robinson.
The country is fecked because the NHS has been decimated on purpose by the Tories so they can say it failed then force in their private medical care agenda like the USA has, mainly because they all profit from it, but also because they have always hated it and how popular it was because it wasn't their idea.
They have underfunded and mismanaged the Police force and emergency services and the same with education.
Brexit is one of the biggest reasons we are fecked too. It's hilarious really because the main reason most people voted for Brexit was to prevent immigration and yet it's now out of control according to the party who promised Brexit would stop it.
However, saying that, we are not on our knees. Almost the entire world is struggling in lots of ways with very few countries prospering, especially after Covid. It's a worldwide issue of polarization between the right and left on an unseen scale. The global economy has struggled.since covid and with the wars in Ukraine and now Palestine having serious impacts on many aspects of life for the rest of us (food prices, fish prices, fuel prices to a certain extent etc) it's really not just a UK issue. Global inflation and the way many now have changed their living or spending habits since lockdowns around the world, it's just left everywhere off kilter.
As for the UK, a lot could be easily fixed with decent funding or sensible policies helping areas like crime, health, education and housing and less corruption or self serving wankers taking all the money. Easily said, I know, but it really isn't that complicated.
Brexit aside, and political feckery caused by the Tories, the biggest issue I can see in the UK is the divide created and driven mainly by biased media and also the misinformation and conspiracy theories, hate and fear spread across the internet.
My favourite Twitter quote recently was some right wing wanker saying....
'immigration has destroyed our country, long gone are the days our British Empire was feared and respected around the world's
if the ignorance and hypocrisy wasn't bad enough then, his follow up Tweet was....'feck this place, it's unrecognisable to me, it's full of immigrants and woke wankers, so I'm off to Spain to spend my retirement years in the sun'
That for me sums it all up.
So in trouble, yeah for sure. On our knees. Absolutely fecking not.
It’s almost a heresy in Britain to say it but the NHS model is no longer sustainable.
He's a bit like ten Hag, he did some bad things but ultimately did a good job with what he had.
Only because we don't tax rich people. Why shouldn't it be sustainable?
If you think that it's only because the Tories have deliberately set out to make you think that.
This has nothing to do with Tory Propoganda.
Because the model is broken and was built for a Britain that had its population sparsely distributed and as migration went to the cities, our healthcare system didn't adapt or accomodate to that change.
Reform is urgently needed. The Germans have restructured their system fantastically in the 90's and the Hausarzt system is much better than our GP NHS system.
People misinterpret (whether by emotion, or deliberately) the concerns people have around "NHS is not sustainable" to "Public Universal healthcare" is not sustainable, like they're two of the same things.
It's like someone saying, "I don't think First Past the Post is sustainable" and the response is, "What?! Fascist Propoganda! How dare you not believe in democracy!". NHS =/= Universal Healthcare.
The French/German models are exponentially better than the NHS model.
We won't get the German model though, with the cooperate interests we will get the broken USA model
All Krankenkasse's in Germany are NPO's, run as a company but with its entire shareholding that of a local devolved government. I don't see how a German model couldn't work here in the same auspices.
By rich people, which income bracket are you referring to specifically?
The following refers only to income tax but…according to the statistics the top 10% of taxpayers in the UK paid 60% of all income tax in 2023–24, and the share of income tax revenue contributed by the top 1% of taxpayers rose to 29% in 2023–24.
I just think that the free at the point of delivery mantra at the core of the service blinds people to the current reality of a service where delivery across so many specialities is now measured in years. In other words the mantra is now pretty much just that - a mantra. It’s just rhetoric and symbolism.
Perhaps that shouldn’t be all that surprising as it was established at a time when the average life expectancy was 68 or 69, and in any case it’s most frequently compared with the many superior health services across Europe which follow a different model.
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That’s not the case. Both my parents worked in it and the complaint I heard most often centred around the increasing bureaucratic burden in the job, the increasing involvement of management and a growing toxic work culture.
It was pretty commonly felt that the purpose has been incrementally stripped away from the job and replaced by process. It’s no surprise why there’s such a problem now with the retention of staff.
Which was very much part of the Tories plan to destroy the NHS.
This was actually a Blair policy - bloated/incompetent middle management of the NHS.
There's a really good paper by the British Medical Journal in 2007 about his reforms
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1871752/
The Lancet also has a good article on this topic
https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(07)60763-6/fulltext
And one that the Tories have embraced enthusiastically and weaponised even further to achieve their goals of destroying the NHS. At least Blair had good intentions. The Tories have been in power for 14 years so you can't blame Labor for the current state, the Tories have had plenty of time to improve things but have done the opposite.
He had ‘good intentions’ with Iraq and Afghanistan too.
Maybe. Maybe not. But that is irrelevant to the NHS now as the Tories have had 14 years to improve things but have escalated the gutting and destruction.
Yeah completely and the whole time sneaking things through that advance insurance based healthcare becoming a reality in the future. I think the most insulting part of it all is how they fecking lauded the NHS during Covid, getting us all to clap for the NHS, only to then deny pay rises for nurses. How quickly s lot of the public forget, or worse don't see it.
Police forces around the country are struggling with numbers too and roads and infrastructure building or repair has declined in many places too, and education has suffered dramatically. Houses are popping up everywhere but no schools or hospitals so new residents just add to the burden already placed on hospitals and schools around the country that suffer from overcrowded wards, accident & emergency departments and classrooms.
Yet still people defend them. It's fecking insane.
I'm talking about "By 2023, the richest 50 families in the UK held more wealth than half of the UK population, comprising 33.5 million people. If the wealth of the super rich continues to grow at the rate it has been, by 2035, the wealth of the richest 200 families will be larger than the whole UK GDP."
https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-...More than that, for the,and 2013, reaching 9%.
Doesn't matter whether a crap taxation system is showing big numbers, their percentage of wealth continues to grow as they avoid being taxed on large parts of their wealth and typically their money sits idle and is economically useless. For example, imagine they have a pension fund invested in Apple shares. They had tax relief on the way into the pension, and Apple don't pay much tax while it's in there. Then paying income tax on the pension payout is the tip of the iceberg.
Are all those 50k paying 25 pounds. This is a ponzi scheme not a party.
In 2018, I had downloaded EU-wide data regarding healthcare spending, and the proportion of healthcare spending covered directly by the govt. Don't have the time to find the data* and make a fresh one, so:
I think the y-axis is % GDP spent on healthcare, and x-axis is how much of that spending is directly by the govt (which I think excludes state-run insurance like France).
1. The UK's spending is low by European standards, especially outside Southern Europe (considering also that Norway's oil makes it a bit of a GDP outlier, one can argue that the UK is effectively spending the least among Western/Northern Europe). As a amount of money per capita rather than % of GDP, it is indeed the lowest among Northern/Western Europe.
2. For the people talking about the superiority of other models, like Germany...the Germans spend about 1.5 points(~16%) more than the UK on health expenditures. Where will that money come from in this new system that is to be adopted? And, if the NHS had a budget that was 16% higher, would it be in the state that it was in?
3. Countries with more directly nationalised systems seem to spend less on healthcare.
*also Brexit means it probably no longer exists in one place
I think the y-axis is % GDP spent on healthcare, and x-axis is how much of that spending is directly by the govt (which I think excludes state-run insurance like France).
1. The UK's spending is low by European standards, especially outside Southern Europe (considering also that Norway's oil makes it a bit of a GDP outlier, one can argue that the UK is effectively spending the least among Western/Northern Europe). As a amount of money per capita rather than % of GDP, it is indeed the lowest among Northern/Western Europe.
2. For the people talking about the superiority of other models, like Germany...the Germans spend about 1.5 points(~16%) more than the UK on health expenditures. Where will that money come from in this new system that is to be adopted? And, if the NHS had a budget that was 16% higher, would it be in the state that it was in?
3. Countries with more directly nationalised systems seem to spend less on healthcare.
*also Brexit means it probably no longer exists in one place
Theres a plague of shit like this on Facebook, even "low level" crap like any advert for a British company that has a person of colour in it having a bunch of people reply with Tick emojis.
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...-post-brexit-trade-deal-with-eu-rachel-reeves
Labour would try to improve UK’s post-Brexit trade deal with EU, says Reeves
Labour would try to improve elements of the UK’s trade deal with the EU, Rachel Reeves has indicated, saying also that most financial services companies have “not regarded Brexit as being a great opportunity for their businesses”.
You don't say!
Labour in fantasy land again. Just stop it and come back to the real world.
Labour would try to improve UK’s post-Brexit trade deal with EU, says Reeves
Labour would try to improve elements of the UK’s trade deal with the EU, Rachel Reeves has indicated, saying also that most financial services companies have “not regarded Brexit as being a great opportunity for their businesses”.
You don't say!
Labour in fantasy land again. Just stop it and come back to the real world.
Good. About time someone started talking about it.
She is only talking about about a limited discussion on regulations for financial and chemicals sectors.
Look. I fully accept that you understand this subject more than me.
But as far as I am concerned, anything that seeks to improve the absolute mess that has been made of leaving the EU has to be a good thing.
The question is specific, why was he bad for Britain.
It's not a joke. I'm yet to hear what Tony Blair did that was bad for Britain.
I don't think Tony Blair did anything bad for Britain. The country prospered the most during his premiership.
It's Starmer with his menu out again. The most unfortunate thing for Labour was that he has never understood Brexit. He also wants to have a vet deal to stop the checks and various other things. The Uk no longer follow the same rules by choice. The Northern Ireland issue where goods have to be marked , "Not for Sale in the EU" should have given him a clue. Eight years of explanations and arguments and he still doesn't understand. And because of these poilticians and the media it just carries on.
There's a minor review in two year's time which will be slight tinkering for very minor issues.
Thank you.
Basically, you're in or you're out.
Trying not to mention Brexit, Labour are still being accused by the Tories and the press for wanting to take the Uk back into the EU; So that was a pointless exercise.
More worryingly, I do think that Starmer actually believes that Brexit can work.
That is what he might be saying. But he also has said there should be a further referendum....
You were critical about Labour not having a real plan for growth. It would make sense (to me anyway) to try to improve trade with countries in EU by looking at those things that were not working as well as they could.
The in or out thing doesn't mean we can still not trade with the EU more effectively and efficiently to both sides.
I previously mentioned that Brexit was not being discussed in the GE. Well now it is.
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