Westminster Politics 2024-2029

[Jippy]

And what's the safety net and how much would that cost to administer? Often the answer is that it costs more. Would it just shift people to A&E?

It just feels very typical Telegraph type politics, escalating an exception issue to punish the proles when the focus and fix is elsewhere.

You'd have to do a cost benefit analysis for sure.
People are saying this is a definitive solution, just an idea that should be looked at.
A few are saying just raise taxes, but they're already near a 70 year high, so that is going to punish the proles too.

Where I live now healthcare is subsidised for citizens, it's very high quality and life expectancy is longer than in the UK.
Of course everyone would prefer the NHS remains free, but it's a wreck at the moment and the elderly population is only going to keep growing.

If a nominal fee can help stave off collapse and improve service levels and patient outcomes it should be looked at.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Fight! Fight! Fight!

Wasn’t she giving a talk in the US the other day? Looks as though she’s getting ready for a career outside conventional politics, doing a full time right wing grift. So she’s burning bridges purely to raise her personal profile.

 

[africanspur]

Won't somebody think of the property prices in Gahanga?

 

[africanspur]

Wasn’t she giving a talk in the US the other day? Looks as though she’s getting ready for a career outside conventional politics, doing a full time right wing grift. So she’s burning bridges purely to raise her personal profile.

Did she even mention her? She's definitely gearing up for the US right wing grift.

 

[Fully Fledged]

These people are insane. Arguing about some pointless Committee.

The funny thing is you've got pro-Brexit MP's demanding a second vote because they were lied to.

 

[Frosty]

Wasn’t she giving a talk in the US the other day? Looks as though she’s getting ready for a career outside conventional politics, doing a full time right wing grift. So she’s burning bridges purely to raise her personal profile.

First act as a newly elected MP.

 

[africanspur]

There's a budget, like for any other country. There's no particular political pressure on the subject, so politicians have no incentive to change anything in either direction.

The cap is at around £300 per year, and a typical co-pay is at around, what, 20? People turned away by that are largely invisible, so no one cares.

But that's my point. There's a budget but Norway has significant more laxity in its budgets than most other countries in Europe (if not the world) and yet still chooses to do it like this.

In a country that affords to pay for its students to do undergraduate and postgraduate, both in Norway and abroad I believe (at least in Europe), it still chooses to have a co-payment system (as most of the OECD does in some form or another).

I'm not even saying its the right system. I'm just slightly bemused by the reaction on here to a policy that far from being some reactionary/ revolutionary new thing, is a policy enacted by most others in the OECD, many with better healthcare systems than us.

Frankly, we're probably going to have to rethink how all of us structure our healthcare systems.

 

[noodlehair]

I'd like to be optimistic and say she's too much of a pantomime villain and too graceless for people to buy into her but my faith in politics isn't what it was.

I think her downfall is appealling to white supremacists/racist nationalists, despite not being a white person. Her vicious nonsense spouting is just too extreme to appeal to anyone else. It might not disgust many more run of the mill tories enough to put them off her, but it isn't going to actively draw them in either. And as we saw from when Sunak and Truss ran against each other, a significant proportion of them don't seem to like voting for a non white person over a white person either, even if the former is blatantly the less incompetent.

Farage is more of a problem IMO. He's got the same lunatic ideologies but is more appealing/relatable to angry (stupid) middle aged English people, and is smart enough to tone down the viciousness enough that people can pretend they like him for political reasons.

Sunak kept Braverman there IMO to try and keep the more radical of their voters from defecting over to whatever the likes of Farage or Robinson aligned themselves with, and it didn't even work to do that. I think (hope) she'd get wiped out in any kind of election.

 

[NotThatSoph]

But that's my point. There's a budget but Norway has significant more laxity in its budgets than most other countries in Europe (if not the world) and yet still chooses to do it like this.

In a country that affords to pay for its students to do undergraduate and postgraduate, both in Norway and abroad I believe (at least in Europe), it still chooses to have a co-payment system (as most of the OECD does in some form or another).

I'm not even saying its the right system. I'm just slightly bemused by the reaction on here to a policy that far from being some reactionary/ revolutionary new thing, is a policy enacted by most others in the OECD, many with better healthcare systems than us.

Frankly, we're probably going to have to rethink how all of us structure our healthcare systems.

Ok?

All I've said is that a co-pay system works by discouraging two groups: those who on the margin consider consuming healthcare as not very valuable, and poor people. The reason Norway chose this system is because the money saved is valued above the lives lost and the decreased health of those who need but don't use the services because of the costs.

What you prefer depends on what you value. It's a pretty simple cost-benefit analysis, made much easier by the fact that no one of those talking about it will be among those ruined by it. It's standard politics. It's not reactionary or revolutionary at all, people die every single day because of the politics we choose, in every single country.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Ok?

All I've said is that a co-pay system works by discouraging two groups: those who on the margin consider consuming healthcare as not very valuable, and poor people. The reason Norway chose this system is because the money saved is valued above the lives lost and the decreased health of those who need but don't use the services because of the costs.

What you prefer depends on what you value. It's a pretty simple cost-benefit analysis, made much easier by the fact that no one of those talking about it will be among those ruined by it. It's standard politics. It's not reactionary or revolutionary at all, people die every single day because of the politics we choose, in every single country.

Welcome to the world of health economics. Everything is a trade off. Spend in on area and the opportunity cost in other areas will create avoidable mortality/morbidity. In the absence of magic money trees this will always be the reality. Which we can see from the fact that the country which has the closest thing to its very own magic money tree has gone down this path.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

But that's my point. There's a budget but Norway has significant more laxity in its budgets than most other countries in Europe (if not the world) and yet still chooses to do it like this.

In a country that affords to pay for its students to do undergraduate and postgraduate, both in Norway and abroad I believe (at least in Europe), it still chooses to have a co-payment system (as most of the OECD does in some form or another).

I'm not even saying its the right system. I'm just slightly bemused by the reaction on here to a policy that far from being some reactionary/ revolutionary new thing, is a policy enacted by most others in the OECD, many with better healthcare systems than us.

Frankly, we're probably going to have to rethink how all of us structure our healthcare systems.

It’s even better than that. This whole tangent was sparked by a Labour politician not ruling out the possibility that the NHS might not always be free at the point of use. He didn’t actually advocate for co-pay or any other kind of charging mechanism (that was me!).

In classic libcafe style, he was meme’d as being literally Hitler as a result.

 

[Kinsella]

She's doubling down.

Fight! Fight! Fight!

But…diversity.

 

[Kinsella]

The general election thread is locked so have to to post this in here

Under-appreciated indeed, and quite telling. Politics is heading in a different and unsettling direction now.

 

[Salt Bailly]

Has anyone checked inside this guy's head for Jay Slater?

 

[Mr Pigeon]

He reminds me of every twenty something I've met who gets their degree - regurgitates the same lines they've learned over a short period, thinking that the limited slice of info they were shown by professors is the entirety of their subject - and now thinks that they know everything. We don't often employ them because they're impossible to teach most of the time.

Experience, mate. You're missing experience. The main thing about growing up is that you realise you knew feck all in your twenties, and you still know feck all in your thirties. In a few years he'll rewatch this and cringe a little.

Having said that; good luck to him and his head.

 

[Pexbo]

He reminds me of every twenty something I've met who gets their degree - regurgitates the same lines they've learned over a short period, thinking that the limited slice of info they were shown by professors is the entirety of their subject - and now thinks that they know everything. We don't often employ them because they're impossible to teach most of the time.

Experience, mate. You're missing experience. The main thing about growing up is that you realise you knew feck all in your twenties, and you still know feck all in your thirties. In a few years he'll rewatch this and cringe a little.

Having said that; good luck to him and his head.

“How do you like them apples”

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Experience, mate. You're missing experience. The main thing about growing up is that you realise you knew feck all in your twenties, and you still know feck all in your thirties. In a few years he'll rewatch this and cringe a little.

Having said that; good luck to him and his head.

Careful now. Redcafe consensus is that your first grey hair completes your transition to full boomer, instantly making all of your opinions wrong.

 

[Mr Pigeon]

“How do you like them apples”

pretty much, actually.

Our two latest hires came straight out of uni and they're fecking awesome. Reliable, keen to learn, happy to tell me to feck off if they disagree with me. It's changing my perception a little after a decade of tearing what remained of my hair out with stubborn morons who said things like "But I have a degree in Management, I should be YOUR manager" (yeah but my degree is related to our actual job and you can't even "manage" to get into work on time, so go feck yourself).

Careful now. Redcafe consensus is that your first grey hair completes your transition to full boomer, instantly making all of your opinions wrong.

I'd add the caveat that my experience argument only really works if you too have the knowledge/qualifications to back it up as well.

 

[Duafc]

A lot of people’s experience is that of being shite for x years.

aptitude, effort, engagement > experience.

 

[Mr Pigeon]

A lot of people’s experience is that of being shite for x years.

aptitude, effort, engagement > experience.

Ability to read a post > aptitude, effort, engagement > experience.

...ffs the sticking tongue out smiley is gone as well. Forum's dead.

 

[Solius]

 

[Smores]

He reminds me of every twenty something I've met who gets their degree - regurgitates the same lines they've learned over a short period, thinking that the limited slice of info they were shown by professors is the entirety of their subject - and now thinks that they know everything. We don't often employ them because they're impossible to teach most of the time.

Experience, mate. You're missing experience. The main thing about growing up is that you realise you knew feck all in your twenties, and you still know feck all in your thirties. In a few years he'll rewatch this and cringe a little.

Having said that; good luck to him and his head.

To be fair what the feck is he supposed to say to that question. He's just been made an MP so he can't turn round and say yeah it's ridiculous isn't it. What the feck are Labour doing putting forward such a candidate, whilst removing others for quality nonetheless.

I can only assume they kept him hidden in a basement and just hoped people would tick Labour.

Just checked and he won by 39 votes. He's another private boarding school followed by Cambridge candidate.

 

[Mart1974]

Satire is dead. Google Pottery Gardens, Lancaster. Just along from the local slaughterhouse, and then in the ‘Leisure Park’ you have the butcher Country Style Meats (owner of allegedly enjoys forcing himself on female members of staff)

Near me they built on the land that was, immediately prior, a slaughter house. Can you still hear the lambs Clarice?

 

[Pogue Mahone]

A lot of people’s experience is that of being shite for x years.

aptitude, effort, engagement > experience.

It’s not either/or though. What happens if you add experience to aptitude, effort and engagement? Idiots are gonna idiot but every one of us will add experience to the mix over time. And for the vast majority of people that is useful.

 

[Mr Pigeon]

 

[Mr Pigeon]

To be fair what the feck is he supposed to say to that question. He's just been made an MP so he can't turn round and say yeah it's ridiculous isn't it. What the feck are Labour doing putting forward such a candidate, whilst removing others for quality nonetheless.

I can only assume they kept him hidden in a basement and just hoped people would tick Labour.

Just checked and he won by 39 votes. He's another private boarding school followed by Cambridge candidate.

Personally I just want every MP to be replaced with a PhD student who does part time work as a bikini model. Like a post-grad version of Love Island, but every Wednesday at PMQs they just solve world hunger and roll around in mud pits.

 

[ZupZup]

Whilst I don’t think that young MP comes across very well here… it obviously makes sense to have MP’s from different generations and age groups because being older doesn’t really give you any experience of what it’s like to be a young person currently. As an example, maybe the housing crisis in this country wouldn’t be as bad if more MP’s had actually felt the brunt of it themselves.

For me, when it comes to being an MP… you can have a candidate with loads of life experience but if they aren’t very bright and lack important traits like empathy, they’ll probably be an awful MP.

 

[Mr Pigeon]

As an example, maybe the housing crisis in this country wouldn’t be as bad if more MP’s had actually felt the brunt of it themselves.

That isn't this guy. This guy went to a private boarding school. I doubt he even knows much about the problems facing the younger generation nowadays.

 

[Drainy]

Things getting pretty nasty in the Leicester south constituency

 

[Duafc]

It’s not either/or though. What happens if you add experience to aptitude, effort and engagement? Idiots are gonna idiot but every one of us will add experience to the mix over time. And for the vast majority of people that is useful.

Obviously, it’s just often defaulted to as inherently positive. When in reality, I would suggest, the majority of people’s ‘experience’ is non ideal.

 

[africanspur]

To be fair what the feck is he supposed to say to that question. He's just been made an MP so he can't turn round and say yeah it's ridiculous isn't it. What the feck are Labour doing putting forward such a candidate, whilst removing others for quality nonetheless.

I can only assume they kept him hidden in a basement and just hoped people would tick Labour.

Just checked and he won by 39 votes. He's another private boarding school followed by Cambridge candidate.

The guy went to the local state school secondary school until year 11. While he was in year 11, the school he was at shut down its sixth form. He went to the private school on an academic scholarship.

He mentions sixth forms of local schools closing (this was something that literally happened to him). He mentions having to rent insecure housing in the private sector.

Honestly I don't understand the attitude to him on here or the immediate rush to label him some posh twat because he went to Cambridge or whatever. Would it be better if he went to Oxford Brookes instead? Perhaps he should have dropped out of school at 16 instead, rather than accepting this academic scholarship to go to this sixth form?

 

[RedSky]

Things getting pretty nasty in the Leicester south constituency

Jonathon Ashworth isnt taking losing very well.

 

[Pexbo]

Jonathon Ashworth isnt taking losing very well.

But of a pompous nob isn’t he?

 

[TheGame]

Jonathon Ashworth isnt taking losing very well.

A supporter of the guy who won has been arrested on counter terror offences apparently.

 

[Sweet Square]

 

[Sweet Square]

Also

 

[africanspur]

Slightly confused. By 'work for Bupa' does this mean work as an employee for Bupa? Or have a private practice which sees patients who have Bupa insurance? Because I would say those mean 2 very different things.

As far as I'm aware, the guy doesn't do that much clinical work anymore. He works mostly in academia and health policy.

 

[DanH]

Slightly confused. By 'work for Bupa' does this mean work as an employee for Bupa? Or have a private practice which sees patients who have Bupa insurance? Because I would say those mean 2 very different things.

As far as I'm aware, the guy doesn't do that much clinical work anymore. He works mostly in academia and health policy.

He seems very well qualified to work on this review. I can't see much about BUPA but I believe he has had a private practice for BUPA insurance?

 

[africanspur]

He seems very well qualified to work on this review. I can't see much about BUPA but I believe he has had a private practice for BUPA insurance?

He is very well qualified. You can quibble about his political views (of which I know little about) but in terms of his background, this is literally it.

That's the point I was trying to make. There's a huge difference between a consultant who does an evening of private work once a week at Bupa (or with Bupa patients) vs someone who is the chief financial officer there for instance. To me anyway, I guess others may disagree.

 

[Sweet Square]

To prepare for a Labour government, lobby firms began establishing dedicated ‘Labour Units’. They hired former Labour MPs and staffers to make use of their contact networks, with a few even snapping up prospective candidates or seconding staff members directly into the offices of senior party figures. Lobbying firms Global Counsel, Lowick Group, FGS Global and Weber Shandwick have all sent members of staff to work in the offices of senior Labour figures in the past two years – at a combined cost to the firms of more than £100,000.

Other lobbying companies have given donations in cash or in-kind to influential MPs, despite industry rules seeming to bar this practice. New deputy prime minister Angela Rayner alone has received donations from two lobbyists – Sovereign Strategy and Pentland Communications – in the past year.

openDemocracy reached out to each of the firms mentioned above to ask whether they expect to receive anything in exchange for seconding members of staff at their own cost or donating to MPs, but received no response.

The lobbyists’ efforts bore fruit: in the twelve months leading up to the election, not a week went by without a member of Labour’s frontbench team attending a private client roundtable organised by a lobbying firm. These meetings, industry insiders say, represent only a fraction of the work a firm does in connecting its clients with politicians. They often serve merely as an introduction, with clients then able to follow up on issues discussed at the meetings or raise more sensitive matters, either through the agency or in some cases directly with politicians.

One firm, Arden Strategies, was able to secure more private client roundtables with Labour than any other, as far as openDemocracy can establish. The lobby shop, run by former Labour minister Jim Murphy, put its clients in a room with senior Labour figures on at least nine occasions – with politicians lobbied including Reeves, business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds and Starmer’s head of business engagement.

Unlike many firms, Arden doesn’t publish a general client list on the Public Relations and Communications Association register. But openDemocracy can reveal that the firm’s major clients include leading arms manufacturer Northrop Grumman and two of the UK’s largest power distribution companies, UK Power Networks and SGN.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/da...rmer-labour-became-the-party-of-big-business/

.