All the right wing idiots and the Government are up in arms at what Gary Neville said.
They don’t like being criticised knowing lots of people are watching.
They don’t like being criticised knowing lots of people are watching.
Westminster Politics
- Thread starter altodevil
- Start date
I have a few genuine questions on your views finneh.
How would this work with the existing benefit system, particularly given around one in five are in poverty, according to the Rowntree Foundation. Do you mean the government funds charities better to support the poor or we hope the rich donate more to charities so they can help the poor?
We already have the most expensive railways and underground system in the world, not to mention dismal public transport coverage outside of London, so how would this be enacted realistically?
Why? I'm not arguing we don't need a military deterrent, but given the national debt and priorities elsewhere, eg healthcare, housing, education etc...It feels like dead money and folly.
Patient choice is such a weak smokescreen for turning healthcare into a profit centre. No-one gives a shit which surgeon does their lifesaving operation -they aren't in a position to judge and choose- they just want to survive and don't want it to bankrupt them. Who really benefits from this except private healthcare practitioners and insurance companies? I live in a country with insurance-based healthcare and it costs c£5k a year here for comprehensive cover. I think about the increased choice I have though and I feel so lucky!
Patient choice really means, choice if you can afford it. Zero choice if you cannot. Simultaneously, reduced investment in health care for those who cannot afford the "choice" which means lower quality healthcare for them.
This is the inevitable consequence of right-wing Tory economics. Of course, some on here won't see anything wrong and call it lefty jealousy. Ferraris for the few, food banks for everyone else.
Call for wealth tax as UK billionaire numbers up by 20% since pandemic
‘Sudden explosion of billionaire wealth’ at the expense of the rest of society is ‘grossly unjust’, says Equality Trust
https://www.theguardian.com/news/20...k-billionaire-numbers-up-by-20-since-pandemic
Call for wealth tax as UK billionaire numbers up by 20% since pandemic
‘Sudden explosion of billionaire wealth’ at the expense of the rest of society is ‘grossly unjust’, says Equality Trust
https://www.theguardian.com/news/20...k-billionaire-numbers-up-by-20-since-pandemic
This is why the traditional left/right spectrum doesn't really work anymore because people have completely different ideas of what it actually means. At it's origin in the French Revolution, left-wing politics was anti-entrenched interests for the benefit of the majority (of property owners at the time). The right-wing aim was to preserve those entrenched interest via privileges of birth etc over social mobility.
You're definition of right-wing comes across as the traditional libertarian approach. If you were around at the time of the liberal revolutions back in the 18th and 19th centaury then you would be classed as a radical leftist no doubt. Times have changed though, and like the feudal system before it, the unregulated liberty of the minority crushes the liberty of the majority. Hence socialism being a thing nowadays that evolved in order do the very thing the original "liberals" did a hundred years earlier. Take a share of power.
IMO, a better way to define left/right politics nowadays is this...
Left = distribute power as far and wide as possible
Right = Restrict power to those that hold it
On authoritarianism - It can manifest itself anywhere on the political spectrum. However, if the your ideal form of government is one to solely fund a military and police force then you can forget about any form of individual liberty or personal choice because you're then advocating a police state which will do nothing other than preserve the power of the elite in society. At that point we've gone full circle and we're on the road back to a feudal system.
Government's Rwanda plan is lawful, High Court rules
The Home Office has won a legal challenge against its policy to remove asylum seekers to Rwanda.
The decision has just been announced by judges in the High Court in London.
The Home Office has won a legal challenge against its policy to remove asylum seekers to Rwanda.
The decision has just been announced by judges in the High Court in London.
Normal Island at it again.
Christmas miracle for suella.
I'm interested that the High Court says that Braverman has to review each individual case. I wonder when the next plane would be planned for after she's gone through 40-odd-thousand cases?
Go on Neville!
No no, this is the plan.
I think your definition is difficult because it puts the current Chinese regime as right wing. The fact that their economy is based very much on the idea of Central Planning, which is clearly a left wing doctrine is contradictory. Plus there's very few people I'd say who would state that their politics is to restrict power as much as possible to a token few, which would infer very few people to be right wing (which clearly isn't the case). In fact your definition may as well be "right = bad, left = good" because the vast, vast majority of people of all persuasions would say having power concentrated/restricted to the few that hold it is bad. Very few people would say that I'm left wing, however I'm a huge proponent of power being distributed far and wide.
In terms of individual liberty being restricted simply because you increase spending on public order and defence I would disagree. You can have a huge army that exists solely to protect your free state from rogue ones across the world. Likewise you can have a well-funded police force that exists to ensure property and personal rights are upheld. Having these areas well-funded doesn't mean a democratic society is suddenly going to use them to infringe or repress the rights of the population.
The only views of mine I've expressed in this thread over the last few days is of the differences between left wing, right wing, authoritarianism and libertarianism. I'll provide a few basic comments as I don't want this to slide into my opinion which as I've said before is most similar to the likes of Friedman, Sowell etc; which are to the left of Rand, Rothbard, Mises etc.
The further right wing you'd go the less the government would be involved in any capacity. A right wing government would likely re-direct a portion of the current welfare payments to charities to provide services to the poor. A far right government would only tax people in order to protect their rights which would be limited to police, courts, military. The government would not fund the third sector in any capacity. This would be done locally from charities via donations from private individuals. The idea is that people would give far, far more to charity if the majority of their incomes wasn't forcably extracted from them by government.
The further right wing you go the less you'd believe that government should be involved in the transport sector. Someone with a right wing persuasion might thing that both the track and the trains should be privatised with no government subsidy. They would likely believe that the underground and bus network should be fully privatised and that the new owner would have the right to set costs at whatever he saw fit (cancelling any unprofitable routes).
An ardent right wing perspecive would generally be that the governments primary responsiblity is to protect the population and cost in this area should be secondary to this. This would be protecting them domestically via their public order budget and internationally via the defence budget. Someone with authoritarian views would also want high expenditure in these areas, however to control the population rather than to protect them. A libertarian would want the government to spend as little as possible in this area whilst protecting the civil liberties of the population.
We're currently just shy of 26 week's pregnant with twins in the US via surrogacy. We have the choice of our twins being delivered in a variety of hospitals in Minnesota. We've been given statistics of every single hospital in the region in regards to their neonatal mortality rates, care levels and birthing practices, including exactly when they induce and why they do so at this time. We've also been given the level of the hospitals in terms of neonatal care. They gave us the statistics for natural births and C-sections dependant on when our twins would be born. We also met the teams at our two top choices. We used all this information to go with United Hospital in Minnesota and decided to go with a C-Section. This hospital is fantastic when it comes to mortality rates as early as 25 weeks out and also is accredited to "level 4" meaning they can carry out complex surgery if god forbid this is required (nearby level 3 hospitals have to transit babies to this hospital via ambulance which could cost valuable time and is part of the reason for their great statstics); having a C section is also statistically less risky given our high risk pregnancy. The team at this hospital were also fantastic. We've taken out seperate cover at $5340 in order to have our children born at this hospital and will pay a few thousand extra out of pocket for the C-section. It's also worth saying that this hospital wanted fortnightly scans for our twins taking 150 minutes each from 12 weeks to birth to ensure that any issues are dealt with as early as is possible (other hospitals were less cautious).
You can probably guess from the aforementioned that patient choice for me and my Wife (and for most people that actually get given this kind of choice) is exceptionally important. The statistics provided also terrified me in terms of how poor the NHS is in this regard.
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The concept of no government involvement in things like the economy basically flies in the face of all scientific research. As an example:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-inevitable/
The reality is doing nothing is actually doing something - funnelling money towards the rich at the expense of everyone else. And when you do that the economy doesn't really grow, research slows down/stops, you get unstable societies, more poverty, all the bad stuff. And like with global warming it's all entirely intuitive and logical if you think about it for more than 5 minutes but it takes a lot of clever research over many decades to prove it beyond doubt.
Forced redistribution of wealth is the only way to create a balanced economic system, and it's just simple maths that dictates that, not even anything clever.
I've gone down the road of arguing economics on this forum and intend not to do so again. I'm merely trying to articulate why the current government is centre or left of centre but very authoritarian and not ring wing (albeit I know people confuse authoritarianism policies with right wing politicies quite frequently).
Someone's read a book from the library and not understood a single word.
I think the crux of this is that you're talking about left/right in terms of pure economics which is only one facet of what people consider left/right these days (hence why the terms don't really work anymore). We can debate small state vs big state all day but I'm sure you agree that we don't want to bore people to death.
I will say this though, if your definition of left is full state communism and the right is full free market then the centre is a mixed economic model. There is no way that this current government is operating from the left of that.
Suella. “Dreams do come true”.
I blame all those lefties in the Tory government.
I'd certainly agree that the definitions seem to have merged in people's minds, however I think that's mainly due to the correlation in western democracies of authoritarianism and ring wing politics (tough rhetoric on immigration being the biggest one). I'm sure if you were in China there would be far more of a correlation between left wing politics (e.g. Central planning) and authoritarianism given their record; with them seeing a correlation between the more right wing politics of western democracies as synonymous with freedom/protection of civil liberties.
I would say the current government are more left wing than Osbourne/Cameron, even in coalition with Clegg; and they're certainly far more left wing than Thatcher. I'd also argue given current tax levels and spending to GDP that they are left of Blair/Brown who were the archetypal centrists. Given the amount of money being spent as a proportion of GDP and the current tax to GDP , there's an argument that this government are the most left wing since Atlee.
A remarkably stupid man
Yes, and what choice would a low income couple have in this regard? Would they even be able to do it at all ? I think you are correct that people would like choices, but this is a system whereby most people likely have no choice at all. Or not very attractive ones.
Human rights activist complains to Tory party after MP tells him to ‘go back to Bahrain’
Exclusive: In video footage, Bob Stewart MP heard telling Sayed Alwadaei ‘you’re taking money off my country’
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...arty-after-mp-tells-him-to-go-back-to-bahrain
Stewart has been on two trips to Bahrain, paid for by the country’s government, since 2021. Last month, according to the register of members’ interests, he visited the Bahrain airshow and met the foreign minister, declaring a cost of £1,245.56 for the five-day trip.
He also declared another trip in November 2021, including flights, accommodation and meals with a value of £5,349 as part of the parliamentary delegation to the IISS Manama Dialogue.
Exclusive: In video footage, Bob Stewart MP heard telling Sayed Alwadaei ‘you’re taking money off my country’
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...arty-after-mp-tells-him-to-go-back-to-bahrain
Stewart has been on two trips to Bahrain, paid for by the country’s government, since 2021. Last month, according to the register of members’ interests, he visited the Bahrain airshow and met the foreign minister, declaring a cost of £1,245.56 for the five-day trip.
He also declared another trip in November 2021, including flights, accommodation and meals with a value of £5,349 as part of the parliamentary delegation to the IISS Manama Dialogue.
Without being an expert in US healthcare my understanding is that there's different subsidised Medicaid programs that allow for different hospitals / care.
Naturally though like every product and service the poorest people in the country end up with the most basic.
That is the whole point of universal free healthcare. So that the poorest people do not end up with either no healthcare or the most basic healthcare.
Problems you may have seen specific to the NHS statistics are a problem with our current government's execution not the concept of universal free healthcare. Over the last 12 years they have executed a similar ideological predisposition as you seem to hold regarding private healthcare and the (illusion of) choice in the "free market".
' there's an argument that this government are the most left wing since Atlee.'
Jaw-dropping.' there's an argument that this government are the most left wing since Atlee.'
Thanks for the answer. Obviously we'll disagree, but for me that level of government minimalism will only ever work in a textbook.
A government relying on charity to look after the poorest in society and hoping that the wealthy fund it is failing in its basic duties for me. It seems a way to fast-track the ever-growing disparity between the wealthy and the poor and ensure we're living in an Elysium (crap film) type society. The closing of non-profitable transport routes would isolate communities and basically kill off some villages and towns, resulting in increased urbanisation.
Having the choice of hospital works for you as someone with the money to pay for what you want -and best of luck to you both with the twins btw- but not the poorest.
In Singapore there is great wealth disparity, but every citizen has access to subsidised accommodation, as well as food, with some basic healthcare provision for the poor. Admittedly that's easier with a population a tenth that of the UK no doubt, but even the deregulation poster child values social cohesion and provides the basics for the wider community.
There's no real way of avoiding a two, three or several tier offering for any commodity.
In the UK I avoid using buses and trains in favour of private transportation. I avoid using the NHS wherever possible by using private GP's and Bupa. In a few years I'll avoid the education system by sending my children private. I avoid using social housing by buying my own property. In the future I'll avoid using government social care as I've seen the standard of care and would want far better. I'll also avoid relying on a government pension as I'd want more than the most basic retirement. Hell I even avoid using the congested and pothole-filled public roads in favour of the M6 Toll whenever my trip allows it (and I wish there were far more private roads to use).
Bear in mind that these poor services across the board are despite record high taxes, a record budget deficit and record spend to GDP across government. Therefore it simply isn't the case that all these departments are underfunded; quite the opposite in fact.
The question then is if a trillion pound spend alongside record taxation results in poor healthcare, a poor education system, awful adult social care, terrifyingly underfunded childrens care, low pension payments, low unemployment payments, poor social housing infrastructure, a terrible transport network, an underfunded army/navy/airforce with outdated equipment, rapists regularly going unpunished due to an underfunded policeforce, an underfunded prison system with inhumane standards and non-existent rehabilitation, squalid conditions for asylum seekers and a judicial system at breaking point, to name but a few... What's the solution?
Choice is ridiculously overrated. Do people even want that much choice in the basics in life? I mean I can't even be bothered to choose jeans.
Sack the manager, bring someone competent.
The solution is don't allow the government and their privateers to rip off the vast quantities of public money that they currently do, invest in infrastructure and education to grow the economy, redistribute money from the ultra wealthy down the food chain to improve the tax take and grow the economy, and in the long term stop fecking borrowing so much money such that our interest payments become ever more crippling.
Oh and while we're at it we could consider rejoining the Single Market and/or EU.
British are rubbish at making choices, voting for a left wing Tory government and then Brexit and afterwards complaining what a sh*thole the UK is.
Obviously records amount are being spent. Inflation alone would tell us that we need to keep increasing the amounts that are spent to keep the services the same.
So why are they getting worse? Because for the last 12 years the country has been run by a politic party whose main goal seems to be asset stripping the country. Just look at the PPE contracts awarded during Covid or the Test and Trace scandal.
There was so much money being thrown around and there was such a panic, that they got sloppy, I'm sure they have been doing this on a more discreet scale for years.
The issue is not that public services are by definition worse, it's that they are purposely being made that way and to seem inefficient.
Hear Hear. It comes down to cronyism and incompetence in my opinion, before we even get into any Right / Left debate.
The conservatives are corrupt. They exist to serve the needs of themselves and their class, the rest of us be damned. If the last decade hasn't proven that to people by now, I'm really not sure what to say.
I find it quite insulting that @finneh is trying so hard to convince us that this UK government, this fecking UK government, is left-wing, using the typical word salad around "authoritarianism", and focusing almost exclusively on public spending. People like him are simply, very likely in bad faith and hoping that us peasants won't realise it, obfuscating an actually very simple thing, and doing their bit in pushing the Overton window, even if it's just at a very small scale in a football forum. The argument of the money spent in particular is so spurious that it's impossible for me to give him the benefit of the doubt and believe he is debating in remotely good faith. Maybe someone with more patience and a better command of the English language will indulge him and get into the actual reasons why the argument is spurious, but I won't, because I'm not that person. I just wanted to express my disgust at his blatant attempt to convince us that the piss on our faces (your faces really, as I don't live there) is just a tiny bit of warm rainwater. Enough is enough.
Sacking every single manager in health, education, civil service, defence, police etc would certainly be one idea!
However you have to ask if every manager is failing simultaneously whether it's the lack of incentives that's the root of the problem, rather than thousands of people being coincidentally incompetant.
Where is all the money coming from to set up completely new infrastructure so that public bodies don't have to rely on private companies (which they've been doing for decades)? Likewise to invest in infrastructure? Presumably growing the economy also requires a chunk of governmental spend, given that you're taxing wealth creators more in your manifesto which will cause an economic contraction that would need offsetting? Tax is already at it's highest and most distributive for decades so will hammering the wealthy further actually raise more funds or will it kill investment and end updoing the reserve? Bear in mind that if the top 10 richest people in the UK donated their entire net worth to the treasury; it would run the NHS for just over a year. You'll very quickly run out of the ultra wealthy and end up needing to hammer small and medium sized businesses, the middle classes and then the lower-middle, which is exactly where we are now.
Also how are we doing all this if we're reducing borrowing at the same time, given that the budget deficit is £100b and being spent on public services?
To not only stop borrowing more but to reduce the budget deficit conservatively lets say you're raising another £80b a year in taxes. Add on infrastructure and educational investment and you're looking at, what, another £45b so £125b total per annum? You start out by taxing every billionaire an extra £10m per year (£1.77b), you then tax the people who earn £1m+ per year an extra £100k on top (£1.9b). You then tax every single personal earning £150k+ an extra £10,000 per year (£6b). You not only increase corporation tax to 25%, but decide to triple that and go to 37% (£6.6b). You then go after the 4.3m higher rate taxpayers (£50k+), having them pay another £2500 (£10b). You also assume that this aggressive taxation has no detrimental effect on consumer spending, employment, business investment etc and are what less than a quarter the way there?
It's common sense that the 19,000 people earning £1m per annum, or the 177 UK billionaires are a drop in the ocean when compared to an annual budget of a 1000 billion and a deficit of 100 billion every year.
I don't think he understands what he's talking about. He really believes that everyone has an equal choice. He does because he's well off.
Having had surreal discussions with him in the past like why he voted for Brexit because that would enable Nigerian farmers to sell their milk in the UK.
I'm so glad I don't live in the UK either.
It is not just British people, humans in general are just not very good at dealing with choice. Give people too many choices, they just use shortcuts to narrow it down to one or two, not necessarily effectively. So the more choice, the worse the decisions. Look at the shitty choices rich people make.
Usually 'more choice' as a policy objective is just a smokescreen for something less palatable.
I don't disagree but rich people can usually make shitty choices and survive.