Westminster Politics

RedChip said:
Presumably, cheaper people like nurses and hygienists take on more of the work the dentist currently does. This assumes that there are plenty of these people around, which I doubt.
Click to expand...
I had a filing last week the hygienist done it, still costs £80 whoever does it though!
 
I get the benefits of privatisation. I don't understand privatisation without competition, which is what we see in water and in rail. How does that make sense even to privatisations most ardent supporter?
 
stw2022 said:
I get the benefits of privatisation. I don't understand privatisation without competition, which is what we see in water and in rail. How does that make sense even to privatisations most ardent supporter?
Click to expand...

Exactly right. Obviously the government doesn't need to be in charge of random luxury markets, but they should be giving an option or support as needed with necessary but competitive things, and absolutely should be the ones providing necessities where it's a monopoly
 
Drainy said:
Exactly right. Obviously the government doesn't need to be in charge of random luxury markets, but they should be giving an option or support as needed with necessary but competitive things, and absolutely should be the ones providing necessities where it's a monopoly
Click to expand...

We should be choosing who we travel with based on price, reliability, quality of service etc.

Companies would compete for our patronage. Would drive fares down.
 
Plant0x84 said:
I voted for Cameron, May and Johnson, mainly because I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Jezza or the creature comfort Wallace and Gromit guy before him. Previously I voted for Blair, and for Nick Clegg because I thought the country needed a change from the old red or blue. I can’t imagine Sunak will get my vote, but I don’t see Starmer getting his house in order either so who knows?!!
Click to expand...
Plant0x84 said:
Labour to Lib Dem to Tory. I voted for May, and subsequently Boris as I couldn’t vote for anti-Semite Corbyn even though one or two of his policies were thought provoking.
Click to expand...

Least surprising revelation, ever.
 
stw2022 said:
I get the benefits of privatisation. I don't understand privatisation without competition, which is what we see in water and in rail. How does that make sense even to privatisations most ardent supporter?
Click to expand...
It doesn't because privatisation was never actually about competition or free market efficiency, that was the spin put on it for the electorate.

Privatisation was a hundred percent about raising money for the treasury, and for proof of that look at the railways, inherently requiring a degree of public funding but carved up in a ludicrous manner to provide a way of selling part whilst the remaining parts paid for it ever after.

If the money raised by privatisation, and north sea oil, had been invested for the future it might have made sense, but it wasn't, the money was spunked on tax cuts to buy votes, and mostly tax cuts for the well-off at that. All gone.
 
711 said:
It doesn't because privatisation was never actually about competition or free market efficiency, that was the spin put on it for the electorate.

Privatisation was a hundred percent about raising money for the treasury, and for proof of that look at the railways, inherently requiring a degree of public funding but carved up in a ludicrous manner to provide a way of selling part whilst the remaining parts paid for it ever after.

If the money raised by privatisation, and north sea oil, had been invested for the future it might have made sense, but it wasn't, the money was spunked on tax cuts to buy votes, and mostly tax cuts for the well-off at that. All gone.
Click to expand...

This is a fair analysis.
Virtually all Governments, at least in my lifetime, have used assets that effectively (for the most) belong to the nation, to raise money for the exchequer or to move debt of their books, or for other less worthy/ understandable reasons. Whether through privatisation, or the selling off gold reserves, or national treasures, etc. Usually it is to buy-off voters around the time of GE's, or to make other investments they (generally) don't want the public to know about, or more specifically to understand. With 5 to 10 years the most likely period of office for any government, its probably just about understandable. Very rarely have such receipts from such disposals been used to build for the future.

Storage and supply of water is a good example of missed opportunity. My grandfather told me about a plan to establish national grid (linking of reservoirs) for storage and supply was first conceived around the early 1900's, a outline project cost at the time would have been £3-5 hundred thousand pounds, but war in Europe was looming and it got put back on the shelf; it was apparently considered again (same plan) in the early 1930's the price now around £3M, but again war was looming and it went back again to the shelf. It was last looked at (so I am told) in the mid-seventies.it was then priced (same plan) £300m.... goodness knows what it would cost now, but everyone knows its needed, now and for the future, more than ever.
 
Last edited:
711 said:
It doesn't because privatisation was never actually about competition or free market efficiency, that was the spin put on it for the electorate.

Privatisation was a hundred percent about raising money for the treasury, and for proof of that look at the railways, inherently requiring a degree of public funding but carved up in a ludicrous manner to provide a way of selling part whilst the remaining parts paid for it ever after.

If the money raised by privatisation, and north sea oil, had been invested for the future it might have made sense, but it wasn't, the money was spunked on tax cuts to buy votes, and mostly tax cuts for the well-off at that. All gone.
Click to expand...
And for how it could have been you only need to look at Norway
 
Laura so much more aggressive in her questioning of Pritchard compared to the person who is actually in charge of the overall decision making within the health service.....
 
TheGame said:
What a surprise. How she still gets away with what she does is beyond me.
Click to expand...

Ridiculous. What would you say to the parents of this 4 year old child who are having to wait 45-60 weeks for an appointment for their child? What would you say? What would you say?

A very good question.

Asked to the chief executive....but not the health secretary. Great stuff.
 
cafecillos said:
...they are a bunch of fecking racists and xenophobes and know many of their voters are too.
Click to expand...
I guess they think they can replace the foreign care workers with prison wardens to do the job in the same way sunak thinks therapists can do dentist work
 
Lee565 said:
Because...
Click to expand...
Because they can lie about wanting to invest in training British people to do the work and making sure the pay for the work is good enough to attract them.

Complete bollocks of course - no way do they want to put up taxes to fund care homes. They'll also claim that they are horrified that people have to sell the family home to pay for care.

In reality, it's just racist nonsense designed to feed a Daily Mail headline. The trouble is it still finds an audience and that means Labour getting asked stupid questions like how many more immigrants do you want and wrapping it up with "don't you want better pay for careworkers?"

File it under, "we don't need seasonal workers in agriculture - only people who have no faith in Britain think we can't pick our own food" and "we don't need doctors and dentists - we've got Google and a pair of pliers."
 
Remember when Theresa May was the right wing of the Tory party? Feck me!
 
jojojo said:
Because they can lie about wanting to invest in training British people to do the work and making sure the pay for the work is good enough to attract them.

Complete bollocks of course - no way do they want to put up taxes to fund care homes. They'll also claim that they are horrified that people have to sell the family home to pay for care.

In reality, it's just racist nonsense designed to feed a Daily Mail headline. The trouble is it still finds an audience and that means Labour getting asked stupid questions like how many more immigrants do you want and wrapping it up with "don't you want better pay for careworkers?"

File it under, "we don't need seasonal workers in agriculture - only people who have no faith in Britain think we can't pick our own food" and "we don't need doctors and dentists - we've got Google and a pair of pliers."
Click to expand...
Don't forget "we'll fix the NHS in fifteen years, honest, and we definitely won't fall behind our targets or go over budget like every other long term plan we've proposed. More sawdust porridge?"
 
TheGame said:
Click to expand...

Not only is it an absolutely horrid, hate brewing remark, but it's also utterly crap "banter". Can we go back to 2005? At least back then the shit stirring was decent and politicians were held to account when they made comments like this.

Veteran Labour MP Dennis Skinner was ordered out of the Commons this morning, after raising allegations of cocaine use and the shadow chancellor, George Osborne.

In an otherwise mundane session of Treasury questions in the chamber, the 72-year-old MP, the member for Bolsover for more than 35 years, questioned high unemployment under the Tories in the 1980s before suddenly declaring: "The only thing that was growing then were the lines of coke in front of boy George and the rest of the Tories."

That referred to tabloid allegations, which showed a young Mr Osborne in the company of a prostitute and what she claimed was a line of cocaine.

Asked to withdraw the remarks by the speaker, Mr Skinner refused and was told to leave the chamber.

He shouted "It's true!" as he left, adding: "That was in the News of the World and you know it."
Click to expand...
 
TheGame said:
Click to expand...

absolute cnut. See someone try doing the same joke about blackface and see how it goes. It’s rank that these jokes are still made in society about trans issues but when it’s the politicians leading the country…ffs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.