Brexit

So many Labour voters on here tonight let's see what happens on election day.

I am not a  tory just a disillusioned  Labour supporter .

I can not believe how many of you are taken in by  labours . manifesto .

Let's see what happens  I can not see.a Labour win.

Please come back and prove  me wrong .

Quoted from grimsby pete

I can not believe how many of you are taken in by  labours . manifesto .

Let's see what happens  I can not see.a Labour win.

Please come back and prove  me wrong .

Why " taken in" ? The Tories are standing on a record of cuts, rapidly rising NHS waiting lists, inequality, homelessness, child poverty, student debt and food banks, if we are "taken in" with hope that society can a little fairer and more caring and that tax dodgers will he made to pay up a then that is a good thing.
I would suggest you are taken in by the Tory backing media who's super rich tax exile owners are frightened they may have to pay more tax or have less influence.
You either want to have hope for the future generations of a better country or more of the same

I have been hearing scare stories about the Tories and the NHS since I was a lad.

Here we are, decades later, most of which have been under Tory governments, and the NHS is still protected, still free at the point of use, still growing still doing fantastic work and has had the biggest input of investment that can reasonably be expected. Yet apparently the Tories are going to sell it off; they are going to privatise it, they are going to do this that and the other to it.

People have got beyond this infantile demonisation of the Conservative party regarding the NHS. Although a great service, it could do even better, but it faces enormous pressures from a growing population and an ageing population with serious illnesses that can be treated these days which could not in decades past.

The political will to "sell off" the NHS is simply not there, even if any party wanted to. It would mean electoral oblivion for any party who tried it. Imagine the doctors and nurses unions reaction to it.

It seems all Labour have is scare stories. We will see what the voters decide on December 12th.

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

I have been hearing scare stories about the Tories and the NHS since I was a lad.

Here we are, decades later, most of which have been under Tory governments, and the NHS is still protected, still free at the point of use, still growing still doing fantastic work and has had the biggest input of investment that can reasonably be expected. Yet apparently the Tories are going to sell it off; they are going to privatise it, they are going to do this that and the other to it.

People have got beyond this infantile demonisation of the Conservative party regarding the NHS. Although a great service, it could do even better, but it faces enormous pressures from a growing population and an ageing population with serious illnesses that can be treated these days which could not in decades past.

The political will to "sell off" the NHS is simply not there, even if any party wanted to. It would mean electoral oblivion for any party who tried it. Imagine the doctors and nurses unions reaction to it.

It seems all Labour have is scare stories. We will see what the voters decide on December 12th.

It seems you somehow missed my post showing the expenditure chart from the King's Fund in the other thread which is a pity, as it was a response to your original post. Here's the link to my post and here's the image once again:



As this shows, since the coalition government took power in 2010, the NHS has been drastically underfunded. The irrefutable fact is that we have a rapidly aging population and therefore need to spend an increasing proportion of our resources to look after them. You can certainly tinker around the edges and improve efficiencies here and there but ultimately, only continuing to increase the expenditure will work.

You're also missing out the obvious fact that the NHS was severely struggling after the Thatcher/Major era. Blair's New Labour government came into power and oversaw a huge investment in the NHS to bring things back up to a required level - clearly shown on the chart above and, elsewhere, in the stats for the targets which were created and then met at the time. Now, they are being missed despite the fact that the targets have been lowered since then.

Note, I'm not defending the fact that a lot of the New Labour expenditure was foolishly funded through PFI to keep it off the books (as continued by the coalition and then the Tories) - the point is that the expenditure was required and it was made.

You ask why we don't trust the Tories with the NHS? Well, the pointless and expensive reorganisation of the NHS in 2012 wasn't mentioned in their 2010 manifesto and was cooked up shortly after the election. The main aim? To introduce 'competition' within the NHS due to the typical right-wing mantra that only the market can decide what is efficient and what isn't. A clear stepping stone towards privatisation of the NHS if I've ever seen one and and it has proved such a failure that many it was announced earlier this year that many of the changes are to be reversed. They are abandoning the policy of enforcing competition and are merging the CCGs created after 2012, all without officially repealing the 2012 act (because that would admit it was a failure).

However, that was announced under May's watch. With people like Johnson in charge and the Britannia Unchained idiots in the cabinet, who knows what nonsense they might come up with on NHS policy? After pretty much anything but the softest of Brexits, we would be desperate for free trade deals and the wealthy countries we would have to go to cap in hand know this. Increased access to the NHS or public healthcare funding for private companies has been around for years now and it's the foot in the door for worse to follow, if the government of the day are ideologically disposed that way. And this lot certainly are.

Just to add, if you trust Johnson on pretty much anything you're barmy as he's practically a pathological liar. During this campaign he's continually repeated the absolutely untrue claims of 40 new hospitals in planning:

https://fullfact.org/health/six-hospitals-not-forty/

Outright, blatant and untrue disinformation. A pity that the BBC have apparently decided that they don't want to call him a liar because it would, "undermine trust in British politics". Unbelievable.

Its also unbelievable that you don't think there will be a price to pay when moneybags Corbyn bankrupts the country.

Don't say its all been  costed because he will not get all the billions from the super rich and global companies,

He lied  as well ( they all do ) when he said only the top 5% will pay more tax but you if you are married will pay an extra £250 a year, He said everything is in the grey book but the waspy womens pay out aprox 55billion is not in the book and he hardly answered any questions the other night.

Don't come back with a load on the Cons because like I said they all tell porkies and I don't believe any of them.

I take it all with a pinch of salt then I decide who I will vote for.

Quoted from Maringer

It seems you somehow missed my post showing the expenditure chart from the King's Fund in the other thread which is a pity, as it was a response to your original post. Here's the link to my post and here's the image once again:



As this shows, since the coalition government took power in 2010, the NHS has been drastically underfunded. The irrefutable fact is that we have a rapidly aging population and therefore need to spend an increasing proportion of our resources to look after them. You can certainly tinker around the edges and improve efficiencies here and there but ultimately, only continuing to increase the expenditure will work.

You're also missing out the obvious fact that the NHS was severely struggling after the Thatcher/Major era. Blair's New Labour government came into power and oversaw a huge investment in the NHS to bring things back up to a required level - clearly shown on the chart above and, elsewhere, in the stats for the targets which were created and then met at the time. Now, they are being missed despite the fact that the targets have been lowered since then.

Note, I'm not defending the fact that a lot of the New Labour expenditure was foolishly funded through PFI to keep it off the books (as continued by the coalition and then the Tories) - the point is that the expenditure was required and it was made.

You ask why we don't trust the Tories with the NHS? Well, the pointless and expensive reorganisation of the NHS in 2012 wasn't mentioned in their 2010 manifesto and was cooked up shortly after the election. The main aim? To introduce 'competition' within the NHS due to the typical right-wing mantra that only the market can decide what is efficient and what isn't. A clear stepping stone towards privatisation of the NHS if I've ever seen one and and it has proved such a failure that many it was announced earlier this year that many of the changes are to be reversed. They are abandoning the policy of enforcing competition and are merging the CCGs created after 2012, all without officially repealing the 2012 act (because that would admit it was a failure).

However, that was announced under May's watch. With people like Johnson in charge and the Britannia Unchained idiots in the cabinet, who knows what nonsense they might come up with on NHS policy? After pretty much anything but the softest of Brexits, we would be desperate for free trade deals and the wealthy countries we would have to go to cap in hand know this. Increased access to the NHS or public healthcare funding for private companies has been around for years now and it's the foot in the door for worse to follow, if the government of the day are ideologically disposed that way. And this lot certainly are.

To be fair you would make a better leader of the Labour party than Jeremy Corbyn.

However, normal voters take things in the round; in this particular election probably the majority will vote for a party that can get into power which promises to deliver on the decision taken by the British people to leave the European Union. They will enjoy seeing a democratic vote honoured.

They will look at both the main parties and draw their own conclusions as to other matters, including the NHS which as I pointed out earlier still treats the populations ills free at the point of use, despite scare stories for years. They will know that a huge influx of immigrants each and every year is adding more strain on all the services we use, and they will know that the Tories had to at least try and balance the books after Liam Byrne, the Labour Treasury minitser left them a note saying there was no money left.

They will see the spending plans for each party and decide which one might be remotely credible, and they will take into account the flaws of the leaders of both the main parties and factor them in.

Most voters will see the down side of all the parties, and not be ideologically wedded to one, and most voters will certainly not try to roll the t**d that is the Labour party in glitter.

I know the Conservative party has many faults. The leader has many faults, like any human being, but on balance I think most voters will be more comfortable with a Conservative government than a Labour one. Obviously you will disagree, being the de facto leader of the opposition, but we will have to see on polling day.  

Quoted from grimsby pete

Its also unbelievable that you don't think there will be a price to pay when moneybags Corbyn bankrupts the country.

Don't say its all been costed because he will not get all the billions from the super rich and global companies,

He lied  as well ( they all do ) when he said only the top 5% will pay more tax but you if you are married will pay an extra £250 a year, He said everything is in the grey book but the waspy womens pay out aprox 55billion is not in the book and he hardly answered any questions the other night.

Don't come back with a load on the Cons because like I said they all tell porkies and I don't believe any of them.

I take it all with a pinch of salt then I decide who I will vote for.

Once again, Pete, the level of expenditure that the Labour Party are talking about is at absolutely normal levels for Western democracies. It will not (and cannot) 'bankrupt' the country:



A little above the OECD average for developed countries but nothing outrageous and there is a lot of damage to repair following a decade of the Coalition/Tories.

It's interesting that you say a Labour government wouldn't be able to raise taxes from the wealthy and corporations. If the wealthy want to leave the country, then let them. Of course, it means that they won't be living with their families who will still be living in the south east and going to the same schools. The idea of capital flight is a well-used scare story loved by right-wingers but there is actually very little evidence that it actually occurs when taxes are raised.

Labour is also moving forward (as are the other OECD countries) in trying to get Unitary taxation in place. In other words, big companies such as Amazon and the like wouldn't be able to get away with basing themselves in tax havens and claiming that sales in the UK aren't actually made here because of complex transfers using loopholes. The big corporations are hollowing out the economies where they operate by not paying a fair share of taxes there and this is why the OECD countries are finally getting together to do something about it.

Not sure what you've got against the WASPI women? The equalisation of pension ages had been known about for some time but then the coalition yanked forward the timescale (and increased the age to 66 faster as well) in 2011. This left millions women unexpectedly out of pocket or working longer, all because the coalition wanted to not give pensioners £30 billion they were entitled to under previous legislation. Surprised they are going to go back further and offer additional compensation following the original legislation, but I personally don't really mind pensioners getting a one-off substantial payment, much of which will end up being spent on their families. If we can create almost half a trillion pounds through QE to bail out the banks when it was their behaviour which crashed the economy and led to the financial collapse, nothing wrong with spending a tenth as much on the elderly. I look at it as an investment, truth be told. Just as long as the cruise industry doesn't end up pocketing most of it.  

Actually, most of it would probably end up in the hands of care homes, thinking about it. One way to help deal with the social care issue in the shorter term, I suppose.

I'm afraid bankruptcy is an emotive word. This country isn't and never has been close to bankruptcy since the years after the war. I'm not convinced that it is possible for us to be declared bankrupt.
No point in going over the old nonsense about the state the last Labour government left the country in unless you accept that a large part of the blame for it was down to the 2008 global crash precipitated by U.S. bankers.
What amazes me about  this election is the country is polarised by the need to get Brexit done or the need to stop it. No-one is talking about Brexit as an entity and dare I say it both main parties are going along as though Brexit will have no effect on their spending plans. Truly remarkable times we live in.