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@Victor-Meldrew said in British Politics:
@Rembrandt said in British Politics:
@Bones said in British Politics:
@Rembrandt said in British Politics:
How about that..its illegal to protest. I'm guessing the qualifier is that it is only illegal if the person you are protesting has a vajayjay and is anti-Brexit....because I'm pretty sure there are maybe a couple hundred examples in the last year even where this was actually fine against folk with doodles or who believed in democracy.
That strikes me as harassment, not protesting.
Off the top of my head I can think of two
I'm just amazed that people try to stop the likes of TR or the BNP's Nick Griffin from speaking, as it simply plays into their hands. Once they do speak, people can see what they really are. Griffin went downhill rapidly once he had been seen on Question Time.
That's exactly right. I'm a firm believer in the 'Sunlight is the best disinfectant' idea. Griffin was destroyed once people got wind of who he was. The idea that censorship stops bad ideas is completely wrong, censorship allows bad ideas to go unchallenged and fester. If peoples opinions can't be discussed then violence becomes an alternative.
Not to derail this thread as there is a whole thread in him but from everything I've looked into him TR doesn't fall into the Griffin category hence why many are going to huge lengths to silence him which is the exact wrong thing to do.
It will be interesting to see if this prosecution is the new standard or just a double standard. We'll see soon enough.
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@MiketheSnow said in British Politics:
For all the calls of BBC bias, ITV are rank amateurs.
Hard watch. The host was fucking useless.
Two jobs, ask questions and keep them in line.
Failed miserably in the latter.
And wtf was with her calling for Johnson and Corbyn to make pledges.
Get fucked.
Corbyn won the night for me on a great answer to a trite question
'What would you get the other person for Christmas? '
Corbyn would give Johnson a copy of 'A Christmas Carol'
It appears that Corbyn will be receiving flounder.
Corbyn "won the night" tonight too, easily as Boris was such a carcrash (on BBC question time). The audience booed Bozza, and he was stumped a few times, called out on his previous comments about "Muslim women looking like letterboxes" something about "bumboys" and was asked if he would apologise and he wouldn't....
Corbyn had every Scottish person target him about their chance for independence and he still stood by and said no, not a priority. I like to hear "No", it shows someone who wants to stick to the plan and not just people please and then fail to deliver.Even if Conservative had a few right ideas, they still have that bumbling fool and plenty more like him.
I'm absolutely Corbyn thus far.
It's a shame this election is such an important one and we have rubbish results all around either way. Such uncertain times.
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@R-L Cool you don't like Boris. But what policies of Corbyns do you like?
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@R-L said in British Politics:
The audience booed Bozza, and he was stumped a few times, called out on his previous comments about "Muslim women looking like letterboxes" something about "bumboys" and was asked if he would apologise and he wouldn't....
Genuine question. Do you think he should have apologised?
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@Rembrandt said in British Politics:
If peoples opinions can't be discussed then violence becomes an alternative.
We've been fortunate so far and I think UKIP/Farage have provided a reasonably decent home for those with more traditional views rather than the likes of the BNP.
There's a way too strong "you're too stupid to know what's good for you" attitude in politics which is quite poisonous.
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@Baron-Silas-Greenback said in British Politics:
@R-L Cool you don't like Boris. But what policies of Corbyns do you like?
This in particular is highly useful to look at, not saying I agree with all of it, and for sure do not care about broadband promises.
https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Funding-Real-Change-1.pdfI don't like Boris, and he does come across as a fool so I stand by that, Corbyn is less bumbling, I don't hold a huge grudge again conservatives either though,just yet to see their manifesto and funding if they provide one to make an overall informed decision.
It's very much promises promises all round as usual.
I have family members that are Conservative to the core and in laws that are Labour and that's that, neither will ever budge opinion regardless of what is offered and I hate the snobbery around politics.
I've not taken an interest in politics for a very long time so I absolutely want to make the right decision when I vote, so if you could tell me the most convincing arguments for either side I'd honestly pay attention.
All I know is that I am an individual with particular interests in NHS, its staffing in particular. Every year its pressures are increasing at GP level to see more patients, particularly the salaried GPs not the Partners, and in Hospitals there just seems to be huge amount of understaffing, nursing in particular, if staff employment has gone up then they are not looking at their attendance figures because staff sick leave must be at its highest.
Also can anyone tell me about a specific issue and how we could be effected by a no deal brexit with owning a property within the EU.
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@R-L I'll have a go at answering some of your questions, albeit in brief. Corbyn and co are trying to make this election all about the NHS (as did Boris with the Brexit referendum) as they know ti is a sacred beast as far as the British populace is concerned. The problems facing the NHS are huge and multi-layered, it is not simply about funding. Other problems are probably more important as they impact upon funding levels. Waste within the NHS is huge, both on an individual level and a management level. Are there figures for this? Not that I know of, but I do know a number of people who work with or for the NHS in several different areas and they all tell the same tale. Add to that the problem of misuse of NHS time and resources by patients and you have a behemoth spiralling out of control. Simply adding more money does not solve any problems and that is not even considering where that money comes from.
The Labour scaremongering about the Tories selling off the NHS is founded on what? Perhaps it is founded on the fact that during the 77 odd years that the NHS has been in existence, the Tories have been in power for 44 years and they have not sold anything off yet.
In regard to the broader issues of socialism or not, I find that the best argument against it is the quote (can't remember who) saying "The problem with Socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money".
I'm guessing you were born in the late 80's? Pardon me if I'm wrong. But if so you will not have experienced true socialism in the UK. In the decade and a bit before, we had strikes galore, crippling the economy and truly impacting upon everyday people's lives. We had the Fire Brigade out on strike for months, the Army having to step in and try and fill the breech. People died because of this. We had council workers on strike, again for months, meaning that huge piles of rubbish were left to rot on city streets for weeks on end. We had a miners' strike (no, not the Thatcher one) that reduced the country to having blackouts most evenings and the country being forced into working a three day week for several months.
Imagine if you will, in the city you now live, the lights go out at 8pm, no TV, no broadband, no electric kettles. Outside the rubbish is piled 20 feet high on the street corners. Your salary has just been chopped by 40% because you can only go into work for three days a week but your Mars Bar costs 20% more than it did last year. The country, our country was bankrupt, we were the equivalent of a 2011 Greece, we had double digit inflation year on year with interest rates swinging wildly. It took over 20 years to eradicate the mess that was left behind.
Corbyn's manifesto threatens to take us back to those times and perhaps beyond.
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@R-L said in British Politics:
Every year its pressures are increasing at GP level to see more patients, particularly the salaried GPs not the Partners, and in Hospitals there just seems to be huge amount of understaffing, nursing in particular,
Understaffing?
The NHS has above the OECD average for nurses (just) and more doctors per head of population than Singapore, the US, Japan, Canada etc. They are also among the highest paid in the world.
Nor is the NHS "under-funded" - the UK spends above the OECD average on the NHS at 10%-ish of GDP
Yet the NHS provides a poor to average service with medical outcomes like cancer survival and hospital infection rates among the worst in the developed world. (GIYF)
The elephant in the room is that the NHS model is just inefficient compared to other countries. But don't expect any politician to burst the bubble of the myth the NHS is "the envy of the world" which just needs some more "investment"
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@Catogrande said in British Politics:
Waste within the NHS is huge, both on an individual level and a management level. Are there figures for this? Not that I know of, but I do know a number of people who work with or for the NHS in several different areas and they all tell the same tale.
Two personal examples:
Partner's father was in hospital for observation. Nurses unsure whether Consultant would turn up for a check and discharge him or he'd need to spend another night in hospital. Turns out there's no way a consultant can have his rounds tracked or be contacted while on his rounds. That caused 2 extra day's occupation of a hospital bed. Mobile phones anyone?
Daughter is a pediatric nurse in a respite unit. Children come in with a need for bandages or drugs which they provide, but which the GP should provide, so stocks run low. She then spends about 4 hrs a week getting the stocks replenished by emailing and calling the GPs surgeries to get then sent to her unit. Guess what? they all come from the same central store.
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@Rembrandt said in British Politics:
On NHS wastage also. I mentioned a few posts back I had a good mate who was involved in a big IT mess..this was it. I thought it was in the millions of pounds..turns out I was only off by 10,000 x
Slightly OT and I'm waiting for some paint to dry (yes, really)....
I was approached to run part of the NHS IT program in the early 2000's. Spent a week with it and quickly turned the opportunity down. The project had the word "clusterfuck" tattooed on it's forehead
User testing was done with retired GP's & other medics paid around £4-5k per day to check usability and feed into system/package design to speed implementation. Real world people only really saw the system when it was being rolled out for training. What could possibly go wrong?
The package itself (IDX) was OK and designed as a distributed architecture with nodes supporting a small number of hospitals, outpatient centres and GP surgeries. It would have worked well as a linked system serving individual NHS trusts as it was used in Canada and the US with similar, HMO's, but the politicians decided it had to be "national" (to avoid any accusations of splitting up the NHS) and put all the nodes in a warehouse nr Heathrow....
Cue massive networking costs and contracts with BT. Guess which Health Secretary ended up on the BT Board?
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@Victor-Meldrew said in British Politics:
The elephant in the room is that the NHS model is just inefficient compared to other countries. But don't expect any politician to burst the bubble of the myth the NHS is "the envy of the world" which just needs some more "investment"
Probably fairer to say the NHS model is operated inefficiently. Would be interested in the comparison to NZ in terms of doctor/nurse rates, %GDP and effectiveness. Our model is broadly similar, but feels 'chalk and cheese' in terms of usability and effectiveness.
Free at the point of service sucks. People abuse it. Working in a professional firm, full of smart, engaged, well paid people, the effect of a small fee on a slap up end of year function was massive - almost no dropouts (compared to people not bothering to show up previously, and just not telling anyone), and far better engagement. Make something free at the point of service, and it'll get abused (see also: Physio Appointments in NZ).
For clarity: I think centralised healthcare has some inefficiency inherently, but like electricity and firefighting it's such a fundamental need in society it's really hard for people to shop around and have competition. My comments above are primarily for the GP type engagements (the most frequent)
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@nzzp said in British Politics:
Probably fairer to say the NHS model is operated inefficiently. Would be interested in the comparison to NZ in terms of doctor/nurse rates, %GDP and effectiveness. Our model is broadly similar, but feels 'chalk and cheese' in terms of usability and effectiveness.
Currently waiting for the second coat of paint to dry....
Perhaps the model in inherently inefficient?. There's no incentive to spot cancer early (which reduces treatment costs and increase survival rates) as there is in profit-based or insurance systems. A reason why the US has the best cancer outcomes perhaps?
NZ spent about 15% less than the UK ( $3,500 v the UK's $4,200) but had far better outcomes (It's wikipedia and I can't be arsed to check the base data sources for accuracy)
Heath outcomes, NZ outperforms the UK easily.
My daughter is a Junior Doctor who qualified 2 years ago. She spent 6 months in NZ and was struck by the priority given to prevention rather than treatment. Perhaps that's the secret.
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@nzzp said in British Politics:
For clarity: I think centralised healthcare has some inefficiency inherently, but like electricity and firefighting it's such a fundamental need in society it's really hard for people to shop around and have competition.
Couldn't agree more.
Just that the NHS seems to be very poor at this compared to other countries which do exactly that - and has been for decades.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in British Politics:
@nzzp said in British Politics:
For clarity: I think centralised healthcare has some inefficiency inherently, but like electricity and firefighting it's such a fundamental need in society it's really hard for people to shop around and have competition.
Couldn't agree more.
Just that the NHS seems to be very poor at this compared to other countries which do exactly that - and has been for decades.
I'm a massive fan of clearly regulated markets, as free as they can be. Healthcare, water, electricity isn't something that people can sensibly decide not to have. Therefore, I'm happy wiht some centralisation of that.
In NZ, would totally get rid of 'elected' health boards. They are bizarre; not generating good outcomes, no one knows who the hell their apparent representative is, and the inefficiency generated by some of that isn't great.
Where we (and damn near every) healthcare provider struggles is with chronic conditions ... ongoing issues, month after month, but not fatal or critical. Just problematic for the patients ... and with limited money, that means prioritisation somehow, wait lists and sob stories. Health is a goddamn minefield.
Random thought: the US may have outstanding cancer outcomes, but it also has half the population living in fear of a massive medical bill, no clarity on what things cost or get paid for by insurance. Like ACC our NZ system isn't perfect, but it largely keeps lawyers out and that's a pretty good outcome
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@nzzp said in British Politics:
Random thought: the US may have outstanding cancer outcomes, but it also has half the population living in fear of a massive medical bill, no clarity on what things cost or get paid for by insurance.
Not promoting the US system (though it isn't as bad as painted) as it's incredibly inefficient.
But I guess the question is this: Do you want to survive cancer or feel good that you don't have to worry about paying for it?
A sensible approach might be for the NHS to look at outsourcing its cancer testing and treatment on a payment-by-survival rate basis to emulate US survival rates.
Imagine the uproar....
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@nzzp said in British Politics:
I'm a massive fan of clearly regulated markets, as free as they can be. Healthcare, water, electricity isn't something that people can sensibly decide not to have. Therefore, I'm happy wiht some centralisation of that.
If water, why not food?
Imagine nationalized supermarkets, takeaways and restaurants...
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@Victor-Meldrew said in British Politics:
@nzzp said in British Politics:
I'm a massive fan of clearly regulated markets, as free as they can be. Healthcare, water, electricity isn't something that people can sensibly decide not to have. Therefore, I'm happy wiht some centralisation of that.
If water, why not food?
Imagine nationalized supermarkets, takeaways and restaurants...
heaven forbid!
the key difference in these is around barriers to entry, choice and infrastructure required.
Electricity. Can you choose not to have it? Nope. barrier to entry: massive infrastructure investment to get power to someones house. Choice: low (every kwH is the same). Therefore, support centralisation in principle.
Food. Can you choose not to have it: Nope. Barrier to supplying someone with food: low. Choice: high - loads of places you can eat, different types of food, different value propositions. Therefore, no objection to letting the market decide
Healthcare (since we're here): can you choose not to have it: no. Barrier to entry: High (lots of infrastructure required, particularly in NZ). Choice: usually low (when you're bleeding), but higher when it's elective surgery. Therefore I like what we have: centralisation for emergency care and major infrastructure required care, but you can get your boob job or (@Snowy) skin removal and replacement anywhere that meets healthcare regulations (and hence regulated market).
should we keep going onto internet, sex (not linked at all), firefighting, etc...
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Not disagreeing with you. IIRC the US A&E system works really well as it's (self) regulated.
But plenty of barriers to entry for food supply in the EU. Farmer up the road has just started selling meat. Staggering amount of infrastructure/hoops to jumps thru needed before he was in business.
Think the internet and electricity supply will become increasing de-regulated due to technology.
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