Re: General Election
 

Living under 13 years of Tory sleaze, corruption and mismanagement I'd wish for a change, whoever it is.

Agree with every word of that :tu:

Re: General Election
 

Totally agree with this, thanks Russ.

As I mentioned before, the important decision is how to get them out, not who to vote for.

Re: General Election
 

Why on earth would you want this ?
They are still the only really viable opposition (once they lose the next election).
Handing absolute rule to Labour (or anyone) for "decades" is not likely to turn out well for anyone.
I think they call it a dictatorship.

---------- Post added at 02:26 ---------- Previous post was at 02:24 ----------

Really, no one questioned this ? I checked again, still looks like 18 to me.

Re: General Election
 

So doesn’t that mean the past 13 years have been a “dictatorship” too?

Why would I want this? Easy, to punish the current shower of shit for the years of lies, corruptions and dishonesty that they don’t even bother hiding anymore. The contempt they have for the working classes like you and I. They way they’ve decimated funding for the NHS then blamed it on immigrant and striking staff. Speak of which, they way they’ve removed workers’ democratic right to strike and reduce our right to protest. They way they want to removed the ECHR. The way they’ve consistent broken international law. They way they’ve placed “stopping the boats” as their priority when we have a cost of living crisis. The way they have constantly lied about the “benefits” of Brexit. The damn stupid “oven ready deal” lie. Wage stagnation which for many puts us on equal earning terms from
2008.

Unless you’re a millionaire the last 13 years have not turned out well for anyone either.

I could go on and on but I need my breakfast. There are plenty of reasons why the **** Party need to be kept out of office for many years.

Re: General Election
 

If the last 13 years aren't a dictatorship, then they certainly in my eyes will go down as the years of lost opportunities.

The rest of your post sums the Conservatives up pretty well, and makes me scratch my head in disbelief when people on here hang on to their every word. The perpetually absent member for Mid Beds sums up the contempt they have for their constituents (the people who pay their wages). They used to be known as the nasty party but that'd make this lot sound nicer than they are.

Re: General Election
 

You were right to question this - Hugh's figures only cover the Brown and Blair administrations, not the Wilson and Callaghan administrations of the 1970s.

Re: General Election
 

I would never vote negatively and, because of our system of election would vote for the best MP in my area almost regardless of party.


I do agree that the NHS does need work but financially it's a bottomless pit and would consume all resource put towards it. When I worked for the NHS we understood we got lower pay than the public sector but we had a safe job, annual pay rises (including increment points for many) and a brilliant pension. It seems that all of the "perks" have gone but the pay masters still expect staff to work for lower wages, you can't have both. A further staffing problem was being able to get rid of the "dross", and there are some, and to retain the good staff in positions that they are good at.

Re: General Election
 

Well this does not make sense as you voted for Steve Brine. Paula Ferguson, who he beat by ~900 votes, was a far more capable and honest individual with significantly more integrity. It seems that your preference in 2019 was not the best MP, rather the best MP wearing a blue rosette.

Re: General Election
 

But the perceived politics of one party is not a suitable baseline to start from (even assuming it’s true - and given that the NHS has been under Tory control for most of its existence, and about 30 of the last 44 years since 1979, if they really are trying to actually destroy it, they’ve been about as effective as Wile E. Coyote).

The point is, the welfare state introduced by the Attlee government (1945-1951) fundamentally changed the demands placed on whoever has been in power ever since, while at the same time the UK, Europe and the world began to come to terms with the massive economic and social restructuring demanded by the end of world war 2. Both parties have shown differing political priorities since then, but that is when the modern rules of the game were set, and that is why serious academic treatment of ‘modern era’ British government and politics starts with 1945, not friendly but ultimately quite arbitrary figures like ‘50 years’.

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IIRC The NHS is run on a lower budget than some equivalent systems, although a lot of them have many things contributing to that budget including top-up payments from users of the service.

Healthcare is expensive.

Re: General Election
 

Agreed. The trouble is that this is a difficult sell to the electorate and there are still plenty of politicians around who will trot out the voter-friendly line lines that "the NHS has enough money, it just needs to be more efficient" or "the money is spent on admin and managers, not healthcare staff".

Yes, it can always be more efficient but the fundamental funding issue remains and no party seems to be willing to tackle this, for fear of making themselves unelectable.

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This is the truth of it.

The NHS is a behemoth, it is too big to control. All the money in the world still wouldn't be enough.

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Yet it’s more cost effective than private insurance based systems.

The “truth of it” is we need an honest conversation about funding it (and social care). People are living longer, with more ailments, yet public opinion is being driven to believe we should be paying less.

Insurance based systems all offer less bang for buck. However, like running a public utility like water, energy or a train operator it’s a good way to extract wealth from citizens to shareholders knowing the public have to carry the can for failure anyway.

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just wait until you have a relative that needs to go into care. You'll learn all about the Extraction of Wealth, very quickly.

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I’m more than aware - which is why I included social care in the ‘honest conversation’ Governments (whichever party) need to have.