General election

[fozzieskem]

My quick thoughts..

The election was always going to come early,dodgy Dave's 5 year rule never sat well with me,it show how easily it can be brushed aside when it suits them,so get rid we ain't America so no need for fixed terms here.

May says "the country is coming together" I'm 51 and I've never seen it more divided than it is now.

Scotland lost to Labour and with the hapless Corbyn in charge I can only see a bigger majority for the Tories,the lib dems possibly too for them to be forgiven to make much headway,though I think it's clear they did keep the Tories on a leash for 5 years.

[DaveO]

One things for sure kiss goodbye to the NHS as we know it if the Tories have another 5 years at ruining it

I have tried it convince people all my adult life that it is issues like this are what really matter in a general election. Not whether someone can eat a bacon butty or even the supposedly big issue of the day (which is currently brexit).

Instead people vote for what they perceive as a strong leader or some emotive issue like brexit and don't spend five minutes looking into policies that will actually affect them in their day to day lives for years if not decades. Such as how the NHS is being run.

This is why brexit was a big con. "Take back control"? Those ordinary voters who think we are doing this are not in control of anything. They never have been and never will be. What changes their lives will be, as it always has been, the policies of the UK government.

Maybe the country will wake up and just like at the end of WWII when Churchill thought he was a shoe in for PM and a Conservative party victory the new post Brexit dawn will be seen as an opportunity to shape the way the UK goes forward in a similar way that led back then to a Labour party victory.

The polls say there is no chance of this happening and the margin of error is too great to believe any different if you are being realistic but I can live in hope that this will backfire on May and the Tories.

[DaveO]

My quick thoughts..

The election was always going to come early,dodgy Dave's 5 year rule never sat well with me,it show how easily it can be brushed aside when it suits them,so get rid we ain't America so no need for fixed terms here.

You could argue the fact that May has called an election now is proof we do. It is totally opportunistic and the fixed term act was supposed to prevent this.

[fozzieskem]

You're not wrong Dave,but simply until it's gone,and it is going people assume something like the NHS will always be there..I suspect they're in for a shock in the next 5 to 10 years

[Wigan_forever1985]

One things for sure kiss goodbye to the NHS as we know it if the Tories have another 5 years at ruining it

I have tried it convince people all my adult life that it is issues like this are what really matter in a general election. Not whether someone can eat a bacon butty or even the supposedly big issue of the day (which is currently brexit).

Instead people vote for what they perceive as a strong leader or some emotive issue like brexit and don't spend five minutes looking into policies that will actually affect them in their day to day lives for years if not decades. Such as how the NHS is being run.

This is why brexit was a big con. "Take back control"? Those ordinary voters who think we are doing this are not in control of anything. They never have been and never will be. What changes their lives will be, as it always has been, the policies of the UK government.

Maybe the country will wake up and just like at the end of WWII when Churchill thought he was a shoe in for PM and a Conservative party victory the new post Brexit dawn will be seen as an opportunity to shape the way the UK goes forward in a similar way that led back then to a Labour party victory.

The polls say there is no chance of this happening and the margin of error is too great to believe any different if you are being realistic but I can live in hope that this will backfire on May and the Tories.

We live in an age now where people as a group have ridiculously small attention spans and what has been proved with Trump and Brexit is that soundbites on emotive issues win the day - they dont have to be right -they dont even have to make sense!.

Problem with the NHS there are now fewer and fewer people who have lived without it, meaning people are taking it for granted more and more. Ive heard people say things like "oh let it go private at least then we will get good care" and there is so much wrong with that statement i dont know where to start. The privatisation of the NHS has started and will continue if the Tories remain, its very underhand at the moment and is happening without people realising.

there are plenty of dirty tactics like putting unrealistic targets on under resource departments forcing them to farm some of their work off to private clinics.

I can just hope that people will see what soundbites get you and think things through a bit more.

[Wandering Warrior]

People won't notice the erosion of the NHS until it's needed and it'll be too late.
I heard it stated over the weekend on a radio prog that the nursing shortfall could be as much as 40000 in four or five years time and after Brexit. If they are giving "Barista visas" for foreign workers in Starbucks will we get "rswipe visas" for foreign workers in the NHS so they can remain or are they not important enough?

[i'm spartacus]

The NHS is the sacred cow of our society. I think it was Nigel Lawson who said that it was the closest thing we have to a religion, and it is regularly run out by opposition parties as being in crisis due to Government policy. The subliminal message that sinks in is that everything was milk and honey when Labour was in charge, but wind back to their rule, and the headlines were exactly the same

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... risis.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... risis.html

https://www.theguardian.com/society/200 ... cfinances

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2005/ ... s.politics

http://www.bmj.com/content/332/7544/743

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4646566.stm

Corbyn as PM is unthinkable in my opinion, and highly improbable in reality. Maybe the one good thing that will come out of this is that he will resign following a heavy defeat, and we can have an effective opposition.

Corbyn can then rejoin the back benches where he will be only slightly more irrelevant than he is now

[Wiganer Ted]

Corbyn could suffer two bad defeats, the Coucil elections on 4th May then the General Election.
That might be the end of his leadership but who would replace him?
We never know the Lib Dems might do quite well down south and in the west country.
My fear is that we will end up with a massive Tory majority and back to the awful days of what Quentin Hogg called elective dictatorship.

[DaveO]

The NHS is the sacred cow of our society. I think it was Nigel Lawson who said that it was the closest thing we have to a religion, and it is regularly run out by opposition parties as being in crisis due to Government policy. The subliminal message that sinks in is that everything was milk and honey when Labour was in charge, but wind back to their rule, and the headlines were exactly the same

It is always a darn sight better than when the Tories run the NHS.
In 1997 there were patients being left on trolleys in hospital corridors and we are back there again. In 1997 it wasa big factor in John Major's defeat. It's not "subliminal" at all.

Those figures you quoted were chickenfeed compared to where we are now:

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-35857815

Did you know it is current government policy not to allow existing hospital departments to bid to provide their own services? They are excluded so only private providers can tender.

You will hear a lot about the NHS remaining free at the point of use from the Tories. It is a smokescreen to get the service privatised. Your taxes will go to private companies to provide the treatment. When the bill goes up as profit becomes the motivator you will then see calls to introduce charges to reduce the burden on the taxpayer. The cost of the NHS will become "unsustainable" not because we are all getting older but due to the cost of provision going through the roof.

And that is before we even consider the massive cost (literally billions) of top down reorganisation of the NHS Lansey introduced.

[Fujiman]

RIP Labour party.