Research by the Dutch health service GGD shows that acceptance of LGBT+ people is dropping dramatically among young people. The figures from Amsterdam don't lie. Only 43% of young people say they accept homosexuality, compared to 69% two years ago. Among boys, only a third find homosexuality acceptable, while among girls, roughly half have this opinion.
I think when people let the genies of xenophobia, Islamophobia and transphobia out of the bottle, it shouldn't be surprising if racism, antisemitism and homophobia receive a boost too.
Starmer’s team aggressively fighting back now & calling Sunak a liar over claims he made about small boats
Seems they are in real panic mode
Really? Labour can now spend the next 4 weeks calling Rishi a liar - and has multiple bits of evidence to back it up.
I would call that just about the worst position possible for a politician to be in..
So you think a politician calling another politician a liar is going to persuade the public, when the general consensus is they all are the same
Being honest I think your love of the Tory party is completely impossible to understand.
Why - I am a one nation conservative and my party has lost its way
That doesn't mean that I will suddenly vote for another party, rather than try to influence my party to return to sanity and the centre
Your party hasn't so much lost it's way as been taking over (slowly) by a group of right wing clueless (often facist) loonies. Remember that prior to 2019 I voted Conservative - I was very much a centralist Tory but Bozo destroyed that in August - October 2019 and you amongst various others ignored the fact.
I'm going to be blunt but the best thing for the current Tory party is for it to be completely destroyed so that a new centralist right wing party can be formed from it's remains...
Except the current Tory government where the most senior figures in the Cabinet are Sunak, Hunt and Cameron IS the most centralist right wing party you are going to get in the UK anytime soon. Sunak toppled Johnson, Hunt was Johnson's opponent for the 2019 Tory leadership and Cameron led the Remain campaign in 2016 against Johnson's Leave campaign.
Not to mention the fact that Farage is back as leader of a Reform party polling over 10%, if the Tories were replaced and taken over it would be by a Farage led hard right populist party NOT any new centrist party
5 million watched last nights debate (i wasn't one of them). I seem to remember when we first got debates it was over 10 million.
Well novelty is always attractive. The fact that after a decade and a half nobody has found a way to make them work properly is why viewing is down. Nobody wants an hour long sound bite off with everyone moderator included looking for a gotcha moment.
I think extended interviews are far better. But that requires a very good interviewer, which there aren't many and the MSM don't do interviews, they do gotchas. And of course politicians who aren't idiots run a mile from an Andrew Neil, who can do this.
An hour interview provides a lot more light than heat.
I think long form interviews are very useful, however I do worry that the style of Andrew Neil is problematic. I mean it can be entertaining watching him squash a hapless politician like a bug but I think I’d prefer someone who would allow a politician to develop an argument and quietly pick it apart rather than the more hectoring approach Neil adopts.
This is a good point. Who would you suggest?
I’ve no idea to be honest, I suspect most political journalists would have a tendency towards making a name for themselves. It’s a shame because a lot of YouTube people seem to be able to have incredibly interesting long form conversations with people that are compelling and hugely revealing. It must be possible to translate that into a political journalism context.
Having not watched the debate only snippets, I thought one of the weirdest / face slipping thing was Starmer saying no he would never use private health.
What never, you kids are dying, you can only get that treatment privately and your idealogical purity would override that? That isn't the same as doing a Diane Abbott and sending your kids private after railing against private education (that isn't life and death).
Even lesser than that, your kid is in agony, lets say had an accident and smashed in face / teeth. You wouldn't pay for a private dentist to sort it tomorrow, rather than have to wait months (and may never get the full treatment via NHS dentist). Same with hips / knees, the pain from that for many old people is life limiting.
Surely the easy answer is we need to make the NHS better, it fails too many people, so even normal people are being faced with these decisions, that they should never have to....
Did you believe him?
If so why he is an inveterate liar on par with BJ
I wouldn't be surprised if we find at some point some close family member had private dental treatment. Not only is it a weird thing to say, it feels like a hostage to fortune.
I always find it funny when people declare "I will never use private healthcare". Never used a GP?
GPs are like retail pharmacies, they are private contractors doing NHS work as indeed are Spire Hospitals etc.
That is still NHS work though, not private work.
So it's like a special medical operation ? Dr Putin will see you now.
Starmer’s team aggressively fighting back now & calling Sunak a liar over claims he made about small boats
Seems they are in real panic mode
Panic mode? 😆 Labour are now a pack of dogs feasting on a wounded animal.
And the real pain for the poor creature is knowing it wounded itself.
That happened in 2019. Remember Rory the (by then ex) Tory's takedown of Bozza?
Johnson is after all the most accomplished liar in public life – perhaps the best liar ever to serve as prime minister. Some of this may have been a natural talent – but a lifetime of practice and study has allowed him to uncover new possibilities which go well beyond all the classifications of dishonesty attempted by classical theorists like St Augustine. He has mastered the use of error, omission, exaggeration, diminution, equivocation and flat denial. He has perfected casuistry, circumlocution, false equivalence and false analogy. He is equally adept at the ironic jest, the fib and the grand lie; the weasel word and the half-truth; the hyperbolic lie, the obvious lie, and the bullshit lie – which may inadvertently be true.
And as an alumnus of Vote Leave and BoJo's cabinets, it's pretty clear who Rishi learned to do politics from. Johnson may be gone, but it's going to take a while to purge his residue from the Conservative body.
You are not concerned by the Labour Party misleading the nation by pretending that they will not raise tax? I would have thought that as a centrist this would concern you?
(Great post from Rory by the way - spot on about Johnson)
Having not watched the debate only snippets, I thought one of the weirdest / face slipping thing was Starmer saying no he would never use private health.
What never, you kids are dying, you can only get that treatment privately and your idealogical purity would override that? That isn't the same as doing a Diane Abbott and sending your kids private after railing against private education (that isn't life and death).
Even lesser than that, your kid is in agony, lets say had an accident and smashed in face / teeth. You wouldn't pay for a private dentist to sort it tomorrow, rather than have to wait months (and may never get the full treatment via NHS dentist). Same with hips / knees, the pain from that for many old people is life limiting.
Surely the easy answer is we need to make the NHS better, it fails too many people, so even normal people are being faced with these decisions, that they should never have to....
What condition do you have in mind that would kill your children, but is treatable only privately?
I can't think of one.
Indeed paediatric services are generally very poor privately as few private hospitals can meet the CQC approval for children.
We see it all the time, where there are treatments only available in say US. They aren't licensed here and there is some charity drive to raise the money to send them.
But, even on the lesser note. Things like hips / knees, the wait list is years on NHS. And things like NHS dentistry doesn't over everything or won't get to you for a very very long time.
As I said, the easy answer is
"As PM I will improve the NHS, people shouldn't be having to make these decisions, but I understand that family is the most important thing and thus why people pay to go private. I support the NHS, I believe in the NHS, but there are very rare circumstances where if forced I am very fortunate to be able to make such a decision to help a family member. "
That to me seems the normal human response.
Treatments only available in the US are unusual. We hear about them because they are newsworthy precisely because they are rare.
Many, probably most, of these aren't available in the UK because NICE and the NHS have looked at them and decided they don't really work. Hope is a very powerful motivator and people want to believe some obscure, expensive thing in the US will work... but 9 times out of 10, it won't.
There are cases where something works and is so prohibitively expensive that the NHS won't do it. But they're very rare.
5 million watched last nights debate (i wasn't one of them). I seem to remember when we first got debates it was over 10 million.
Well novelty is always attractive. The fact that after a decade and a half nobody has found a way to make them work properly is why viewing is down. Nobody wants an hour long sound bite off with everyone moderator included looking for a gotcha moment.
I think extended interviews are far better. But that requires a very good interviewer, which there aren't many and the MSM don't do interviews, they do gotchas. And of course politicians who aren't idiots run a mile from an Andrew Neil, who can do this.
An hour interview provides a lot more light than heat.
I think long form interviews are very useful, however I do worry that the style of Andrew Neil is problematic. I mean it can be entertaining watching him squash a hapless politician like a bug but I think I’d prefer someone who would allow a politician to develop an argument and quietly pick it apart rather than the more hectoring approach Neil adopts.
This is a good point. Who would you suggest?
Was it Emily Maitlis who interviewed Prince Andrew?
Having not watched the debate only snippets, I thought one of the weirdest / face slipping thing was Starmer saying no he would never use private health.
What never, you kids are dying, you can only get that treatment privately and your idealogical purity would override that? That isn't the same as doing a Diane Abbott and sending your kids private after railing against private education (that isn't life and death).
Even lesser than that, your kid is in agony, lets say had an accident and smashed in face / teeth. You wouldn't pay for a private dentist to sort it tomorrow, rather than have to wait months (and may never get the full treatment via NHS dentist). Same with hips / knees, the pain from that for many old people is life limiting.
Surely the easy answer is we need to make the NHS better, it fails too many people, so even normal people are being faced with these decisions, that they should never have to....
What condition do you have in mind that would kill your children, but is treatable only privately?
I can't think of one.
Indeed paediatric services are generally very poor privately as few private hospitals can meet the CQC approval for children.
We see it all the time, where there are treatments only available in say US. They aren't licensed here and there is some charity drive to raise the money to send them.
But, even on the lesser note. Things like hips / knees, the wait list is years on NHS. And things like NHS dentistry doesn't over everything or won't get to you for a very very long time.
As I said, the easy answer is
"As PM I will improve the NHS, people shouldn't be having to make these decisions, but I understand that family is the most important thing and thus why people pay to go private. I support the NHS, I believe in the NHS, but there are very rare circumstances where if forced I am very fortunate to be able to make such a decision to help a family member. "
That to me seems the normal human response.
I agree that is a better answer, but I think Starmer really meant it. It wasn't probed or further explored, nor for that matter was Sunaks "yes".
I am generally very sceptical of campaigns to fund treatment abroad that are not available here. Very often they are quackery or unproven.
That was my point. I think so too. Starmer is that idealogical he would never entertain that. I find that personally baffling and a little concerning. The best leaders aren't purely ideology, they are practical.
Wes Stretting has suggested numerous times that we should be using private providers to get down waiting lists etc, is Starmer ideologically opposed to that as well? Blair was comfortable with this approach.
There is a world of difference between using private providers to provide NHS services and individuals using their personal wealth to queue-jump and go private.
Starmer’s team aggressively fighting back now & calling Sunak a liar over claims he made about small boats
Seems they are in real panic mode
Really? Labour can now spend the next 4 weeks calling Rishi a liar - and has multiple bits of evidence to back it up.
I would call that just about the worst position possible for a politician to be in..
So you think a politician calling another politician a liar is going to persuade the public, when the general consensus is they all are the same
Being honest I think your love of the Tory party is completely impossible to understand.
Why - I am a one nation conservative and my party has lost its way
That doesn't mean that I will suddenly vote for another party, rather than try to influence my party to return to sanity and the centre
Your party hasn't so much lost it's way as been taking over (slowly) by a group of right wing clueless (often facist) loonies. Remember that prior to 2019 I voted Conservative - I was very much a centralist Tory but Bozo destroyed that in August - October 2019 and you amongst various others ignored the fact.
I'm going to be blunt but the best thing for the current Tory party is for it to be completely destroyed so that a new centralist right wing party can be formed from it's remains...
Except the current Tory government where the most senior figures in the Cabinet are Sunak, Hunt and Cameron IS the most centralist right wing party you are going to get in the UK anytime soon. Sunak toppled Johnson, Hunt was Johnson's opponent for the 2019 Tory leadership and Cameron led the Remain campaign in 2016 against Johnson's Leave campaign.
Not to mention the fact that Farage is back as leader of a Reform party polling over 10%, if the Tories were replaced it would be by a Farage led hard right populist party NOT any new centrist party
And goodbye to me and many other longstanding conservatives
I will have no part in the Trump loving, vaccine and net zero denying far right party you seem to crave for
Starmer’s team aggressively fighting back now & calling Sunak a liar over claims he made about small boats
Seems they are in real panic mode
Really? Labour can now spend the next 4 weeks calling Rishi a liar - and has multiple bits of evidence to back it up.
I would call that just about the worst position possible for a politician to be in..
So you think a politician calling another politician a liar is going to persuade the public, when the general consensus is they all are the same
Being honest I think your love of the Tory party is completely impossible to understand.
Why - I am a one nation conservative and my party has lost its way
That doesn't mean that I will suddenly vote for another party, rather than try to influence my party to return to sanity and the centre
Your party hasn't so much lost it's way as been taking over (slowly) by a group of right wing clueless (often facist) loonies. Remember that prior to 2019 I voted Conservative - I was very much a centralist Tory but Bozo destroyed that in August - October 2019 and you amongst various others ignored the fact.
I'm going to be blunt but the best thing for the current Tory party is for it to be completely destroyed so that a new centralist right wing party can be formed from it's remains...
Except the current Tory government where the most senior figures in the Cabinet are Sunak, Hunt and Cameron IS the most centralist right wing party you are going to get in the UK anytime soon. Sunak toppled Johnson, Hunt was Johnson's opponent for the 2019 Tory leadership and Cameron led the Remain campaign in 2016 against Johnson's Leave campaign.
Not to mention the fact that Farage is back as leader of a Reform party polling over 10%, if the Tories were replaced it would be by a Farage led hard right populist party NOT any new centrist party
But dig behind the current figure heads and who is going to replace Rishi in September / October this year. It isn't going to be a centralist it's going to be the more populist facist who wins the members vote.
The reason why I'm happy to wear the "he loves Labour" hat on here is that I don't want to be within 1000 miles of any part of the blame for the next Tory party leader...
Not that it actually matters because I said in 2019 that Bozo would be the last Tory PM ever although he didn't manage to last all 5 years (and got replaced twice) I see no reason to believe my prediction that the 2019 Government will be the last one ever formed by the Tory party.
Having not watched the debate only snippets, I thought one of the weirdest / face slipping thing was Starmer saying no he would never use private health.
What never, you kids are dying, you can only get that treatment privately and your idealogical purity would override that? That isn't the same as doing a Diane Abbott and sending your kids private after railing against private education (that isn't life and death).
Even lesser than that, your kid is in agony, lets say had an accident and smashed in face / teeth. You wouldn't pay for a private dentist to sort it tomorrow, rather than have to wait months (and may never get the full treatment via NHS dentist). Same with hips / knees, the pain from that for many old people is life limiting.
Surely the easy answer is we need to make the NHS better, it fails too many people, so even normal people are being faced with these decisions, that they should never have to....
What condition do you have in mind that would kill your children, but is treatable only privately?
I can't think of one.
Indeed paediatric services are generally very poor privately as few private hospitals can meet the CQC approval for children.
We see it all the time, where there are treatments only available in say US. They aren't licensed here and there is some charity drive to raise the money to send them.
But, even on the lesser note. Things like hips / knees, the wait list is years on NHS. And things like NHS dentistry doesn't over everything or won't get to you for a very very long time.
As I said, the easy answer is
"As PM I will improve the NHS, people shouldn't be having to make these decisions, but I understand that family is the most important thing and thus why people pay to go private. I support the NHS, I believe in the NHS, but there are very rare circumstances where if forced I am very fortunate to be able to make such a decision to help a family member. "
That to me seems the normal human response.
Treatments only available in the US are unusual. We hear about them because they are newsworthy precisely because they are rare.
Many, probably most, of these aren't available in the UK because NICE and the NHS have looked at them and decided they don't really work. Hope is a very powerful motivator and people want to believe some obscure, expensive thing in the US will work... but 9 times out of 10, it won't.
There are cases where something works and is so prohibitively expensive that the NHS won't do it. But they're very rare.
That is all fair points, but it doesn't change that if we believe Starmer he wouldn't even entertain the possibility / look into it if it was a family member. Each to their own, but its not an ideology I can personally understand.
Research by the Dutch health service GGD shows that acceptance of LGBT+ people is dropping dramatically among young people. The figures from Amsterdam don't lie. Only 43% of young people say they accept homosexuality, compared to 69% two years ago. Among boys, only a third find homosexuality acceptable, while among girls, roughly half have this opinion.
Any number of things, but over recent years there has been a more concerted push back on some of this stuff. That has to have an effect. I think also if you grow up in an era where x is not only acceptable but almost seen as another norm there has to be some attraction towards deliberate contrarianism. The danger is if LGBTQ activists double down on their wilder stuff in a climate where there’s less instantaneous acceptance that they could stretch the elastic too far and create a genuine backlash which probably wouldn’t be good for anyone.
Starmer’s team aggressively fighting back now & calling Sunak a liar over claims he made about small boats
Seems they are in real panic mode
Really? Labour can now spend the next 4 weeks calling Rishi a liar - and has multiple bits of evidence to back it up.
I would call that just about the worst position possible for a politician to be in..
So you think a politician calling another politician a liar is going to persuade the public, when the general consensus is they all are the same
Being honest I think your love of the Tory party is completely impossible to understand.
Why - I am a one nation conservative and my party has lost its way
That doesn't mean that I will suddenly vote for another party, rather than try to influence my party to return to sanity and the centre
Your party hasn't so much lost it's way as been taking over (slowly) by a group of right wing clueless (often facist) loonies. Remember that prior to 2019 I voted Conservative - I was very much a centralist Tory but Bozo destroyed that in August - October 2019 and you amongst various others ignored the fact.
I'm going to be blunt but the best thing for the current Tory party is for it to be completely destroyed so that a new centralist right wing party can be formed from it's remains...
Except the current Tory government where the most senior figures in the Cabinet are Sunak, Hunt and Cameron IS the most centralist right wing party you are going to get in the UK anytime soon. Sunak toppled Johnson, Hunt was Johnson's opponent for the 2019 Tory leadership and Cameron led the Remain campaign in 2016 against Johnson's Leave campaign.
Not to mention the fact that Farage is back as leader of a Reform party polling over 10%, if the Tories were replaced it would be by a Farage led hard right populist party NOT any new centrist party
And goodbye to me and many other longstanding conservatives
I will have no part in the Trump loving, vaccine and net zero denying far right party you seem to crave for
Having not watched the debate only snippets, I thought one of the weirdest / face slipping thing was Starmer saying no he would never use private health.
What never, you kids are dying, you can only get that treatment privately and your idealogical purity would override that? That isn't the same as doing a Diane Abbott and sending your kids private after railing against private education (that isn't life and death).
Even lesser than that, your kid is in agony, lets say had an accident and smashed in face / teeth. You wouldn't pay for a private dentist to sort it tomorrow, rather than have to wait months (and may never get the full treatment via NHS dentist). Same with hips / knees, the pain from that for many old people is life limiting.
Surely the easy answer is we need to make the NHS better, it fails too many people, so even normal people are being faced with these decisions, that they should never have to....
What condition do you have in mind that would kill your children, but is treatable only privately?
I can't think of one.
Indeed paediatric services are generally very poor privately as few private hospitals can meet the CQC approval for children.
Erm, not true sorry. The simple problem with our system is that many hospital consultants are working both privately and for the NHS. There is a perverse incentive for them to keep waiting lists long. That way patients will use their private health insurance to get a referral sooner with the same consultant who has been trained by the NHS and should be seeing them on the NHS . If your family is covered this would mean that a child who had a suspected condition would get to see a consultant faster and therefore might have a higher survival rate due to that.
The hospital consultants (who claim they are so overworked and clever that they need to be paid many times more than other healthcare workers) somehow manage to do private consultations alongside their job with the NHS that pays them as much or more than similarly qualified other professionals.
It does not apply to all doctors, but many are the most entitled people in our society and yet the public (and the media) give them a completely free ride.
I am fully aware how private medicine works here, after all I do some!
It has to be in a designated session within a job plan, which is not paid by the NHS. I have seen people fired for doing private work in NHS time, and if you are aware of it then you should report it to the NHS fraud department.
I can tell you that it has been going on for years and I think you know that too, additionally doctors getting payments from companies for IP that should contractually be owned by the NHS. The latter may happen less than it used to but it did go on and many medics became even richer on it.
Besides, if we accept your premise, how can medics claim to be overworked if they can also find time to work for someone else simultaneously? It defies logic, but it is a nice lie for the BMA to propagate through a gullible media.
Having not watched the debate only snippets, I thought one of the weirdest / face slipping thing was Starmer saying no he would never use private health.
What never, you kids are dying, you can only get that treatment privately and your idealogical purity would override that? That isn't the same as doing a Diane Abbott and sending your kids private after railing against private education (that isn't life and death).
Even lesser than that, your kid is in agony, lets say had an accident and smashed in face / teeth. You wouldn't pay for a private dentist to sort it tomorrow, rather than have to wait months (and may never get the full treatment via NHS dentist). Same with hips / knees, the pain from that for many old people is life limiting.
Surely the easy answer is we need to make the NHS better, it fails too many people, so even normal people are being faced with these decisions, that they should never have to....
What condition do you have in mind that would kill your children, but is treatable only privately?
I can't think of one.
Indeed paediatric services are generally very poor privately as few private hospitals can meet the CQC approval for children.
We see it all the time, where there are treatments only available in say US. They aren't licensed here and there is some charity drive to raise the money to send them.
But, even on the lesser note. Things like hips / knees, the wait list is years on NHS. And things like NHS dentistry doesn't over everything or won't get to you for a very very long time.
As I said, the easy answer is
"As PM I will improve the NHS, people shouldn't be having to make these decisions, but I understand that family is the most important thing and thus why people pay to go private. I support the NHS, I believe in the NHS, but there are very rare circumstances where if forced I am very fortunate to be able to make such a decision to help a family member. "
That to me seems the normal human response.
Treatments only available in the US are unusual. We hear about them because they are newsworthy precisely because they are rare.
Many, probably most, of these aren't available in the UK because NICE and the NHS have looked at them and decided they don't really work. Hope is a very powerful motivator and people want to believe some obscure, expensive thing in the US will work... but 9 times out of 10, it won't.
There are cases where something works and is so prohibitively expensive that the NHS won't do it. But they're very rare.
That is all fair points, but it doesn't change that if we believe Starmer he wouldn't even entertain the possibility / look into it if it was a family member. Each to their own, but its not an ideology I can personally understand.
I can understand why someone would take the principled stance not to use private health care, much as they might do for private education. What I don't understand is imposing your own viewpoint on your own family members, even when they are dying!
Having not watched the debate only snippets, I thought one of the weirdest / face slipping thing was Starmer saying no he would never use private health.
What never, you kids are dying, you can only get that treatment privately and your idealogical purity would override that? That isn't the same as doing a Diane Abbott and sending your kids private after railing against private education (that isn't life and death).
Even lesser than that, your kid is in agony, lets say had an accident and smashed in face / teeth. You wouldn't pay for a private dentist to sort it tomorrow, rather than have to wait months (and may never get the full treatment via NHS dentist). Same with hips / knees, the pain from that for many old people is life limiting.
Surely the easy answer is we need to make the NHS better, it fails too many people, so even normal people are being faced with these decisions, that they should never have to....
What condition do you have in mind that would kill your children, but is treatable only privately?
I can't think of one.
Indeed paediatric services are generally very poor privately as few private hospitals can meet the CQC approval for children.
We see it all the time, where there are treatments only available in say US. They aren't licensed here and there is some charity drive to raise the money to send them.
But, even on the lesser note. Things like hips / knees, the wait list is years on NHS. And things like NHS dentistry doesn't over everything or won't get to you for a very very long time.
As I said, the easy answer is
"As PM I will improve the NHS, people shouldn't be having to make these decisions, but I understand that family is the most important thing and thus why people pay to go private. I support the NHS, I believe in the NHS, but there are very rare circumstances where if forced I am very fortunate to be able to make such a decision to help a family member. "
That to me seems the normal human response.
Treatments only available in the US are unusual. We hear about them because they are newsworthy precisely because they are rare.
Many, probably most, of these aren't available in the UK because NICE and the NHS have looked at them and decided they don't really work. Hope is a very powerful motivator and people want to believe some obscure, expensive thing in the US will work... but 9 times out of 10, it won't.
There are cases where something works and is so prohibitively expensive that the NHS won't do it. But they're very rare.
That is all fair points, but it doesn't change that if we believe Starmer he wouldn't even entertain the possibility / look into it if it was a family member. Each to their own, but its not an ideology I can personally understand.
I can understand why someone would take the principled stance not to use private health care, much as they might do for private education. What I don't understand is imposing your own viewpoint on your own family members, even when they are dying!
Wasn't the question - would you pay for someone in your family to get private healthcare - I can see why the answer to that would be no especially when your don't have £xm in the bank...
And that same 54% will be claiming to be part of the be kind and tolerant movement.
And they will contort themselves to deny it’s anything to do with importing millions of anti semites, who, amazingly, turn out to be homophobic as well. Cf Amsterdam
Well, it is available to all sides. You could use social media to make 18-24 year olds think that the Zionist Entity is a fabulous construction if you could be arsed.
And that same 54% will be claiming to be part of the be kind and tolerant movement.
And they will contort themselves to deny it’s anything to do with importing millions of anti semites, who, amazingly, turn out to be homophobic as well. Cf Amsterdam
What you are telling me Queers for Palestine might not be tolerated in the way they think they will be...
Having not watched the debate only snippets, I thought one of the weirdest / face slipping thing was Starmer saying no he would never use private health.
What never, you kids are dying, you can only get that treatment privately and your idealogical purity would override that? That isn't the same as doing a Diane Abbott and sending your kids private after railing against private education (that isn't life and death).
Even lesser than that, your kid is in agony, lets say had an accident and smashed in face / teeth. You wouldn't pay for a private dentist to sort it tomorrow, rather than have to wait months (and may never get the full treatment via NHS dentist). Same with hips / knees, the pain from that for many old people is life limiting.
Surely the easy answer is we need to make the NHS better, it fails too many people, so even normal people are being faced with these decisions, that they should never have to....
Did you believe him?
If so why he is an inveterate liar on par with BJ
I wouldn't be surprised if we find at some point some close family member had private dental treatment. Not only is it a weird thing to say, it feels like a hostage to fortune.
I always find it funny when people declare "I will never use private healthcare". Never used a GP?
GPs are like retail pharmacies, they are private contractors doing NHS work as indeed are Spire Hospitals etc.
That is still NHS work though, not private work.
And then you pay for your prescription in a pharmacy. And buy some paracetamol on the advice of the doctor but not prescription....
Starmer’s team aggressively fighting back now & calling Sunak a liar over claims he made about small boats
Many moons ago the company I worked for was involved in a public and acrimonious dispute with its main competitor. While the troops were keen to “stick it to them for their lies” wiser heads prevailed. “Two whores brawling in public will do none of us any good”.
That is probably true in general, but as with Stormy Daniels, in this case one party has the receipts
Having not watched the debate only snippets, I thought one of the weirdest / face slipping thing was Starmer saying no he would never use private health.
What never, you kids are dying, you can only get that treatment privately and your idealogical purity would override that? That isn't the same as doing a Diane Abbott and sending your kids private after railing against private education (that isn't life and death).
Even lesser than that, your kid is in agony, lets say had an accident and smashed in face / teeth. You wouldn't pay for a private dentist to sort it tomorrow, rather than have to wait months (and may never get the full treatment via NHS dentist). Same with hips / knees, the pain from that for many old people is life limiting.
Surely the easy answer is we need to make the NHS better, it fails too many people, so even normal people are being faced with these decisions, that they should never have to....
What condition do you have in mind that would kill your children, but is treatable only privately?
I can't think of one.
Indeed paediatric services are generally very poor privately as few private hospitals can meet the CQC approval for children.
We see it all the time, where there are treatments only available in say US. They aren't licensed here and there is some charity drive to raise the money to send them.
But, even on the lesser note. Things like hips / knees, the wait list is years on NHS. And things like NHS dentistry doesn't over everything or won't get to you for a very very long time.
As I said, the easy answer is
"As PM I will improve the NHS, people shouldn't be having to make these decisions, but I understand that family is the most important thing and thus why people pay to go private. I support the NHS, I believe in the NHS, but there are very rare circumstances where if forced I am very fortunate to be able to make such a decision to help a family member. "
That to me seems the normal human response.
Treatments only available in the US are unusual. We hear about them because they are newsworthy precisely because they are rare.
Many, probably most, of these aren't available in the UK because NICE and the NHS have looked at them and decided they don't really work. Hope is a very powerful motivator and people want to believe some obscure, expensive thing in the US will work... but 9 times out of 10, it won't.
There are cases where something works and is so prohibitively expensive that the NHS won't do it. But they're very rare.
That is all fair points, but it doesn't change that if we believe Starmer he wouldn't even entertain the possibility / look into it if it was a family member. Each to their own, but its not an ideology I can personally understand.
I can understand why someone would take the principled stance not to use private health care, much as they might do for private education. What I don't understand is imposing your own viewpoint on your own family members, even when they are dying!
Wasn't the question - would you pay for someone in your family to get private healthcare - I can see why the answer to that would be no especially when your don't have £xm in the bank...
The question was whether they would go private for a loved-one who had been on a waitlist for a long time. This was in the context of the questioner's relative who died while waiting for an operation.
The 1PM News eviscerated him. Gus O'Donnell was lethal. Labour also have a very effective AD agency. The next series of ads should be interesting. I suspect the Tories are doing it in-house. I can't think their PPB of a couple of nights ago was done by an agency
Starmer’s team aggressively fighting back now & calling Sunak a liar over claims he made about small boats
Seems they are in real panic mode
Panic mode? 😆 Labour are now a pack of dogs feasting on a wounded animal.
And the real pain for the poor creature is knowing it wounded itself.
That happened in 2019. Remember Rory the (by then ex) Tory's takedown of Bozza?
Johnson is after all the most accomplished liar in public life – perhaps the best liar ever to serve as prime minister. Some of this may have been a natural talent – but a lifetime of practice and study has allowed him to uncover new possibilities which go well beyond all the classifications of dishonesty attempted by classical theorists like St Augustine. He has mastered the use of error, omission, exaggeration, diminution, equivocation and flat denial. He has perfected casuistry, circumlocution, false equivalence and false analogy. He is equally adept at the ironic jest, the fib and the grand lie; the weasel word and the half-truth; the hyperbolic lie, the obvious lie, and the bullshit lie – which may inadvertently be true.
And as an alumnus of Vote Leave and BoJo's cabinets, it's pretty clear who Rishi learned to do politics from. Johnson may be gone, but it's going to take a while to purge his residue from the Conservative body.
You are not concerned by the Labour Party misleading the nation by pretending that they will not raise tax? I would have thought that as a centrist this would concern you?
(Great post from Rory by the way - spot on about Johnson)
Don't like that either. Any more than I like the pretendy tax cuts the government has done over the last few months.
I'd much rather have someone being honest here- tax rises and spending cuts are both incoming to some degree, whoever forms the next government. For decades, we've demanded too much and paid too little. But no party actually wanting to win has dared say that out loud. That is a "everyone does it", and voters are complicit in voting for it.
Interesting discussion on WATO on the £2,000 claim.
I didn’t watch last nights debate - but from their report it did not sound like Rishi made the “Treasury numbers” claim. That was made by a junior minister on the radio this morning.
Good interviews with Gus O’Donnell - “they both do it, I wish they didn’t” and Andrew Mitchell put the Tory case well. Report is made up from number of independent sources, some of the assumptions we took were conservative, no it wasn’t signed off by the Treasury.
When asked about Labour personal attacks on Sunak on TikTok, Emily Thornberry’s defence of them was “I haven’t seen them”.
Pretty sure Sunak did make the claim.
When Starmer was challenging it, I'm sure Sunak said he was criticising independent civil servants.
Starmer’s team aggressively fighting back now & calling Sunak a liar over claims he made about small boats
Seems they are in real panic mode
Calling out a liar is not panic.
Do you agree that Sunak is a liar?
He is a politician and I doubt he will back down on the substantive claim
Question. “Do you agree that Sunak is a liar? ‘
Answer. “ He is a politician and I doubt he will back down on the substantive claim.”
That is a great answer 🙂
He has merely presented a truth which is why Labour supporters are getting so upset, ergo that Labour loves to raise tax, and raise it they will. If anyone really believes that Labour will find efficiencies in the system (guffaw) to meet their spending wetdreams, then I have a bridge to sell you.
No - he presented this as an estimate by independent civil servants. That's a flat lie.
Here's what the director of the IFS says: "The £2,000 per working household that the Conservatives are suggesting that Labour is committed to is not independently arrived at or verified. It has been calculated based on Conservative party assumptions about Labour’s spending plans."
Disappointing that so many PB Tories have no more acquaintance with the truth than Sunak.
And that same 54% will be claiming to be part of the be kind and tolerant movement.
And they will contort themselves to deny it’s anything to do with importing millions of anti semites, who, amazingly, turn out to be homophobic as well. Cf Amsterdam
What you are telling me Queers for Palestine might not be tolerated in the way they think they will be...
This is what Pim Fortuyn foresaw, and he was murdered for his pains
If you import Islam you import Islamic values. It’s a fact. That’s fine if you like Islamic values. If you are Jewish, gay, or a woman, maybe less fine. It always starts with the Jews
Starmer’s team aggressively fighting back now & calling Sunak a liar over claims he made about small boats
Seems they are in real panic mode
Really? Labour can now spend the next 4 weeks calling Rishi a liar - and has multiple bits of evidence to back it up.
I would call that just about the worst position possible for a politician to be in..
So you think a politician calling another politician a liar is going to persuade the public, when the general consensus is they all are the same
Being honest I think your love of the Tory party is completely impossible to understand.
Why - I am a one nation conservative and my party has lost its way
That doesn't mean that I will suddenly vote for another party, rather than try to influence my party to return to sanity and the centre
Your party hasn't so much lost it's way as been taking over (slowly) by a group of right wing clueless (often facist) loonies. Remember that prior to 2019 I voted Conservative - I was very much a centralist Tory but Bozo destroyed that in August - October 2019 and you amongst various others ignored the fact.
I'm going to be blunt but the best thing for the current Tory party is for it to be completely destroyed so that a new centralist right wing party can be formed from it's remains...
Except the current Tory government where the most senior figures in the Cabinet are Sunak, Hunt and Cameron IS the most centralist right wing party you are going to get in the UK anytime soon. Sunak toppled Johnson, Hunt was Johnson's opponent for the 2019 Tory leadership and Cameron led the Remain campaign in 2016 against Johnson's Leave campaign.
Not to mention the fact that Farage is back as leader of a Reform party polling over 10%, if the Tories were replaced it would be by a Farage led hard right populist party NOT any new centrist party
But dig behind the current figure heads and who is going to replace Rishi in September / October this year. It isn't going to be a centralist it's going to be the more populist facist who wins the members vote.
The reason why I'm happy to wear the "he loves Labour" hat on here is that I don't want to be within 1000 miles of any part of the blame for the next Tory party leader...
Not that it actually matters because I said in 2019 that Bozo would be the last Tory PM ever although he didn't manage to last all 5 years (and got replaced twice) I see no reason to believe my prediction that the 2019 Government will be the last one ever formed by the Tory party.
Re your first paragraph, has anyone actually done any digging on this? There seems to be a generally accepted opinion that someone of the harder right is going to be next Tory leader but is that based on facts?
For example if you took various seat levels for the Tories, looked at who would be left are we certain that they are majority to the right? As far as I know (and I know nothing, about anything) it could actually be that there would be a much greater number of one nation centrists who might be able to lock out the last two candidates from their wing.
Just because the remaining seats would by definition be stronger Tory seats it doesn’t necessarily follow that their MPs are further to the right.
If there ended up 160 Tories and 120 were one nation then they could ensure one of their tribe takes over. The same is true of course for the result being the other way. Like I said, unless someone has really delved into this we are just speculating.
Starmer’s team aggressively fighting back now & calling Sunak a liar over claims he made about small boats
Seems they are in real panic mode
Really? Labour can now spend the next 4 weeks calling Rishi a liar - and has multiple bits of evidence to back it up.
I would call that just about the worst position possible for a politician to be in..
So you think a politician calling another politician a liar is going to persuade the public, when the general consensus is they all are the same
Being honest I think your love of the Tory party is completely impossible to understand.
Why - I am a one nation conservative and my party has lost its way
That doesn't mean that I will suddenly vote for another party, rather than try to influence my party to return to sanity and the centre
Your party hasn't so much lost it's way as been taking over (slowly) by a group of right wing clueless (often facist) loonies. Remember that prior to 2019 I voted Conservative - I was very much a centralist Tory but Bozo destroyed that in August - October 2019 and you amongst various others ignored the fact.
I'm going to be blunt but the best thing for the current Tory party is for it to be completely destroyed so that a new centralist right wing party can be formed from it's remains...
Except the current Tory government where the most senior figures in the Cabinet are Sunak, Hunt and Cameron IS the most centralist right wing party you are going to get in the UK anytime soon. Sunak toppled Johnson, Hunt was Johnson's opponent for the 2019 Tory leadership and Cameron led the Remain campaign in 2016 against Johnson's Leave campaign.
Not to mention the fact that Farage is back as leader of a Reform party polling over 10%, if the Tories were replaced it would be by a Farage led hard right populist party NOT any new centrist party
But dig behind the current figure heads and who is going to replace Rishi in September / October this year. It isn't going to be a centralist it's going to be the more populist facist who wins the members vote.
The reason why I'm happy to wear the "he loves Labour" hat on here is that I don't want to be within 1000 miles of any part of the blame for the next Tory party leader...
Not that it actually matters because I said in 2019 that Bozo would be the last Tory PM ever although he didn't manage to last all 5 years (and got replaced twice) I see no reason to believe my prediction that the 2019 Government will be the last one ever formed by the Tory party.
Re your first paragraph, has anyone actually done any digging on this? There seems to be a generally accepted opinion that someone of the harder right is going to be next Tory leader but is that based on facts?
For example if you took various seat levels for the Tories, looked at who would be left are we certain that they are majority to the right? As far as I know (and I know nothing, about anything) it could actually be that there would be a much greater number of one nation centrists who might be able to lock out the last two candidates from their wing.
Just because the remaining seats would by definition be stronger Tory seats it doesn’t necessarily follow that their MPs are further to the right.
If there ended up 160 Tories and 120 were one nation then they could ensure one of their tribe takes over. The same is true of course for the result being the other way. Like I said, unless someone has really delved into this we are just speculating.
Look at the last 2 leadership elections - the more right wing populist candidate wins the members vote.
Now it's possible that the elected MPs may be able to ensure only 2 sane candidates go through to the members - I just don't see that being the case...
Having not watched the debate only snippets, I thought one of the weirdest / face slipping thing was Starmer saying no he would never use private health.
What never, you kids are dying, you can only get that treatment privately and your idealogical purity would override that? That isn't the same as doing a Diane Abbott and sending your kids private after railing against private education (that isn't life and death).
Even lesser than that, your kid is in agony, lets say had an accident and smashed in face / teeth. You wouldn't pay for a private dentist to sort it tomorrow, rather than have to wait months (and may never get the full treatment via NHS dentist). Same with hips / knees, the pain from that for many old people is life limiting.
Surely the easy answer is we need to make the NHS better, it fails too many people, so even normal people are being faced with these decisions, that they should never have to....
What condition do you have in mind that would kill your children, but is treatable only privately?
I can't think of one.
Indeed paediatric services are generally very poor privately as few private hospitals can meet the CQC approval for children.
We see it all the time, where there are treatments only available in say US. They aren't licensed here and there is some charity drive to raise the money to send them.
But, even on the lesser note. Things like hips / knees, the wait list is years on NHS. And things like NHS dentistry doesn't over everything or won't get to you for a very very long time.
As I said, the easy answer is
"As PM I will improve the NHS, people shouldn't be having to make these decisions, but I understand that family is the most important thing and thus why people pay to go private. I support the NHS, I believe in the NHS, but there are very rare circumstances where if forced I am very fortunate to be able to make such a decision to help a family member. "
That to me seems the normal human response.
Treatments only available in the US are unusual. We hear about them because they are newsworthy precisely because they are rare.
Many, probably most, of these aren't available in the UK because NICE and the NHS have looked at them and decided they don't really work. Hope is a very powerful motivator and people want to believe some obscure, expensive thing in the US will work... but 9 times out of 10, it won't.
There are cases where something works and is so prohibitively expensive that the NHS won't do it. But they're very rare.
That is all fair points, but it doesn't change that if we believe Starmer he wouldn't even entertain the possibility / look into it if it was a family member. Each to their own, but its not an ideology I can personally understand.
I can understand why someone would take the principled stance not to use private health care, much as they might do for private education. What I don't understand is imposing your own viewpoint on your own family members, even when they are dying!
Wasn't the question - would you pay for someone in your family to get private healthcare - I can see why the answer to that would be no especially when your don't have £xm in the bank...
If one of my family members were in need of it I would like to think I would spend my last penny to get them the best healthcare. Pity Labour supporters families; they would rather the tax payer picked up the bill, even if they could afford it, and let their family member suffer longer so they can believe themselves pure while they book their next holiday in the Maldives.
Starmer’s team aggressively fighting back now & calling Sunak a liar over claims he made about small boats
Seems they are in real panic mode
Really? Labour can now spend the next 4 weeks calling Rishi a liar - and has multiple bits of evidence to back it up.
I would call that just about the worst position possible for a politician to be in..
So you think a politician calling another politician a liar is going to persuade the public, when the general consensus is they all are the same
Being honest I think your love of the Tory party is completely impossible to understand.
Why - I am a one nation conservative and my party has lost its way
That doesn't mean that I will suddenly vote for another party, rather than try to influence my party to return to sanity and the centre
Your party hasn't so much lost it's way as been taking over (slowly) by a group of right wing clueless (often facist) loonies. Remember that prior to 2019 I voted Conservative - I was very much a centralist Tory but Bozo destroyed that in August - October 2019 and you amongst various others ignored the fact.
I'm going to be blunt but the best thing for the current Tory party is for it to be completely destroyed so that a new centralist right wing party can be formed from it's remains...
Except the current Tory government where the most senior figures in the Cabinet are Sunak, Hunt and Cameron IS the most centralist right wing party you are going to get in the UK anytime soon. Sunak toppled Johnson, Hunt was Johnson's opponent for the 2019 Tory leadership and Cameron led the Remain campaign in 2016 against Johnson's Leave campaign.
Not to mention the fact that Farage is back as leader of a Reform party polling over 10%, if the Tories were replaced it would be by a Farage led hard right populist party NOT any new centrist party
But dig behind the current figure heads and who is going to replace Rishi in September / October this year. It isn't going to be a centralist it's going to be the more populist facist who wins the members vote.
The reason why I'm happy to wear the "he loves Labour" hat on here is that I don't want to be within 1000 miles of any part of the blame for the next Tory party leader...
Not that it actually matters because I said in 2019 that Bozo would be the last Tory PM ever although he didn't manage to last all 5 years (and got replaced twice) I see no reason to believe my prediction that the 2019 Government will be the last one ever formed by the Tory party.
Re your first paragraph, has anyone actually done any digging on this? There seems to be a generally accepted opinion that someone of the harder right is going to be next Tory leader but is that based on facts?
For example if you took various seat levels for the Tories, looked at who would be left are we certain that they are majority to the right? As far as I know (and I know nothing, about anything) it could actually be that there would be a much greater number of one nation centrists who might be able to lock out the last two candidates from their wing.
Just because the remaining seats would by definition be stronger Tory seats it doesn’t necessarily follow that their MPs are further to the right.
If there ended up 160 Tories and 120 were one nation then they could ensure one of their tribe takes over. The same is true of course for the result being the other way. Like I said, unless someone has really delved into this we are just speculating.
Look at the last 2 leadership elections - the more right wing populist candidate wins the members vote.
Do British voters support or oppose Rishi Sunak's plan to increase the income tax threshold at which pensioners will start paying income tax? (28-29 May)
Support 49% Oppose 17% Neither 26% Don't know 9%…..
Influence of Sunak's Pension Tax Plan (28-29 May):
More voters aged 55-64 (20%) and 65+ (25%) say they are now MORE LIKELY to vote Conservative than say they are less likely to do so (6% and 15%).
Among 18-24 year olds, 37% say they are now LESS LIKELY to vote Conservative
Both parties are lying. There will have to be tax rises or public service cuts or both. The only way that changes if return levels of growth we haven't seen for 20 years. That would require huge and rapid increases in productivity in both the private and public sector. And neither party appears to have any real plans on how to achieve such a thing.
Zero talk about what AI will do positively and negatively for the workforce. Zero talk about what we do about China stealing IP then flooding Western markets with products that are artificially discounted by the state to undercut existing industries etc etc etc
Instead we are stuck in the doom loop of you are lying, no you are lying.
Starmer’s team aggressively fighting back now & calling Sunak a liar over claims he made about small boats
Seems they are in real panic mode
Really? Labour can now spend the next 4 weeks calling Rishi a liar - and has multiple bits of evidence to back it up.
I would call that just about the worst position possible for a politician to be in..
So you think a politician calling another politician a liar is going to persuade the public, when the general consensus is they all are the same
Being honest I think your love of the Tory party is completely impossible to understand.
Why - I am a one nation conservative and my party has lost its way
That doesn't mean that I will suddenly vote for another party, rather than try to influence my party to return to sanity and the centre
Your party hasn't so much lost it's way as been taking over (slowly) by a group of right wing clueless (often facist) loonies. Remember that prior to 2019 I voted Conservative - I was very much a centralist Tory but Bozo destroyed that in August - October 2019 and you amongst various others ignored the fact.
I'm going to be blunt but the best thing for the current Tory party is for it to be completely destroyed so that a new centralist right wing party can be formed from it's remains...
Except the current Tory government where the most senior figures in the Cabinet are Sunak, Hunt and Cameron IS the most centralist right wing party you are going to get in the UK anytime soon. Sunak toppled Johnson, Hunt was Johnson's opponent for the 2019 Tory leadership and Cameron led the Remain campaign in 2016 against Johnson's Leave campaign.
Not to mention the fact that Farage is back as leader of a Reform party polling over 10%, if the Tories were replaced it would be by a Farage led hard right populist party NOT any new centrist party
But dig behind the current figure heads and who is going to replace Rishi in September / October this year. It isn't going to be a centralist it's going to be the more populist facist who wins the members vote.
The reason why I'm happy to wear the "he loves Labour" hat on here is that I don't want to be within 1000 miles of any part of the blame for the next Tory party leader...
Not that it actually matters because I said in 2019 that Bozo would be the last Tory PM ever although he didn't manage to last all 5 years (and got replaced twice) I see no reason to believe my prediction that the 2019 Government will be the last one ever formed by the Tory party.
Re your first paragraph, has anyone actually done any digging on this? There seems to be a generally accepted opinion that someone of the harder right is going to be next Tory leader but is that based on facts?
For example if you took various seat levels for the Tories, looked at who would be left are we certain that they are majority to the right? As far as I know (and I know nothing, about anything) it could actually be that there would be a much greater number of one nation centrists who might be able to lock out the last two candidates from their wing.
Just because the remaining seats would by definition be stronger Tory seats it doesn’t necessarily follow that their MPs are further to the right.
If there ended up 160 Tories and 120 were one nation then they could ensure one of their tribe takes over. The same is true of course for the result being the other way. Like I said, unless someone has really delved into this we are just speculating.
Look at the last 2 leadership elections - the more right wing populist candidate wins the members vote.
Before that Cameron v Davis?
and a) a desire to get elected b) didn't Davis complete screw up his conference speech.
Also the Conservative party of 2005 was a far more broad church than the post Brexit one, Brexit sent a lot of centralists Tories either elsewhere or to quit politics..
Having not watched the debate only snippets, I thought one of the weirdest / face slipping thing was Starmer saying no he would never use private health.
What never, you kids are dying, you can only get that treatment privately and your idealogical purity would override that? That isn't the same as doing a Diane Abbott and sending your kids private after railing against private education (that isn't life and death).
Even lesser than that, your kid is in agony, lets say had an accident and smashed in face / teeth. You wouldn't pay for a private dentist to sort it tomorrow, rather than have to wait months (and may never get the full treatment via NHS dentist). Same with hips / knees, the pain from that for many old people is life limiting.
Surely the easy answer is we need to make the NHS better, it fails too many people, so even normal people are being faced with these decisions, that they should never have to....
What condition do you have in mind that would kill your children, but is treatable only privately?
I can't think of one.
Indeed paediatric services are generally very poor privately as few private hospitals can meet the CQC approval for children.
We see it all the time, where there are treatments only available in say US. They aren't licensed here and there is some charity drive to raise the money to send them.
But, even on the lesser note. Things like hips / knees, the wait list is years on NHS. And things like NHS dentistry doesn't over everything or won't get to you for a very very long time.
As I said, the easy answer is
"As PM I will improve the NHS, people shouldn't be having to make these decisions, but I understand that family is the most important thing and thus why people pay to go private. I support the NHS, I believe in the NHS, but there are very rare circumstances where if forced I am very fortunate to be able to make such a decision to help a family member. "
That to me seems the normal human response.
Treatments only available in the US are unusual. We hear about them because they are newsworthy precisely because they are rare.
Many, probably most, of these aren't available in the UK because NICE and the NHS have looked at them and decided they don't really work. Hope is a very powerful motivator and people want to believe some obscure, expensive thing in the US will work... but 9 times out of 10, it won't.
There are cases where something works and is so prohibitively expensive that the NHS won't do it. But they're very rare.
That is all fair points, but it doesn't change that if we believe Starmer he wouldn't even entertain the possibility / look into it if it was a family member. Each to their own, but its not an ideology I can personally understand.
I can understand why someone would take the principled stance not to use private health care, much as they might do for private education. What I don't understand is imposing your own viewpoint on your own family members, even when they are dying!
Wasn't the question - would you pay for someone in your family to get private healthcare - I can see why the answer to that would be no especially when your don't have £xm in the bank...
If one of my family members were in need of it I would like to think I would spend my last penny to get them the best healthcare. Pity Labour supporters families; they would rather the tax payer picked up the bill, even if they could afford it, and let their family member suffer longer so they can believe themselves pure while they book their next holiday in the Maldives.
I don't think that's how people read it. The question was 'are you prepared to pay to queue jump?'
Starmer’s team aggressively fighting back now & calling Sunak a liar over claims he made about small boats
Seems they are in real panic mode
Calling out a liar is not panic.
Do you agree that Sunak is a liar?
He is a politician and I doubt he will back down on the substantive claim
Question. “Do you agree that Sunak is a liar? ‘
Answer. “ He is a politician and I doubt he will back down on the substantive claim.”
That is a great answer 🙂
He has merely presented a truth which is why Labour supporters are getting so upset, ergo that Labour loves to raise tax, and raise it they will. If anyone really believes that Labour will find efficiencies in the system (guffaw) to meet their spending wetdreams, then I have a bridge to sell you.
No - he presented this as an estimate by independent civil servants. That's a flat lie.
Here's what the director of the IFS says: "The £2,000 per working household that the Conservatives are suggesting that Labour is committed to is not independently arrived at or verified. It has been calculated based on Conservative party assumptions about Labour’s spending plans."
Disappointing that so many PB Tories have no more acquaintance with the truth than Sunak.
I have not voted Tory in the last two elections, so do not assume I am a "PB Tory and I will try not to assume you are a PB tw*t.
However, when accusations of lying start flying around I would like someone to explain to me whether they think Labour are being honest about not putting taxes up. If you wish to use the word "lie" then I suggest they use it carefully. Labour are being highly dishonest about their intentions. Anyone who believes otherwise is an idiot.
5 million watched last nights debate (i wasn't one of them). I seem to remember when we first got debates it was over 10 million.
Well novelty is always attractive. The fact that after a decade and a half nobody has found a way to make them work properly is why viewing is down. Nobody wants an hour long sound bite off with everyone moderator included looking for a gotcha moment.
Agreed. I don't know why we don't adopt the US model: one head-to-head, one 'town hall' and one Q&A. And make them longer and give the moderator the facility to turn off the mikes.
Having not watched the debate only snippets, I thought one of the weirdest / face slipping thing was Starmer saying no he would never use private health.
What never, you kids are dying, you can only get that treatment privately and your idealogical purity would override that? That isn't the same as doing a Diane Abbott and sending your kids private after railing against private education (that isn't life and death).
Even lesser than that, your kid is in agony, lets say had an accident and smashed in face / teeth. You wouldn't pay for a private dentist to sort it tomorrow, rather than have to wait months (and may never get the full treatment via NHS dentist). Same with hips / knees, the pain from that for many old people is life limiting.
Surely the easy answer is we need to make the NHS better, it fails too many people, so even normal people are being faced with these decisions, that they should never have to....
What condition do you have in mind that would kill your children, but is treatable only privately?
I can't think of one.
Indeed paediatric services are generally very poor privately as few private hospitals can meet the CQC approval for children.
We see it all the time, where there are treatments only available in say US. They aren't licensed here and there is some charity drive to raise the money to send them.
But, even on the lesser note. Things like hips / knees, the wait list is years on NHS. And things like NHS dentistry doesn't over everything or won't get to you for a very very long time.
As I said, the easy answer is
"As PM I will improve the NHS, people shouldn't be having to make these decisions, but I understand that family is the most important thing and thus why people pay to go private. I support the NHS, I believe in the NHS, but there are very rare circumstances where if forced I am very fortunate to be able to make such a decision to help a family member. "
That to me seems the normal human response.
Treatments only available in the US are unusual. We hear about them because they are newsworthy precisely because they are rare.
Many, probably most, of these aren't available in the UK because NICE and the NHS have looked at them and decided they don't really work. Hope is a very powerful motivator and people want to believe some obscure, expensive thing in the US will work... but 9 times out of 10, it won't.
There are cases where something works and is so prohibitively expensive that the NHS won't do it. But they're very rare.
That is all fair points, but it doesn't change that if we believe Starmer he wouldn't even entertain the possibility / look into it if it was a family member. Each to their own, but its not an ideology I can personally understand.
I can understand why someone would take the principled stance not to use private health care, much as they might do for private education. What I don't understand is imposing your own viewpoint on your own family members, even when they are dying!
Wasn't the question - would you pay for someone in your family to get private healthcare - I can see why the answer to that would be no especially when your don't have £xm in the bank...
If one of my family members were in need of it I would like to think I would spend my last penny to get them the best healthcare. Pity Labour supporters families; they would rather the tax payer picked up the bill, even if they could afford it, and let their family member suffer longer so they can believe themselves pure while they book their next holiday in the Maldives.
I don't think that's how people read it. The question was 'are you prepared to pay to queue jump?'
That is what our sainted medical profession encourages people to do. And yes, if it was my loved one, yes I would.
Both parties are lying. There will have to be tax rises or public sector cuts or both. The only way that changes if return levels of growth we haven't seen for 20 years. That would require huge and rapid increases in productivity in both the private and public sector. And neither party appears to have any real plans on how to achieve such a thing.
Zero talk about what AI will do positively and negatively for the workforce. Zero talk about what we do about China stealing IP then flooding Western markets with products that are artificially discounted by the state to undercut existing industries.
Instead we are stuck in the doom loop of you are lying, no you are lying.
With Labour, the high probability is that with a Labour government, there will be a flight of money to tax-friendlier regimes. The notion that capital is a terrible thing comes with a slap up side the head - that there will be less cash for every single pet project. Most notably, the NHS.
Particularly given the recent record of the source, Caveat Emptor....
It is a story that hacks are gossiping about in private, the story has been going around in legal circles for years and Guido hears that more than one newspaper is only now trying to stand the story up. Labour’s senior campaign operatives are well aware of the story and are said to have prepared a counter-strategy if it breaks during the election campaign.
If you thought the Tory dossier was dodgy….read on….
🧵 Here's my primer on that £2k "Labour tax bombshell" @rishisunak was going on abt. Warning: this is far more convoluted/bizarre/intriguing than u might have expected. & neither Lab nor Con come out of it v well. But let's begin with a proviso: WE DON'T HAVE THE MANIFESTOS YET!
Starmer’s team aggressively fighting back now & calling Sunak a liar over claims he made about small boats
Seems they are in real panic mode
Really? Labour can now spend the next 4 weeks calling Rishi a liar - and has multiple bits of evidence to back it up.
I would call that just about the worst position possible for a politician to be in..
So you think a politician calling another politician a liar is going to persuade the public, when the general consensus is they all are the same
Being honest I think your love of the Tory party is completely impossible to understand.
Why - I am a one nation conservative and my party has lost its way
That doesn't mean that I will suddenly vote for another party, rather than try to influence my party to return to sanity and the centre
Your party hasn't so much lost it's way as been taking over (slowly) by a group of right wing clueless (often facist) loonies. Remember that prior to 2019 I voted Conservative - I was very much a centralist Tory but Bozo destroyed that in August - October 2019 and you amongst various others ignored the fact.
I'm going to be blunt but the best thing for the current Tory party is for it to be completely destroyed so that a new centralist right wing party can be formed from it's remains...
Except the current Tory government where the most senior figures in the Cabinet are Sunak, Hunt and Cameron IS the most centralist right wing party you are going to get in the UK anytime soon. Sunak toppled Johnson, Hunt was Johnson's opponent for the 2019 Tory leadership and Cameron led the Remain campaign in 2016 against Johnson's Leave campaign.
Not to mention the fact that Farage is back as leader of a Reform party polling over 10%, if the Tories were replaced it would be by a Farage led hard right populist party NOT any new centrist party
But dig behind the current figure heads and who is going to replace Rishi in September / October this year. It isn't going to be a centralist it's going to be the more populist facist who wins the members vote.
The reason why I'm happy to wear the "he loves Labour" hat on here is that I don't want to be within 1000 miles of any part of the blame for the next Tory party leader...
Not that it actually matters because I said in 2019 that Bozo would be the last Tory PM ever although he didn't manage to last all 5 years (and got replaced twice) I see no reason to believe my prediction that the 2019 Government will be the last one ever formed by the Tory party.
Re your first paragraph, has anyone actually done any digging on this? There seems to be a generally accepted opinion that someone of the harder right is going to be next Tory leader but is that based on facts?
For example if you took various seat levels for the Tories, looked at who would be left are we certain that they are majority to the right? As far as I know (and I know nothing, about anything) it could actually be that there would be a much greater number of one nation centrists who might be able to lock out the last two candidates from their wing.
Just because the remaining seats would by definition be stronger Tory seats it doesn’t necessarily follow that their MPs are further to the right.
If there ended up 160 Tories and 120 were one nation then they could ensure one of their tribe takes over. The same is true of course for the result being the other way. Like I said, unless someone has really delved into this we are just speculating.
Look at the last 2 leadership elections - the more right wing populist candidate wins the members vote.
Now it's possible that the elected MPs may be able to ensure only 2 sane candidates go through to the members - I just don't see that being the case...
And Tory MPs then removed Truss as they had effectively removed Johnson and now CCHQ is imposing 3 Sunak loyalists on every Tory Association where a Tory MP is not standing again so members don't get the chance to pick a Boris or Truss supporter as their candidate.
CCHQ are effectively stitching up the next leadership election so that Sunak loyalists form the vast majority of the largely bluewall Tory MPs left. Indeed I could well see the final 2 sent to the membership being Barclay and Tugendhat (Barclay the Leaver but both Sunak loyalists now), Braverman and Badenoch and Patel and Jenrick wouldn't have the MP support to get to the last 2, Mordaunt might well lose her seat and was only 3rd last time
Any negotiation is pointless until Putin is obliged to abandon his ambition to restore the Russian empire. Otherwise all you're negotiating is a pause.
That's a meaningless condition because VVP could and would abandon his abandonment when convenient or necessary. Also, VVP's inevitably more bellicose successor wouldn't be bound by it.
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Good morning
I simply do not believe Starmer would not put his family first in the circumstances of a medical emergency and his answer was simply political and dishonest
Private care isn't about emergencies though. Emergency care is pretty much only via the NHS, which is why it matters to us all. A multimillionaire acquaintance of mine found this out when his mum fractured her hip. There is no alternative to the local Emergency Dept in that situation (Bangor in that case).
If it was a requirement that all elected politicians could only use the NHS and State Schools then I suspect that this would concentrate their minds on improving things for the rest of us quite noticeably!
Private healthcare is not without risk. After a close family member picked up a life threatening infection at a luxurious private hospital, which then had to be fixed by the NHS, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to reject the allure of quick fixes in the private sector and believe the NHS option is best.
Because of course the NHS never has problems with its care. :
Sure, but the point is that it’s perfectly reasonable to believe that private medicine is not the answer, nor the best option.
Several members of my family have use private medical care and it most certainly in their cases was the best option not least my daughter who had an urgent private scan that ruled out cancer
Great!
But don't you think everyone should be able to have an urgent scan, not just those who have the disposable income/savings to afford it?
The reason the NHS is failing rich people is that too few poor people are getting early interventions. Doom loop.
I'm sceptical private healthcare improves the overall provision. If a system is capacity constrained anyone bumped up the queue ipso facto pushes everyone else back. Possibly private medicine brings more money and investment into the system. Overall people care that they get the treatment and it's affordable and probably don't care whether they fund it through taxation or pay for it separately.
Fundamentally I think private healthcare pushes provision towards ability to pay than to need. The American system is an extreme example of an inequitable and inefficient system like this.
Private healthcare also provides examples of what is possible. My daughter had an issue. NHS slow motion ensues. Each specialist ordered a single test. Wait. Rule something out.... Waaaaait.
The private chap ordered the MRI, Xray etc in advance. Then called us in. Then gave a diagnosis that turned out to be correct on the spot.
The hypothesis to test here I think is that multiple tests are deemed not the best value use of a very limited budget. As you have plenty of spare money you are less constrained in your vfm calculation. So the question I think is whether multiple tests would be a good use of additional money being made available. I totally get your wanting the best for your daughter but someone aiming to get the best medical outcomes for a whole population needs to make trade offs. Treatment according to ability to pay rather on need undermines the objective of best medical outcomes for a population.
The NHS way of doing it was to
1) See a consultant 2) He ordered a a test 3) See the consultant 4) Another test 5) etc
Test data is cheap compared to consultants time - and it is cheap (relatively) to buy more MRI machines, X ray machines and find the staff to run them. Consultants are *rare* and it takes a decade to make a new one.
Tests *used* to be far more expensive.
This is classic OR stuff.
EDIT: The other classic NHS thing is joined up behaviour. Or lack of it. A relative, in hospital, just nearly died from neglect. The operation was a brilliant success - but the patient nearly died. It took a letter to the head of the Trust to get someone to pull their finger out.
Actually MRI's are restricted with say 1 per hospital while there is more than 1 consultant in a hospital.
I noticed this last week were Clinical Decisions had a sign saying they had 1 MRI slot a day (because otherwise it's fully booked x weeks in advance).
Now the fix is definitely more MRI machines but they are expensive to purchase maintain and run...
The last one purchased at Chesterfield was funded by a Charity cost £550k at the time but this was a top of the range thig from memory
Indeed. I remember a fundraiser for a million to buy one in the 1980s, so they’re half the cash price they were 40 years ago.
I wonder how much the healthcare system has worked out that testing and imaging has got an awful lot cheaper, to the point that anyone turning up to see a consultant should probably have had both an MRI of the affected area, and a full blood panel, by the time they actually see the consultant.
Starmer’s team aggressively fighting back now & calling Sunak a liar over claims he made about small boats
Seems they are in real panic mode
Really? Labour can now spend the next 4 weeks calling Rishi a liar - and has multiple bits of evidence to back it up.
I would call that just about the worst position possible for a politician to be in..
So you think a politician calling another politician a liar is going to persuade the public, when the general consensus is they all are the same
Being honest I think your love of the Tory party is completely impossible to understand.
Why - I am a one nation conservative and my party has lost its way
That doesn't mean that I will suddenly vote for another party, rather than try to influence my party to return to sanity and the centre
Your party hasn't so much lost it's way as been taking over (slowly) by a group of right wing clueless (often facist) loonies. Remember that prior to 2019 I voted Conservative - I was very much a centralist Tory but Bozo destroyed that in August - October 2019 and you amongst various others ignored the fact.
I'm going to be blunt but the best thing for the current Tory party is for it to be completely destroyed so that a new centralist right wing party can be formed from it's remains...
Except the current Tory government where the most senior figures in the Cabinet are Sunak, Hunt and Cameron IS the most centralist right wing party you are going to get in the UK anytime soon. Sunak toppled Johnson, Hunt was Johnson's opponent for the 2019 Tory leadership and Cameron led the Remain campaign in 2016 against Johnson's Leave campaign.
Not to mention the fact that Farage is back as leader of a Reform party polling over 10%, if the Tories were replaced it would be by a Farage led hard right populist party NOT any new centrist party
But dig behind the current figure heads and who is going to replace Rishi in September / October this year. It isn't going to be a centralist it's going to be the more populist facist who wins the members vote.
The reason why I'm happy to wear the "he loves Labour" hat on here is that I don't want to be within 1000 miles of any part of the blame for the next Tory party leader...
Not that it actually matters because I said in 2019 that Bozo would be the last Tory PM ever although he didn't manage to last all 5 years (and got replaced twice) I see no reason to believe my prediction that the 2019 Government will be the last one ever formed by the Tory party.
Re your first paragraph, has anyone actually done any digging on this? There seems to be a generally accepted opinion that someone of the harder right is going to be next Tory leader but is that based on facts?
For example if you took various seat levels for the Tories, looked at who would be left are we certain that they are majority to the right? As far as I know (and I know nothing, about anything) it could actually be that there would be a much greater number of one nation centrists who might be able to lock out the last two candidates from their wing.
Just because the remaining seats would by definition be stronger Tory seats it doesn’t necessarily follow that their MPs are further to the right.
If there ended up 160 Tories and 120 were one nation then they could ensure one of their tribe takes over. The same is true of course for the result being the other way. Like I said, unless someone has really delved into this we are just speculating.
Look at the last 2 leadership elections - the more right wing populist candidate wins the members vote.
Now it's possible that the elected MPs may be able to ensure only 2 sane candidates go through to the members - I just don't see that being the case...
And Tory MPs then removed Truss as they had effectively removed Johnson and now CCHQ is imposing 3 Sunak loyalists on every Tory Association where a Tory MP is not standing again so members don't get the chance to pick a Boris or Truss supporter as their candidate.
CCHQ are effectively stitching up the next leadership election so that Sunak loyalists form the vast majority of the largely bluewall Tory MPs left. Indeed I could well see the final 2 sent to the membership being Barclay and Tugendhat (Barclay the Leaver but both Sunak loyalists now), Braverman and Badenoch and Patel and Jenrick wouldn't have the MP support to get to the last 2, Mordaunt might well lose her seat and was only 3rd last time
Starmer’s team aggressively fighting back now & calling Sunak a liar over claims he made about small boats
Labour lash out after debate pasting. Spinny spin spin
Spinny spin spin 😆 an example of which is “after debate pasting” where the debate polling now in and all its detail is giving a clear win to Starmer.
That’s the most ugly bad for democracy thing about these hour long blip debates, it’s about who gets to the microphone first to declare victory and who wins the brawl in the spinny spin spin room.
There was very little there to actually help voters.
Starmer shared very little about actual policy and what he would actually do, and just about everything Sunak said, from fall in NHS lists, fall in boat crossing, Labours tax plans, was all made up bare faced lying.
Again, you make a good point. The poll thing was unfortunate for Labour too – YouGov were first out of the blocks and showed a Sunak win (albeit narrow but a win is a win). Two polls showed a clear Starmer victory. But, because YouGov were first they got all the headlines. Not fair but that's the way it is: speed is everything!
Both parties are lying. There will have to be tax rises or public sector cuts or both. The only way that changes if return levels of growth we haven't seen for 20 years. That would require huge and rapid increases in productivity in both the private and public sector. And neither party appears to have any real plans on how to achieve such a thing.
Zero talk about what AI will do positively and negatively for the workforce. Zero talk about what we do about China stealing IP then flooding Western markets with products that are artificially discounted by the state to undercut existing industries.
Instead we are stuck in the doom loop of you are lying, no you are lying.
With Labour, the high probability is that with a Labour government, there will be a flight of money to tax-friendlier regimes. The notion that capital is a terrible thing comes with a slap up side the head - that there will be less cash for every single pet project. Most notably, the NHS.
Given the likes of Blair and Mandelson are involved behind the scenes, I can see the first 5 years being like New Labour, where they raid the pension pots, windfall taxes, tax on motorists, to raise some revenue for all the pet projects, but still not close to balancing the books. We also know that this "wealth fund' is really just a massive centralise PFI scheme, so a lot of extra debt will shoved off the books. The second term is when it could go off the rails.
Starmer’s team aggressively fighting back now & calling Sunak a liar over claims he made about small boats
Seems they are in real panic mode
Really? Labour can now spend the next 4 weeks calling Rishi a liar - and has multiple bits of evidence to back it up.
I would call that just about the worst position possible for a politician to be in..
So you think a politician calling another politician a liar is going to persuade the public, when the general consensus is they all are the same
Being honest I think your love of the Tory party is completely impossible to understand.
Why - I am a one nation conservative and my party has lost its way
That doesn't mean that I will suddenly vote for another party, rather than try to influence my party to return to sanity and the centre
Your party hasn't so much lost it's way as been taking over (slowly) by a group of right wing clueless (often facist) loonies. Remember that prior to 2019 I voted Conservative - I was very much a centralist Tory but Bozo destroyed that in August - October 2019 and you amongst various others ignored the fact.
I'm going to be blunt but the best thing for the current Tory party is for it to be completely destroyed so that a new centralist right wing party can be formed from it's remains...
Except the current Tory government where the most senior figures in the Cabinet are Sunak, Hunt and Cameron IS the most centralist right wing party you are going to get in the UK anytime soon. Sunak toppled Johnson, Hunt was Johnson's opponent for the 2019 Tory leadership and Cameron led the Remain campaign in 2016 against Johnson's Leave campaign.
Not to mention the fact that Farage is back as leader of a Reform party polling over 10%, if the Tories were replaced it would be by a Farage led hard right populist party NOT any new centrist party
And goodbye to me and many other longstanding conservatives
I will have no part in the Trump loving, vaccine and net zero denying far right party you seem to crave for
I did vote for Sunak last time and Remain, I am hardly in that category but I am now on the moderate wing of today's Tory membership and I also never voted for Farage's party even in the EU Parliament elections
Starmer’s team aggressively fighting back now & calling Sunak a liar over claims he made about small boats
Seems they are in real panic mode
Really? Labour can now spend the next 4 weeks calling Rishi a liar - and has multiple bits of evidence to back it up.
I would call that just about the worst position possible for a politician to be in..
So you think a politician calling another politician a liar is going to persuade the public, when the general consensus is they all are the same
Being honest I think your love of the Tory party is completely impossible to understand.
Why - I am a one nation conservative and my party has lost its way
That doesn't mean that I will suddenly vote for another party, rather than try to influence my party to return to sanity and the centre
Your party hasn't so much lost it's way as been taking over (slowly) by a group of right wing clueless (often facist) loonies. Remember that prior to 2019 I voted Conservative - I was very much a centralist Tory but Bozo destroyed that in August - October 2019 and you amongst various others ignored the fact.
I'm going to be blunt but the best thing for the current Tory party is for it to be completely destroyed so that a new centralist right wing party can be formed from it's remains...
Except the current Tory government where the most senior figures in the Cabinet are Sunak, Hunt and Cameron IS the most centralist right wing party you are going to get in the UK anytime soon. Sunak toppled Johnson, Hunt was Johnson's opponent for the 2019 Tory leadership and Cameron led the Remain campaign in 2016 against Johnson's Leave campaign.
Not to mention the fact that Farage is back as leader of a Reform party polling over 10%, if the Tories were replaced it would be by a Farage led hard right populist party NOT any new centrist party
But dig behind the current figure heads and who is going to replace Rishi in September / October this year. It isn't going to be a centralist it's going to be the more populist facist who wins the members vote.
The reason why I'm happy to wear the "he loves Labour" hat on here is that I don't want to be within 1000 miles of any part of the blame for the next Tory party leader...
Not that it actually matters because I said in 2019 that Bozo would be the last Tory PM ever although he didn't manage to last all 5 years (and got replaced twice) I see no reason to believe my prediction that the 2019 Government will be the last one ever formed by the Tory party.
If the latter was true the next government from the right would likely be a merged Tory and Reform party or a coalition between the 2 if we got PR
Many people will be thinking £2000 over 4 years isn't as bad as their feared - that was Mrs Eek's reaction..
Maybe on PB that is fiddling small change but it is a lot to many people.
Of course it is likely that the many people to which it is a lot won't be the ones paying it.
Even if hadn't been made up, it makes it nearer to £250 per tax payer - and that's before you take into account that higher rate tax payers will be paying more, and that not all taxes come from individuals.
So, you're probably talking nearer £100 a year for an actual "average" earner - and compared to the actual tax rises already baked in with the freeze on allowances for the next few years - it wouldn't even be the biggest tax rise they'd face.
I've mentioned it before but there's not really scope to increase tax on higher earners due to student loans (yet another reason they're bad).
If someone is on £50k their marginal takehome rate could be 39%: 40% Income tax, 2% NI, 9% Undergrad, 6% Postgrad, 5% pension (sal sac).
I know a lawyer earning just above £100k whose takehome rate is just 19% with the minimum pension contribution! They take home just 16p in every additional pound their employer pays due to E'ers NI - every day they work the Government claims 7 of the 8 hours.
You could maybe find another couple of percent, but while the older generations don't have tax rates that high, the young are getting absolutely shafted by them to the extend that rises aren't really viable.
Ultimately the scope for increasing taxes lies within wealth taxes, land tax, and the less productive.
Many people will be thinking £2000 over 4 years isn't as bad as their feared - that was Mrs Eek's reaction..
Maybe on PB that is fiddling small change but it is a lot to many people.
Of course it is likely that the many people to which it is a lot won't be the ones paying it.
Even if hadn't been made up, it makes it nearer to £250 per tax payer - and that's before you take into account that higher rate tax payers will be paying more, and that not all taxes come from individuals.
So, you're probably talking nearer £100 a year for an actual "average" earner - and compared to the actual tax rises already baked in with the freeze on allowances for the next few years - it wouldn't even be the biggest tax rise they'd face.
I've mentioned it before but there's not really scope to increase tax on higher earners due to student loans (yet another reason they're bad).
If someone is on £50k their marginal takehome rate will be 39%: 40% Income tax, 2% NI, 9% Undergrad, 6% Postgrad, 5% pension (sal sac).
I know a lawyer earning just above £100k whose takehome rate is just 19% with the minimum pension contribution! They take home just 16p in every additional pound their employer pays due to E'ers NI - every day they work the Government claims 7 of the 8 hours.
You could maybe find another couple of percent, but while the older generations don't have tax rates that high, the young are getting absolutely shafted by them to the extend that rises aren't really viable.
The cliff edges at £60k and £100k are absolutely stupid and counterproductive. There is zero point earning just over £100k, you negotiate other benefits in kind e.g working less, unless your employer is offering significantly over £100k.
If this thread is going to cross 2000 replies, hurrah!
Friday night is Farage night it would seem - that might get some more viewers than last night's performance.
As others have said, mid to late June presents an embarrassment of riches for those seeking entertainment - Ascot, Glastonbury, Euro 2024, the General Election, decorating a spare bedroom to name but five.
That's why we've not had a GE in an even number year since 1992 (and that was in April). 1970 was the last "summer" election in an even numbered year - that didn't end well for a Government defending a large majority (in seats if not votes).
I think it could have been box office – as Farage, Angela and Penny are all entertaining figures. Sadly some quarterwit at the Beeb didn't even manage the most basic check of TV schedules. Had they done so, they would have spotted that both England AND Scotland are playing football at exactly the same time.
Some are saying Labour shouldn’t try and refute the tax claims as it draws attention to them . The difference now is the public are more likely to think the Tories are liars so Sunaks claim was probably on shaky ground anyway . And Sunak repeated the lie throughout the debate .
Starmer decided to lay a trap for Sunak and Labour will now use the liar tag for the next month to attack him .
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Good morning
I simply do not believe Starmer would not put his family first in the circumstances of a medical emergency and his answer was simply political and dishonest
Private care isn't about emergencies though. Emergency care is pretty much only via the NHS, which is why it matters to us all. A multimillionaire acquaintance of mine found this out when his mum fractured her hip. There is no alternative to the local Emergency Dept in that situation (Bangor in that case).
If it was a requirement that all elected politicians could only use the NHS and State Schools then I suspect that this would concentrate their minds on improving things for the rest of us quite noticeably!
Private healthcare is not without risk. After a close family member picked up a life threatening infection at a luxurious private hospital, which then had to be fixed by the NHS, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to reject the allure of quick fixes in the private sector and believe the NHS option is best.
Because of course the NHS never has problems with its care. :
Sure, but the point is that it’s perfectly reasonable to believe that private medicine is not the answer, nor the best option.
Several members of my family have use private medical care and it most certainly in their cases was the best option not least my daughter who had an urgent private scan that ruled out cancer
Great!
But don't you think everyone should be able to have an urgent scan, not just those who have the disposable income/savings to afford it?
The reason the NHS is failing rich people is that too few poor people are getting early interventions. Doom loop.
I'm sceptical private healthcare improves the overall provision. If a system is capacity constrained anyone bumped up the queue ipso facto pushes everyone else back. Possibly private medicine brings more money and investment into the system. Overall people care that they get the treatment and it's affordable and probably don't care whether they fund it through taxation or pay for it separately.
Fundamentally I think private healthcare pushes provision towards ability to pay than to need. The American system is an extreme example of an inequitable and inefficient system like this.
Private healthcare also provides examples of what is possible. My daughter had an issue. NHS slow motion ensues. Each specialist ordered a single test. Wait. Rule something out.... Waaaaait.
The private chap ordered the MRI, Xray etc in advance. Then called us in. Then gave a diagnosis that turned out to be correct on the spot.
The hypothesis to test here I think is that multiple tests are deemed not the best value use of a very limited budget. As you have plenty of spare money you are less constrained in your vfm calculation. So the question I think is whether multiple tests would be a good use of additional money being made available. I totally get your wanting the best for your daughter but someone aiming to get the best medical outcomes for a whole population needs to make trade offs. Treatment according to ability to pay rather on need undermines the objective of best medical outcomes for a population.
The NHS way of doing it was to
1) See a consultant 2) He ordered a a test 3) See the consultant 4) Another test 5) etc
Test data is cheap compared to consultants time - and it is cheap (relatively) to buy more MRI machines, X ray machines and find the staff to run them. Consultants are *rare* and it takes a decade to make a new one.
Tests *used* to be far more expensive.
This is classic OR stuff.
EDIT: The other classic NHS thing is joined up behaviour. Or lack of it. A relative, in hospital, just nearly died from neglect. The operation was a brilliant success - but the patient nearly died. It took a letter to the head of the Trust to get someone to pull their finger out.
Actually MRI's are restricted with say 1 per hospital while there is more than 1 consultant in a hospital.
I noticed this last week were Clinical Decisions had a sign saying they had 1 MRI slot a day (because otherwise it's fully booked x weeks in advance).
Now the fix is definitely more MRI machines but they are expensive to purchase maintain and run...
The last one purchased at Chesterfield was funded by a Charity cost £550k at the time but this was a top of the range thig from memory
Indeed. I remember a fundraiser for a million to buy one in the 1980s, so they’re half the cash price they were 40 years ago.
I wonder how much the healthcare system has worked out that testing and imaging has got an awful lot cheaper, to the point that anyone turning up to see a consultant should probably have had both an MRI of the affected area, and a full blood panel, by the time they actually see the consultant.
High throughput through the newer machines is even easier - they tolerate patient movement more etc.
Given the cost of a private MRI is a couple of hundred pounds....
Odessa is so beautiful. And yet the Potemkin steps are fenced off with barbed wire, and all the palaces on the seafront have boarded up windows. And sandbags surround the statues
And there’s no mains power
I am afraid to tell you, PB, what this means when my phone runs out. Yes. Imagine
Starmer’s team aggressively fighting back now & calling Sunak a liar over claims he made about small boats
Seems they are in real panic mode
Really? Labour can now spend the next 4 weeks calling Rishi a liar - and has multiple bits of evidence to back it up.
I would call that just about the worst position possible for a politician to be in..
So you think a politician calling another politician a liar is going to persuade the public, when the general consensus is they all are the same
Being honest I think your love of the Tory party is completely impossible to understand.
Why - I am a one nation conservative and my party has lost its way
That doesn't mean that I will suddenly vote for another party, rather than try to influence my party to return to sanity and the centre
Your party hasn't so much lost it's way as been taking over (slowly) by a group of right wing clueless (often facist) loonies. Remember that prior to 2019 I voted Conservative - I was very much a centralist Tory but Bozo destroyed that in August - October 2019 and you amongst various others ignored the fact.
I'm going to be blunt but the best thing for the current Tory party is for it to be completely destroyed so that a new centralist right wing party can be formed from it's remains...
Except the current Tory government where the most senior figures in the Cabinet are Sunak, Hunt and Cameron IS the most centralist right wing party you are going to get in the UK anytime soon. Sunak toppled Johnson, Hunt was Johnson's opponent for the 2019 Tory leadership and Cameron led the Remain campaign in 2016 against Johnson's Leave campaign.
Not to mention the fact that Farage is back as leader of a Reform party polling over 10%, if the Tories were replaced it would be by a Farage led hard right populist party NOT any new centrist party
And goodbye to me and many other longstanding conservatives
I will have no part in the Trump loving, vaccine and net zero denying far right party you seem to crave for
I did vote for Sunak last time and Remain, I am hardly in that category but I am now on the moderate wing of today's Tory membership and I also never voted for Farage's party even in the EU Parliament elections
Despite those mitigating factors you do remain the liar in chief's one true loyal apologist; the man that used Brexit for his own personal aggrandisement (despite not believing in it) and was IMO singlehandedly responsible for the Conservative Party's loss of credibility with the electorate
Particularly given the recent record of the source, Caveat Emptor....
It is a story that hacks are gossiping about in private, the story has been going around in legal circles for years and Guido hears that more than one newspaper is only now trying to stand the story up. Labour’s senior campaign operatives are well aware of the story and are said to have prepared a counter-strategy if it breaks during the election campaign.
Having not watched the debate only snippets, I thought one of the weirdest / face slipping thing was Starmer saying no he would never use private health.
What never, you kids are dying, you can only get that treatment privately and your idealogical purity would override that? That isn't the same as doing a Diane Abbott and sending your kids private after railing against private education (that isn't life and death).
Even lesser than that, your kid is in agony, lets say had an accident and smashed in face / teeth. You wouldn't pay for a private dentist to sort it tomorrow, rather than have to wait months (and may never get the full treatment via NHS dentist). Same with hips / knees, the pain from that for many old people is life limiting.
Surely the easy answer is we need to make the NHS better, it fails too many people, so even normal people are being faced with these decisions, that they should never have to....
What condition do you have in mind that would kill your children, but is treatable only privately?
I can't think of one.
Indeed paediatric services are generally very poor privately as few private hospitals can meet the CQC approval for children.
We see it all the time, where there are treatments only available in say US. They aren't licensed here and there is some charity drive to raise the money to send them.
But, even on the lesser note. Things like hips / knees, the wait list is years on NHS. And things like NHS dentistry doesn't over everything or won't get to you for a very very long time.
As I said, the easy answer is
"As PM I will improve the NHS, people shouldn't be having to make these decisions, but I understand that family is the most important thing and thus why people pay to go private. I support the NHS, I believe in the NHS, but there are very rare circumstances where if forced I am very fortunate to be able to make such a decision to help a family member. "
That to me seems the normal human response.
Treatments only available in the US are unusual. We hear about them because they are newsworthy precisely because they are rare.
Many, probably most, of these aren't available in the UK because NICE and the NHS have looked at them and decided they don't really work. Hope is a very powerful motivator and people want to believe some obscure, expensive thing in the US will work... but 9 times out of 10, it won't.
There are cases where something works and is so prohibitively expensive that the NHS won't do it. But they're very rare.
That is all fair points, but it doesn't change that if we believe Starmer he wouldn't even entertain the possibility / look into it if it was a family member. Each to their own, but its not an ideology I can personally understand.
I can understand why someone would take the principled stance not to use private health care, much as they might do for private education. What I don't understand is imposing your own viewpoint on your own family members, even when they are dying!
Wasn't the question - would you pay for someone in your family to get private healthcare - I can see why the answer to that would be no especially when your don't have £xm in the bank...
If one of my family members were in need of it I would like to think I would spend my last penny to get them the best healthcare. Pity Labour supporters families; they would rather the tax payer picked up the bill, even if they could afford it, and let their family member suffer longer so they can believe themselves pure while they book their next holiday in the Maldives.
I don't think that's how people read it. The question was 'are you prepared to pay to queue jump?'
People do it all the time - fast queues at airports, Ticketmaster, anything premium. You must do it all the time.
Starmer’s team aggressively fighting back now & calling Sunak a liar over claims he made about small boats
Seems they are in real panic mode
Really? Labour can now spend the next 4 weeks calling Rishi a liar - and has multiple bits of evidence to back it up.
I would call that just about the worst position possible for a politician to be in..
So you think a politician calling another politician a liar is going to persuade the public, when the general consensus is they all are the same
Being honest I think your love of the Tory party is completely impossible to understand.
Why - I am a one nation conservative and my party has lost its way
That doesn't mean that I will suddenly vote for another party, rather than try to influence my party to return to sanity and the centre
Your party hasn't so much lost it's way as been taking over (slowly) by a group of right wing clueless (often facist) loonies. Remember that prior to 2019 I voted Conservative - I was very much a centralist Tory but Bozo destroyed that in August - October 2019 and you amongst various others ignored the fact.
I'm going to be blunt but the best thing for the current Tory party is for it to be completely destroyed so that a new centralist right wing party can be formed from it's remains...
Except the current Tory government where the most senior figures in the Cabinet are Sunak, Hunt and Cameron IS the most centralist right wing party you are going to get in the UK anytime soon. Sunak toppled Johnson, Hunt was Johnson's opponent for the 2019 Tory leadership and Cameron led the Remain campaign in 2016 against Johnson's Leave campaign.
Not to mention the fact that Farage is back as leader of a Reform party polling over 10%, if the Tories were replaced it would be by a Farage led hard right populist party NOT any new centrist party
And goodbye to me and many other longstanding conservatives
I will have no part in the Trump loving, vaccine and net zero denying far right party you seem to crave for
I did vote for Sunak last time and Remain, I am hardly in that category but I am now on the moderate wing of today's Tory membership and I also never voted for Farage's party even in the EU Parliament elections
Despite those mitigating factors you do remain the liar in chief's one true loyal apologist; the man that used Brexit for his own personal aggrandisement (despite not believing in it) and was IMO singlehandedly responsible for the Conservative Party's loss of credibility with the electorate
If Boris was not leader in 2019 the Conservatives would not have got the majority they needed by winning the redwall seats required to beat Corbyn and get Brexit done. It would have been 2017 rehashed at best in 2019
Having not watched the debate only snippets, I thought one of the weirdest / face slipping thing was Starmer saying no he would never use private health.
What never, you kids are dying, you can only get that treatment privately and your idealogical purity would override that? That isn't the same as doing a Diane Abbott and sending your kids private after railing against private education (that isn't life and death).
Even lesser than that, your kid is in agony, lets say had an accident and smashed in face / teeth. You wouldn't pay for a private dentist to sort it tomorrow, rather than have to wait months (and may never get the full treatment via NHS dentist). Same with hips / knees, the pain from that for many old people is life limiting.
Surely the easy answer is we need to make the NHS better, it fails too many people, so even normal people are being faced with these decisions, that they should never have to....
Did you believe him?
If so why he is an inveterate liar on par with BJ
I wouldn't be surprised if we find at some point some close family member had private dental treatment. Not only is it a weird thing to say, it feels like a hostage to fortune.
I always find it funny when people declare "I will never use private healthcare". Never used a GP?
GPs are like retail pharmacies, they are private contractors doing NHS work as indeed are Spire Hospitals etc.
That is still NHS work though, not private work.
So it's like a special medical operation ? Dr Putin will see you now.
Having not watched the debate only snippets, I thought one of the weirdest / face slipping thing was Starmer saying no he would never use private health.
What never, you kids are dying, you can only get that treatment privately and your idealogical purity would override that? That isn't the same as doing a Diane Abbott and sending your kids private after railing against private education (that isn't life and death).
Even lesser than that, your kid is in agony, lets say had an accident and smashed in face / teeth. You wouldn't pay for a private dentist to sort it tomorrow, rather than have to wait months (and may never get the full treatment via NHS dentist). Same with hips / knees, the pain from that for many old people is life limiting.
Surely the easy answer is we need to make the NHS better, it fails too many people, so even normal people are being faced with these decisions, that they should never have to....
Did you believe him?
If so why he is an inveterate liar on par with BJ
I wouldn't be surprised if we find at some point some close family member had private dental treatment. Not only is it a weird thing to say, it feels like a hostage to fortune.
I always find it funny when people declare "I will never use private healthcare". Never used a GP?
GPs are like retail pharmacies, they are private contractors doing NHS work as indeed are Spire Hospitals etc.
That is still NHS work though, not private work.
So it's like a special medical operation ? Dr Putin will see you now.
Can be a difficult situation when things go wrong; the contractor isn’t done for malpractice as such, but for breach of contract.
Some are saying Labour shouldn’t try and refute the tax claims as it draws attention to them . The difference now is the public are more likely to think the Tories are liars so Sunaks claim was probably on shaky ground anyway . And Sunak repeated the lie throughout the debate .
Starmer decided to lay a trap for Sunak and Labour will now use the liar tag for the next month to attack him .
It's not necessarily an either or, The public can think Labour and the Conservatives are both a bunch of lying gits.
A gentle reminder that any given Muslim is far, far more likely to be the victim of a hate crime than to perpetrate one.
The deliberate insinuation that Muslims are all bad is gross bigotry, yet oddly tolerated in certain circles.
Where would we be without painfully meaningless, boring left platitudes designed to avoid the fucking obvious? Congrats on getting yours in so quick
Well, we'd probably live in a fascist hellscape created by people like you.
Serious question. What do you think happens to a liberal society if you import millions of illiberal people, and it turns out they don’t assimilate, and instead they persist in those values?
I can tell you. What you get is an increasingly less liberal society. More hostile to Jews and gays, and - in the end - not great for women. And that is exactly what we are seeing
Particularly given the recent record of the source, Caveat Emptor....
It is a story that hacks are gossiping about in private, the story has been going around in legal circles for years and Guido hears that more than one newspaper is only now trying to stand the story up. Labour’s senior campaign operatives are well aware of the story and are said to have prepared a counter-strategy if it breaks during the election campaign.
Odessa is so beautiful. And yet the Potemkin steps are fenced off with barbed wire, and all the palaces on the seafront have boarded up windows. And sandbags surround the statues
And there’s no mains power
I am afraid to tell you, PB, what this means when my phone runs out. Yes. Imagine
Yes. You won't be able to post here. Then we won't know whether you're dead or merely dead inside.
Also the Russians probably know who and where you are if you're using it so close to the front.
If this thread is going to cross 2000 replies, hurrah!
Friday night is Farage night it would seem - that might get some more viewers than last night's performance.
As others have said, mid to late June presents an embarrassment of riches for those seeking entertainment - Ascot, Glastonbury, Euro 2024, the General Election, decorating a spare bedroom to name but five.
That's why we've not had a GE in an even number year since 1992 (and that was in April). 1970 was the last "summer" election in an even numbered year - that didn't end well for a Government defending a large majority (in seats if not votes).
I think it could have been box office – as Farage, Angela and Penny are all entertaining figures. Sadly some quarterwit at the Beeb didn't even manage the most basic check of TV schedules. Had they done so, they would have spotted that both England AND Scotland are playing football at exactly the same time.
Amateurish scheduling, a real shame.
If only the technology existed to allow people to watch the debate at some later time of their choosing!
@tomorrowsmps 🔵 I hear that the urgency for the Conservatives to find a candidate in every Btitish seat is so great that they are now contacting people who recently resigned from the approved candidates' list to see if they might nonetheless stand in a hopeless seat somewhere. https://x.com/tomorrowsmps/status/1798335719645335579
Having not watched the debate only snippets, I thought one of the weirdest / face slipping thing was Starmer saying no he would never use private health.
What never, you kids are dying, you can only get that treatment privately and your idealogical purity would override that? That isn't the same as doing a Diane Abbott and sending your kids private after railing against private education (that isn't life and death).
Even lesser than that, your kid is in agony, lets say had an accident and smashed in face / teeth. You wouldn't pay for a private dentist to sort it tomorrow, rather than have to wait months (and may never get the full treatment via NHS dentist). Same with hips / knees, the pain from that for many old people is life limiting.
Surely the easy answer is we need to make the NHS better, it fails too many people, so even normal people are being faced with these decisions, that they should never have to....
What condition do you have in mind that would kill your children, but is treatable only privately?
I can't think of one.
Indeed paediatric services are generally very poor privately as few private hospitals can meet the CQC approval for children.
We see it all the time, where there are treatments only available in say US. They aren't licensed here and there is some charity drive to raise the money to send them.
But, even on the lesser note. Things like hips / knees, the wait list is years on NHS. And things like NHS dentistry doesn't over everything or won't get to you for a very very long time.
As I said, the easy answer is
"As PM I will improve the NHS, people shouldn't be having to make these decisions, but I understand that family is the most important thing and thus why people pay to go private. I support the NHS, I believe in the NHS, but there are very rare circumstances where if forced I am very fortunate to be able to make such a decision to help a family member. "
That to me seems the normal human response.
Treatments only available in the US are unusual. We hear about them because they are newsworthy precisely because they are rare.
Many, probably most, of these aren't available in the UK because NICE and the NHS have looked at them and decided they don't really work. Hope is a very powerful motivator and people want to believe some obscure, expensive thing in the US will work... but 9 times out of 10, it won't.
There are cases where something works and is so prohibitively expensive that the NHS won't do it. But they're very rare.
That is all fair points, but it doesn't change that if we believe Starmer he wouldn't even entertain the possibility / look into it if it was a family member. Each to their own, but its not an ideology I can personally understand.
I can understand why someone would take the principled stance not to use private health care, much as they might do for private education. What I don't understand is imposing your own viewpoint on your own family members, even when they are dying!
Wasn't the question - would you pay for someone in your family to get private healthcare - I can see why the answer to that would be no especially when your don't have £xm in the bank...
If one of my family members were in need of it I would like to think I would spend my last penny to get them the best healthcare. Pity Labour supporters families; they would rather the tax payer picked up the bill, even if they could afford it, and let their family member suffer longer so they can believe themselves pure while they book their next holiday in the Maldives.
I don't think that's how people read it. The question was 'are you prepared to pay to queue jump?'
People do it all the time - fast queues at airports, Ticketmaster, anything premium. You must do it all the time.
Indeed it is one of the prime hypocrisy of the left that makes me want to vomit. They love to attack people who pay for their children's education, but not those who buy a house in a good catchment area. They will boast about their latest holiday in some exotic place while wanting more taxes on things that they don't use. They strongly believe that tax rates should be radically increased just above the salary they get for their safe public sector, but let's not tax those public sector pensions that give generous taxpayer guaranteed pay outs for life.
Many people will be thinking £2000 over 4 years isn't as bad as their feared - that was Mrs Eek's reaction..
Maybe on PB that is fiddling small change but it is a lot to many people.
Of course it is likely that the many people to which it is a lot won't be the ones paying it.
Even if hadn't been made up, it makes it nearer to £250 per tax payer - and that's before you take into account that higher rate tax payers will be paying more, and that not all taxes come from individuals.
So, you're probably talking nearer £100 a year for an actual "average" earner - and compared to the actual tax rises already baked in with the freeze on allowances for the next few years - it wouldn't even be the biggest tax rise they'd face.
I've mentioned it before but there's not really scope to increase tax on higher earners due to student loans (yet another reason they're bad).
If someone is on £50k their marginal takehome rate will be 39%: 40% Income tax, 2% NI, 9% Undergrad, 6% Postgrad, 5% pension (sal sac).
I know a lawyer earning just above £100k whose takehome rate is just 19% with the minimum pension contribution! They take home just 16p in every additional pound their employer pays due to E'ers NI - every day they work the Government claims 7 of the 8 hours.
You could maybe find another couple of percent, but while the older generations don't have tax rates that high, the young are getting absolutely shafted by them to the extend that rises aren't really viable.
The cliff edges at £60k and £100k are absolutely stupid and counterproductive. There is zero point earning just over £100k, you negotiate other benefits in kind e.g working less, unless your employer is offering significantly over £100k.
Yep - we have assistant managers and directors going part time/4 days fairly regularly. It's just a ridiculous policy to push the most productive to spend less time working.
@tomorrowsmps 🔵 I hear that the urgency for the Conservatives to find a candidate in every Btitish seat is so great that they are now contacting people who recently resigned from the approved candidates' list to see if they might nonetheless stand in a hopeless seat somewhere. https://x.com/tomorrowsmps/status/1798335719645335579
Sam Coates Sky @SamCoatesSky · 11m There’s a new Sky / YouGov poll coming at 5pm
It’s interesting - but note it’s done under new methodology.
So read the full story on our website to see the comparisons of old and new.
And for why they’ve done it, look here:
From memory I think it's going to end up with a lower Labour % with Lib Dems higher and (possibly) Tory votes lower with Reform higher.
The latter may not be that truthful / accurate though so any drop / increase in Tory votes probably needs a bit of salt with it.
Reality is this YouGov poll is more a fresh starting point for subsequent ones than a continuation of the historic ones.
Hmm. Don't think changing methodology just when an election arrives is a good idea for a pollster. Overall accuracy should be provided by various pollsters doing what they do with obviously similar underlying data.
Having not watched the debate only snippets, I thought one of the weirdest / face slipping thing was Starmer saying no he would never use private health.
What never, you kids are dying, you can only get that treatment privately and your idealogical purity would override that? That isn't the same as doing a Diane Abbott and sending your kids private after railing against private education (that isn't life and death).
Even lesser than that, your kid is in agony, lets say had an accident and smashed in face / teeth. You wouldn't pay for a private dentist to sort it tomorrow, rather than have to wait months (and may never get the full treatment via NHS dentist). Same with hips / knees, the pain from that for many old people is life limiting.
Surely the easy answer is we need to make the NHS better, it fails too many people, so even normal people are being faced with these decisions, that they should never have to....
What condition do you have in mind that would kill your children, but is treatable only privately?
I can't think of one.
Indeed paediatric services are generally very poor privately as few private hospitals can meet the CQC approval for children.
We see it all the time, where there are treatments only available in say US. They aren't licensed here and there is some charity drive to raise the money to send them.
But, even on the lesser note. Things like hips / knees, the wait list is years on NHS. And things like NHS dentistry doesn't over everything or won't get to you for a very very long time.
As I said, the easy answer is
"As PM I will improve the NHS, people shouldn't be having to make these decisions, but I understand that family is the most important thing and thus why people pay to go private. I support the NHS, I believe in the NHS, but there are very rare circumstances where if forced I am very fortunate to be able to make such a decision to help a family member. "
That to me seems the normal human response.
Treatments only available in the US are unusual. We hear about them because they are newsworthy precisely because they are rare.
Many, probably most, of these aren't available in the UK because NICE and the NHS have looked at them and decided they don't really work. Hope is a very powerful motivator and people want to believe some obscure, expensive thing in the US will work... but 9 times out of 10, it won't.
There are cases where something works and is so prohibitively expensive that the NHS won't do it. But they're very rare.
That is all fair points, but it doesn't change that if we believe Starmer he wouldn't even entertain the possibility / look into it if it was a family member. Each to their own, but its not an ideology I can personally understand.
I can understand why someone would take the principled stance not to use private health care, much as they might do for private education. What I don't understand is imposing your own viewpoint on your own family members, even when they are dying!
Wasn't the question - would you pay for someone in your family to get private healthcare - I can see why the answer to that would be no especially when your don't have £xm in the bank...
If one of my family members were in need of it I would like to think I would spend my last penny to get them the best healthcare. Pity Labour supporters families; they would rather the tax payer picked up the bill, even if they could afford it, and let their family member suffer longer so they can believe themselves pure while they book their next holiday in the Maldives.
I don't think that's how people read it. The question was 'are you prepared to pay to queue jump?'
People do it all the time - fast queues at airports, Ticketmaster, anything premium. You must do it all the time.
Indeed it is one of the prime hypocrisy of the left that makes me want to vomit. They love to attack people who pay for their children's education, but not those who buy a house in a good catchment area. They will boast about their latest holiday in some exotic place while wanting more taxes on things that they don't use. They strongly believe that tax rates should be radically increased just above the salary they get for their safe public sector, but let's not tax those public sector pensions that give generous taxpayer guaranteed pay outs for life.
And of course there is mateism. Everyone knows someone who can get them things or places the rest of us cant get. Do we stop that too ?
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Good morning
I simply do not believe Starmer would not put his family first in the circumstances of a medical emergency and his answer was simply political and dishonest
Private care isn't about emergencies though. Emergency care is pretty much only via the NHS, which is why it matters to us all. A multimillionaire acquaintance of mine found this out when his mum fractured her hip. There is no alternative to the local Emergency Dept in that situation (Bangor in that case).
If it was a requirement that all elected politicians could only use the NHS and State Schools then I suspect that this would concentrate their minds on improving things for the rest of us quite noticeably!
Private healthcare is not without risk. After a close family member picked up a life threatening infection at a luxurious private hospital, which then had to be fixed by the NHS, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to reject the allure of quick fixes in the private sector and believe the NHS option is best.
Because of course the NHS never has problems with its care. :
Sure, but the point is that it’s perfectly reasonable to believe that private medicine is not the answer, nor the best option.
Several members of my family have use private medical care and it most certainly in their cases was the best option not least my daughter who had an urgent private scan that ruled out cancer
Great!
But don't you think everyone should be able to have an urgent scan, not just those who have the disposable income/savings to afford it?
The reason the NHS is failing rich people is that too few poor people are getting early interventions. Doom loop.
I'm sceptical private healthcare improves the overall provision. If a system is capacity constrained anyone bumped up the queue ipso facto pushes everyone else back. Possibly private medicine brings more money and investment into the system. Overall people care that they get the treatment and it's affordable and probably don't care whether they fund it through taxation or pay for it separately.
Fundamentally I think private healthcare pushes provision towards ability to pay than to need. The American system is an extreme example of an inequitable and inefficient system like this.
Private healthcare also provides examples of what is possible. My daughter had an issue. NHS slow motion ensues. Each specialist ordered a single test. Wait. Rule something out.... Waaaaait.
The private chap ordered the MRI, Xray etc in advance. Then called us in. Then gave a diagnosis that turned out to be correct on the spot.
The hypothesis to test here I think is that multiple tests are deemed not the best value use of a very limited budget. As you have plenty of spare money you are less constrained in your vfm calculation. So the question I think is whether multiple tests would be a good use of additional money being made available. I totally get your wanting the best for your daughter but someone aiming to get the best medical outcomes for a whole population needs to make trade offs. Treatment according to ability to pay rather on need undermines the objective of best medical outcomes for a population.
The NHS way of doing it was to
1) See a consultant 2) He ordered a a test 3) See the consultant 4) Another test 5) etc
Test data is cheap compared to consultants time - and it is cheap (relatively) to buy more MRI machines, X ray machines and find the staff to run them. Consultants are *rare* and it takes a decade to make a new one.
Tests *used* to be far more expensive.
This is classic OR stuff.
EDIT: The other classic NHS thing is joined up behaviour. Or lack of it. A relative, in hospital, just nearly died from neglect. The operation was a brilliant success - but the patient nearly died. It took a letter to the head of the Trust to get someone to pull their finger out.
Actually MRI's are restricted with say 1 per hospital while there is more than 1 consultant in a hospital.
I noticed this last week were Clinical Decisions had a sign saying they had 1 MRI slot a day (because otherwise it's fully booked x weeks in advance).
Now the fix is definitely more MRI machines but they are expensive to purchase maintain and run...
The last one purchased at Chesterfield was funded by a Charity cost £550k at the time but this was a top of the range thig from memory
Indeed. I remember a fundraiser for a million to buy one in the 1980s, so they’re half the cash price they were 40 years ago.
I wonder how much the healthcare system has worked out that testing and imaging has got an awful lot cheaper, to the point that anyone turning up to see a consultant should probably have had both an MRI of the affected area, and a full blood panel, by the time they actually see the consultant.
High throughput through the newer machines is even easier - they tolerate patient movement more etc.
Given the cost of a private MRI is a couple of hundred pounds....
I wonder what the economics looks like of hiring (importing) maybe a couple of thousand MRI operators, and a couple of thousand lab technicians, to offer a 24/7 walk-in MRI and blood panel service to anyone currently awaiting a consultant’s appointment?
It could potentially make a big difference to overall treatment time, as well as the waiting list, if the consultant has everything available to them in advance of the first consultation with the patient. The copy sent to the GP might even spot something else at the same time.
When the waiting list clears, offer the same service to anyone over 60, 50, 40, as a screener for all sorts of things that cost the NHS a fortune and have poor outcomes when spotted late.
Comments
Not to mention the fact that Farage is back as leader of a Reform party polling over 10%, if the Tories were replaced and taken over it would be by a Farage led hard right populist party NOT any new centrist party
(Great post from Rory by the way - spot on about Johnson)
Many, probably most, of these aren't available in the UK because NICE and the NHS have looked at them and decided they don't really work. Hope is a very powerful motivator and people want to believe some obscure, expensive thing in the US will work... but 9 times out of 10, it won't.
There are cases where something works and is so prohibitively expensive that the NHS won't do it. But they're very rare.
I will have no part in the Trump loving, vaccine and net zero denying far right party you seem to crave for
The reason why I'm happy to wear the "he loves Labour" hat on here is that I don't want to be within 1000 miles of any part of the blame for the next Tory party leader...
Not that it actually matters because I said in 2019 that Bozo would be the last Tory PM ever although he didn't manage to last all 5 years (and got replaced twice) I see no reason to believe my prediction that the 2019 Government will be the last one ever formed by the Tory party.
“Slightly stunned by this.
A new UnHerd/Focaldata poll out today reveals that 54% of Britons aged 18-24 agree with the statement: "The state of Israel should not exist" 😶”
https://x.com/freddiesayers/status/1798313387908313514?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
Besides, if we accept your premise, how can medics claim to be overworked if they can also find time to work for someone else simultaneously? It defies logic, but it is a nice lie for the BMA to propagate through a gullible media.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/on-sunaks-maths-tories-will-lift-taxes-by-3000-per-household/
I'd much rather have someone being honest here- tax rises and spending cuts are both incoming to some degree, whoever forms the next government. For decades, we've demanded too much and paid too little. But no party actually wanting to win has dared say that out loud. That is a "everyone does it", and voters are complicit in voting for it.
But the Sunak-Johnson approach is worse.
When Starmer was challenging it, I'm sure Sunak said he was criticising independent civil servants.
Here's what the director of the IFS says:
"The £2,000 per working household that the Conservatives are suggesting that Labour is committed to is not independently arrived at or verified. It has been calculated based on Conservative party assumptions about Labour’s spending plans."
Disappointing that so many PB Tories have no more acquaintance with the truth than Sunak.
[PHOTO]
Plus ca change.
#dday80
https://x.com/jeromestarkey/status/1798338553266741541
On Sunak's maths, it works out as £3,000 tax rise per household.
https://t.co/p7wwWkCtgQ
And remember this is the Spectator who are saying this - it should be impossible for the Tory party to upset the Spectator but Rishi has managed it.
If you import Islam you import Islamic values. It’s a fact. That’s fine if you like Islamic values. If you are Jewish, gay, or a woman, maybe less fine. It always starts with the Jews
For example if you took various seat levels for the Tories, looked at who would be left are we certain that they are majority to the right? As far as I know (and I know nothing, about anything) it could actually be that there would be a much greater number of one nation centrists who might be able to lock out the last two candidates from their wing.
Just because the remaining seats would by definition be stronger Tory seats it doesn’t necessarily follow that their MPs are further to the right.
If there ended up 160 Tories and 120 were one nation then they could ensure one of their tribe takes over. The same is true of course for the result being the other way. Like I said, unless someone has really delved into this we are just speculating.
Now it's possible that the elected MPs may be able to ensure only 2 sane candidates go through to the members - I just don't see that being the case...
Support 49%
Oppose 17%
Neither 26%
Don't know 9%…..
Influence of Sunak's Pension Tax Plan (28-29 May):
More voters aged 55-64 (20%) and 65+ (25%) say they are now MORE LIKELY to vote Conservative than say they are less likely to do so (6% and 15%).
Among 18-24 year olds, 37% say they are now LESS LIKELY to vote Conservative
https://x.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1798341594787066216
Since a negligible number of 18-24 year olds were going to vote Con in the first place….
Zero talk about what AI will do positively and negatively for the workforce. Zero talk about what we do about China stealing IP then flooding Western markets with products that are artificially discounted by the state to undercut existing industries etc etc etc
Instead we are stuck in the doom loop of you are lying, no you are lying.
*(the cost of a banana milkshake at McDonald's apparently)
a) a desire to get elected
b) didn't Davis complete screw up his conference speech.
Also the Conservative party of 2005 was a far more broad church than the post Brexit one, Brexit sent a lot of centralists Tories either elsewhere or to quit politics..
However, when accusations of lying start flying around I would like someone to explain to me whether they think Labour are being honest about not putting taxes up. If you wish to use the word "lie" then I suggest they use it carefully. Labour are being highly dishonest about their intentions. Anyone who believes otherwise is an idiot.
Just checking.
*Which he does not, and never has done.
It is a story that hacks are gossiping about in private, the story has been going around in legal circles for years and Guido hears that more than one newspaper is only now trying to stand the story up. Labour’s senior campaign operatives are well aware of the story and are said to have prepared a counter-strategy if it breaks during the election campaign.
https://order-order.com/2024/06/05/unreported-affair-hacks-are-gossiping-about-privately/
🧵
Here's my primer on that £2k "Labour tax bombshell" @rishisunak was going on abt.
Warning: this is far more convoluted/bizarre/intriguing than u might have expected.
& neither Lab nor Con come out of it v well.
But let's begin with a proviso:
WE DON'T HAVE THE MANIFESTOS YET!
https://x.com/EdConwaySky/status/1798343959607193764
CCHQ are effectively stitching up the next leadership election so that Sunak loyalists form the vast majority of the largely bluewall Tory MPs left. Indeed I could well see the final 2 sent to the membership being Barclay and Tugendhat (Barclay the Leaver but both Sunak loyalists now), Braverman and Badenoch and Patel and Jenrick wouldn't have the MP support to get to the last 2, Mordaunt might well lose her seat and was only 3rd last time
I wonder how much the healthcare system has worked out that testing and imaging has got an awful lot cheaper, to the point that anyone turning up to see a consultant should probably have had both an MRI of the affected area, and a full blood panel, by the time they actually see the consultant.
Nicknamed ‘Tricky Dick’, the new head of the Netherlands’ far-right-led government is not afraid of bending the rules."
https://www.politico.eu/article/who-is-dick-schoof-8-things-to-know-about-the-new-dutch-pm/
If someone is on £50k their marginal takehome rate could be 39%: 40% Income tax, 2% NI, 9% Undergrad, 6% Postgrad, 5% pension (sal sac).
I know a lawyer earning just above £100k whose takehome rate is just 19% with the minimum pension contribution! They take home just 16p in every additional pound their employer pays due to E'ers NI - every day they work the Government claims 7 of the 8 hours.
You could maybe find another couple of percent, but while the older generations don't have tax rates that high, the young are getting absolutely shafted by them to the extend that rises aren't really viable.
Ultimately the scope for increasing taxes lies within wealth taxes, land tax, and the less productive.
Amateurish scheduling, a real shame.
Some are saying Labour shouldn’t try and refute the tax claims as it draws attention to them . The difference now is the public are more likely to think the Tories are liars so Sunaks claim was probably on shaky ground anyway . And Sunak repeated the lie throughout the debate .
Starmer decided to lay a trap for Sunak and Labour will now use the liar tag for the next month to attack him .
Given the cost of a private MRI is a couple of hundred pounds....
And there’s no mains power
I am afraid to tell you, PB, what this means when my phone runs out. Yes. Imagine
I can tell you. What you get is an increasingly less liberal society. More hostile to Jews and gays, and - in the end - not great for women. And that is exactly what we are seeing
Which part of this do you still dispute?
@SamCoatesSky
·
11m
There’s a new Sky / YouGov poll coming at 5pm
It’s interesting - but note it’s done under new methodology.
So read the full story on our website to see the comparisons of old and new.
And for why they’ve done it, look here:
From memory I think it's going to end up with a lower Labour % with Lib Dems higher and (possibly) Tory votes lower with Reform higher.
The latter may not be that truthful / accurate though so any drop / increase in Tory votes probably needs a bit of salt with it.
Reality is this YouGov poll is more a fresh starting point for subsequent ones than a continuation of the historic ones.
🔵 I hear that the urgency for the Conservatives to find a candidate in every Btitish seat is so great that they are now contacting people who recently resigned from the approved candidates' list to see if they might nonetheless stand in a hopeless seat somewhere.
https://x.com/tomorrowsmps/status/1798335719645335579
Do we stop that too ?
https://x.com/joepike/status/1798317506870100428?s=46
He’s such an imbecile.
It could potentially make a big difference to overall treatment time, as well as the waiting list, if the consultant has everything available to them in advance of the first consultation with the patient. The copy sent to the GP might even spot something else at the same time.
When the waiting list clears, offer the same service to anyone over 60, 50, 40, as a screener for all sorts of things that cost the NHS a fortune and have poor outcomes when spotted late.