BBC Bias ?

Less money for anywhere outside the home counties. I can't see Devon/Cornwall and Wales getting back what they are going to lose in EU funding from a Tory government. Particularly if they swing to LibDem (Cornwall) and Plaid Cymru (Wales).

 

Sorry but that is just nonsense Tina and you call other people brainwashed.

Austerity is not a Tory ideology. Low taxes and a small state are part of the Tory ideology but this is not the same as austerity. The chancellor has already started to scale back on the austerity plans of his predecessor.

I can find no evidence of whole scale privatisation of the NHS and despite it being a claim made about the Tories for decades it still hasn't happened (I won't mention PFI). The NHS is in crisis but not because it is being privatised or under funded but because of changing socioeconomic factors that have rendered a model designed over sixty years ago no longer fit for purpose.

Big changes are needed in the NHS in the way it operates and possibly even in the way it is funded (I exclude the front line clinical element from this). Proper cross party discussions are needed - the NHS is not a political football and using it as one is helping nobody (I blame all political parties for not planning to reform it and bring it up to date).

Brexit is hardly a Tory excuse to feather their own nests - the former PM and the current PM were remainers, as are several other Tory MPs and the Labour heartlands were generally Brexit areas. Perhaps these voters were all just too stupid to see the reality of what they were voting for.

 

I was listening to The Who by numbers the other night. I always feel it's quite underrated but I like it and it still sounds good.

 

Who are the unelected bureaucrats you're referring to? It's strange that you've brought this up as anathema but you appear happy to surrender money, sovereignty and other rights to exactly the same anathema in Brussels.

 

The house of lords for a start are totally unelected.

 

Sorry.
Don't agree.
I'm not brainwashed.
I do my research.
Austerity is ideological.
Taxes to rise apparently as they come after the middle classes !

 

I'm sorry but I find your reply laughable.
Each to their own though eh?

 

For a start.
They've sold off most of our NHS to Branson.
Given him licence to run huge chunks of it.

He's the one who doesn't pay his fair share of Tax. In fact he's often referred to as one of the major tax avoiders.

How can you possibly say that the NHS is not being privatised on a large scale, I have no idea when the evidence is there to see.
It's also being severely underfunded.
Why does Hunt never come on TV and explain what is happening?
Dr's and Nurses in media telling people what is happening and still the Tories underfunding and continue to sell off our NHS in chunks.

 

Just to back up what Tina suggested re the NHS

The following services (in whole or in part) were offered out for "renewal" to private companies in 2013

GP surgeries Mental health services
GP Our-of-Hours services Small element of pathology and surgery
Walk in centres
Urgent care and minor injury units
Diagnostic services
(including pathology and imaging)
Maternity care
Advice about which services are commissioned
Decisions about patients are prioritised
Non-emergency surgery
(including treatment centres)
Run a whole hospitals, including A&E
Community nursing
Up to forty other community services
(including podiatry, diabetes and physiotherapy)
Ambulance services
Prison health
Mental health services

It omits the outright sale of national plasma UK in 2013 (the national bloodbank).

That's from a very quick search and from memory, and I would suspect more has gone into private hands since then.

Whether you agree with privatisation of the NHS or parts of it, or not. It's certainly the case that more services under the NHS banner are being contracted out and performed by for profit organisations.

 

What percentage of the people that voted Leave do you think regularly read the Telegraph and the Times though? Sure, the information was there if you knew exactly where to look but so many people didn't. In fact the biggest comments I saw from people leading up to the vote was that they didn't have a clue what to believe and felt uninformed and frustrated. Almost everyone I know who didn't know what to believe or think ended up voting Leave because they knew they weren't that happy with life now (not necessarily from circumstances caused by the EU) and said 'what have I got to lose? Rich people don't seem to want to leave so that must mean it'll hurt them more than me, let's go.' It basically came down to a game of stick or twist for most people where people felt they didn't have much to lose but could potential win a huge prize.

 

On that point we agree but we do need a second chamber, just not in its current format or size.

 

Precisely Tina, we're all entitled to our opinions and the debate that comes with the polarised opinions that politics often brings is something I think should be encouraged.

Politics will always divide opinion and never the twain shall meet. I have mine, you and others have yours and I doubt they will ever change, not significantly anyway.

 

But of course Mario and long may it continue.

 

Now there is something we CAN agree on Mario !

 

But that isn't a problem with the political system. I cited the two examples I did because they are the papers I tend to read but I also saw very credible sources of information elsewhere - YouTube, Twitter, The Metro, The Guardian and others such as blogs.

It wasn't difficult to find if you wanted to look and to be honest if people didn't bother doing any research before making such an important decision then that is a crying shame.

Take politics in general, I often get accused of being a Tory sympathiser but this just isn't true. I have voted Tory previously and I will be again in June but I have voted Labour previously too.

I read the manifesto of the main parties, review their record during their last term and vote accordingly. I might be in the minority but nobody can say that information isn't available if you want to find it.

 

The NHS is a bloated buearucratic clusterfuck.
The wage bill for the penpushers is over 1B a year.
The only answer people seem to have is chuck more money at it.

That wont fix anything.

 

I agree with you on all that but my point is that lots of people didn't want to, or couldn't, find it yet still voted based on misinformation and now we're being told that people definitely voted for a Hard Brexit and wanted this, that and the other whereas a lot of people basically closed their eyes and put a cross wherever their pen landed (on both sides).

 

It's par for the course with any organisation of that size and complexity.

You cannot run an organisation of that sized without management either. I dread to think what the management wage bill is in the huge private sector company I work for is.

 

I'd love to understand what has made you decide to vote for them this time and what has made you vote elsewhere in the past.

 

Most people read The Sun, Mail and Express and we all know where their allegiances lie !