SD on 9/4/2010 at 13:28
Quote Posted by Scots Taffer
I'd like to dig into this statement, but to be honest, given that I left the UK in the midst of the Labour government and have heard pretty much only bad things since I left (from people who also can't wait to get out if they can), I probably don't have a terribly unbiased view on the matter.
If you listened to the British people (and the utterly poisonous tabloid media) you would think that every successive government has made the country worse, that society has deteriorated steadily and that you can hardly leave the house without being mugged or stabbed.
Meanwhile, progress continues apace, people get wealthier and violent crime keeps falling. Perception is not the same thing as reality.
Taking my partisan liberal hat off for a moment, I am going to agree with Jay that Britain is better now than it was in 1997. The minimum wage was a positive step. The NHS now is a considerably better-functioning machine than the underfunded corpse Labour inherited from the Tories. The average school roof no longer lets the rain in, and gay people are on a more or less equal footing in law with straight people now.
That said, things here could - and should - be a lot better, and Labour has a particularly nasty, overbearing streak running right through it that gives it a more than passing resemblance to something from dystopian fiction.
Incidentally, for what it is worth, I wouldn't countenance for one second swapping British politics for Australian politics. The choice between "Liberal" (in reality, racist right-wingers) and "Labor" (authoritarian Christian Democrats) is like being asked whether you want to drown in a vat of piss or a vat of animal slurry.
Matthew on 9/4/2010 at 13:32
Quote Posted by Scots Taffer
If I read either of those things or associated with people who did read either of those things, maybe you'd have a shred of a point. However, if you're one of those people for whom Labour can do no wrong, you're welcome to the UK in its current state.
I'm ...
pretty sure Namdrol was accusing Labour of being vote-hungry and unprincipled, willing to bend policy to suit whatever way the populist wind was blowing? I really don't think he was aiming at you.
Namdrol on 9/4/2010 at 13:41
fuck no Scots, I feel deeply, deeply betrayed by Labour, I was agreeing with you, just expanding on your point a little.
It seems as if both the 2 main parties do nothing but react to the tabloid press at the expense of any principles they may have had.
I sat there all night in '97 overjoyed and then have sat and watched Blair, Brown and Mandelson destroy the Labour party I thought I loved and have been driven to the point of total disillusionment with all politics and politicians
edit: as Matthew said
Scots Taffer on 9/4/2010 at 13:43
Sorry Namdrol, I just read the potential sarcasm in the statement as I'm used to reading so many Labour apologists.
Edit: SD, maybe you want to remove that liberal hat again and view the Australian political landscape as it befits the average Australian and compare that to their British counterparts before drawing any hasty conclusions.
Although I will again admit that I've been out of the deep insular europolitical world for some time now and may have some slightly dated views.
scumble on 9/4/2010 at 17:49
Quote Posted by SD
Taking my partisan liberal hat off for a moment, I am going to agree with Jay that Britain is better now than it was in 1997. The minimum wage was a positive step. The NHS now is a considerably better-functioning machine than the underfunded corpse Labour inherited from the Tories. The average school roof no longer lets the rain in, and gay people are on a more or less equal footing in law with straight people now.
This all sounds very nice, and it may be the case that certain things have improved, but to me it looks suspiciously like it has been at the expense of racking up more debt and that budget deficit I was pointing out on page 2. The deficit is larger than the entire projected NHS budget, to put it in context. Out of interest I'd like to dig out the figures for NHS funding and the deficit in 1997 for comparison.
SubJeff on 9/4/2010 at 20:15
Forget the figures, take it from someone who works for the NHS - this government has ballsed up so much by bending to the will of people who want "fair play" rather than people who want to actually have a safe, functional healthcare system.
Brian The Dog on 10/4/2010 at 01:50
NHS funding is the following for 2008/9, according to Wiki:
England - £98.7Bn
Scotland - £9.3Bn
Wales and N. Ireland are not given, but they'd be approx £5-7Bn I guess, if you scale the population of Scotland and England. So the total budget is around £120Bn. It hovered around the £90Bn level in the 90's and then Labour made lots of pledges to do with the NHS and so threw lots of money at it.
By far the biggest part of the total spend (~£650Bn) is Social Security, i.e. pensions and benefits, which is around £220Bn, which explains why politicians like to look for efficiency savings in the benefit system - a 1% saving would be a whole lot of moola.
The one that has rocketed in recent years is the education budget, teacher's salaries are now way higher than they used to be and there's loads of classroom assistants and so on, as well as spending on school infrastructure, while Higher Education has remained fairly static. Transport and Military have remained fairly static around £20Bn and £40Bn each, although the aircraft carriers we've ordered add a few £Bn on top (we can't really get that back now if we wanted to, due to contract clauses).
Edit - I've noticed lots of politicians saying they will "ring-fence" the NHS, but surely there's some stuff that's "nice-to-have" that we can get rid of? Off the top-of-my-head, things like cosmetic surgery and IVF for instance may make people complain if we take them away, but that's different to cutting chemotherapy treatments.
SubJeff on 10/4/2010 at 05:47
Thin edge of the wedge my friend. When do we stop elective joint replacement?
Brian The Dog on 10/4/2010 at 14:47
Do you mean replacement hips and so on? Yeah I guess so. It just riles me that we've got to save about £170Bn/yr but still end up having to pay for boob-jobs!
SubJeff on 10/4/2010 at 16:27
But the boob jobs done on the NHS aren't for vanity you know?
