Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

[Guest]

While we're on about internet speeds, a brief note about where we might have been 

 

http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost-the-broadband-race-in-1990-1224784#articleContent

[Webbo]

7 hours ago, Carl the Llama said:

If you have to pay for something to qualify for it then it's not really free,

We were already paying for a landline and calls before so its an extra for free.

[davieG]

I believe water and energy both absolutely vital to our existence should be nationalised or at The very least under British control for the same reasons I voted leave which is to have political and legal control.

[Guest MattP]

An example of how hysterical and irresponsible the press can be. This was all over the news at the time as a result of Brexit.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/30/five-teenage-boys-arrested-after-man-dies-following-attack-in-essex

 

http://uk.businessinsider.com/ap-teen-in-uk-charged-in-polish-mans-death-after-brexit-vote-2016-12

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/polish-man-killed-race-hate-8744273

 

The death that many at the time put down to Brexit and a hate crime increase, now we have the facts it was actually the Pole who was drunk and racially abusing people before being hit and dying having hit his head.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/08/teenager-killed-polish-man-arkadiusz-jozwik-harlow-essex-detained

Edited 18 September 2017 by MattP

[Guest MattP]

Westminster voting intention:

CON: 41% (+1)
LAB: 41% (-2)
LDEM: 5% (-1)
UKIP: 5% (+1)
GRN: 3% (+1)

 

Vince Cable thinks he could be Prime Minister.

 

 

[Guest]

38 minutes ago, MattP said:

Westminster voting intention:

CON: 41% (+1)
LAB: 41% (-2)
LDEM: 5% (-1)
UKIP: 5% (+1)
GRN: 3% (+1)

 

Vince Cable thinks he could be Prime Minister.

 

 

How have the tories gained 1% with the state they're in as a government 

[Guest MattP]

17 minutes ago, toddybad said:

How have the tories gained 1% with the state they're in as a government 

Probably because the opposition front bench has the combined intellect of a fridge. 

 

It's quite amazing though, never though I'd see the two main parties again at a solid 40% which they now seem to be.

[Jon the Hat]

1 minute ago, MattP said:

Probably because the opposition front bench has the combined intellect of a fridge. 

 

It's quite amazing though, never though I'd see the two main parties again at a solid 40% which they now seem to be.

I'm not sure if this is great or appalling with such awful leadership on both sides.  Meh.

[Guest]

25 minutes ago, MattP said:

Probably because the opposition front bench has the combined intellect of a fridge. 

 

It's quite amazing though, never though I'd see the two main parties again at a solid 40% which they now seem to be.

I think both front benches are roughly equivalent. There's more than a bit of chaff on the tory side. 

 

I think it does show how effective the jibes against the labour econonic workings hsve been. Imo labour absolutely need to make sure their next manifesto is signed off by the ifs - and obr if they're allowed. Only problem being what made the manifesto so refreshing was it had big ideas about change. If you water them down or make them aspirations does it lessen the impact. 

[Guest]

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/nhs-american-doctor-privitisation-i-have-a-message-a7207706.html?cmpid=facebook-post

 

Us doctor talking about the nhs

[Kopfkino]

21 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Just in case anyone is interested in the study:

 

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Publications/Fund-Reports/2017/Jul/Mirror-Mirror-International-Comparisons-2017

 

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2140698-us-ranked-worst-healthcare-system-while-the-nhs-is-the-best/

 

These comparisons by the CWF show that the NHS ranks very highly, despite the aforementioned bad ranking for health outcomes alone (as you stated). And as you also eloquently point out, this is a rather complicated topic that would take time to form an argument not liable to have holes picked in it. However, having looked at it I would still maintain the difference is not statistically significant enough to consider wholesale changes. 

 

Another factor I might mention at this time is that the UK is more culturally similar to the US that our European counterparts. This might (and this is a reach, I know) lead to a situation where privatisation would lead directly to a US-style system rather than the more balanced approach of the Eurozone. Of course, this may be a slippery slope fallacy, but I consider that to be a risk.

 

Regarding nationalisation/access, I'm sure paracetomol is very accessible in a lot of different places, but that's hardly the case for every drug or every treatment where healthcare is for-profit. Less accessible than in nationalised healthcare systems? Difficult to say, but I think so. 

 

Just a little bit of a reach that. The problem with the US isn't that it is 'privatised' and so I don't see any reason why 'privatisation' in this country would lead to the US system. But again it's a focus on this word 'privatisation' rather than actually looking at how best to design healthcare policy. Why does being culturally similar to the US prevent us from cherry-picking (I know it's not quite that simple) the best parts of different systems and designing out healthcare policy around it. I find it remarkable that, whereas most policy areas tend to look to international best-practice for inspiration, healthcare policy and any debate on it seems to completely ignore it. The debate is not a debate and is now a contest to see who can throw the most money at the NHS. If people channelled their emotion towards the NHS into actually thinking about healthcare design, we'd have the best healthcare in the world period. 

 

Healthcare systems are often have high status quo bias and sit in a state of inertia. They don't really radically change outside of some extreme event. Tbh I think the UK is quite unique in not having a healthcare system but instead an amalgamation of different models that we banner under a healthcare system. But I believe there will come a time when people will finally realise the NHS has to change, something has to be done bar throwing money at it. The SHI system isn't the only way but I think it combines the universality of a public system with the pluralism, the consumer sovereignty, and the innovativeness of a market system. Maybe it wouldn't work I don't know

 

Paracetamol was a bad choice because it actually relates to healthcare. The point was simply that the presence of the profit motive does not make things inaccessible. Nationalised industry is not the only way to achieve accessibility. The supply of carrots isn't nationalised but they're pretty accessible. In fact, I'd argue the profit motive has made far more accessible to the poor than any nationalisation could ever. But I appreciate that leaving healthcare up to Apple might mean people miss out on treatment because it's too expensive. But we have a situation where patients are 5x more likely to get access to new cancer drugs in Germany and France than in the UK. It will only get worse as pharmaceuticals will see less and less value in launching drugs in the UK and the UK will also lose clinical trials. 

 

Actually, Singapore's government spends something like 4% GDP on healthcare and 65% is purchased from private sources. People would call that 'privatisation' in this country when really it's the government acting as an insurer and buying healthcare. It consistently ranks high in healthcare studies. Now I appreciate that Singapore is fortunate to have high GDP per capita, small land area, and a younger population but surely there has to be something in there to learn from.

 

Anyway I'll leave the healthcare debate there. Nothing will change, people will continue to fool themselves into thinking the NHS is the envy of the world and the US system is the alternative and that is very very bad. It's truly futile in this country and politicians know it. I can imagine health policy meetings in Whitehall are solely about establishing a consensus over what random figure to give the NHS and then the comms team write the same script about being committed to our wonderful and unique NHS. Oh that reminds me, there's a reason it's unique.

[Guest]

A look at some alternative european models. This isn't a pro or anti nhs piece by the way. 

https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2011/may/11/european-healthcare-services-belgium-france-germany-sweden

 

What i think needs to be remembered whatever model was chosen is the overall cost is state+personal insurance +any additional costs on the individual. The germal model talks about a 13% payment from wages. In the UK at a rough guess the government is paying maybe £1700 per person for healthcare. That includes everything with almost all services free at the point of use. That seems incredible value to me. 

Edited 18 September 2017 by Guest

[Lionator]

11 hours ago, MattP said:

An example of how hysterical and irresponsible the press can be. This was all over the news at the time as a result of Brexit.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/30/five-teenage-boys-arrested-after-man-dies-following-attack-in-essex

 

http://uk.businessinsider.com/ap-teen-in-uk-charged-in-polish-mans-death-after-brexit-vote-2016-12

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/polish-man-killed-race-hate-8744273

 

The death that many at the time put down to Brexit and a hate crime increase, now we have the facts it was actually the Pole who was drunk and racially abusing people before being hit and dying having hit his head.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/08/teenager-killed-polish-man-arkadiusz-jozwik-harlow-essex-detained

The press at the present time are beyond awful from all angles. I'm not a Trump fan as you'd guess but the hysterical reactions to everything he does are awful. Same with Brexit (both sides of the argument). Even with the current terrorism problem you could argue that it's the press who actually cause the most terror with their doomsday approach to the subject, therefore being ISIS's best form of propaganda.

[Guest]

Police cuts: force says it would struggle to respond to terror attack

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/19/police-cuts-avon-somerset-force-struggle-respond-terror-attack?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

 

[Guest MattP]

1 hour ago, toddybad said:

Police cuts: force says it would struggle to respond to terror attack

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/19/police-cuts-avon-somerset-force-struggle-respond-terror-attack?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

Isn't that the exact same police force last month that encouraged people to report Twitter users who had made them upset?

 

There's a few officers to divert immediately. Start policing crime instead of policing people's thoughts. 

Edited 19 September 2017 by MattP

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, MattP said:

Isn't that the exact same police force last month that encouraged people to report Twitter users who had made them upset?

 

There's a few officers to divert immediately. Start policing crime instead of policing people's thoughts. 

If you can find a link to that I'd take it seriously

[Buce]

 

Abandoned 999 calls to Police more than doubles:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41173745

[Guest MattP]

15 hours ago, Lionator said:

The press at the present time are beyond awful from all angles. I'm not a Trump fan as you'd guess but the hysterical reactions to everything he does are awful. Same with Brexit (both sides of the argument). Even with the current terrorism problem you could argue that it's the press who actually cause the most terror with their doomsday approach to the subject, therefore being ISIS's best form of propaganda.

It was absolutely appalling, they were prepared to use this man's death with no evidence whatsoever just to complain because an election didn't go their way, even The Telegraph did it, I expect the Guardian to behave like that but not the right-wing Brexit supporting press as well.

 

For some reason I can't quote a closed topic but here are a couple of quotes from the Brexit discussion thread on this killing.

 

"A gang found and killed a Pole in Harlow"

 

" Apart from the Polish guy murdered in Harlow, you mean?" (in response to Brexit violence)

 

This is a good read from the Sunday Times on it.

 

Quote

 

A Polish migrant is killed in Harlow, Essex, and our sneering elite turns it into a Brexit lie

Remainers seized on a tragic incident to paint a false picture of a racist Britain after the vote to quit the EU

Earlier this month, a 16-year-old boy from Harlow in Essex was sentenced to 3½ years in a young offenders’ institution for the manslaughter of Arkadiusz Jozwik, a Polish man who had been living and working in Britain. The sentencing did not generate much media interest. There were no “think pieces”. Not much tweeting. Just some perfunctory news reports.

 

Which is strange, because in August last year, when the boy, then 15, landed the fatal blow on Jozwik, the media couldn’t get enough of this terrible incident. The commentary was ceaseless. The killing trended. But they’ve forgotten it now. And the reason they’ve forgotten it, the reason Jozwik’s name has been all but erased from commentary circles, is pretty awful.

 

It’s because Jozwik’s tragic fate is no longer politically useful to them. Back on August 27, 2016, at 11.30pm, when Jozwik crossed paths with a bunch of teenagers, there was hysteria in the air. Not in Harlow itself. What happened there was, by all accounts, a gruesome accidental killing. Jozwik and a friend got into a row with the teenage boy and his friends, and the teenage boy threw a punch that caused Jozwik to fall back and hit his head against the pavement. He died from head injuries two days later.

 

Tragically, this kind of thing happens when people clash at night. According to psychological reports submitted to the court, the boy regretted what he did and felt remorse for Jozwik’s death. He didn’t mean to kill him. No, the hysteria wasn’t in Harlow; it was in Westminster, and Fleet Street, and among the chattering classes — sections of Britain that in August 2016 were reeling badly from the Brexit vote two months earlier. Their response to the Harlow killing was swift, and unhinged.

 

Instantly, without the benefit of evidence, they turned it into a hate crime, a racist crime, a Brexit crime. They held it up, almost with perverse glee, as symbolic of the nasty place Britain was destined to become as a result of Brexit. Given their now-cynical forgetting of Jozwik — a forgetting Big Brother would be proud of — it can feel difficult to recall how thoroughly the anti-Brexit elite exploited Jozwik’s killing. It was everywhere. The headlines were endless. This killing “exposes the reality of post-referendum racism”, said a headline in The Guardian. In its coverage of the killing, The Daily Telegraph reported — and perhaps spread — “fears [that] migrants are being targeted in post-Brexit hate crimes”. The head of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, said the killing was part of the “galloping populism” unleashed by our vote for Brexit. We voted, Jozwik died. We did it.

 

Harlow was reduced to a symbol of evil, emblematic of “Brexit hate”. A Guardian writer reminded us how the politics of this Essex town had worsened (allegedly), meaning it went from “a New Labour base . . . [to] a Tory seat which had an overwhelming support of 68% for leaving the European Union”. And thanks to the Brexit victory, some people there “feel empowered . . . to express their racist and xenophobic views”. They had been waiting for a chance to unleash their inner spite and bile, and Brexit permitted them to do so. As a result, Jozwik died.

 

This narrative was widespread. The Independent took it even further: this Brexit killing dashed “the great hopes for [this] postwar new town”, it said of Harlow, which was planned in 1947 and finished in the 1960s. The killing of Jozwik was more than an indictment of Brexit — it raised questions about the entire nature of Britain and of the British working class, apparently. This new town and other new towns were meant to be “essays in civilisation”, The Independent said, quoting the postwar Labour government that built them for working-class survivors of the London Blitz, but “such grand hopes [have] ended here, in a now tired-looking shopping arcade in the Stow area of Harlow” — where Jozwik was killed. The sense that postwar Britain itself was unravelling, and that the working class had become a terrible and hateful disappointment to the political elite, was palpable. They spied in this one incident the rot of an entire nation, and the decline of a people.

 

Officialdom got involved. EU bureaucrats denounced the Harlow race hatred apparently approved by Brexit. Poland, in agreement with UK officials, sent police to Harlow. Activists and tweeters cited the killing as proof that racism was rampant after the vote to leave the EU. This “violent death” confirms “racism has been on the rise since Brexit”, said the left-wing People’s Assembly. The Twittersphere brimmed with fury over “Brexit mobs”, “Brexit racism” and “xenophobia” in this “shithole full of racist chavs” (tweeters always say more explicitly what columnists must only intimate).

 

Soon reporters were heading to Harlow like Victorian-era colonialists tentatively stepping into strange, tribal lands. Only where those colonialists brought racism with them, today’s Brexit-fearers went in search of racism so they might advertise their own purity against it. A Vice reporter focused on Harlow’s old far-right movements (long disappeared). A New Statesman special correspondent visited Harlow and found a town full of casual racism which had “some way to go” to become a better place.

His report, his descriptions, didn’t ring true. And that isn’t surprising. None of this, none of the elitist hatred for Harlow, was true. Its very foundation — that Jozwik was murdered because of Brexit, by Brexit — was fake news. His killing was neither murder nor racist. It was accidental and the motive, so far as we know, was late-night antagonism.

 

In December last year, four months after the killing, it was revealed that the Crown Prosecution Service was not treating the killing as a hate crime. The CPS really is not shy about treating things as hate crimes, so this was indeed significant. It was an admission that there was no evidence, not a sliver, that xenophobic hate was the motivation for that punch that unwittingly led to death. As to Brexit, it didn’t come into it at any level whatsoever. For all we know, the teenage boy and his friends might not have been aware of Brexit.

 

When the CPS dropped the hate element, observers who had wrung their hands over the killing quietly dropped the whole thing, too. No explanation. No apology. No look-back at the unfounded things they had said. No reversal of their frankly demented claim that a democratic vote could have fuelled a 15-year-old to kill a Pole. Fast-forward to last week’s sentencing of the boy and again they’re saying nothing. Jozwik’s tragedy no longer interests them. It’s an embarrassment, in fact, since it stands as grim proof of how far they lost the moral and political plot last August in the wake of the Brexit vote. So shush his death. Hide it. Forget it. As firmly as they turned this tragic man into a political symbol, they now bury his life and death to save their own blushes.

 

It’s the great shame of remainers. Yes, there was “rampant hatred” in Britain in the weeks after the Brexit vote. But it wasn’t in places like Harlow. It didn’t come from ordinary Brexiteers. It was in political circles and media circles, where the contempt for Brexit speedily morphed into contempt for the lower orders that voted for it. Into denunciations of entire towns and classes. Into bile about the “low-information voters” who had wrecked the elite’s pristine Britain. Into a fact-lite conviction that the rabble were in the grip of violent hatred.

 

It wasn’t evidence but prejudice that made them turn on Harlow and by extension the rest of working-class Britain. The demonisation of Harlow was the truly hateful thing back then, and it was also the pinnacle of “post-truth”: that is, it was based on a lie. In raging against the alleged hatred of the Harlow hordes and others, elite remainers revealed their own hatreds, their classist fear of democracy, their low political outlook that meant they were even willing to exploit the death of a migrant to attack the lives and beliefs of the less well-off.

 

RIP, Mr Jozwik. Britons are deeply sorry you were killed in our country where you made your home, and that our political and media elite used your death to propagate untruths.

 

 

 

 

[David Guiza]

44 minutes ago, MattP said:

It was absolutely appalling, they were prepared to use this man's death with no evidence whatsoever just to complain because an election didn't go their way, even The Telegraph did it, I expect the Guardian to behave like that but not the right-wing Brexit supporting press as well.

 

For some reason I can't quote a closed topic but here are a couple of quotes from the Brexit discussion thread on this killing.

 

"A gang found and killed a Pole in Harlow"

 

" Apart from the Polish guy murdered in Harlow, you mean?" (in response to Brexit violence)

 

This is a good read from the Sunday Times on it.

 

 

It seems to be part and parcel of modern politics, unfortunately. There was a young, suicidal, girl a few weeks back whose ordeal was being used as political point scoring, rather than attending to the issue in hand.

 

Pretty much every political party tried to manipulate the monstrosity of Grenfell their way too.

 

It's slowly becoming a real life Thick of It Episode - just waiting for Teresa May to be pictured on the top of a slide receiving updates on Mr Tickell's untimely death.  

[Kopfkino]

I missed this. Not wanting to restart the Venezuela debate but a country with more oil than Saudi Arabia is encouraging its people to breed and eat rabbits to combat food shortages http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-rabbits/venezuelas-new-plan-to-beat-hunger-breed-rabbits-idUSKCN1BP232

[Strokes]

8 minutes ago, KingGTF said:

I missed this. Not wanting to restart the Venezuela debate but a country with more oil than Saudi Arabia is encouraging its people to breed and eat rabbits to combat food shortages http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-rabbits/venezuelas-new-plan-to-beat-hunger-breed-rabbits-idUSKCN1BP232

Pretty sure human digestion takes nothing from rabbit meat.

[theessexfox]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/slaves-on-our-streets-theresa-may-pubic-awareness-modern-slavery-defeating-horrific-abuses-a7954706.html 

 

Mrs May doing some positive work to tackle modern slavery, with the issue being raised on the global stage.

[Nick]

 

[Strokes]

2 minutes ago, Swan Lesta said:

 

Is it Ted Heath?

[Guest MattP]

More on the Polish guy killed by Brexit, Farage has delivered a letter to the BBC general to ask for an apology.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/19/exclusive-nigel-farage-says-could-stop-paying-licence-fee-bbc/

 

I've not checked but given he's done this I presume Nigel and his team have, quotes from the BBC Newsnight presenters included....

 

Fiona Bruce calling it an "unprovoked attack" , Evan Davis opened a show by saying the man was "beaten to death in the streets" - totally discarding the evidence and reporting that we now know was totally incorrect. There was also an incident where a Polish guy was allowed onto the show and said "some politicians have blood on their hands" and then was pushed into naming Nigel Farage by John Sweeney.

 

I can tolerate the political bias of the BBC but when it extends into outright fake news action does have to be taken, I hope he does get his apology and if he doesn't I hope he sues, it has to be libellous.