Current Affairs Coronavirus Politics Thread

[summerisle]

Would you care to name someone else who could lead this government at this point in time ?......

Anybody who freely admits that they would not shake hands with people who have the coronavirus. Somebody who is not scared of debating their policies and record with Andrew Neill. Somebody who would release the 'Russian Report' as I'm sure there's nothing to see there. Somebody who does not wish the population to take the virus on the chin and allow it to sweep through the community.

 

[davek]

People might also say that now is not really the time to be trying to call a PM in hospital a murderer, nor denigrating the efforts of the country merely to score political points at this tragic time.....

People would be wrong then. He IS a murderer.

That stinking pile of human excrement will be back front and centre once the curve flattens out on these deaths.

It'd be funny if it wasn't so 'kin colossally tragic.

 

[catcherintherye]

Would you care to name someone else who could lead this government at this point in time ?......

Sunak will be the next Tory leader. I've called it wrong on May (I thought she'd be very strong) but he will be a formidable opponent and leader. The Tories won't put up with Johnson and Cummings indefinitely. He's served his purpose now.

 

[tsubaki]

If you'd have said 2007+ or even 2005+, you'd have at least a bit of credibility with that comment.

But you didn't and you ignored point blank the ridiculous investment of the first 10 years of New Labour in regards to the NHS.

Labour flooded money into it; incompetence largely wasted it.

This is the maddening thing about that argument (and about the record of the 1997-2010 government); yes, Blair's government (and Brown's) poured money into the NHS. They also drilled loads of holes into it (like PFI, but also ISTCs, that GP contract, outsourcing and the IT deal) so that it flowed right back out again. If they had spent less money more wisely, we would have a far better NHS than the one we have now.

I know how much better the NHS was under Labour than how it stands now, steep decline under the Tories.

Had the Tories not sold off all the state assets we'd have the money to pay for a world class health service, you blaming PFI is farcical, they still built the hospitals, people got the benefit from them even if they were on HP.

You buy a car on HP that helps you to get to work and earn a living, yes you pay through the nose for the car, but it improves your life doesn't it, gets you the job and a decent life.

And Labour had to build those hospitals on the tick to make up for the lack of investment under Thatcher in the 80's and then Major in early 90's.

You sound like a Tory to me...blue specs on.

This is just risible. You buy a car on HP. Do you chose the one that charges 3% interest on 10 years or the one that is 6% on 30?

 

[catcherintherye]

People would be wrong then. He IS a murderer.

That stinking pile of human excrement will be back front and centre once the curve flattens out on these deaths.

It'd be funny if it wasn't so 'kin colossally tragic.

The question is going to be how people react if we end up at around 60k deaths. There's some frustration now, but in truth it's still within the political bubble and the left. However we are to some degree comparable to Spain, France and Italy. If we end up much worse than them (as predicted) I think the debate moves forward.

The other aspect of this, is that when it comes to repaying money, it will be very very difficult for them. Hard to see them being able to avoid quite stringent wealth taxes, as well as taxation on ordinary people. Everyone is chuffed now because the government are essentially paying everyones wages for a month to watch netflix. This is the top of the mountain for them, and it only leads one way.

 

[catcherintherye]

If you'd have said 2007+ or even 2005+, you'd have at least a bit of credibility with that comment.

But you didn't and you ignored point blank the ridiculous investment of the first 10 years of New Labour in regards to the NHS.

Labour flooded money into it; incompetence largely wasted it.

Did they? What would your definition of "flood money into it" be?
From my memory during the first 2 years of office they didn't even match the minimum recommended amount from the independent body.

After that they put a small fraction amount more into it, than the Tories have done, which is widely regarded as underfunding it. I'm really not sure the 1-2% greater spending on the NHS really counts as flooding it, but hey ho.

The glib reality is we haven't spent enough on the NHS. It works miracles on a shoe string. Labour's big mistakes were the PFI's and privatised parts. They acted as an enormous bureaucratic drain. They need to be done away with.

 

[Tubey]

This is the maddening thing about that argument (and about the record of the 1997-2010 government); yes, Blair's government (and Brown's) poured money into the NHS. They also drilled loads of holes into it (like PFI, but also ISTCs, that GP contract, outsourcing and the IT deal) so that it flowed right back out again. If they had spent less money more wisely, we would have a far better NHS than the one we have now.



This is just risible. You buy a car on HP. Do you chose the one that charges 3% interest on 10 years or the one that is 6% on 30?

Mistakes were made, but at the same time waiting times plummeted, thousands more doctors and nurses, over 100 new hospitals, and the key legacy of New Labour was forcing the Tories to largely abandon any attempt to privatise the thing (although they do try and have somewhat succeeded in doing so by the back door), because in 1997 the NHS was on deaths' door.

Trying to shift blame for a decade of systemic Tory ideological hatred of the idea of a state healthcare system on to New Labour is mad to me, but I'm sadly not surprised to see the attempt, because for some Labour party supporters there's Labour and then there's Labour.

 

[Tubey]

Did they? What would your definition of "flood money into it" be?
From my memory during the first 2 years of office they didn't even match the minimum recommended amount from the independent body.

After that they put a small fraction amount more into it, than the Tories have done, which is widely regarded as underfunding it. I'm really not sure the 1-2% greater spending on the NHS really counts as flooding it, but hey ho.

The glib reality is we haven't spent enough on the NHS. It works miracles on a shoe string. Labour's big mistakes were the PFI's and privatised parts. They acted as an enormous bureaucratic drain. They need to be done away with.

This ^

The NHS has been an incompetent bureaucratic mess for a long, long time and Labour didn't help by shifting goalposts every five minutes in a doomed attempt to reform it. But there's no doubt in my mind that New Labour were pretty much the only government since its' inception with Bevan to actually treat the thing as a national asset worth investing in and improving on.

EDIT: Better graph showing Tories flatlining it after 2010.

 

[OnlyBlueWillDo]

This is just risible. You buy a car on HP. Do you chose the one that charges 3% interest on 10 years or the one that is 6% on 30?

If they needed building because of the lack of investment from the previous decade of Tory rule you do what is necessary to build them and help the people, that's the way a socialist party thinks, which is what Labour did, the Tories would have never built them, would that have been better for the average working man paying his taxes?

In my own town we have a brand new hospital built under Labour in the early 2000's that now shuts at 8pm every night due to Tory cuts, anything happens after 8pm you have to drive 30mins to a Hospital, heart attack?, Stroke?, 30mins to get care, defend that Tory Boy.

 

[davek]

The question is going to be how people react if we end up at around 60k deaths. There's some frustration now, but in truth it's still within the political bubble and the left. However we are to some degree comparable to Spain, France and Italy. If we end up much worse than them (as predicted) I think the debate moves forward.

The other aspect of this, is that when it comes to repaying money, it will be very very difficult for them. Hard to see them being able to avoid quite stringent wealth taxes, as well as taxation on ordinary people. Everyone is chuffed now because the government are essentially paying everyones wages for a month to watch netflix. This is the top of the mountain for them, and it only leads one way.

The jig is up for that lot. And they know it. Nothing will be the same after this. The political economy will be transformed. You can smell the fear off the Tories. They and the decrepit system they uphold have been seen to be key contributors to a scale of human disaster that's off the charts.

The politicians pushing a laissez faire, light touch, small state, entrepreneurial economy and rampant individualism, the right wing media, the numb nuts commentariat who thought it a great idea to devalue everything scientific, everything decent and everything moral as fake or unimportant - all in the dock, all villains, all contributors to a mass murder.

 

[tsubaki]

Mistakes were made, but at the same time waiting times plummeted, thousands more doctors and nurses, over 100 new hospitals, and the key legacy of New Labour was forcing the Tories to largely abandon any attempt to privatise the thing (although they do try and have somewhat succeeded in doing so by the back door), because in 1997 the NHS was on deaths' door.

Trying to shift blame for a decade of systemic Tory ideological hatred of the idea of a state healthcare system on to New Labour is mad to me, but I'm sadly not surprised to see the attempt, because for some Labour party supporters there's Labour and then there's Labour.

er - I wasn't trying to shift blame. That is why I said "The Tories still bear far more of the blame". To say that no criticism could be made of that time (1997-2010) however is just wrong.

 

[bullybeef]

Pressure mounting on the government to reconvene parliament with deaths rising and medical equipment and resources running out.

This isn’t over by a long stretch and there are many questions to be answered.

 

[tsubaki]

If they needed building because of the lack of investment from the previous decade of Tory rule you do what is necessary to build them and help the people, that's the way a socialist party thinks, which is what Labour did, the Tories would have never built them, would that have been better for the average working man paying his taxes?

In my own town we have a brand new hospital built under Labour in the early 2000's that now shuts at 8pm every night due to Tory cuts, anything happens after 8pm you have to drive 30mins to a Hospital, heart attack?, Stroke?, 30mins to get care, defend that Tory Boy.

I think you need to spend a lot more time on this forum.

But seeing as you are asking, buying a hospital via PFI cost a lot more than funding it out of normal borrowing would have done. It also meant that the NHS Trust with the PFI deal has to pay it, because its a legal contract they have entered into (or rather government has entered into on their behalf).

Therefore, when you do what the Tories did and cut funding (or even just not increase it - a lot of the PFI deals had debt repayments linked to interest so just maintaining the funding level can be as bad as a cut) this means that the only places an NHS Trust can then reduce spending are the parts that aren't protected by a contract with a private firm.

That means services, often essential services, have to be reduced or even close - as you have seen, and as the Tories under Hunt tried to do to Lewisham Hospital (and others).

 

[OnlyBlueWillDo]

Pressure mounting on the government to reconvene parliament with deaths rising and medical equipment and resources running out.

This isn’t over by a long stretch and there are many questions to be answered.

It's clear, the government is failing it's people, and what Hancock came out with is typical of the Tory attitude, it's not our fault, we've been in power for a decade closing A&E's up and down the land and cutting NHS staff numbers, but honestly, it's not our fault, blame PFI, blame anyone but us.

 

[OnlyBlueWillDo]

I think you need to spend a lot more time on this forum.

But seeing as you are asking, buying a hospital via PFI cost a lot more than funding it out of normal borrowing would have done. It also meant that the NHS Trust with the PFI deal has to pay it, because its a legal contract they have entered into (or rather government has entered into on their behalf).

Therefore, when you do what the Tories did and cut funding (or even just not increase it - a lot of the PFI deals had debt repayments linked to interest so just maintaining the funding level can be as bad as a cut) this means that the only places an NHS Trust can then reduce spending are the parts that aren't protected by a contract with a private firm.

That means services, often essential services, have to be reduced or even close - as you have seen, and as the Tories under Hunt tried to do to Lewisham Hospital (and others).

All I need to say is we have a brand new hospital here built under Labour and it's the first time ever this town has not had a 24hr NHS service, town of 45k and come 8pm you are dead if you have a serious illness basically, can you wait 30mins to get treatment for a heart attack or stroke?, that is the reality and that has happened up and down the land under the last 10 years of Tory rule.