Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

[Buce]

1 minute ago, Strokes said:

Surely it wouldn’t cost much to change the policy though and might yeild some bed spaces? I’m sure it’s not a huge issue on its own but a few similar things could really help I would have thought.

 

See my edit. 

[Strokes]

1 minute ago, Buce said:

 

See my edit. 

Yeah that’s fair enough, and I did say most cases. Maybe that is what I’m missing though. 

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, Strokes said:

Forgetting privatisation for a second, there are definitely efficiencies that can be made that require little or no capital investment. I listen to my wife whinge about things that are quite astonishing when you consider the apparent desperation for beds. For instance she regularly talks of patients having to wait several hours taking up beds with a signed discharge note, just because they are waiting for the pharmacy to provide the prescription. I mean common sense could tell you most of these could surely be told to pick them up from the local chemist on the way home. Or am I missing something?

A lot of money is lost in prescriptions.

 

I personally think the pretend market system is unhelpful. Why have 10 trusts with 10 trust boards, directors, committees, hrs, payrolls etc when you could have 1 with localised leadership lower down.

[Buce]

One of the biggest problems is a lack of social care after discharge from hospital. Many patients - particularly elderly ones - are well enough to leave hospital but not well enough to manage without help. That help isn’t there. 

[Strokes]

1 minute ago, Buce said:

One of the biggest problems is a lack of social care after discharge from hospital. Many patients - particularly elderly ones - are well enough to leave hospital but not well enough to manage without help. That help isn’t there. 

I totally agree on this and I’ve spoken about my grandmas experiences on here before. The shoddy way people are left after hospital treatment must be infuriating for staff on the wards when patients return for no good reason other than lack of help.

[Guest Kopfkino]

51 minutes ago, toddybad said:

The difficulty is I haven't seen anything wrong with the system. It spends half the time being underfunded then tories point and talk about the private sector being required. 

 

The American system shows what happens when you entirely privatise the system.

 

Granted, you're probably talking about something in between. 

 

I'd be open to understanding how those systems work but the issues I have are:

 

- very difficult to find a source without a vested interest

- I generally fail to see the benefits of privatisation having worked for an outsourcing company previously

 

I'd suggest you're not looking very hard if you haven't seen anything wrong with the system. It's a system that fails to disincentivise waste, in fact I'd say encourages it, such that 1 in 15, or a total of 7.9m, appointments were missed last year, costing almost £1bn. Waste is inherent within a system that insists on being free at the point of use and I'm not sure anyone can deny that's a problem.

 

The American system shows what happens when you have a private system so complicated, effectively as bureaucratic as the NHS, and weighed down by legacy costs. We need, as a country, to stop thinking its the NHS or the US system (not saying you do). What other European country has a a healthcare 'crisis' every winter? The Swiss government spends (I think) less than half what we do as a % GDP but doesn't have a 'crisis' every year, produces better outcomes, has reasonable albeit not NHS levels of equity in outcomes, and gives patients far more choice over their care. The Australian government, spends less as a % of GDP, came top for outcomes in the Commonwealth Fund's study. I just think this talk of underfunding is lazy, it's simplistic. Singapore manages similar outcomes but at a much lower cost (I appreciate demographic profile of Singapore makes it much less comparable). But actually, I wouldn't be averse to the government spending more on healthcare, just not in its current form. But like you say the economic system is broke, I say our health system is.  

 

A source doesn't have to be absent of vested interests or bias, it's nigh on impossible to find a source that doesn't have some bias attached. Just read them with scepticism, read various sources from different angles and fill in the gaps. I never much paid attention to healthcare, I always just thought the NHS was sufficient and that was all we needed. It wasn't until my ex, who is German, asked me why British people are 'proud and so obsessed' with the Royal Family and the NHS. I skirted round the former and tried to defend the NHS because free at the point of use, wholly universal etc etc. She told me a bit about the German system (more than 50% of hospitals are now privately run I think) and then said nobody in Germany wants to copy the NHS. I told her what nonsense she was talking, the NHS is great. But I went away to learn more and the more I read, the more I wonder how I ever tried to defend it. 

 

(I am aware that it's not easy to directly compare healthcare systems, but it's not a barrier to learning from them).

[Strokes]

13 minutes ago, Kopfkino said:

 

I'd suggest you're not looking very hard if you haven't seen anything wrong with the system. It's a system that fails to disincentivise waste, in fact I'd say encourages it, such that 1 in 15, or a total of 7.9m, appointments were missed last year, costing almost £1bn. Waste is inherent within a system that insists on being free at the point of use and I'm not sure anyone can deny that's a problem.

 

The American system shows what happens when you have a private system so complicated, effectively as bureaucratic as the NHS, and weighed down by legacy costs. We need, as a country, to stop thinking its the NHS or the US system (not saying you do). What other European country has a a healthcare 'crisis' every winter? The Swiss government spends (I think) less than half what we do as a % GDP but doesn't have a 'crisis' every year, produces better outcomes, has reasonable albeit not NHS levels of equity in outcomes, and gives patients far more choice over their care. The Australian government, spends less as a % of GDP, came top for outcomes in the Commonwealth Fund's study. I just think this talk of underfunding is lazy, it's simplistic. Singapore manages similar outcomes but at a much lower cost (I appreciate demographic profile of Singapore makes it much less comparable). But actually, I wouldn't be averse to the government spending more on healthcare, just not in its current form. But like you say the economic system is broke, I say our health system is.  

 

A source doesn't have to be absent of vested interests or bias, it's nigh on impossible to find a source that doesn't have some bias attached. Just read them with scepticism, read various sources from different angles and fill in the gaps. I never much paid attention to healthcare, I always just thought the NHS was sufficient and that was all we needed. It wasn't until my ex, who is German, asked me why British people are 'proud and so obsessed' with the Royal Family and the NHS. I skirted round the former and tried to defend the NHS because free at the point of use, wholly universal etc etc. She told me a bit about the German system (more than 50% of hospitals are now privately run I think) and then said nobody in Germany wants to copy the NHS. I told her what nonsense she was talking, the NHS is great. But I went away to learn more and the more I read, the more I wonder how I ever tried to defend it. 

 

(I am aware that it's not easy to directly compare healthcare systems, but it's not a barrier to learning from them).

I’ve been trying to say similar on here for a while, funding for the NHS is an infinite problem. Unless you fix the problems it will just swallow it up and come back for more. 

Edited 5 January 2018 by Strokes

[Guest]

Different subject for a moment. 

Leader's group.

Is this not just cash for access? 

The Conservative Party. Not just morally corrupt.

 

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NEWS

Revealed, how a THIRD of Tory donations come from a tiny group of rich men who enjoy lavish dinners with Theresa May

Exclusive: Research reveals just how much Britain’s party of government depends on a band of 64 rich donors for survival

•  
•  
•  
•  

• BY DAN BLOOM
• 21:00, 4 JAN 2018UPDATED22:51, 4 JAN 2018

Theresa May said "we must remove on large donors" in 2007 - but how much has changed?(Image: REUTERS)

More than a third of donations to the Tories last year came from a tiny group of super-rich men who enjoy lavish secretive dinners with Theresa May.

Research reveals how much Britain’s party of government depends on a band of millionaires for survival.

 

And it comes despite Mrs May vowing in 2007: “To restore public trust we must remove the dependency of the political parties on all large donors.”

Labour analysed donations by the 64 people - 62 of them men - who attended ‘Leader’s Group’ dinners, hosted by the Prime Minister and other senior ministers, in the first half of last year.

 

 

READ MORE

• Tories quietly name more than 50 donors who dined with top ministers and Theresa May after pressure from the Mirror

 

The Conservative Party trousered £12.9million from these donors or their firms in 2017, Labour's research shows – 39% of all cash donations to the Tories across the year declared so far.

JCB billionaire Lord Bamford (left) and his family led the pack - and the dinner table

 

Theresa May also dined with hedge fund billionaire Sir Michael Hintze(Image: Rex Features)

 

More than a third of the dinners’ attendees were on the Sunday Times Rich List, which brings together the 1,000 wealthiest people in Britain.

And almost half were from the world of finance including hedge fund bosses Sir Michael Hintze, a billionaire knighted under David Cameron who gave £345,000, and Andrew Law who gave £604,000.

 

Financiers at the dinners gave £4.5million between them – while £3.7million came from Brexit backers.

Ferrari-collecting JCB billionaire Lord Bamford and his family, the 35th-richest people in Britain and prominent donors to Vote Leave, topped the list by giving £2.5million to the Tories personally and through their firms in 2017.

Major donor diners also included Addison Lee cab firm founder John Griffin, housebuilding billionaire John Bloor, and spread-betting tycoon and former Tory co-Treasurer Peter Cruddas.

Addison Lee cab firm founder John Griffin was at the top table So was housebuilding billionaire John Bloor (right)

 

Other attendees were oil tycoon Ian Taylor who rejected a knighthood in David Cameron’s 2016 ‘crony honours’, and Arbuthnot private bank boss Sir Henry Angest and Tory chief executive Sir Mick Davis – both knighted under Mr Cameron a year earlier.

The only two women among the 64 diners gave £328,000 between them.

Socialite, philanthropist and friend of Bill Clinton Alisa Swidler gave £87,000 while Lubov Chernukhin, the banker wife of Russia’s former deputy finance minister, gave £241,000.

David Cameron denied Ms Chernukhin was a “Putin crony” in 2014 when it emerged she had paid £160,000 for a tennis match with the then-Prime Minister and Boris Johnson.

The Conservative Party website boasts tycoons can pay £50,000 to join the Leader’s Group and attend private dinners with Theresa May and ministers as part of efforts “to defeat the rise of socialism”.

A former Russian minister's wife, who won a tennis match with Boris Johnson, attended(Image: Getty)

 

Despite David Cameron promising to publish regular lists of attendees, those for the first half of 2017 were only released several months late after pressure from the Mirror.

We revealed Theresa May dined on lobster and beef with several donors at a secret London venue hours after confirming millions of people’s benefits would be frozen.

No minutes of the dinner meetings are ever published, and the Conservatives refuse to say what is discussed at them.

And the meals are limited to a tight circle of ministers, with only Mrs May, Boris Johnson, Philip Hammond and five other Cabinet ministers taking part in the first six months of 2017.

Shadow Cabinet Office minister Jon Trickett said: “The Prime Minister once said her party needed to remove its dependency on large donors and that she would not be driven by the interests of the rich and powerful.

“But after having to wait almost a year for the Tories to come clean about who is buying access to her and her senior ministers, we can see that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“As always with the Tories, the real decisions are made with a small group of wealthy backers.”

Mrs May told the House of Commons in 2007: "It has long been the position of the Conservative party that in order to restore public trust we must remove the dependency of the political parties on all large donors, regardless of whether they are individuals, businesses or trade unions."

Labour receives multi-million pound donations from trade unions, including £5.2million from Unite and £1.6million from UNISON in 2017, but leader Jeremy Corbyn said the average individual donation to the party in the general election was just £22.

A Conservative Party spokesman said: “All donations to the Conservative party are properly and transparently declared to the Electoral Commission, published by them, and comply fully with the law.”

[Strokes]

8 minutes ago, toddybad said:

Different subject for a moment. 

Leader's group.

Is this not just cash for access? 

The Conservative Party. Not just morally corrupt.

 

 

• NEWS
• POLITICS
• SPORT
• FOOTBALL
• CELEBS
• TV & FILM
• WEIRD NEWS
• TECH
• MONEY
• TRAVEL
• FASHION
• MUMS
• QUIZZES
• GOT A STORY?

NEWS

Revealed, how a THIRD of Tory donations come from a tiny group of rich men who enjoy lavish dinners with Theresa May

Exclusive: Research reveals just how much Britain’s party of government depends on a band of 64 rich donors for survival

•  
•  
•  
•  

• BY DAN BLOOM
• 21:00, 4 JAN 2018UPDATED22:51, 4 JAN 2018

Theresa May said "we must remove on large donors" in 2007 - but how much has changed?(Image: REUTERS)

More than a third of donations to the Tories last year came from a tiny group of super-rich men who enjoy lavish secretive dinners with Theresa May.

Research reveals how much Britain’s party of government depends on a band of millionaires for survival.

 

And it comes despite Mrs May vowing in 2007: “To restore public trust we must remove the dependency of the political parties on all large donors.”

Labour analysed donations by the 64 people - 62 of them men - who attended ‘Leader’s Group’ dinners, hosted by the Prime Minister and other senior ministers, in the first half of last year.

 

 

READ MORE

• Tories quietly name more than 50 donors who dined with top ministers and Theresa May after pressure from the Mirror

 

The Conservative Party trousered £12.9million from these donors or their firms in 2017, Labour's research shows – 39% of all cash donations to the Tories across the year declared so far.

JCB billionaire Lord Bamford (left) and his family led the pack - and the dinner table

 

Theresa May also dined with hedge fund billionaire Sir Michael Hintze(Image: Rex Features)

 

More than a third of the dinners’ attendees were on the Sunday Times Rich List, which brings together the 1,000 wealthiest people in Britain.

And almost half were from the world of finance including hedge fund bosses Sir Michael Hintze, a billionaire knighted under David Cameron who gave £345,000, and Andrew Law who gave £604,000.

 

Financiers at the dinners gave £4.5million between them – while £3.7million came from Brexit backers.

Ferrari-collecting JCB billionaire Lord Bamford and his family, the 35th-richest people in Britain and prominent donors to Vote Leave, topped the list by giving £2.5million to the Tories personally and through their firms in 2017.

Major donor diners also included Addison Lee cab firm founder John Griffin, housebuilding billionaire John Bloor, and spread-betting tycoon and former Tory co-Treasurer Peter Cruddas.

Addison Lee cab firm founder John Griffin was at the top table So was housebuilding billionaire John Bloor (right)

 

Other attendees were oil tycoon Ian Taylor who rejected a knighthood in David Cameron’s 2016 ‘crony honours’, and Arbuthnot private bank boss Sir Henry Angest and Tory chief executive Sir Mick Davis – both knighted under Mr Cameron a year earlier.

The only two women among the 64 diners gave £328,000 between them.

Socialite, philanthropist and friend of Bill Clinton Alisa Swidler gave £87,000 while Lubov Chernukhin, the banker wife of Russia’s former deputy finance minister, gave £241,000.

David Cameron denied Ms Chernukhin was a “Putin crony” in 2014 when it emerged she had paid £160,000 for a tennis match with the then-Prime Minister and Boris Johnson.

The Conservative Party website boasts tycoons can pay £50,000 to join the Leader’s Group and attend private dinners with Theresa May and ministers as part of efforts “to defeat the rise of socialism”.

A former Russian minister's wife, who won a tennis match with Boris Johnson, attended(Image: Getty)

 

Despite David Cameron promising to publish regular lists of attendees, those for the first half of 2017 were only released several months late after pressure from the Mirror.

We revealed Theresa May dined on lobster and beef with several donors at a secret London venue hours after confirming millions of people’s benefits would be frozen.

No minutes of the dinner meetings are ever published, and the Conservatives refuse to say what is discussed at them.

And the meals are limited to a tight circle of ministers, with only Mrs May, Boris Johnson, Philip Hammond and five other Cabinet ministers taking part in the first six months of 2017.

Shadow Cabinet Office minister Jon Trickett said: “The Prime Minister once said her party needed to remove its dependency on large donors and that she would not be driven by the interests of the rich and powerful.

“But after having to wait almost a year for the Tories to come clean about who is buying access to her and her senior ministers, we can see that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“As always with the Tories, the real decisions are made with a small group of wealthy backers.”

Mrs May told the House of Commons in 2007: "It has long been the position of the Conservative party that in order to restore public trust we must remove the dependency of the political parties on all large donors, regardless of whether they are individuals, businesses or trade unions."

Labour receives multi-million pound donations from trade unions, including £5.2million from Unite and £1.6million from UNISON in 2017, but leader Jeremy Corbyn said the average individual donation to the party in the general election was just £22.

A Conservative Party spokesman said: “All donations to the Conservative party are properly and transparently declared to the Electoral Commission, published by them, and comply fully with the law.”

Having dinner with donors, come on. That’s surely scrapping the barrel, sure there are a few honours amongst them but that’s been discussed before. It’s shit but nothing new.

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, Strokes said:

Having dinner with donors, come on. That’s surely scrapping the barrel, sure there are a few honours amongst them but that’s been discussed before. It’s shit but nothing new.

It's not the honours that bother me.

It's the effect on public policy.

A small group of the ultra rich aren't spending hundreds of thousands on a dinner are they? They want something in return. But what that something is lies hidden from view.

At least with union donations it's all in the open and the unions are clear on what they want.

Stories like that above hardly detract from the idea that the tories rule for the elite do they?

[Innovindil]

36 minutes ago, toddybad said:

It's not the honours that bother me.

It's the effect on public policy.

A small group of the ultra rich aren't spending hundreds of thousands on a dinner are they? They want something in return. But what that something is lies hidden from view.

At least with union donations it's all in the open and the unions are clear on what they want.

Stories like that above hardly detract from the idea that the tories rule for the elite do they?

People donate to benefit themselves. Just like I vote to benefit myself. Just like the unionists donate to the Union's for their own benefit. 

 

It's hardly anything new or outrageous. 

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

People donate to benefit themselves. Just like I vote to benefit myself. Just like the unionists donate to the Union's for their own benefit. 

 

It's hardly anything new or outrageous. 

So you think there's no chance that during these meetings the conversation moves to use policy x if you want continued donations/and I'll donate £y?

 

[Guest Kopfkino]

27 minutes ago, toddybad said:

So you think there's no chance that during these meetings the conversation moves to use policy x if you want continued donations/and I'll donate £y?

 

 

Yeah you've not really cleared up how it's different to the unions? 

 

It is scraping the barrel. Donors engage in lobbying, shock horror.

[DJ Barry Hammond]

4 hours ago, Strokes said:

Forgetting privatisation for a second, there are definitely efficiencies that can be made that require little or no capital investment. I listen to my wife whinge about things that are quite astonishing when you consider the apparent desperation for beds. For instance she regularly talks of patients having to wait several hours taking up beds with a signed discharge note, just because they are waiting for the pharmacy to provide the prescription. I mean common sense could tell you most of these could surely be told to pick them up from the local chemist on the way home. Or am I missing something?

 

This link suggests there are some prescriptions only hospitals can provide (high level drugs I imagine);

 

https://www.headmeds.org.uk/general-advice/getting-your-supplies-of-medicines/getting-your-prescription

 

Some decisions in this area may also be routed in duty of care - in that it’s the hospitals obligation to the patient to make sure they are discharged with their prescription and instructions on how they should take them etc.

[Innovindil]

5 hours ago, toddybad said:

So you think there's no chance that during these meetings the conversation moves to use policy x if you want continued donations/and I'll donate £y?

 

That's not what I said at all. Of course money buys influence. It always has and probably always will. My point is it's nothing new, and certainly nothing to get worked up about. In the end, after all your money is spent, after all your favours are worked out and you've noshed off all the people you need to nosh, you still need regular people to go out and vote for you. 

 

For all the negatives around this government, and there are many, they are still working for enough ordinary people for it to be the biggest. Even if it did need a stack of cash to get them over the majority line. (yet another example of money buying influence)

 

It really is no different than labour offering improved services/benefits and having the rich pay for it. It's using money to buy votes and influence. 

 

We can debate all day on whether we want money to influence our society or if we all want to become tree huggers who just care about love and the great outdoors. For now, money rules the world. 

[Webbo]

If a labour get in they'll expand the public sector and give them them all a payrise, more members with more money.This will lead to more funds for the unions which will be filtered back to the labour party,its about as corrupt as you can get. At least these rich businessman are spending their own money to buy influence.

[Strokes]

7 hours ago, toddybad said:

It's not the honours that bother me.

It's the effect on public policy.

A small group of the ultra rich aren't spending hundreds of thousands on a dinner are they? They want something in return. But what that something is lies hidden from view.

At least with union donations it's all in the open and the unions are clear on what they want.

Stories like that above hardly detract from the idea that the tories rule for the elite do they?

How long have they been donating to the party, I’ve not checked but I can bet it’s more than the two and a half years the conservatives have had sole control.

[Guest]

So with the NHS issues. Perhaps, rather than arguing about the solution (and the Tories have had 7 years to set up a royal commission if that's the answer), I just ask what the effect will be on voters?

 

The tv news is focused on the issue but I do notice that the sun, for instance, is carrying virtually nothing about the crisis. I do think out a shame that newspapers are now so polarised they just ignore news if it makes their side look bad.

Edited 5 January 2018 by Guest

[Webbo]

1 minute ago, toddybad said:

So with the NHS issues. Perhaps, rather than arguing about the solution (and the Tories have had 7 years to set up a royal commission if that's the answer), I just ask what the effect will be on voters?

 

The tv news is focused on the issue but I do notice that the sun, for instance, is carrying virtually nothing about the crisis. I do think out a shame that newspapers are now so polarised they just ignore news if it makes their side look bad.

There was a lot about it in the Mail yesterday.

[ealingfox]

3 hours ago, Webbo said:

If a labour get in they'll expand the public sector and give them them all a payrise, more members with more money.This will lead to more funds for the unions which will be filtered back to the labour party,its about as corrupt as you can get. At least these rich businessman are spending their own money to buy influence.

 

You know public sector workers aren't automatically enrolled in unions right?

 

It's up to the individual to decide if they want to join one or not, just as it is in the private sector.

[Guest]

34 minutes ago, Webbo said:

There was a lot about it in the Mail yesterday.

What did they say?

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Webbo said:

If a labour get in they'll expand the public sector and give them them all a payrise, more members with more money.This will lead to more funds for the unions which will be filtered back to the labour party,its about as corrupt as you can get. At least these rich businessman are spending their own money to buy influence.

You opt in to a union in the knowledge that there intimately wrapped up in the labour party. You also know precisely what their cause is - worker's rights. How you can consider this too be on a par with a rich person paying for secret meetings with the PM I'm really unclear. 

[Webbo]

5 minutes ago, toddybad said:

You opt in to a union in the knowledge that there intimately wrapped up in the labour party. You also know precisely what their cause is - worker's rights. How you can consider this too be on a par with a rich person paying for secret meetings with the PM I'm really unclear. 

The govt engineers a situation where the unions get more of our money, some of that money is filtered back to the labour party, how can you pretend that that's not at least iffy?

 

You say that it helps workers, fair enough. The business lobbying helps business what's wrong with that? Don't you want successful businesses?

[Webbo]

10 minutes ago, toddybad said:

What did they say?

Have a look.

[Buce]

4 minutes ago, Webbo said:

The govt engineers a situation where the unions get more of our money, some of that money is filtered back to the labour party, how can you pretend that that's not at least iffy?

 

You say that it helps workers, fair enough. The business lobbying helps business what's wrong with that? Don't you want successful businesses?

 

How so? It's already been pointed out to you that union membership is voluntary.