Why are the Tories allowing this to happen to the country?

Just think how much our gold reserves would be worth now. The ones that Gordon Brown sold when prices were depressed

Quick google tells me he sold off 3.5bn $ worth.

Brexit, an entirely Tory project, is causing losses of £100bn. to our economy. Per year.

Not really in the same ballpark are they.

Yes to all this, well put. People demanded lockdown (mostly on the left) and here is the bill. You can’t shut down the private sector for the public sector and it not impact later on when funding goes down.

We’d be in a far better position here and globally without Ukraine which is having a bigger impact again.

Labour dealing with this would be interesting as they like to be seen as and are pro union but still wouldn’t have the funds.

You can blame the current lot of idiots in police at the moment, but as far as I can see, the true culprits, were those who wasted our strategic resources of fossil fuels and spent every penny earnt from them, so that we have effectively been living in overdraft for 50 odd years, rather than creating a legacy for the country in the form of a sovereign wealth fund.

Just think how much our gold reserves would be worth now. The ones that Gordon Brown sold when prices were depressed.

“You can blame the current lot of idiots in police at the moment, but as far as I can see, the true culprits, were those who wasted our strategic resources of fossil fuels and spent every penny earnt from them, so that we have effectively been living in overdraft for 50 odd years, rather than creating a legacy for the country in the form of a sovereign wealth fund. As people who live permanently in overdraft will tell you, it only takes a bump in the road or two, for the wheels to fall off.”

Spot on we pissed the lot, Thatcher has a lot to answer for closing down our strategic Industries, Blair and the rest were no better.

There are European countries with higher public debt than ours but whose nurses, doctors and teachers train for free, and whose parents benefit from free childcare enabling them to work, which in the long term must surely be better for the economy than an under-educated population in poor health?

You’re not wrong but for some reason the notion that these things being allocated funding is akin to ‘nannying’ and stealing from peoples pay packets has a firm grip on the nation.

But, as crap as we all agree things are, I've yet to see an actual funded solution.

The effect of the pandemic on public debt was pretty catastrophic. There would always be a day of reckoning and here it is. Many on here wanted longer lockdowns and more public support.

It's really not all rosy in the private sector either. It's back to cost cutting and redundancies (not exactly news you wanted to deliver just before Christmas). Look at the big US tech firms and the number of staff they're cutting. The private sector is not immune.

Add in a war that has been a key driver of inflation and it's not an easy set of issues to resolve, whether you're a Labour or Conservative supporter.

The rich will be bloody lucky to get an ambulance now, won’t they?

Or an A&E service.

Meanwhile the Labour front bench wang on about abolition of the Lords and ‘the most vulnerable’ actually being middle class ‘non binary’ blue haired university students. God I miss David Miliband and Andy Burnham in Parliament.

Re funding: I’m no economist but I think borrowing (ie increasing public debt) is preferable to austerity. We’ve tried austerity since the last crisis and don’t seem to be better off than the countries who went down the investment route. Maybe our bankers are richer.

There are European countries with higher public debt than ours but whose nurses, doctors and teachers train for free, and whose parents benefit from free childcare enabling them to work, which in the long term must surely be better for the economy than an under-educated population in poor health?

Don’t be surprised that after you have had a decade of Labour who will inevitably get in at the next election, you arrive back at the same conclusion.

Power corrupts and people get lazy.

As much as i belive we have one of the best democratic systems in the world, it’s fundamental flaw is that there are ever more and more politicians (labours plan for this will see an explosion of more of them) and that their primary purpose is to get re-elected, so long term planning doesn’t happen in the right way.

Underpinning it, you have the civil servant. As much as his reputation is trashed these days, on youtube, Dominic Cummings gave a speech in 2014 at the IPPR, which is very accurate on the state of the civil service.

There was no money left when the tories took office, which triggered a decade of austerity, in a near zero growth envrionment (which has normally been the economic saviour of the west) coupled with an increasingly nanny interventionist state, along with a pandemic, a war, an energy war (in everything but name) and the result is a COL crisis.

Are there corrupt politicians…. Yup. In every party. Just look at the people behind any politician….

The fastest way out of our economic spiral - Growth, End of the Ukraine War. Neither is considered particularly politically brilliant at the moment. Truss burnt one one of those bridges badly, and the Ukraine war is a precursor to the risk of a war over Taiwan, so the west can’t back down. So don’t expect anything less than another decade of what we are going through now.

You can blame the current lot of idiots in police at the moment, but as far as I can see, the true culprits, were those who wasted our strategic resources of fossil fuels and spent every penny earnt from them, so that we have effectively been living in overdraft for 50 odd years, rather than creating a legacy for the country in the form of a sovereign wealth fund. As people who live permanently in overdraft will tell you, it only takes a bump in the road or two, for the wheels to fall off.

@red4321

do you actually know how we got the money for the pandemic ? As I do

as effectively it cost nothing.

the issues started due to brexit and the lack of confidence due to partygate and other terrible Tory choices (liz and KK and believing that BS)

that’s when the economy started to really be affected and perform very differently than other countries.

brewit has made in a lot harder to react in terms of business and the shortage of employees

so the real divergent issue for the UK is the mess of Brexit don’t kid yourself it’s anything else and don’t believe the BS thqt it’s as bad everywhere it’s not.

He’s smirking all over parliament at least once a week for PMQ’s. Of course you’re right in that he actually says very little.

on topic - I suppose this is what the carcass of capitalism looks like. It has limits and wealth can’t be generated indefinitely in a reality that limited resources. It doesn’t have to look like this but the nature of humanity is there is no ceiling to our desire for ‘more’ without imposed limitations.

Personally I don’t really see the attraction of being wealthy surrounded by poverty but that’s probably one of the reasons I’m closer to the lower end of the spectrum.

The problem is the environmental lobby, they oppose everything, Wind farms, Solar panels, Fossil fuels, New Factories, Coal mines etc etc etc.
They have the illusion they are helping counter climate change, THEY ARE NOT, because we all just buy what we need from China and other places where they burn coal. All we have done is export our CO2 and pollution.

The £millions we have spent on CO2 targets has just been wasted instead of on the services we need, until we start consuming less resources nothing will change. But then that might restrict our lifestyles.

High-earning people might get taken to A&E in an ambulance but will get to funnelled through to a private surgeon asap. People on low incomes who voted Tory are absolute fucking idiots.

Yep, I don't understand it - especially 'working-class' tories.
My SIL voted Tory in the last election - she works in a shop on NMW but thought Johnson was a 'good laugh' 🤦🏻‍♀️

Of course what might have happened under a different Government is that we might have had a single Prime Minister for the last year rather than 3 and two leadership contests.

This is nice but you need funding and PFI isn’t viable

We’re still paying billions now and we need that funding for ageing demographic. Real terms health has gone up but we are older as a population you can’t delay the cost.

Yes, I'm pretty sure that Labour would be better. Regardless of their apparent confusion about what a woman is.

It's no use the Tories knowing what a woman is if they are going to shaft them anyway.

I cannot understand why any government wants a poorly educated, unhealthy workforce as this is damaging to the economy.

Yes there was covid and Russia but compared to other countries we are doing the worst
And we already were behind in things like education and health

Steamer is conservative lite

Will Labour be any better? And Starmer still won’t say what a woman is

People have very short memories, there was a billion pound money tree for the DUP to prop up the conservatives when it was in their interest...

paying people a living wage and reducing poverty. feeds into the economy and economic growth from the bottom up. It reduces I'll health and the pressures on the health service and on and on.

It serves the conservatives for the general public to be poor., they and their mates have pools of cheap labour to profit from.

Yes I was just thinking how a PM that didn't need to keep the ERG, CSG, etc happy might have accomplished a lot more.

Private A&E doesn't really exist in the U.K...