Reasons for not moving right like young men

The new head of Unite has said "there isn't any argument" that she could be presented with that would change her mind on TWAW.
It's this reveal that is at the heart of the modern left's move from secularism to full on trans/intersectional neo-religion/caste, and informs and permeates everything the left and practically every left politician (with the few glaring exceptions like Rosie Duffield) does, says and believes.
Yes, Reform, with or without the help of the Tories may threaten women re welfare cuts etc, but we see in the actions of Phillipson Streeting re SC ruling inertia and PB trial, unions like Unite treating nurses as if they're BNP candidates from the 90s 00s, that the left has totally absolved themselves of any claims to be women's champions.
Sure, one can believe Reform will/might/likely worse, across areas like welfare, NHS, the economy.
But it's almost impossible to claim Labour or the others can hold a candle to the likes of Barbara Castle then, Rosie Duffield today, re fighting for women's rights on a philosophical as well as practical level.

You can blame Reform supporters however you like, but you can't get away from the simple fact that it is the Left who are shafting women's rights.
So true, it is happening now. in parliament there are many women who could help but there is not support for women or women's lives.
Trade Unions are all by definition Left Wing, they failing to support women. The nursing unions refused point blank to support Peggie or Mellie or the Darlington.
In Bristol The Left wing Councillors refuse to allow women to speak unless they agree to toe the Party Line.

That does sound awful. And yes I agree, the Blairite ecosystem of talking-shops acted as a mask for his own power, rather than as a genuine transfer of power down to ordinary people. I guess perhaps, "no power without accountability" might be a better formulation?

We've seen something like the GPs in ERs you describe here. It is usually called something like "urgent care clinic." It has some utility but unfortunately doesn't fix the problem of far too few GPs so people are relying on these clinics for all their basic care.

I suppose what I think with insurance based systems is that people are seeing what their care costs the system. I do though think you can, at least theoretically, have a co-pay system that is reasonable and is covered fully for lower income people. I do think there is a psychological difference between "affordable" and "free".

I think fees for missed appointments are a good idea all round.

I find at the moment that even within many political groupings there is so much variation it is really hard to pin down economic approaches.

In terms of the main parties, I am not sure I can really see any substantial differernce between the groups that might actually be in a position to govern, even if Reform were to get in I think they will find their hands are pretty tied as well. If the Greens were to win it would be the same.

But in terms of people slotting themselves into a political ideology, it's kind of all over the place. There is liberalism on both the right and left, localist thinking on right and left, big government top down thinking on both right and left.

The problem all the parties are dealing with seems to be productivity, whether because they think that will enrich people so they don't need many government services government, or because they want people to be able to pay taxes to fund government services.

I think French/German people for example are way more likely to go to the doctors for ailments than British people are though. Dutch people have quite a masochistic approach to health care but that's less the insurance system, more a Calvanist hangover IMO.
In fact, that idea that you shouldn't "waste resources" or social judgement of people who go to A and E for stupid things is quite uniquely British (maybe Canadian too I have no idea.aboit there). Likewise arguments about people taking personal responsibility for health. The Dutch are healthy but way less focused on the personal responsibility thing. I think it's because of the view of the NHS as a shared resource that we have those approaches.

I can't see switching to an insurance model would help because, the way it works in the EU, the whole point is that it's affordable for everyone to go to the doctor. You can call an ambulance out for a stupid reason and the insurance company will still cover it. Or go to the emergency room in the Netherlands when you could have gone to your Huisarts. Insurance will still pay and people would be absolutely baffled to know strangers would disapprove of this. So I don't think an insurance model would lead to less wasting of resources unless it was more like the American system where people are more likely to pay out of pocket. And I don't want that system because it means people avoid care because they can't afford it not because they don't need it.

Actually what a lot of Dutch hospitals do have is a 24 hour Huisarts (equivalent of a GP) based inside the AandE. So people who should really have gone to the huisarts get redirected there. And fines for missed appointments. Both those things work well IMO but could be implemented in the NHS without overhauling everything.

So, what I have noticed is that Canada, which has pretty much the same concept as the NHS, seems to be having very similar problems in terms of problems finding staff, facilities being inadequate, etc. A lot of that is money but also staff being stretched too thin. In the sense that even with as much money as you want, if you can't find enough people to be doctors or for other roles that is a limit.

Age is a factor everywhere, but there is also a massive increase in expectation around what constitutes necessary health care. The other factor is technology, so much more is possible now than it was two generations ago.

I think you could make a good argument that these are in a significant way about cultural attitudes to health, but I suppose my sense is that the model, which has existed for a few generations now, is a big part of what teaches us to think that way. There is very little sense of our own health being something we are fundamentally responsible for, because we are simply receivers of care to which we are entitled.

I think what we are going to find in the end is that we have to scale back what counts as necessary health care which the state pays for to something closer to what people had in mind when publicly funded health services were first being developed. And maybe something like an insurance model would put more sense of responsibility into the hands of the individual around that. I'm not wedded to that particular approach but something different needs to happen.

So I guess I would be interested in what the fatal systemic problem is in your view, and how switching to an insurance model would fix it...

I've lived in the EU and experienced their health systems. They're... Fine. There are quite big differences between Dutch attitudes to health care and French treatments but that's cultural not structural. And there are things about the Dutch system I like more than the UK and vice versa but I think those differences are again more culture (Dutch people are weird about pain relief).
I wouldn't say overall the systems work better than in the UK though. At least at the user level. And it costs each person more overal. I also disliked having to do paperwork for hospital visits. But they are having the exact same conversations about how to solve problems like the increasing burden of elderly care. The fact is, regardless of the model of health care, it's getting more expensive everywhere that people are living for longer. I don't think switching to the Dutch or French insurance systems would fix those issues. Any more than the Dutch switching to a centralised NHS system would fix their problems. It's a distraction from the real problem which is people living longer but not necessarily in better health.

I think of you surveyed the people who support reform you would find a wide range of economic views and some that definitely mesh with a more left wing idea of the tradeofs that could be made for sure. Likewise left wing voters

I think that the people setting policy in Reform (or the conservatives) are quite distinct in their thinking to "the left" though. They are very clearly from the Thatcherite school of thought (maybe more anti globalisation than Thatcher). It's mostly business leaders, former bankers and old school Tories and the policies reflect that. Which isn't evil or bad. It's very much how someone like my mum sees economics and she's a lovely intelligent person. But it is distinct from parties like the Greens who are much more traditionally left (in the UK 20th century tradition not soviet Russia).

So in a weird way actually, a lot of the old political lines (along tax versus spend) are back suddenly. What is different I think is the diversity of thinking among the people supporting them. There is a bit of a "long tail" effect and you have people with very niche (if carefully thought about) economic theories across the political spectrum of voters. Plus some people might vote/not vote for a party based on their attitude to cultural issues. I would struggle to vote for the Greens because of their stance on women's rights though I probably mesh best with their views on the economy and energy. Someone else could not vote for them for opposite reasons.

I think there is certainly some of that, lack of trust but also lack of an evident plan.

However, the fact that so many aren't actually prepared to discuss any new structural approach to what seems to be a fatal systemic problem suggest to me that it isn't just that.

I think what you are describing is what we have both on the left and right politically in the west.

What people argue about in day to day politics is the small beans. Questions like, how do we support people who need it without it ballooning out of control or creating an underclass, or how do we regulate business to protect people without making it impossible, or what kinds of services are generally best run privately and which best run publicly. And there aren't absolutes so much as trade-offs, and the best balance can change over time as technology or other factors change.

But it does leave that part of the left that is really invested in their political identification being distinct from the right in a bit of a quandary, if they aren't offering something radically differernt. So they look to the social/identity elements.

I suspect the reasons for women and men having differing approaches is somewhat down to the things we've already discussed on the thread around security and independence, but it has been exacerbated but other factors. Maybe it's mainly the educational element. Or maybe its the activist personality elements. I don't think it's very healthy for society to have such a gap whatever the cause is..

The problem with discussing capitalism is that the concept itself was (I understand) derived by Marx, who didn't like it, and imbued it with negatives. A more positive take is that 'capitalism' is a regulated market economy underpinned by democracy, the rule of law, freely accessable information and a belief in the value of people living their lives as they choose. It's a very successful system and over the last couple of generations has lifted millions around the world out of poverty. It might mean a smaller state than something further left, but it still involves in a bureaucracy to adminster the laws etc. To be honest, I prefer the label 'liberalism'. I'm not sure that a good many on the Left really get this, especially the diversity point: the left equivalent is a very limited, approved version of diversity based on ideology rather than individuals' private choices.

The alternative I see being discussed isn't communism, however. It's technofeudalism. That is, a very small number of obscenely rich people own everything and rent it to the masses. As we seem to be moving towards renting the right to seek work, find a place to rent, engage in the gig economy, even find romance, I can see the point that's being made. Trump and his minions are busily undermining the rule of law and democracy, spreading disinformation and creating hate.

Marx would have said that wealth being concentrated into fewer and fewer hands is a precursor to communist resolution becuase <Hegelian reasons> but history's clearly proven this wrong - the first Communist states should have been the UK, France or the US- not less developed Tsarist Russia.

I'm not sure what this has to do with the subject of this thread: I don't accept that men are inherently more accepting than women of material inequality. I think men are more likely than women to support Reform (and women more likely than men to support the Greens) is simply about self-interest.

The idea that people left of centre are ex officio more honest and ethical - combined with the traditional FWR grumbling about "populism" - is really quite funny in a context where Labour are transparently cancelling local elections to save the Prime Minister's skin, and not even bothering to come up with a plausible excuse.

@TempestTost
Which is why it's frustrating to have people claiming that there is some huge moral gap between them. It's like people claiming that when someone like Farage, who is supposedly "far right" in these discussions, says that health care should look to more European models, he wants to destroy health care so the poor would be going without or bankrupt.

It's not that people think wanting to change the NHS to a European style insurance system is morally bankrupt I think. It's more that they don't trust Farage because he has said many different things on the subject over the years, including that the NHS should be replaced with an American system. So it's not the idea that's morally bankrupt it's Farage. Adding to the general sceptism would be the fact that while French/German health systems work well they aren't really any solution to the problems facing the NHS (largely caused by an aging population), face those same issues themselves and are more expensive. That combined with Farages own financial interests strongly suggests the NHS would NOT be in safe hands.

"I'm going to feed the baby to the sharks if it cries... Actually I'm going to distract the baby by letting him watch Finding Nemo... Theoretically it's probably better if we feed the baby to the sharks not that I would ever do that. I would probably show the baby finding Nemo... Etc".
"Why won't you let him hold the baby. He clearly said he would show it Finding Nemo. What's so evil about that?"

Well then it's back to the idea that you moderate and regulate the worst excesses of capitalism and have support systems in place to assist the inevitable losers. Because inherent in the system is the need for people who lose out, it's not a moral failing. And that's where you get the need for taxation, healthcare, unemployment benefit all the safetynet. And mechanisms to prevent monopolies (Adam Smith would approve) including nationalisation of services which don't mesh well with competition. And that's sort of where the "left" today are. It's not super radical or new but it's different to the current conservative model which is slightly to the right of Thatcher economically. And different again to the Trumpian/Reform/populist right model which is also to the right of Thatcher economically but combined with anti-globalist sentiments. I think the MAGA model is the absolute worst of both worlds myself. But I can understand why people voted for it because while it isn't just the selfish rich who have an interest in keeping the whole thing moving (as you said) plenty of people feel they no longer have an interest. So you would hope the selfish rich, and the less rich who also don't want the whole thing to collapse would see the need for some economic rebalancing. Before enough people are pissed of to destroy it for everyone.

Yes to bringing back accountability - it's sadly lacking in public and civic life, brass necks abound and nobody has the honour to admit to mistakes or corruption, resignations happen too rarely and there's a revolving door for disgraced pols to get back into government.

But no to further distribution of power.

Under Thatcher and Blair and Cameron/Clegg, far too many quangos, regulators, regional bodies, NGO-partnerships, and devolved parliaments were created that are all basically talking shops that waste public money.

As an example: I live in N Ireland and our parliament regularly breaks down because one of the main parties withdraws from participating in it. And during these periods the public sector can't function properly without MLAs making decisions and budgets being allocated. And when our MLAs are sitting, they spend too much of their time relitigating The Troubles and trying to get one up on each other on cultural issues rather than tackling the feckin' insane multi-year waiting lists our health service has (I've been on a waiting list for assessment and treatment for FIVE years). They don't build or maintain infrastructure properly and they don't help with the housing crisis.

So I want fewer people with their hand out for salaries at the expense of the public purse and a hell of a lot more accountability from the public sector to the public.

Just to throw it out there - I think as long as we charge interest on money and have inflation, which is the heart of capitalism, and as long as we expect to receive profit that doesn't represent work, we are limited to a model of infinite growth, and that leads to many of the excesses and economic and also environmental issues we see.

How would we move away from that monetary system without destroying the livelihood, savings, pensions, business interests, of so many people - not only the rich but also just regular people? Not to mention crashing the resources of governments to provide salaries, welfare benefits, infrastructure.

There isn't any realistic answer I have seen from either side of the political aisle, and therefore people just keep trying tweaks to keep it going without bringing the whole thing down. It''s not just the selfish rich that have a strong interest in keeping it moving.

In that case however, they would be participating in the global economy, and it's unlikely they could do that while maintaining a planned economy.

That's I think the fundamental problem, if you participate in the global economy, you have to use the tools of the global economy, and then you are bound by the nature of that system.

The only people who really get out of the system are isolated. Could an isolated economy that wasn't batshit do better for it's people, I would think so. But I can't really think of any examples that are really modernised nations.

Maybe North Korea and Iran wouldn't be very successful in any circumstances, but they (and Cuba) have been subject to crippling American economic sanctions for decades; so I'm not sure it is a well controlled economic experiment.

For the most part women tend to understand the importance of public services and an adequate safety net because even if you haven’t needed it yourself you generally know someone who has.

Mind you, that’s probably just what the real Liz Truss would say. Give Nigel a flirty peck on the cheek from me :)

Charming xxx

I don't know who pissed in your cornflakes this morning, but fuck off.