To change who I'm voting for based on one news story?

[ShouldIStayOrShouldIRun]

This one ->

www.itv.com/news/2019-11-27/jeremy-corbyn-says-uncensored-documents-show-nhs-is-part-of-toxic-post-brexit-trade-talks-with-us/

I had already decided to vote for the conservatives, mainly because I couldn't bring myself to vote for any of the others who seem hell bent on gleefully ripping up womens rights. I've always voted so abstaining/spoiling wasn't an option.

But after reading/watching the above I think I am going to switch to voting labour. We are a disabled family, and could never afford to pay for healthcare (and I doubt insurance would touch us with a barge pole).

I don't like Momentum/Corbyn really but I'd rather complain and fight for my right to a single sex ward than not be able to use one at all

Re: brexit I voted remain in the last referendum but to be honest just have fatigue about the whole thing, so I'm not basing my vote on any of that. (Though seems a second vote isn't that terrible an idea).

Just posting because I can't see anything on here about this yet and I've gone from feeling quietly confident that Conservatives would win to feeling nervous about it now. Anyone else?

Boris has been sacked for lying, the Tories have a history of lying. Why anyone believe a Tory if their lips are moving is beyond me.

Labour only created a massive deficit because they bailed out the banks. The banks could have been sold off again later and the money used to pay down the deficit - instead of being spent on tax cuts. Austerity has increased debt, not reduced it.

I dont like either Corbyn or Momentum - but the scaremongering about the effect on the economy is just that. Moreover we are unlikely to get a majority Labour government and compromises will need to be made, the more extreme policies are not going to be implemented.

We never used to have NHS staff speaking out about politics. The idea that the BMA would do so would have been laughed at even 15 years ago. I am not in need of any care the NHS would provide and have enough money to pay for private care if I need. However there is no private emergency service - even those who have heath insurance should be deeply concerned about what is happening to a&e and about how they will fund their care when old and insurance premiums skyrocket.

Not sure who I will be voting for, except that I am too intelligent to vote for liars who have massively increased the national debt. I have benefited personally from the tax cuts of a Tory government but we dont all vote solely for personal gain, Tories never understand that.

How can the NHS be 'sold'? It isn't a company, it does have shares and doesn't make a profit. We get cheaper drugs than US due to NHS huge bargaining power. The so called secret documents have been available on the internet long before Corbyn cynically waved the redacted ones. From over 400 pages only 4 times does the word 'NHS' feature and not once is it up for sale. Lies and more lies from Corbyn and his cohorts. Dont fall for it.

@Plunger are you this naive? Do you know about the privatisation that is already occurring within the NHS? Have you seen the increasing amount of NHS services that are provided by the likes of BMI?

Corbyn and antisemitism. The letter that won't make the front pages of the mainstream media.

Rabbi Mayer Weinberger has just written a letter to Jeremy Corbyn on behalf of the Executive Board of the United European Jews.

Rabbi Weinberger's letter describes the Chief Rabbi’s comments that British Jews are “gripped by anxiety” at the thought of a Labour government as “unusually disturbing”.

He writes : "Please note that we totally reject and condemn in no uncertain terms these remarks, which does not represent the views of the mainstream chareidi Jews that live in the UK."

And: " We believe that such assertions are due to propaganda with a political and ideological agenda. An agenda, which, I might add, is diametrically opposed to fundamental Jewish values as well as the opinions of tens of thousands of Jews in our community."

And it thanks Corbyn for his:

"numerous acts of solidarity with the Jewish community over many years and also welcome your assurances that Labour will do everything necessary to defend the Jewish way of life and protect our rights to practise our religion."

A Copy of the Full letter on the Link:
www.thecanary.co/opinion/2019/11/27/the-letter-from-a-rabbi-that-wont-make-the-front-pages-of-most-of-the-mainstream-media/

www.nhsforsale.info/private-providers/general-healthcare-group-bmi-healthcare-new/

Nearly 47

Certainly not naive but informed. GPs are self employed not employees. Don't suppose you consider that privatisation? Worked for years within the health system and fed up with the lies and scare stories.

@Plunger, if (like me) you’ve worked in the health system for years, you must know the privatisation by stealth has been going on since 2013 when all contracts had to go (very expensively) out to tender. 70% of those contracts are now in private hands, cleverly branded as NHS so the public doesn’t notice.

Plunger wrote: "How can the NHS be 'sold'? It isn't a company, it does have shares and doesn't make a profit."
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NHS Services run by private companies/corporations, which DO make a profit for their shareholders, are increasingly being given NHS contracts. It's called Outsourcing and Marketisation..

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NHS For Sale, The problems of Outsourcing.

'There are a range of problems that have emerged in NHS services that have been outsourced. Here we collect examples since 2013 involving a range of non-NHS providers.

The number and scope of contracts awarded to the non-NHS sector (private and not-for-profit) rose sharply after the Health and Social Care Act became law in 2013. Many of the predicted problems from this marketisation can now be seen in these real life examples.'

Financial Insecurity
Conflicts of Interest
An Increase in Cost Cutting
A Lack of Accountability

www.nhsforsale.info/the-problems-of-outsourcing/

@Plunger, so you know what you are talking about and spreading missinformation knowingly. Or you think that using private companies, that aim to make profit, to perform medical treatments is NOT privatisation of the NHS?

YANBU. I would look at who is most likely to beat the Tories in your constituency, and tactical vote. There's no point voting Labour if they won't beat the Tory candidate in your area.

it's probably more accurate to say the NHS is being dismantled or run into the ground rather than sold. Still not unreasonable to use your vote to try and prevent that.

Regardless of how you vote be mindful of all the promises and of course all the scaremongering.

Fact checkers say that the NHS isn't mentioned. The US want more deals around pharma ie sell us more medicine and medical equipment.

Just imagine if the NHS was privatised more than now, more than Blair's PPP! They'll see protests worse than the anti poll tax riots and they know it!

The NHS is safer in Tory hands than that of Labour.

Just imagine if the NHS was privatised more than now, more than Blair's PPP! They'll see protests worse than the anti poll tax riots and they know it!

But that’s the point. It is being privatised right now, so deceptively nobody’s noticed. It’s the frog in a pan syndrome.

'The NHS is paying private firms an “eye-watering” £181m a year to look after people with serious mental health problems in units often hundreds of miles from their homes.

A shortage of NHS mental health beds in England means it is being forced to hand companies such as the Priory and Cygnet Health Care larger sums each year, official figures show.

There is concern that some of the privately run units where patients end up may be providing poor care and a harsh environment, such as that recently seen at Whorlton Hall near Barnard Castle in County Durham, where apparent mistreatment of residents has led to a number of staff facing criminal charges after an undercover exposé by the BBC Panorama programme. Some patients stay for years....'

“As seen in the cases of Whorlton Hall and Winterbourne View, the ‘cut-off’ nature of these institutions can be a breeding ground for the development of harsh and abusive cultures. This has no place in modern mental healthcare,” said Dr Andrew Molodynski, an NHS psychiatrist who is the BMA’s lead for mental health.

“As well as the debilitating impact on the patient, the eye-watering sums being spent on out-of-area private providers is a clear sign that the government must get a grip on this worrying practice. There are no positives here for patients, families, care services or the public purse – quite the opposite.” ......

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/25/nhs-pays-firms-181m-care-patients-with-serious-mental-illness

'UN report compares Tory welfare policies to creation of workhouses'
'Ministers in denial about impact of austerity since 2010, says poverty expert'

'In his final report on the impact of austerity on human rights in the UK, Philip Alston, the UN rapporteur on extreme poverty, accused ministers of being in a state of denial about the impact of policies, including the rollout of universal credit, since 2010.
He accused them of the “systematic immiseration of a significant part of the British population” and warned that worse could be yet to come for the most vulnerable, who face “a major adverse impact” if Brexit proceeds.
He said leaving the EU was “a tragic distraction from the social and economic policies shaping a Britain that it’s hard to believe any political parties really want”.

The New York-based lawyer’s findings, published on Wednesday, follows a two-week fact-finding mission in November after which he angered ministers by calling child poverty in Britain “not just a disgrace but a social calamity and an economic disaster”.
Now he has accused them of refusing to debate the issues he raised and instead deploying “window dressing to minimise political fallout” by insisting the country is enjoying record lows in absolute poverty, children in workless households and low unemployment.

'The “endlessly repeated” mantra about rising employment overlooks that “close to 40% of children are predicted to be living in poverty two years from now, 16% of people over 65 live in relative poverty and millions of those who are in work are dependent upon various forms of charity to cope”, he said.'

'In his most barbed swipe at Rudd and her predecessors in charge of welfare, he said: “It might seem to some observers that the department of work and pensions has been tasked with designing a digital and sanitised version of the 19th-century workhouse, made infamous by Charles Dickens.”

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/22/un-report-compares-tory-welfare-reforms-to-creation-of-workhouses?fbclid=IwAR0Mh7OLtc4-XWNPdcvNtw-F5MWmCbGFsqsGBngLfZ0PYDVz6eBcoqz7etc

YABU. It's a propaganda. Watch the country being bankrupt under Labour's promises to hand out all those freebies to everyone and NHS still collapsing because of that. Every morning I wake up to a more ridiculous than yesterday promise of a NEW freebie should Labour come to power. People would be naive to think that big businesses would stay long here to pay for all these. And that would leave taxpayer to pick up the tab. Do you think the NHS will be safe then? Saying that, i do see how worrying the claim sounds if one doesn't dig deeper to investigate the full story.

What’s propaganda? A UN report? Ffs open your mind.

The Tory Government Cuts have created the eye watering shortfalls in NHS staff.

The 40,000 shortfall in numbers of nurses in the NHS, which will climb to a 68,000 by 2013/4, is caused by Tory Cuts, including the abolition of Nurses Bursaries....

The 68,000 shortfall.. 'would mean that the NHS’s shortage of nurses increases from one in nine of the workforce to one in six, adding to the rising pressures on hospitals, GP surgeries and mental health care',
according to a leaked copy of the government’s long-awaited plan to tackle the staffing crisis.'

'..George Osborne’s decision in 2015 when he was chancellor of the exchequer to stop paying nursing students’ tuition fees and maintenance grants has led to a huge drop in those applying to be nurses at the same time as the NHS is facing its most debilitating shortage of them in decades.

It says: “Applications for nursing and midwifery courses have fallen since the education funding reforms, with a 31% decrease between 2016 and 2018.” It says the decline has affected all branches of nursing, although the 50% fall in applicants for learning-disability nursing since 2016 is particularly severe. It has also led to “significant” falls in the number of mature students (39%) and men (40%) applying.'

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/26/nhs-short-of-70000-nurses-bursaries-abolished

I'm disappointed that so many people on here seem not to have any critical thinking. The bundle of papers being waved about by JC stated quite clearly that it's what the US side had on their wish list. There is a summary by a UK senior civil servant stating that they had no intention of succumbing to these demands.
I was listening to the BBC2 political lunch time programme yesterday where this was discussed. A member of the panel was an American with an in depth knowledge of the US pharmaceuticals industry. One of the main things he pointed out was that there are much more drugs in the US now out of patent so if we got a deal with them we would actually have access to loads of cheaper drugs!
I really wonder what people's views are of these evil Tories who would sell their own grandmother for the sake of their own self interest.
Give us a break, there is no way in a million years anyone would agree to a trade deal that would mean we would pay more for our drugs. Why O why would we?

Correction to my last post: .... "...numbers of nurses in the NHS, which will climb to a 68,000 by 2023/4,

Anyone who thinks the Tories have not affected the NHS, in this pregnancy I have had terrible continuity of care. I am under consultant care supposedly. I’m 34+5 weeks and have not seen a consultant once. Every time I’ve seen a midwife or registrar it has been someone different who doesn’t know my case. Every person I see tells me different and often conflicting advice.

I have diabetes which was only picked up because I spotted an error in how a doctor had plotted my baby’s growth chart (not her fault at all, she was asked to plot it 2 minutes after coming out of a section surgery).

Today I was at the hospital for monitoring and one practitioner told me the baby looks fine, whilst another said I should consider being admitted for more monitoring.

The last time I was pregnant was 2009 and this was not my experience at all. I have to go for induction in about 3 weeks time and I’m feeling quite worried about how it’s all going to be handled. It’s a good thing I have a supportive partner this time who can keep an eye on what’s happening. Especially because this time I have complications and a baby who already weighs nearly 7 pounds.

To be clear, this is NOT the fault of the NHS. Imo it’s all to do with conscious decisions by government to cut staff and to cut funding. It’s not just the NHS either. I can’t believe we’re faced with this same government who is going to razor the UK to the ground for another 5 years. Depressing isn’t the word...

Doubletrouble99 wrote: "I really wonder what people's views are of these evil Tories who would sell their own grandmother for the sake of their own self interest."

The Tories gave the contracts for assessment of UK Sick and Disabled people for sickness/disability benefits to the French company ATOS, to the International Company Capita. These companies and their shareholders have profited immensely for nearly a decade, whilst UK sick and disabled people have been subjected to harsh and punitive assessments, loss of vital income, and put through endless, relentless, Court Appeals as the norm to access the basics of financial support.

The Disability Benefits Appeals processes are costing the country more than the value of the Disability benefits being denied to the disabled people!

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The UN has done an 18 month investigation and Report on government inflicted poverty and suffering in the UK.

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"The UK government has inflicted “great misery” on disabled people and other marginalised groups, with ministers in a state of “denial” about the impact of their policies, a UN human rights expert has concluded.

Professor Philip Alston (pictured), the UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said disabled people had faced “endless problems” as a result of the government’s social security reforms.

And he said it was clear that there needed to be a better assessment of the impact of the government’s social security cuts and reforms, including any links to the deaths of people found unfairly fit for work.

He said work capability assessments that had found disabled people unfairly “fit for work” had caused “a huge cause of frustration and disbelief” and that he had no doubt that disabled people had been “hit particularly hard by the changes in the benefit system”.

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www.disabilitynewsservice.com/un-poverty-report-uk-government-has-inflicted-great-misery-on-disabled-people/

YANBU. None of the parties are good on women’s issues, especially around self-ID for transgender people, but Lib Dems and Greens seem worst of all. Tories haven’t said much about it recently, but they were the party that proposed the current changes to make it easier, basically, for men to access all women’s facilities.
With little to choose among the parties on that issue, i’d vote for whichever candidate has the best chance of getting the Tories out before they sell off the NHS.

Personally, I’m quite a political person with quite strong opinions. However, I will be abstaining this time because I can’t in all good conscience vote for any of them this time. I voted leave (for context) although, like many good folk, are so tittsed off with such shoddy, ineffectual “leadership”, I don’t give a flying frig whether we stay or go any longer. However, I do wish to retain our NHS. To think the Tories wish to flog it off cheap to US big pharma boils my piss.