Are the conservatives really this popular?

[LabourHere]

Listening to statistician on BBC who reckons the conservatives are head in all polls and will win a majority on election day.

I know only two people voting conservative (mil and dm). Who are all the other conservative voters??

Are the conservatives really going to win the election so easily?

If so...I'm very very sad

The public sector has kept its pensions (whereas many in the private sector have no pension other than state pension and aut enrolment pensions) and has had pay rises, whilst those of us funding the public sector have paid more and more tax whilst getting less and less back . That favouring of the public sector needs to stop although I have no confidence the Tories will be any better than Labour at righting the balance and reducing tax bills.

i certainly agree that we need to work harder on spending less than we take in - the deficit is far too high.

"Is the deficit down by two thirds?

In brief
Claim

The deficit is down by nearly two thirds.
Conclusion

This is correct, looking at the deficit as a proportion of GDP. Between 2009/10 and 2015/16 public sector net borrowing decreased from 9.9% of GDP to 3.8%, or by around two thirds."

fullfact.org/economy/deficit-down-two-thirds/

There will always be lies, damned lies and statistics but the bottom line is we are spending far far too much and those of us bearing the biggest burden of direct and indirect taxes already pay more than enough. Even under the Tories tax will remain far too high but they are the best option to try to keep things under control.

All tax payers fund the public sector Xenia. Lower tax payers pay a higher % of their household income, in direct and indirect taxation.

They are the ones 'bearing the biggest burden of direct and indirect tax'.

The existence of which is what enables the private sector to exist at all.

Teachers who teach in private schools were mainly trained on bursaries paid for by the state and the majority of teaching experience is gained in the state schools which over 90% of children in the UK attend. The private education sector wouldn't exist without this public provision.

Same for doctors and other medics. Everyone including the private sector is dependent on A&E. Private medicine wouldn't be practicing if this public service wasn't available.

That is one of my constant grouches thehorse - specifically related to doctors. They are trained here - and although the NHS obviously benefits as they progress to gain their qualifications, the cost of training is significant. But there is nothing stopping them moving abroad to work as soon as they have qualified - and the UK gets no return on their investment. Same applies to teachers. At least if they are working in private establishments in the UK, they are contributing with tax and NI.

ALl tax payers do indeed fund the public sector but more and more people due to Tory and Labour policies pay no income tax so they couldn't care less how high tax goes obviously and there are a fair few people who don't pay any kind of tax - don't have a car so don't pay petrol duty, never fly, have no insurance so no insurance premium tax, only buy food on which there is no VAT, no VAT on rent, don't earn over the NI or tax limits. So not everyone is paying in.

Do you mean that more people are on incomes that are below the tax threshold Xenia?

So earn less than £12,500pa? What a sorry state of affairs for a wealthy country! Still, increasing the minimum wage would up the numbers being well off enough to pay tax, and reduce the numbers who need to claim benefits on top of working full time to try to make ends meet.

aandjjmum have you spoken to doctors (and other public sector workers like teacher who are also leaving the UK in droves) as to why they're going abroad?

Astronomical housing costs in the UK. A huge rise in racism and racist attacks. Inadequately resourced and staffed hospitals (and schools). Stifling, pointless bureaucracy. Layers and layers of management and consultants. Health (and education) being used as a political football. Being scared shitless about what the Tories will do next.

Plus Brexit. So, so much about Brexit.

If there was a less hostile environment to so many young, talented people in the UK, I don't think we'd be seeing these skills being taken abroad at the same rate.

And people working in the public sector pay tax and NI - don't understand why you're suggesting otherwise.

And we're still all dependent on A&E Xenia even though you continually ignore this point.

I have - amongst my son's friends are several newly qualified doctors, who are considering their options. From a personal point of view I understand, from a commercial point of view I think it would be reasonable to ask these young professionals to commit to say 5 years working for the state that supported them, out of their first 10 years of employment. So at least they were giving something back - even if they choose to disappear off elsewhere for the rest of their careers.

Taxing the poor to give everyone free WiFi sums it up really. Labour policies make zero sense to me. I'd vote Lib Dem's but the whole Aimee Challenor thing did that on for me.
All the party's seem daft this time round tbh

To me, it seems completely immoral that we are prepared to import doctors and nurses from other countries, rather than fund our own.

The removal of the nursing bursary was a scandal - nursing students work so bloody hard AND dont have the opportunity for holiday jobs because they are on placement.

I would prefer that we grew our own HCP than that we imported staff from other countries. Yes to fair and free flow of information, exchange, training etc, but we (the UK) are benefitting from the training provided elsewhere but not prepared to enable our own young people to get that training.

IF the UK is serious about the provision of proper health care, and leaving aside the question of its funding (for a moment), then we should expand the number of training places for doctors and nurses and radio therapists, and other other specialist roles, and accept that the only way to have enough to fill the vacancies is to train a lot more of them. Some won't complete their courses, for whatever reason.

In monetary terms, we need the nursing bursary reinstated, and a contract in place to support free training for young doctors in their first years of practice too, but with the string attached, that for every year we spend training you, you are "indentured" to work in the NHS for at least a year (I suggest it should be two years). You will be paid the going rate for the job, and you will have the opportunity to train further.

In the Armed Services, if they pay for you to do an engineering degree, then you spend a few weeks a year in vacation time with your service every year during your degree, and on qualification you are committed to serve for about eight years. If you decide you don't want to, then you repay the cost of your degree. And if you decide to move countries before you have completed your "indenture", you pay back the years you haven't worked.

In the mid 2000s, a colleague and I went to an NHS conference. We sat in on a session relating to medical workforce planning led by senior government and DoH people. My colleague (who was a medical consultant) pointed out the complete lack of planning in relation to doctors. Surely, he said, we should be thinking about what the future service will look like, and then work top down. So eg model that we will need x GPs in 10 years time to deliver the service. Forecast how many will be retiring each year and the average number of drop outs from training programmes. Do the same for each specialty. That way it's possible to align the number of medical school places and subsequent training places, once qualified, with what the service will need in the future. The great and the good looked at him open mouthed and said 'oh no, we couldn't possibly do that, it's far too complicated'.

It's utter madness not to do this. It takes up to around 12 -15 years to grow a hospital consultant, so shortages now could and should have been addressed back then. We need to start doing it now, and the same with other staff eg physios, OTs, SLTs, nurses, ODPs etc.

Immediately AuntSpiker, if not yesterday.

No government plans that long term; that's one of the many problems of the FPTP system.

And no forecast from over 10 years ago could have predicted the loss of staff due to Brexit and the ensuing mess, nor how low morale would become in under resourced and poorly managed services.

Of course governments need to plan long term, but they also need to be responsive to changing circumstances and crisis, rather than focus on how many public assets they can sell off or give away to the likes of Richard Branson.

That the point though thehorse - they should start! I realise that this would not necessarily be in the interests of their party, but the NHS is (or should be) bigger than that. And of course, they would need to change direction depending on changing circumstances - but if it was a cross party group, it should be done for what is genuinely considered the right reasons.

Who should start? The current government? They should set up a cross party group but act and ask their opponents to act in a way that isn't necessarily in the interest of their party?

How would that work? There are fundamental differences between the two main parties about what they genuinely consider the right reasons to be.

Properly resourced healthcare for all free at the point of need which would involve increasing taxes from those who already have far more money than they actually need as a result of luck/family inheritance vs running the public sector down to justify further encroachment and profiteering by the private sector, and it doesn't matter whether a few hundred thousand people die along the way.

I agree with you that the NHS should be bigger than that and not used as a political football, but neither of us is in power!

All MPs - they should come together and form a cross party working group, to establish the best way forward for the NHS. They should debate, discuss, argue until they eventually come to a compromise that would work in the best interests of us all. This would mean that they would all have to behave like grown-ups, and that would certainly be a challenge to some.

I appreciate that extra money is one aspect to consider - but only if it is spent wisely, rather than wasted on spending £50 to change a lightbulb. Or handing out crutches and walkers that they don't accept back, because the cost of cleaning them makes re-use uneconomical!

I agree, but can't see how that could happen in the current climate.

You're aware of the current news story - photo of 4 year old wth pneumonia laying on a hospital floor as no beds and the resulting desperate measures by the PM and cabinet members to suppress the story/discredit the mother/newspaper?

What basis is that for any open discussion about health?

All MPs - they should come together and form a cross party working group, to establish the best way forward for the NHS.

Good luck with that. Labour would never agree as they always "weaponise" the NHS as a key plank in their election manifestos. If they couldn't mention the NHS what else would they stand for?

I think that's called parliament, @ajandjjmum

Many of those voting tories don't support their policies, don't trust them and don't think they've done a good job. But they're voting 'against' something instead, however foolish that notion is. They're ultimately happy to continue with the current mess, austerity etc.

Or some of us genuine do not want the state controlling and running out lives.

Give us your hard earned money for us to spend because Daddy knows best is infantilisation at its best.

Suggest you go and find a private island then 🙂

thefluffysideofgrey
Parliament is far to big (and shouty) to discuss things sensibly. It needs to be a more contained group of people, who can listen as well as speak. At the moment, everyone is too busy point scoring to work towards a genuine solution - involving the change that is inevitably needed.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/election-2019-50291676

Compare the manifestos

Parliament is far to big (and shouty) to discuss things sensibly. It needs to be a more contained group of people, who can listen as well as speak. At the moment, everyone is too busy point scoring to work towards a genuine solution - involving the change that is inevitably needed.

Outside the House of Commons, Parliament actually works very well in the cross bench committees where the representatives from each party work together alongside civil servants, industry experts, etc.

I think the worst mistake was televising the HOC. It's just turned it into a TV spectacle, particularly the ridiculous PMQT. MPs are just playing to the cameras.

If you watch the televised committee meetings, they're a lot more sensible and co-operative.

If it were me, I'd take the cameras out of the HOC and scrap PMQT. I'd have the HOC broadcast by radio only. Continue televising the committees. We need to get it back to being sensible but under some kind of public scrutiny still. We can do that by getting rid of the pantomime bits - it makes the country look stupid.

I'll vote conservative tomorrow only because I can't bear that terrorist supporting Corbyn and that hideous McDonald with his cheery smile and ice cold, eyes. Do not like or trust BJ either. I always voted Lib Dem but I am disgusted that they have made a mockery of democracy by promising to revoking A50. I would be quite happy with a second referendum and a Remain win but this denial of a democratic vote with no option, leaves me with little choice.