AIBU to hope the greens do very well today?

[ForGreenHiker]

That’s it really. go Zack! 💚

We do. Although, I cannot imagine they will be interested in any other countries, no matter what they are going through, only Gaza.

I'd prefer local councils and mayor's to focus on local issues. Obviously, we have no problems here to solve.

I am very uncomfortable about what is happening. One issue only. What about the local issues is those areas?

Jess Philips won by the skin of her teeth in Birmingham at the last election. She said it was the toughest she had ever fought. She had been followed home by men, threats made to her, etc. The Independent who came second on the Gaza issue refused to shake her hand. Because she was a women, because he lost or perhaps both. I know those areas around Birmingham. I better not say much more.

Yes, we should definitely be very concerned about that. These people are not necessarily there to represent the interests of all the local residents - and we should be enquiring further as to their feelings about Hamas and their general aims for promoting Islam and Islamic interests in their local area.

There are many areas where Islamic practices and requirements clash with Western society Some people in these areas have stated an aim to take increasing power overall and I see no reason not to take them seriously.

The Lebanese have been down a similar road and are warning us of the consequences for us doing the same. There is a reason why formerly peaceful Lebanon and Beirut have become synonymous with civil war and killing.

Sorry have been at work today. But average age of user of the NHS is 74.

TB is a red herring- easy ro diagnose, easy to treat ( nearly always as an outpatient) and with effective vaccination.

Things that cost the NHS a fortune are:
Type 2 diabetes
Cancer care
Frailty of old age
Alcohol related harm of various kinds

Infectious disease come a very long way down the list.

Hello. Hope you had a good day.

As I said previously, there is not so much we can do about the demand level from older patients.

We haven’t managed to eradicate cancer.

But there are clearly avoidable costs that we should be dealing with:

Type 2 diabetes - as you say this is a huge cost and needs to be addressed either education and support.
Alcohol related harm - ditto
We need a means of stopping the free flow of people into our country who are carrying infectious diseases
We need to ban first cousin marriage and have a wide programme of education and limitations on immigration bringing severely disabled people into the country. Australia refuses immigration visas to people with poor health and everyone seems to accept that without thinking they are evil.
We spend £millions on translators and treating people ineligible for the NHS but don’t charge them and many other areas of horrifying waste.

Each element may (or may not) be relatively small but all the waste adds up and prevents British citizens and taxpayers getting adequate care.

Interestingly alcohol duties raise £11 billion per year. The cost to the country of alcohol is £27 billion in lost productivity and healthcare.

Solution is to raise alcohol duties on supermarket sales so that prices are the same whether you drink in a pub or at home.

Agree which political party has rhat on their mamifesto ?

Increasing alcohol duties would be a guaranteed election loser.

The left would criticise it as another attack on the ordinary honest working class and the right would criticise it as unnecessary nanny state interference and people should have the right to cause permanent health damage if they want to.

Exactly- it would need to be a cross party agreement - unlikely I think.

The post listing costs by pp is interesting but on type 2 diabetes GLP-1 is probably the best way to reduce that.

Yes, and correct.

Unbelievably pompous

You want to legalise all drugs?

I do like the way they want to campaign to end violence towards women and girls, even though they think they can have a penis

And as the manifesto was written in 2024 it doesn't seem to have included Zack Polenski's wishes re pornography

Oh yeah, I've missed this, what does the tit whisperer think about pornography?

👏👏👏👏

Apparently, official policy says sex work involving consenting adults 'should be decriminalised' and restrictions and censorship of sexually explicit material "should be ended", with exceptions made for those protecting children.

Well maybe we would be better with the Reform councillors who think Nigerians should be melted down and put in pot holes or the ones who think ethnic minorities should be shot or the one that battered his gf black and blue or the one who has been banned from every football ground in the UK. All elected yesterday. Plus one who said that a refugee got raped deserved it. It's all over twitter.

Another one has been removed from reform because he's a Holocaust denier.

God, they're complete idiots.

Oh, Twitter, that temple of truth, honesty, and integrity.. 😁

40 out of 54 councillors in Lewisham are now Green, so they will be running the council under the Green Mayor. Lewisham has been solidly Labour for at least 50 years until yesterday. The Mayor was interviewed on Times Radio. The entire three minute clip is about his views on Gaza. He left the Labour party last year and switched to the Greens because he was disgusted by Labour's stance on this issue. He wants to twin Lewisham with a town in Palestine and he wants to get the pension funds reviewed to make sure they're not invested in anything supporting genocide, which I suppose means no Israeli companies, as I'd be surprised if they're investing in arms companies.

I have lived in Lewisham for over 40 years and I want my council to focus on local issues, not Gaza. I feel much as I used to do when I belonged to a union and half the candidates for election started their statements talked about the importance of boycotting Israel and supporting the Palestinian people. This was in the 2010s, so long before the current situation. I wanted my union to concentrate on negotiating better salaries, pensions and working conditions, not international issues.

(I'm aware that Times Radio may have interviewed Liam Shrivastava for a lot longer than three minutes and chosen to feature just the Gaza bit, but that still means he spent three minutes talking about Gaza when he's just been elected as Mayor of a London borough.)

https://x.com/TimesRadio/status/2053158516697788927?s=20

This is concerning. We had Green canvassers here when no other party bothered. They seemed ok although I didn’t vote for them. They focussed more on local issues, as they should.

I swing between two things on Greens, and now back to concerned.

To be fair, I understand that the Greens have thrown themselves into a local campaign about redeveloping Lewisham town centre and the lack of social/affordable housing. It's also true that Lewisham has not as I understand it made a good job of managing their remaining social housing. I've also been concerned for a long time that having a one-party council is not good for democracy. I can't help feeling we've jumped out of the frying pan into the fire, though.

I just heard the Times interview he talked about Gaza for a large part of it.

They will probably be writing to the Israeli government next telling them Lewisham is going to boycott Israeli goods!

I'm in Scotland, and I voted Reform in the General Election here on the same day. They didn't get in locally, but they won 17 seats at Holyrood.