Is Boris Johnson OK?

[Lumene]

Does anyone know how his health is and how he’s doing?

Thanks @ghost. I started my first full time job in 1980. Working in the unemployment benefit service. Every night the BBC news said how many more people were out of jobs. Trade unions were annihilated by Keynesian economic policies out in place by Thatcher. I am not a tribalism. I am a socialist. I do not wish people dead. I do not mourn the death of politicians who destroyed our country. I hope the PM recovers. He is a human.

None of the parties come out this this well. Of course it's devastating being long-term out of work. It deeply impacts your sense of worth, it's a struggle financially. But - you could survive on out of work benefits in the 80s and 90s. You were far less likely to end up homeless purely for being on benefits. Obviously there has always been vulnerable people who need additional support, addicts, runaways, mental health. Plenty of private landlords used to let to benefit tenants and not just the slum ones, or if they didn't it was easier to lie and pretend you were in work. Yes it was Thatcher who started the road to widespread homelessness - right to buy, ending assured private tenancies and rent control was a disaster for lower income people, particularly the vulnerable, but it was the Blair and Brown governments that really set in motion a life of misery and deprivation for the unemployed and disabled. Blair decided against any kind of border control from the EU. The population increased, demand for housing rose and therefore rents. Fine if planned for yet Labour cut housing benefit, failed to improve access to housing, didn't increase hospital or GP capacity or improve infrastructure. They also saddled the NHS with crippling PFI debts. Coalition government went even further with harsher benefit regimes but it was Labour that sowed the seeds. The NHS has been mismanaged by all governments for decades.

but it was the Blair and Brown governments that really set in motion a life of misery and deprivation for the unemployed and disabled.

The use of food banks has shot up since 2010. In what way did Blair/Brown cause "misery?"

Blair decided against any kind of border control from the EU.

I would have hoped migrant health care professionals working and in some case sadly dying in NHS hospitals treating British patients would have put this sort of Brexity bollocks to bed...

The population increased, demand for housing rose and therefore rents. Fine if planned for yet Labour cut housing benefit, failed to improve access to housing, didn't increase hospital or GP capacity or improve infrastructure.

A result of council house sell offs, commidfying house buying as investments not homes. What have the Tories done for the NHS? There are currently thousands of NHS vacancies. EU healthcare workers lost thanks to brexit, bursaries for nurses initially cut..

You quoted me out of context Ghost I never said anything about Brexit. I also didn't praise the tories. I pointed out all parties have failed the NHS, and Labour didn't end right to buy. They could've done so before things got any worse. Btw, you can't believe that every single migrant from the EU works for the NHS? Even if that's the case, where was I saying anything either for or against migration? I pointed out if we do have an increased population, we should plan for it. Because poor services, housing, insufficient NHS capacity affects migrants just as much as everyone. Increased population needs increased NHS capacity, not restricting housing options at a time of rising demand, improving infrastructure. Neither Labour nor the Tories did anything to deal with increased demand. They could and should have.

Darned

Migrant labour has been needed to fill vacancies in certain sectors including healthcare. They are not responsible for poor public services, things that have been ideologically run down over the last decade.

It is lazy thinking to treat all previous governments as equally accountable for specific isues. One party believes in the NHS the other does not. That does not mean to say the party believing in the NHS doesn't make mistakes all governments do.

Brexit cannot be ignored alot of the anti EU arguements have been exposed during the pandemic. The UK could have closed its borders to stop the spread. Migrants are an asset (see NHS doctors) not some sort of burden.

Where have I blamed migrant labour for the failings of successive governments Ghost? Please stop trying to make out I'm saying something I'm not.

@Darned migrants are an asset is very true of middle class roles/communities, however I can understand why those in working class communities might feel differently as the availability of very cheap labour has no doubt had a significant impact on those in factories, manual labour etc and made in harder for workers in those roles to advocate for fair wages. Personally, I don't have a problem with immigration, but it has never been managed by governments to reduce the impact on low income british families, which is why they felt disillusioned enough to jump on the brexit bandwagon in the first place.

Yes. An increased population in itself isn't the problem. It's the failure of governments to provide additional capacity at hospitals, housing, infrastructure. It impacts lower income migrants as much as lower income Brits. It's also a bit racist to perpetuate the myth that economic migrants are just ever so grateful to be allowed to live in overcrowded HMOs, doing all the shit jobs with bad conditions and low wages. Also racist to suggest they're all the same. There's good people and bad from every country around the world. There's pros and cons to open borders. I'm not arguing for or against, just pointing out if they are open we should ensure services are funded enough to meet more demand.

Where have I blamed migrant labour for the failings of successive governments Ghost?

I didn't wish to suggest you had. I meant in wider political discussions over recent years migration has taken the blame for the UK's failings. I have pointed out that the UK can control its borders and at this moment in time the UK should be grateful for migration (open borders) in relation to migrant healthcare workers in the NHS.

I agree. I'm very grateful to all our healthcare workers wherever they're from - UK, EU, or further afield.

I am heartily sick of the modern sentimentality, especially in the media, that expects us to feel any deep emotion when bad things happen to someone we don’t know, just because that person- the PM, Kobe Bryant etc.- is in the public eye.

I don’t feel anything much. Intellectually I recognise this situation is awful for the PM and his family and I don’t wish him harm.

The most important reason to show restraint in what we say about him is to keep discourse civilised and prevent division. I remember the poisonous politics of the 1980s all too well and I do not want them back.

Boris Johnson has only ever been interested in himself.

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