Westministenders: Tell Boris it should be more Stokenders and Copenders

[RedToothBrush]

FINALLY this is the thread of the Copeland and Stoke By-Elections.
In the next few days we will be subjected to a whole pile of analysis from the media most of which will completely miss the point, and will waffle on about Brexit as if it’s the only issue ever and this is what matters to everyone.

Its bollocks.

This is the ‘Westminster Bubble’ that doesn’t report what is on the ground. It includes the media and the politicians who ran into town for the election, never to set foot there ever again. In one case pulling faces at the local children. In another desperately trying to prove how local he is.
Is it any wonder some think that all politicians are all the same?

You can learn far more about what really matters by reading the Stoke Sentinel and The Whitehaven News than reading The Sun or The Mail, those great champions of Leave. (Fancy that local papers being more relevant to a community than a national ones).

The by-election in Stoke has been a particular display of pond life style campaigning. We’ve had Hillsborough, ‘dodgy addresses’, arrest of a candidate, text messages saying you’ll go to hell for voting ‘wrong’, letters that say that MPs voted differently to the way they did, an activist being hunted by the police for trying to enter someone’s house and then pissing on her property, crying candidates, faked photos on twitter, dodgy sexist tweets from candidates dragged up, photographs with known far right activists, egg throwing and vandalism.

The word that keep coming out? Not ‘Brexit’. But ‘Change’.

What have the main parties in either election really added in terms of positive change?

Tomorrow’s weather will not help matters. The chances are that it will keep turnout down, making those postal votes more important. It will drive out the angry to vote whilst the apathetic and hopelessly disillusioned will stay home. The result will not be decided by the 60%+ of the electorate who voted to leave the EU. It will be decided by a fraction of that.

Someone has to lose. There will be political blood shed. Friday will see the political blame and finger pointing I doubt anyone will get it.
The real story is about how few people will vote and how few people think their vote counts for anything.

Immigrants and ‘benefit scroungers’ are not to blame for this. Nor is it even the ‘cultural elite’. Politicians have a duty to the whole country, to do the best for them all. Not to merely do the ‘will of the people’. Popularism does not help people. It merely starts a runaway train of the tyranny of the majority. You don’t give children sweets because they demand them. You educate children, and nurture them. If they are unaware of real issues, you make sure they learn and you explain why you are making unpopular decisions honestly, rather than feeding them a crock of shit. Because that’s your job as a PM, as MP, as a MEP, as an elected mayor, as a county councillor, as a borough councillor, as a parish councillor. To step up.

We need politicians with the back bone to do the right thing for all, rather than just worrying about their electoral strategy and how to con people to vote for you this time. We need politicians to actually take the responsibility of office rather than see it as a career opportunity.

The issues that matter most to people ultimately are not about the EU. They are not about immigration. It’s too easy to blame on immigration rather than tackle the infrastructure problems of the country and admit where you have gone wrong in the past. It’s easier to drive an hysterical fear of terrorism and cultural values being in danger from an enemy far away rather than look at who is really responsible.

If people don’t think that others are unaware of the problem, and don’t care about them and how they are being thrown under the bus, they are wrong. Plenty of people on both sides of the EU referendum debate get it.

Plenty on both sides don’t and are indulging the fantasy land excuses for domestic political failure.

The question is how do you get that message out, in a way that makes a difference and does change things? How do you break the stereotypes of the stupid and the patronising? How do you get people like the Nathan from Stoke to be heard and to believe in politics. Not believe in Brexit. Believe that politics can help them.

What? Does the EU run our NHS then?

You know full well that the EU does not run our NHS.

As did Gove, Johnson and Gisela Stuart, who none the less chose to use a big red bus to advertise a £350 million a week saving if we left the EU, which (in the invisible small print) we could spend on the NHS.

Given this conflation - the question is still pertinent. Or put it another way, how do you see the NHS being financed in 10 year's time? With health care issues, would you expect to be able to obtain private health care? At all? At a reasonable cost?

Well, no. But we all remember the slogan on the bus. We are leaving the EU in order to have more money on the NHS, no?

I'm sorry to hear of people dependent on benefits due to poor health.

I've been there and out the other side. It's a really tough life.

One of my biggest concerns consequent to the vote to Leave is the impact it will have on the sick and disabled, who have already been hammered by austerity policies. The coming economic downturn, of which inflation is already making itself felt, means small allowances will not go so far, and there will be more cuts to benefits and public services including the NHS.

Most people are no doubt aware that the system by which people claim sickness and disability benefits was changed by the Tory government so that it is now very difficult to qualify. 14,000 people lost their motability vehicles. I've just helped a friend with MS fill out the PIP form. It's not designed genuinely to support people with disabilities any more, simply to ensure that the fewest number of people qualify as possible.

That can only get worse as there is less money in the pot, and we have huge bills to pay to the EU, quite apart from of the impact on the economy of the loss of the single market and customs union and potential WTO tariffs.

If we end up going to the tax haven route, we simply won't be able to raisd the tax money to fund the welfare state as it now exists, nor the NHS.

Sorry, X-post with Peregrina.

Obvs not bored or we would already have it sorted along the German model. I wonder how much of our trade deficit with Germany funds their health service or maybe it's just bankrupting the rest of the Eurozone that does it?

Germany funds its own health service with state health insurance and private health insurance. It's mandatory to have one or the other and it's also a legal requirement if you want to get a residence permit.

There are indeed some cancers we could stop via lifestyle choices. We could radically reduce cervical cancer by never becoming sexually active for example Would add in costs elsewhere as the future of the human race would then depend on IVF

Life is about balance; yes, we can encourage healthy living and lifestyles, but, for example, cycling has a risk of road accidents and inhaling fumes from cars & lorries, rugby of head injuries and dementias (both subjects close to my heart) - but those risks are more than outweighed by the health benefits.

It's about informed risk see, got it back on topic and as a society understanding that there is a wider responsibility and understanding the consequences of our choices.

Thanks semi and to you to, whilst not bad enough to have to depend on benefits or the NHS a great deal, I'm chronically ill so have a tiny understanding of what you're going through, probably can't imagine the full extent. It must truly suck.

gloria glad you came out the other side

No, because I'm a Brexiter*

So what do you expect, (not hope) Brexit to deliver for the NHS?*

My reply to Woman was just an attempt at humour, Peregrina!

I don't expect Brexit to deliver anything for the NHS, to answer your question.

The NHS, as with most (if not all) publicly funded institutions is terrible at monetary management.

My experience is with the forces, and the waste & mismanagement is rife.
Badly worded contracts, overfunded budgets for ridiculous frivolities whilst squeezing elsewhere - people not spending budgets at the first end of the financial year 'just in case' then frantically spending it all on shit at the back end of the year 'so that we don't lose the budget amount' next year etc etc.
'Savings' on cheap tools that fall apart on use & therefore end up costing more in replacements than it would have to buy the better quality stuff in the first place; spending £££ on basic things like screws & fasteners which cost pennies at the DIY shop; frivolous & numerous unnecessary changes to uniforms 'it's a different budget' etc etc.

All this has nothing to do with Brexit though.

There are some cancers that can be controlled by relatively reasonable lifestyle choices - not smoking (lung cancer), not drinking too much alcohol (pancreatic and liver cancer), not eating too much red meat (bowel cancer), not overexposing yourself to the sun or tanning machines (skin cancer), but beyond that it's a lottery.

GG Germany exports to which countries to provide the jobs, which provide the insurance premiums to fund their health service?

I don't expect Brexit to deliver anything for the NHS, to answer your question.

Presumably you're hoping the current level of service to continue...

I'm ok Hashi, I'm incredibly lucky in loads of ways and have been very fortunate to end up in the position I am now (a student) which would never have happened if I hadn't got sick in the first place.

for Gloria too, and everyone else who's struggling with their own health & also with loved ones who are unwell.
we're all only one illness away from hardship and it's a shocker when you realise you're not invincible!

It's going to change in one form or another Gloria, that's inevitable & would happen regardless of Brexit.

What replaces it remains to be seen...

10% of our exports go to Germany if you want to look at it like that.

And that is, as I have already said, one (of many) things which angers me about Brexit. We desperately need a proper debate on what sort of health care we want and how we pay for it. We shouldn't be stupid either, we should look to see what similar sized countries offer,to see if there is anything we can copy, or learn from them, not just turn our backs on them because they are part of the EU .

Diving briefly back to Brexit, I depressed myself this week reading The Great Crash 1929 by JK Galbraith.

It is a sobering (and readable) read, and over and again it brought me back to Brexit e.g:

"By affirming solemnly that prosperity will continue, one can help ensure that prosperity will in fact continue....The faith in the efficiency of such incantation is very great".

"If there must be madness, something may be said for having it on a heroic scale".

"As an instrument of economic policy, incantation does not permit of minor doubts or scruples"

etc etc

I'm also sending to all those who have discovered that life can throw you a crock of shit sometimes and how much you appreciate the lifeline that the NHS throws you, however imperfect it is in some ways.

Gloria In that vein I grew up with someone affected by thalidomide. He has spent his life overcoming the odds to study and run his own electronics business. He had coped independently until ten years ago when all those years of stress on his back from moving around on shortened limbs took their toll. He is in constant pain and mobility is a big issue for him but his lifeline was his mobility car. A PIP assessor turned up and interviewed him who had never heard of Thalidomide, a supposed healthcare professional who had never heard about the biggest medical scandal of our times. He no doubt wittily, he is always self deprecating and dry, explained three times. Nethertheless the assessment came back saying that in spite of his "congenital abnormality" he was fit to work. He lost his car and is thrown back on a small compensation payment he receives.

There's a difference between change which is inevitable in any large institution and cuts which are dependent on the economy (and the outlook of the particular government.)

I saw a huge change in the NHS between becoming ill in the late 80s - when the NHS was massively underfunded and I had to have tests aged 18 in a mixed geriatric ward due to the beds shortage, and waited a year to see a specialist due to waiting lists - and the effect of the the Labour government prioritising the NHS.

I'm better now and I have private health insurance, which I think will be necessary in the near future as I doubt the NHS will survive Brexit in its current format.

Does the EU run the NHS. No but they provide

*the scientific and knowledge frameworks that make our research into disease and new treatments the most effective in the world in spite of underfunding in terms of the 1.79% of GDP we devote to it compared to the 3% of the rest of the G8, including the funding of the cutting edge research into areas such as cell biology, synthetic biology which may not payback for many years, or generate revenue but may actually lead to groundbreaking discoveries e.g. the teams currently researching gut bacteria and the promise that advances in that area might prove the answer to preventing many diseases. The governments proposed funding frameworks are all about immediate paybacks.

*The freedom of movement that has staffed the NHS in spite of the governments failure to fund adequate training, or offer British nurses and doctors the working conditions that would have kept them in the profession / country.

*It has protected European health care systems from the predatory intensions of American healthcare providers in the course of trade negotiations, which May now refuses to discount

All these benefits are at risk and likely to be lost.....

You get the NHS you pay for. It's as simple as that.

There are inefficiencies in the NHS, for sure - but many of these are not the fault of the NHS per se. It's not (necessarily) the fault of the NHS that staff shortages means paying £££ for temporary medical staff, or that problems with social care cause beds to be occupied by patients who do not need hospital care.

However by most measures the NHS does more for less than comparable European systems, because there is no need to pay for a bureaucracy to chase payments through the system, and no incentive to give unnecessary treatment.

The issues in the NHS could be improved overnight by sorting out the care system and increasing funding so that spending per capita on healthcare is closer to that of other major european economies.

Here in France we pay a fortune for healthcare - because we are quite well off - it's a fixed 8% of income plus a contribution to my work top-up insurance. Worth every penny. My husband has a long term illness and although he works, there have definitely been years when as a family we have been a net drain on the system.

I wonder what the two new MPs will be able to deliver for Stoke and Copeland respectively?

For Stoke - I don't expect much to change - it's been neglected for years and will continue to be neglected.

For Copeland, I expect that the maternity hospital will be gone by the next election. I don't know whether some fudge will be worked our for Euratom? I suppose that depends on how much of a tie in it has with weapons production, or whether it is predominantly for civilian usage. I am ignorant on these matters.