Westministenders: Theresa's Common People

[RedToothBrush]

She came from Oxfordshire she had a thirst for knowledge
She studied geography at Saint Hugh's College
That's where politics
Caught her eye

She told them that her husband was loaded
The press barons said "In that case have a rum and coca-cola"
She said "Fine"
And in thirty seconds time she said

I want to look like common people
I want to do whatever common people do
I want to eat like common people
I want to sleep like common people
Like you

Well what else could Fiona and Nick do
They said "We'll see what we can do"

They took her to a supermarket
I don't know why
But they had to start it somewhere
So it started there
They said pretend you've got no money
She just laughed and said
"Oh you're so funny"
They smiled "Yeah”
Well we can't see anyone else smiling in here

Are you sure you want to live like common people
You want to see whatever common people see
You want to eat like common people
You want to sleep like common people
Like me

But she didn't understand
She just smiled and held Trump’s hand

Order that benefits get the chop
Tell them all to get a job
Promise to bring back the grammar school
Pretend you don’t think them a fool
But still you'll never get it right
'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
Watching the news talking about building the wall
All have to do is call your mates to fake it all

You'll never live like common people
You'll never do whatever common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view
Whilst you blame it all on the EU
Because that’s all you can do

Sing along with the common people
Sing along and it might just get Brexit through
Laugh along with the common people
Laugh about leaving the EU

It’s the most stupid thing that you will do
Because you think that it is cool
You’ll call them a ‘lying foreigner’
But don’t say we didn’t warn you
You’ll regret saying we are better off out
'Cause everybody hates a benefits tourist

It doesn’t matter if you can’t do the math
With all those pockets that you grease
You’ll win the vote in Bath

You will never understand
How it feels to live your life
With no meaning or control
And with nowhere left to go
You are amazed that they exist
And wish they were all white
So you tell ‘The Big Lie’

Get THE flat above THE shop
Cut your hair and get THE job
Trick some mugs and hire some fool
Pretend you are not really cruel
But still you'll never get it right
Instead you're plotting late at night
About which ‘cockroach’ will take the fall
All have to do is call your mates to fake it all
Yeah

You'll never live like common people
You'll never do what common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view
As we plan to leave the EU
Because there's nothing else left to do

But ‘moan’ about how we don’t want to leave the EU.

My father and his sister have both developed the same memory holes, slow thinking, word blanks, confusion, so I can buy a genetic link. My father doesn't have dementia yet but it seems to be on its way.

I am in no way underestimating the challenge when somebody's cognitive ability is in the bottom 14% but if their cognitive ability is in the top 5%? or in a case close to home 0.02%.

DH is diagnosed. He falls into a similar pattern. He is very exceptional. He fits the MOD thing perfectly.

It makes me worry about the implications for DS and how he will cope in the education system. It didn't serve DH well at all. I faired better but it still wasn't great for me. We both 'achieved' but neither of us achieved to the best of our ability though. DH has been successful despite of the education he got, not because of.

Unfortunately I can't credit this, as source didn't know who the artist was.

But they are a bloody genius.

Love that cartoon, Red

Sorry whatwouldrondo - I don't understand the question. Who is doing what?

amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/05/18/politics/financial-data-intelligence-committees-senate-house/index.html
First on CNN: House Russia investigators get access to Treasury data

TAX RETURN!!!

www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/18/secret-plans-protect-le-pen-french-republic-emerge?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Secret plans to 'protect' France in the event of Le Pen victory emerge

Germany have planned for Social care problem for twenty years.
France had a plan for a possible Let Pen Victory.

Ever wondered why the UK is so screwed up politically ATM?

I love the song!

I have genuine questions re the social care thing:

It seems to me like the Tories are just trying to directly fix the problem and quickly here - i.e. many headlines about social care being at breaking point, etc - go directly to the people who are using it and make them pay, if they can afford it.

I get that it is unfair, definitely. BUT not being that imaginative, I can't see a way they would have been able to raise the money to fix that problem from the demographic that is using it (i.e they could raise tax to pay for it, but that would penalize the working). How would they do it otherwise? Lower inheritance tax thresholds?

I actually don't see that it is actually that more unfair than it is for the people that are unfortunate enough to have to move to a residential care home and use their assets to pay for that? I get that it's applying the unfairness to another group of the elderly. And I do take the point that it's likely if this goes through with little fuss, then it's a slippery slope.

Question: if this election is about getting a mandate for Brexit and how it's implemented, how come Brexit is barely mentioned in the Tory Manifesto. How come all these other issues are suddenly so important...

I think IHT would be fairer and then ringfence the money from it for the care services, including care homes.

Whatever the means, above all else - care services desperately need more money
The number of frail elderly is rising, but care services are near collapse:

. 25% of care homes have closed down and some of the remaining homes are pure warehousing, the bare minimum to sustain life
. Councils can't afford to pay carers even minimum wage, once travel time between visits is included
. The UK increasingly depends on EU carers, whose supply may dry up
. Careers are increasingly being allocated 15 minute visits, to feed, wash, toilet very frail confused old people, give them their medicines, fill in forms.
Carers have imsufficient time for even the basics, so the most vulnerable are sometime going without meals, toiletting, washing.

Brexit: the love that dare not speak its name

I wondered how long they could keep Bojo out of sight during the GE

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/17/boris-johnson-apologises-after-discussing-alcohol-in-sikh-temple

< his current wife is half-Sikh, so he should have known. Amazing how with all his multicultural connections, he keeps making dreadful faux pas >

"The foreign secretary, who is widely seen as having been sidelined during the election campaign over his perceived propensity for gaffes, was visiting a Sikh temple in St George’s in Bristol when he made remarks about ending tariffs on whisky traded between the UK and India.

In a BBC recording of the event, a female worshipper can be heard taking him to task, asking: “How dare you talk about alcohol in a Sikh temple?”
Oops !

“I hope I’m not embarrassing anybody here < you are ! > by saying that
^when we go to India, we have to bring ‘clinky’ in our luggage*
We have to bring Johnnie Walker.”

“There is a duty of 150% in India on imports of Scottish whisky.
So we have to bring it in for our relatives duty free.
Imagine what we could do with a trade deal with India, which there will be, because then the tariffs would go.”
< no trade deals if you keep offending people around the world >

Personally, I've never had an issue with IHT - it's "money for nothing" imho. Dh disagrees with me though - even though I'm the one whose father has a lovely house and is likely to leave db and me a healthy amount (albeit that mum & dad had been SKINs with db's and my wholehearted approval) and dh will be lucky to get a penny from his mum

Question: if this election is about getting a mandate for Brexit and how it's implemented, how come Brexit is barely mentioned in the Tory Manifesto. How come all these other issues are suddenly so important...

Ian Dunt has some interesting points about this:

www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2017/05/18/tory-manifesto-may-lays-ground-for-brexit-compromise

Why Trump will likely resign as Mueller pursues 'Putingate'

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/334033-why-trump-will-likely-resign-as-mueller-pursues

"The decision to name the universally-respected former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel on the Russian election scandal is a defining moment in modern American history that sets off a chain reaction that probably leads to the ultimate resignation of President Trump."

"Putin, still acting like a KGB officer, wanted to pull off the greatest covert action in history, the election of the president of a rival nation he holds in contempt.

With the collusion of some U.S. citizens, whether they knew they were colluding or not, Putin pulled it off and that makes me irate."

I think Budowsky got a little ahead of himself there, though he is right to say Trump can't fire Mueller.

The Treasury news is far more promising.

.

Watching Trump's Russian links enquiry with interest:

I wonder what links and promises have been made to achieve Brexit?
Will May have an South African/ Russian links investigation to fight off too this time next year?
The funding of the campaign would appear to be the start of that trail.

Re the dementia tax and the fact you will be looked after for free if yu are ill but not if you have dementia.

I will actually bed to disagree.
The NHS is falling apart. It's one of the worst health care system in developed countries. That means that very soon, we will pay for health care too. In effect, as we are arriving in old age and with more chance of getting an illness, whatever it is, dementia, cancer, heart issues, we will end up paying for it.

In 2015 we had some warnings about it
www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/nhs-uk-now-has-one-of-the-worst-healthcare-systems-in-the-developed-world-according-to-oecd-report-a6721401.html
Now we are still in the same place
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/18/nhs-care-among-worst-europe/

I have the opportunity to talk to people who have gone through the NHS recently.
People who have had hip replacement, broken bones and should have needed immediate physio are been made to wait 6 to 8 weeks before seeing someone. People who needed a quick change in diet and were told to again wait for 8 weeks (and therefore hindering their recovery).
Etc etc
If you really want to recover, you NOW need to dip into your own funds to pay for what is non immediately vital treatments, treatmnets that you will need to have any chance of recovery.

Note too that if you aren't looked after correctly in older age, you are less likely to recover (All from a hip replacement to heart surgery to diabetes issues) andntherfeire more likely to end up in a home that year unwill have to pay for yourself.....

On May's 'Russian links'. Sinn Fein heading to good wins next month. 'Dark money' story again in the BBC.

The DUP said about £425,000 was spent on the Brexit campaign.
There are concerns from the DUP's political opponents that three donors associated with the CRC have not been named by the DUP.
On Thursday Sinn Féin said it will would meet the Electoral Commission to discuss "concerns" over what it has described as "dark money".

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-39970119

Steve Baker.

The number of frail elderly is rising, but care services are near collapse:

Sorry, but this we "can't afford it" nonsense just gets my goat. If Trump decides to go to War, we will follow him and £x billion will be voted for it in the blink of an eye. So not we can't afford to treat people who need care with decency and respect, but we chose not to. War mongering is more important to us.

The NHS is falling apart. It's one of the worst health care system in developed countries.

Yes, I can agree with what you say, having seen relatives suffer in the way you mention. Not because of lack of dedication on behalf of the medical and nursing staff, I hasten to add, who often have gone beyond the call of duty. What angers me is that we are not having a proper debate about what and how we afford it, but are just privatising it by stealth, slavishly copying the Americans. Instead we should be looking to other countries which have good systems and ask what they do, how do they afford it, is there anything we can learn from them?

This morning I bring you a random story from Australia

www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.afr.com/news/policy/tax/tax-office-deputy-commissioner-linked-to-countrys-biggest-tax-fraud-20170518-gw7gya
Tax Office deputy commissioner linked to country's biggest tax fraud

Its about how the person investigating the Panama papers has been caught for you've guessed it tax fraud. His job had been to lead audits of the country's richest people and private groups and hunt for unexplained wealth.

(Maybe worth noting Cameron was mentioned in Panama papers.)

Here's the thing: we've just got this policy for the dementia tax. So what's being done to crack down on this shit?

We will strengthen Britain's response to white collar crime by incorporating the Serious Fraud Office into the National Cime Agency, improving the intelligence sharing and bolstering the investigation of serious fraud, money laundering and financial crime.

Keep following the money. The EU was starting to try and crack down on this shit. Do you think it's a coincidence that the people most against the EU and never voted for anything religiously turned up to vote against anything to do with money laundering.

As mathanxiety pointed out, is this merger really likely to strengthen fraud investigations?

^Wrt Serious Fraud Office and National Crime Agency merger -
Same budget for twice the agency as one or the other currently enjoys?
Will the merged departments end up fighting over meager resources and priorities, while fraudsters, money launderers and criminals frolic away undisturbed?^
Do they anticipate halving the admin personnel?

I'm afraid the move rather has smoke and mirrors written all over it and if this was May's manifesto and she was true to her word about cracking down on this as she implied in her first speech upon becoming PM this would be a lot stronger and would be more significant in actually tackling the issue rather than giving the impression it's liable to do exactly the opposite.

Instead it is the middle who are squeezed because they are unable to protect themselves.

Trump and Brexit are linked. Keep baring that in mind as it's relevant to what happens to the UK next in so many ways. I am hoping that in the next couple of years we see many more individuals world wide falling foul of their own fraud. But I'm not holding my breath.

Now it makes sense that "The Lotus Eaters" was on the syllabus when I did O level Eng. Lit ... It's taken 35 years, but I've got the hint now.

The NHS is falling apart. It's one of the worst health care system in developed countries

In my admittedly non-expert opinion, the NHS does seem to be unable to cope properly. I don't know if it is one of the worst health care systems among developed countries, though. I think it has being stealthily starved of funds being directed to the correct areas and reorganised in such a way that it is being set up not to be able to cope properly. I think it is combined with political ineptitude and and looking for a quick fix even if it is disastrous down the line. The public's memory seems to be weak on John Major's PFI's, but so entrenched with LD tuition fees.

Parts of Lewisham hospital were going to be closed and bits sold off with patients being sent to another hospital which was in hock up to it's oxters because of the huge profits going to the private sector due to a PFI debt. The closure and diversion of patients was nothing to do with Lewisham Hospital. It was to come to the aid of Queen Elizabeth hospital which was on it's knees over it's private debt repayments. Someone was making big money. Private organisations. So in this instance, it is not the socialised aspect of the NHS which is the problem, but the link with the private sector. And the gov't who put them in thrall.

"The NHS is now structured so that individual trusts cannot receive surplus money from other areas, but when it comes to savage cuts, the opposite applies."

www.savelewishamhospital.com/why-close-lewisham-ae/

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/the-funding-timebomb-that-crippled-an-nhs-healthcare-trust-7888977.html

"There is nothing illegal in anything that these companies have done. But the rates of return on their investment are of an order that would make a pay-day loan company blush."

If you really want to recover, you NOW need to dip into your own funds to pay for what is non immediately vital treatments, treatments that you will need to have any chance of recovery

I do think the privatisation of loans and the transfers of profits to the private sector is a contributing factor here, again. I don't think there is a political will to restructure and save the NHS. It reminds me of those listed buildings that developers let fall down so they don't have to do any remedial work. They can then just clear the rubble and build matchboxes for a big profit.

I remember Obama said he spent his mother's illness from cancer, arguing with the private health provider about their coverage for treatment. I know it has been now disputed if this was disability or health insurance. However, private insurers don't pay for everything, either.

The existence of the NHS doesn't bar someone from getting private health insurance and then going for treatment to private hospitals. It doesn't stop that choice. I don't know if I would want it to be the only choice.

www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-barber/obamas-mother-lacked-heal_b_7717374.html

The NHS so badly needs to be organised by those who want to try to make it better and more fit for purpose. Even if it leads to something a little different. Like Peregrina says, they could look to the best systems. But not in a way that just lines the pockets of private companies.

Soz for going on. Soz is my favourite new word .