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.

@BBCNewsnight: Michael Fallon tells #newsnight the Conservatives have not costed the impact on the economy of reducing immigration… https://t.co/mdj9FYi77DD^

(Link is to the video of him saying this)

Why am I not surprised?

The public's memory seems to be weak on John Major's PFI's, but so entrenched with LD tuition fees

Isn't it strange? I wonder why that is. Ditto many Labour policies.

People can't join the dots and see how they are being manipulated. This is in part down to lack of public interest and in part down to media reporting.

Whether you like the LDs or not, do think about why they are held to higher standards. To a certain extent I suspect that UKIP suffer from the same problem albeit that far too many of their members are actually up to a whole lots of shit anyway.

The stench of dubious goings on for some union leaders and for some MPs is appalling and it doesn't get nearly enough investigative journalism attention.

One of Private Eyes better covers ..

Those 10,000 mental health nurses promised a few weeks ago?

Any reference to them in the Tory Manifesto?

Are they nothing more than a promise on a bus?

Noting in particular, how much of a target Norman Lamb's seat is...

Olenna You highlighted that your parents have provided for the future and you do not feel entitled to an inheritance, the same is true in my family.

However we have one parent who has dementia, something that their parent and sibling also had, their partner believing that if they were not coping they would go into a care home and their home sold to pay for it covered up the extent of the problem and then ultimately did not admit to or seek medical help for a thrombosis, something they had been treated for before, and knew the symptoms of. They died as a result. This was in spite of the fact that they had multiple contacts with health care professionals to whom it would have been apparent that their partner was clearly suffering from advanced dementia and they were not coping, something that is apparent from their medical records now they have been transferred to a GP who has a clue

The other parents have multiple health needs, diabetes, digestive problems, recurring pneumonia for which they get brilliant NHS care, regular clinics, scans, a special resource at the local hospital that treats elderly people on a day patient basis, so that they get all the necessary diagnostic tests on the day of admission so that they can be sent home with the appropriate treatment.

How is that disparity in treatment remotely fair?

As it happens there is the will and money, and a lot of love there to take up where the system has failed our parent but what if there isn't? I have seen a lot of care homes in the last year and I, and DH, who does not break easily, have been in tears, even when the homes are privately run and look like a 5* hotel.

We all know there is a postcode lottery in healthcare but in no other area is the disparity as great as it is in old age and especially in relation to dementia. Any strategy for social care should be treating the issue holistically instead of pigeonholing the illness of dementia as uniquely a matter of individual responsibility, not least because it does not just affect the individual but also their entire family.......

The parent with dementia by the way has a lifetime of public service at the very highest level, it is fair to say that without them Thatcher could not have mounted the operation to save the Falklands.....,

But not everyone can get a private insurrance. We have one through DH work but otherwise couldn't afford it.
Plus even with a private health insurrance, if you are where we live, you will struggle anyway (as my parents have seen when they looked for a consultant to get some surgery done privately).
Plus, private hospitals only do routine stuff, if there is any problem you get send back to the NHS (again as my dad experience when his very routine surgery didn't go to plan - due to the lack checks from said private hospital).

I fully agree that the NHS could do much better (that was the point of the article form 2015 - comparing the Uk for countries who have a health care system set up in a similar way).
But what gets me really annoys is that we go towards a private system by stopping the current one but wo replacing it by something else.

So whilst in the south and for the very wealthy there might be some stuff in place, it's not the case everywhere (such as the North where I live) and certainly not in place at a national level.

And that's wo going into why on earth is it ok to ask £200 for ONE consultation with a consultant privately. Look at how much similar consultant charge in France. It's much much lower, they still earn their lives very well but wo ripping People who are ill off such a system is only sustainable when said fees are paid by insurances. And when people paying those premiums are either companies or very wealthy people

I now see that any reduction in immigration is an "aim", not a pledge.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39970768

Funny ... I was listening to the radio yesterday and Jeremy Hunt had dropped all pretence that Brexit was about anything else but immigration.

So - despite the howls of denial from Leavers (on this very forum), the Tories are taking Brexit to mean "less foreigners".

Of course given what passes for journalism these days, Nick Robinson completely failed to ask why we needed to leave the EU to reduce non-EU immigration.

(I was amazed I listened so long ... I almost turned off when Hunt started talking about the Conservatives strong sense of social responsibility)

I do think we should disentangle the issue of the NHS and old age. There is a shocking disparity in the standard of care for all conditions. I know people having Cancer treatment who have experienced shocking delays in treatment and been left in storage cupboards for days for want of a bed in a ward. However these are in certain trusts and elsewhere treatment can be absolutely excellent and actually better than I had as a private patient. As a private patient I struggled with a system that does not want to and cannot cope with chronic and serious illness. At every stage of treatment I had to fight a system that rested on the assumption that I was having these treatments and invasive investigations ordered by my Consultant out of pure self indulgence and making them pay for it....

Maybe Dignitas need a marketing executive ?

The only way to go one way. ?

Take the "u" out of burden

and, most appropriate

Lie back ... and think of England

And bang on schedule, someone has started a (pro) thread on assisted dying on AIBU ...

Scotland's new super hospital in Glasgow (I refuse to call it the generic around the UK "Queen Elizabeth Hospital" - it will always be the Southern to Glaswegians ) was not built using PFI (or even a PPP ) because it had been proven not to be value for money.

I believe it has had a few teething problems but the couple of times I have been there (once taking a boy to A&E on a Saturday afternoon with a split eyebrow from rugby, where he got treated in an hour and the other to visit a MNer who'd taken ill while visiting another MNer EU citizen who's lived in the UK for many years) I was very impressed.

I can also still get a GP appointment within a day or so (maybe a week if you want to see a specific GP) - and can get a telephone appointment (where the GP will decide whether he needs to see you that day) within a couple of hours (last time I was rung back - about a potential concussion that ds had - within half an hour).

Where I have seen "rationing" was 10 years ago in the fight that we had to get rehab for my mum following her head injury as she was 66 - rehab is not normally offered to the over 65s (Once she got it, she made good initial progress - it was just bad luck that 2 years later she went on to develop early onset dementia brought on by the head injury ).

But the NHS is run differently in Scotland - with apparently less deliberate running down of services.

Scotland's new super hospital in Glasgow (I refuse to call it the generic around the UK "Queen Elizabeth Hospital"

I really, really, really, really, really cannot big up the new QE2 hospital in Birmingham enough.

Just that.

And bang on schedule, someone has started a (pro) thread on assisted dying on AIBU ...

Assisted dying was discussed last night at length on another thread so not surprised a separate thread has started.

I did say that unfortunately people would seek to politicise it and spuriously link the topic to care costs - bang on schedule, you did....

.

So Sweden have dropped rape case about Assange. Press full of him leaving Ecuador Embassy. But what next for him? Where will he go? And why did Sweden drop the case? And more importantly, does someone have something else on him...

Nothing against the hospital Lurking - just the name I'm sure Birmingham's QE2 is great too.

The new hospital looks fab - it's just that the campus was renamed in a secret decision by the Health Board (after new signs had already been put up so they had to be re-done ) to something so generic and sycophantic and well, not distinctively Scottish. If they were going to rename it, why not the "Alexander Fleming" or the "David Livingstone" or the "Joseph Lister" - someone who actually had a link to medicine and Glasgow/Scotland

Sooo many choices and they go for another "Queen Elizabeth" ( )

www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/19/german-business-leaders-conservatives-tories-rethink-plan-leave-single-market-trade-eu?CMP=share_btn_tw
German business leaders urge Tories to rethink plan to leave single market
Head of employers’ federation says integrity of single market more important than making good business with Britain

Those German car manufacturers lay out their stall. For the UK to stay in the single market...

Just out of interest, am I alone in remembering a day when party leaders beat a path to Mumsnet to be asked about their favourite biscuit at election time ?

What's changed, I wonder ?

Women less likely to vote Tory. Especially ATM. They also are less likely to vote full stop. So explanation there. They don't want to politically motivate.

Haven't the LDs done a web chat recently with MN? Might have been Clegg or Farron or both. I forget as I missed it.

As for Labour. Don't know.

Overall I suspect it's probably something to do with MNetters asking good questions and being well informed. Not easy to answer...

How dare you people politicise something that's been made political by a political party

So - despite the howls of denial from Leavers (on this very forum), the Tories are taking Brexit to mean "less foreigners".
Well its clearly not about helping the poor now is it, as the Tories are so fantastically proving. Less and less bullshit to hide behind.

It's not "politicizing;" it's just a foreseeable consequence that if health care, social care or general quality of is crap in old age, then more people would consider assisted dying.

It's not a party political issue, just facing up to the prospects of what lie ahead.

My late mum suffered decades of disability and she would have had to wait 2 years in pain for various ops to help, if I hadn't paid privately for her

• that was 25 years ago and it caused me to purchase health insurance to try to avoid being totally dependent on the nhs in old age

Then her long drawn out dementia, where again I paid first for extensive home care with adequately long visits, then finally high quality care and 24-hr nursing homes - because the only places that were state-funded were horrific nightmares - dirty, smelly, noisy warehouses for inconveniently surviving old people.

I paid out about 100k total for my late mum, because the nhs & state care was totally inadequate.

However, I've no DC or DP to pay for me, so I decided several years ago that I would not wish to live in the circumstances that she would have done, without me.

Being alone, I wouldn't feel obliged to hang onto life, unless it is of reasonable quality.
Totally individual what "reasonable quality" means

For me, no point to life if I lose my favourite braincells / body parts / sight / mobility
or can't enjoy a standard of living that doesn't involve decisions about eating vs heating vs healthcare or social care.

Radio 4 said the other day there was no longer any difference in the percentage of each sex that voted. I was surprised by that.

It's not "politicizing;" it's just a foreseeable consequence that if health care, social care or general quality of is crap in old age, then more people would consider assisted dying.

On the other thread where it was discussed, the quality of care was not the issue wrt choosing to die or not - it was the quality of life lost instead.

It was mostly people who had witnessed how dementia/Parkinson's etc cause you to lose who you are & your families witnessing that.

I personally would choose to die if diagnosed with either no matter how excellent or free the care I could expect to receive was.

I do have to say that a public conversation about 'life' and its sanctity is long over due in our society

Our current position is to preserve life as long as possible regardless of all other considerations. Part of this I'm sure is because there is very little emphasis on palliative care whilst there is a huge emphasis on 'cure'.

We don't talk about our own mortality. This is possibility due to a decline in religion and possibly down to being exposed much less to death as a society.

Death as a subject is therefore taboo. Family families don't discuss inheritance. They don't discuss funeral arrangements. For fear of upsetting people or being regarded as 'money grabbing' for example. This has knock on effects to life choices and care choices.

We desperately need to reassess in the context of dignity and realistic life quality.