Westminstenders: Manifesto or Bust?

[RedToothBrush]

The Brexit Party aren't doing one.

The Labour Party apparently can't afford theirs.

The Conservatives will just lie anyway.

And the LDs got upstaged by Prince Andrew's resignation from royal duties for being a fuckwit.

3 weeks to go...

I do recognize that we are in a privileged position.

But I also find Corbyn's language othering. That is my experience of it and it is talking about people in my situation.

Live in an ex mining community which voted Labour and leave. I am a Labour remain voter. Just had my first election leaflet from an independent leave candidate and among the spelling mistakes was 'referrundum'. FGS but sometimes Labour take our constituency as a given and their referendum campaign was non existent.

Just had my first election leaflet from an independent leave candidate and among the spelling mistakes was 'referrundum'.

Only a liberal elite complain about spelling. It's a lefty-trap like the Guardian quiz.

My daughter is a paediatrician and she tells me that children’s cancer charities fund better equipment, and comforts on the cancer wards

The charity thing has been bothering me a bit. DD can't move for charity comforts - cuddly toys with removable hair, a new jewelery charm for each stage of treatment and the like. And there are 'support workers' funded by charities who come to the ward - but none of our actual needs have qualified for the kind of support that is ever on offer. Realising that some parents were going without meals because of the cost of constantly eating take aways and sandwiches I asked whether they'd considered filling the cupboards in the parents room: 'We used to but it doesn't directly benefit the children.' They did tell me to alert them to any parents who could benefit from food bank referrals though - WHERE WOULD THEY COOK THE FOOD?!! Our car broke down and I was offered reimbursement of train fares - all trips are with DD who isn't allowed on public transport. The family housing near the hospital was all full so we were offered a one bedroom place for just adults - we have other children. Then the other charity that offers housing took us off their list because we'd "been offered it and declined" with the other one.
I shouted at a woman who keeps going on at me about organising a Make a Wish thing for DD the other day. I have to get hold of her to apologise, I know she means well. But DD is on a ward where she's routinely missing overnight doses of meds (including pain killers) because they are so overstaffed, and she was told she needs an urgent MRI nearly 3 weeks ago which is cancelled every day for a higher priority case. She doesn't want to do Make a Wish and I won't make her.

I suppose my point is that although there is a lot of charity intervention on the paediatric oncology wards it's all very disjointed and feels like shiny baubels to distract us rather than what would be helpful.

@Somerville 💐💐💐
It's truly shit

A very good friend is a paediatric anaesthetist- she very rarely talks about the struggles of her job due to understaffing and also the crumbling hospital she works in - but when she does it just makes you so angry.

Everyone deserves better

Finally seen the Dr. Hill testimony, and it's left me so sad ... fair play to her for doing so well, but what a damning indictment of this country that she felt the US offered her more opportunities than England as working class with a northern accent.

That should have been the headline - UK fails it's own.

Bigly PMKing
(goes back to read thread, hopes to keep up this time)

Random18 Love it!

Hahaha if only I was one of the liberal elite

What does othering mean to people today? I don't really understand the term? I mean I understand what it "means" but what does it mean to people if they feel othered? In practice? I see it used a lot but it's beginning to be used so much that the meaning has become confused.

Somerville I can't believe life has been cruel to you yet again. However you sound full of energy. Look after yourself. More

Due to the impact of austerity and Brexit on my household income, I am at the 51st centile on that IFS chart.
Three years ago I was at the 75th.

But at least I have my heath.
Lots and lots of for Somerville and others who are having to cope with what Tory underfunding has done to the NHS

Corbyn is a wazzock, but the principle of
better services funded by taxation rather than debt

is what I'll vote for.

To those of you who describe yourselves as "persuadable" or "willing" to pay higher rates of tax

I'd probably be in the "persuadable" group myself. I'd rather that personal taxes were kept low since I believe fundamentally that people should keep as much of their earned income as is practicable while allowing functional, good quality public services to exist.

Equally fundamentally I recognise that if services are to consume more money, that money has to come from somewhere and I'd far rather it was raised through general taxation than borrowing.

Those of you who are "willing" to pay more tax, what is stopping you?
There is, to my knowledge, no prohibition on you sending to HM Treasury the amount you think you "should" be paying if that amount is higher than what you are legally obligated to pay.

Ah thanks Derxa my dear. One of DC having to deal with everything DH1 went through has always been my worst nightmare. But after a terrifying few months I can see that treatments have progressed and her prognosis is very good. Just a miserable journey for her, to get there. And the shock, for me, of less support, less regular medical imaging, more staffing problems. I’d quite naively presumed that the NHS problems didn’t run so deep.

Just caught up with the thread and wanted to send to Somerville and family.

Louise
^Those of you who are "willing" to pay more tax, what is stopping you?
There is, to my knowledge, no prohibition on you sending to HM Treasury the amount you think you "should" be paying if that amount is higher than what you are legally obligated to pay^

The current government has a stated policy of cutting frontline services.
If I pay more money in to Whitehall it will not get to where it is needed.
It would be used for tax cuts and Brexit PR campaigns.

When we have a government that has a policy of properly funding and making publicly accountable
schools ~ SEN provision ~ the NHS ~ adult social care ~ disability benefits ~ infrastructure repairs
I will gladly pay my share of that request

I'd probably be in the "persuadable" group myself. I'd rather that personal taxes were kept low since I believe fundamentally that people should keep as much of their earned income as is practicable while allowing functional, good quality public services to exist.

How very big of you.

The problem is (again !) the hammer/nail view of taxes which leads to generally low quality debates. Especially when the thorny issue of unearned wealth is introduced. Which has nothing to do with income as it is.

Those of you who are "willing" to pay more tax, what is stopping you? There is, to my knowledge, no prohibition on you sending to HM Treasury the amount you think you "should" be paying if that amount is higher than what you are legally obligated to pay.

So tell Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple then. If they were to pay 0.00000001% extra tax a year it would account for about 10,000,000 people paying an extra £10 a week.

Surely it's easier to write 4 emails than 10,000,000 ?

I can see that treatments have progressed and her prognosis is very good. Thank God

@LouiseCollins28

Because it would be a pointless individual sacrifice with no impact whatsoever.... If I paid £10k to the Treasury, it would impact significantly on me and my family’s standard of living, yet it wouldn’t even be a tiny percentage of a rounding error on the Government finances, and would
make absolutely no difference to anyone apart from me and my family who will have lost out.

Dh and I just been pouring over that YouGov graph. It's very difficult to read

Fiona Hill: "I applied to Oxford in the '80s and was invited to an interview. It was like a scene from Billy Elliot: people were making fun of me for my accent and the way I was dressed. It was the most embarrassing, awful experience I had ever had in my life."

The FCO and Security Services are one of the most secure bastions of the old boy network in the whole of the stinking establishment. The obsession among the spooks for monitoring trade unionists and Labour Lefties such as Harold Wilson was motivated in part because the posh boys making these decisions were the acutal traitors.

Anthony Blunt: "I was asked to betray my country or my friends. I chose to betray my country."

As a contemporary politcs and International Security undergrad to Dr Hill, I can say there were other avenues via think tanks like RUSI and Chatham House, and several people I studied with went into military intel.

I would also note that she studied for her PhD under Richard Pipes who was an absolute rightwing warmongering nutter who coined the term 'With Enough Shovels' to denote the policy of planning to start and survive a nuclear war with just a few tens of millions dead and hundreds of millions irradiated, a 'victory' for 'Freedom.'

When I use othering as a word I mean the creation of a false dichotomy between people I suppose.
We are all citizens of the same country and fundamentally I believe we would all pay a fair and reasonable amount of tax to support needed services. I don't think any one group should be more or less responsible for this (within the boundaries of being fair and proportional)

Honestly @LouiseCollins28 I prefer supporting charities to sending off unasked for sums to HMRC. Which is one reason I actually support universal taxation as unpopular stuff needs funding as well as popular stuff and I am as guilty of doing this as anyone else.

I used to work with dc who had been sexually abused, it was easy to fund raise for this. Fundraising for teenagers who sexually abuse is a nightmare, who wants to give money to them? But as workers we would tell you that both areas of work are vital.
Fundraisers had to raise money for the general area and then split it. ( some might suggest that the government should cover both areas but it never has properly)

So I am hypocritical, I like being able to choose what areas to support. The positive feedback from charities is appealing, you get special access and activities etc. HMRC is much less good at this!!

I'd rather that personal taxes were kept low since I believe fundamentally that people should keep as much of their earned income as is practicable while allowing functional, good quality public services to exist.

Because good quality services cost money, and there will always be some comfortably off people who chose not to pay.

I don't think it is actually possible to send more money to HMRC. What those of us who are angry about public services being run down do, is partly campaign and partly contribute to food banks or other charities.

If you send an unasked for sum to hmrc they will often send it straight back.

They only refund things when you don't want them refunding.... 🙄

Maybe they should set up a general charity that could be used for the nhs, schools, supporting people on low incomes etc that people could donate to as an 'additional' but optional tax.

I look after the Gift Aid for a charity, and I am jolly glad to do so. We get quite a nice bit of money back from HMRC and we know that we will spend it wisely. I don't regard the money spent on Brexit as money spent wisely.

Which is why I said "earned income", income from other sources is a different matter and should (and does) get taxed at different rates. Folks can argue about whether those rates are the right ones.

I agree, Amazon, Google etc should pay any applicable UK taxes on whatever income/profits they generate from sales into the UK, you'll get no contrary argument from me on that.