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The weekend has seen the leaders question time debates.

Johnson failed to answer a question and the BBC edited later edited footage to change laughter at him to applause.

Swinson continues to prove that the Lib Dem campaign planners don't understand the electorate. They based the campaign around her and the more the public see her and the more she opens her gob she proves she's the witless headgirl who really knows fuck all.

Corbyn has now adopted a neutral 2nd referendum position. Far too late.

Jo Johnson apparently said that a good election manifesto is one people aren’t talking about 48 hrs later, and it seems that the Conservatives really have gone for that strategy.

Johnson had promised a manifesto for change yet of the three main parties it seems far from that. It avoids controversy for the most part, but also doesn't offer solutions to some of our biggest problems like social care. But with the Tories so ahead in the polls, the status quo and making sure they don't have a repeat of the 'dementia tax' car crash seems to be the order of the day. Because Brexit is going to going to provide a magic solution instead...

Meanwhile the Labour Party have gone completely the other way and really have gone for it and come up with ideas. With a mixed response from the public and press.

And I still can't tell you what is in the LD one, cos Prince Andrew...

This week should see the election come into focus as postal voting starts. As it stands its hard to bet on anything but a Tory majority.

A pretty miserable PMK.

The only positive I can find is hoping some MPs will lose their seats including Uxbridge.

The PM is unlikely to turn up
for the Uxbridge hustings is he? I doubt he even knows his way around Uxbridge.

There must be a plan B -who would the candidates be for a new leader/ PM ? Gove attempting a revival again.

If Boris Johnson loses Uxbridge I would expect someone in a safe seat to stand down for a by-election. It happened with the minister Patrick Gordon Walker in the seventies, but he lost the second election as well.
What happens about the role of PM in the interim, I have no idea.

Sorry - sixties not seventies.

If Boris Johnson loses Uxbridge I would expect someone in a safe seat to stand down for a by-election.

Yes, of course, how depressing.

Armando Iannucci
@Aiannucci
·
9h
Page 50 of Tory Manifesto. It’s coming. Voter ID at polling stations.
‘We will protect the integrity of
our democracy, by introducing identification to vote at polling stations’. US Republican tactic to suppress the votes of those you don’t like, coming to U.K?

Commenting on the Conservative party’s 2019 manifesto, Richard Murray, Chief Executive of The King’s Fund said:

‘The Conservative manifesto offers a number of welcome NHS pledges, particularly to confront the current workforce crisis. However, the overall funding package pledged for frontline NHS services is less generous than the offers from the other major political parties and doesn’t represent a comprehensive funding plan that includes workforce training, capital funding, adult social care or public health.

‘The nursing maintenance grant is a very welcome first step toward addressing the current deep nursing shortages, but we really need to see a credible plan for tackling the chronic staffing shortages across both the NHS and social care. Finding the extra doctors and nurses pledged in the manifesto poses a huge challenge. The Conservatives rightly acknowledge the crucial need to recruit internationally in the short term to fill the staffing gap and have put forward proposals to mitigate the up-front costs of coming to work in the NHS, but this may still be insufficient and there is a lack of clarity over how this squares with commitments elsewhere in the manifesto on immigration.

‘The additional £1 billion to give a short-term boost to social care services for both adults and children is not enough to meet rising demand for care while maintaining the current quality and accessibility of services.

‘Despite making a similar pledge to bring forward reform in 2017, social care funding has once again been put back in the too difficult box. Viewing the debate only in terms of older people not having to sell their homes is a disappointingly narrow framing of the problems in social care, and cross-party talks without a concrete proposal are unlikely to deliver meaningful reform. This is not only a devastating blow for the people and their families who rely on a currently failing system. Social care is also a major concern for voters and a continually ailing system will also impact on the finances, performance and quality of care in the NHS.

‘While a good funding offer for frontline NHS services is essential for health and wellbeing, these also rely on social care, public health and having the staff and facilities to provide them. It is therefore deeply disappointing that these have been excluded from the funding pledges.’

The Kings Fund has also commented on the Labour and LibDem manifestos. If you’re not familiar, The King's Fund is an independent charity working to improve health and care in England.

Voter ID - simple: change the "you don't have to bring your polling card " to "you have to bring your polling card".
None of that godawful US voter denial shit.

Thanks red

None of that godawful US voter denial shit.

Theyve seen how well that has disenfranchised BAME voters so I'm sure theyre all for photo id to vote because we have so much voter fraud in this country

US Republican tactic to suppress the votes of those you don’t like

Hugely effective. Of course it's coming.

Opposition parties are going to need to be very switched on about this, but they won't be.

Tim Berners-Lee saying that the Conservatives are untrustworthy:

Web inventor attacks Tories over misinformation
Link is the BBC website

General election 2019: Labour vows to cap rent rises for private tenants

www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50540436

That will bring the welfare spend down a significant amount eventually

Re portillo moments. I saw some constituency polling for a few places yesterday. Raab was least safe but still looked like he would stay. IDS, Redwood and Johnson still look they have a double figured advantage over their challengers.

It's not looking hopeful.

British newspapers heap positive coverage on Tories while trashing Labour, study finds
Pro-government and anti-opposition coverage rife in first week of general election campaign

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/general-election-british-uk-media-news-bias-tories-labour-a9209026.html

Any one here suprised at that? Someone must be?

The NHS is being destroyed. I'm quite startled that some can't see this.

More and more services are being hived off to private sector companies. Even simple things like some injectable medications are now being delivered by private companies to people's homes, with sharps being collected back by them. There are too many privatization by stealth examples to list.

Waiting times in a&e are at the worst ever level, but flu season has barely started. Key targets for cancer etc are being missed. There's a huge shortage of doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers. Current waiting time to see any gp at the moment at my own gp surgery is 4 weeks. I know this because that's how long I have to wait.

It is struggling like it has not struggled before, though each year it has become more difficult. The NHS is not in safe hands with Tories.

Its all smoke and mirrors mother its all about getting their No Deal because all bets are off as far as the UK populace is concerned after that, Russia and billionaires of all nationality have made a sound investment in our current PM and MSM, seems to be paying dividends

I just can’t believe that after years of Tory misery (without a ‘strong and stable’ government to be seen, we now have Boris who lies repeatedly, is boo-ed wherever he goes but he’s still 41% in the polls!

Do we have to put up with another 5 years of this bunch-really??

Because they don’t believe it... I don’t believe it (and I’m not even planning on voting Tory!) We’ve had Tory Governments for most of the 27 of the past 40 years. At each election the opposition have said the NHS will be destroyed if the Tories win another election

But surely the difference is we haven't been attempting a bend over and take it FTA with the U.S following previous elections.
There was no need to sell it off before - even if there was a desire.
Pretending that whatever has happened in the past is a marker for where we are headed, once the tories are free from the EU restraints and desperate for a pat on the head from America, is ludicrous.

So laughter was replaced by applause for timing reasons, we should all be very afraid

BBC News Press Team
@BBCNewsPR
Replying to
@OborneTweets
This clip, which was played in full on the 10 o’clock news last night, was shortened for timing reasons in today’s lunchtime bulletin. We’ve fully covered Boris Johnson’s appearance on the BBC QT special, and the reaction to it, across our outlets.

Tamara Cohen
@tamcohen
Replying to
@tamcohen
and
@SkyNews
Nicky Morgan defends the contested 50k nurses pledge, despite 18.5k being existing staff:

"In 10 years time, there will be 50,000 more nurses in our NHS... one of the ways you make sure you have more nurses in the system is retaining the skilled workforce you have got"

Seen from afar, the NHS is mainly being destroyed by lack of resources, by cutting off your supply of nurses and doctors, and by cronyism.

Private sector participation in healthcare isn't the problem per se, it's the type of privatisation - in the U.K. where services are privatised it is almost always via contracts with big companies with personal links to government or health service management.

If you look across the channel there are models of healthcare which integrate the private sector (often SMEs) in a way that increases choice and access to care while controlling the cost to the public purse.

I recently had to have an MRI (in France). The local public hospital has about a 6 week waiting list for MRIs so I booked a same-week appointment with a private imaging clinic in our nearest city. Because the tariffs charged by this private clinic are set by law, the cost to the state insurance scheme is identical to the cost of me having an MRI in a public hospital.

Likewise almost all blood testing and other lab work in France is performed by a network of private labs, often SMEs, which charge fixed prices for lab tests (a typical panel might cost 50€). If I need a blood test, I walk down to the lab in town with my prescription (no need for an appointment), they take blood there and then and you pick up your results in person or on-line within 24-48 hours. It's so much more efficient than the way the NHS does it.