British Politics
Been on holiday for a few weeks, surprised to find no general discussion of British politics so though I'd kick one off.
Tory leadership contest is quickly turning into farce. Trump has backed Boris, which should be reason enough for anyone with half a brain to exclude him.
Of the other candidates Rory Stewart looks the best of the outsiders. Surprised to see Cleverly and Javid not further up the betting, but not sure the Tory membership are ready for a brown PM.
https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/bri...
Regarding the LD leadership contest, Jo Swinson is miles ahead of any other candidate (and indeed any of the Tory lot). Should be a shoe in.
Finally, it's Groundhog Day in Labour - the more serious the anti-Semitism claims get, the more Corbyn's cronies write their own obituary by blaming it on outlandish conspiracy theories - this week, it's apparently the Jewish Embassy's fault...
If you allow the government to prosecute people for riot then you might get Orgreave. Life imprisonment for buying an ice cream.
It really does seem like Elon is daring UK authorities to go after him. Would be pretty wild if they ever took the bait.
(the bottom half of the tweet isn't showing up for some reason, which kind of kills the joke. But if you are interested you could just click and see the tweet itself I guess.
It would be very unwise of labour to pick a fight with musk but absolutely vital we properly regulated social media. Preferably alongside the EU.
The joke is at the top of the tweet. Top left.
It would be very unwise of labour to pick a fight with musk but absolutely vital we properly regulated social media. Preferably alongside the EU.
The joke is at the top of the tweet. Top left.
I don't know any country in the EU where it is illegal to post that pic, do you?
Heavy criticism of government is allowed everywhere in the EU afaik.
Social media is already regulated in the EU. The digital service act is law.
Here an overview of the gazillion rules introduced, especially for big platforms
Thanks, but I'd still rather live in a society where everyone has a decent standard of living, not just the middle and upper classes.
And not a normalised occurrence to have children shot up on a weekly basis. 12 a week is the current American average, I believe.
Thanks, but I'd still rather live in a society where everyone has a decent standard of living, not just the middle and upper classes.
reasonable aspiration, but the UK clearly doesn't qualify as one
I don't know any country in the EU where it is illegal to post that pic, do you?
Heavy criticism of government is allowed everywhere in the EU afaik.
Social media is already regulated in the EU. The digital service act is law.
Here an overview of the gazillion rules introduced, especially for big platforms
I wasn't suggesting they ban that pic.
Just regulate them properly rather than having some personal spat with musk.
Thanks, but I'd still rather live in a society where everyone has a decent standard of living, not just the middle and upper classes.
Everyone doesn’t have a decent standard of living. What on earth are you talking about in a country where use of food banks is rife and people are going without meals?
So yes, we're heading in the wrong direction, but the UK historically has consistently done better than the US.
low Gini doesn't mean everyone has an adequate life, and high Gini doesn't mean the poors live horrible lives necessarily.
if you care about the poors check the absolute living conditions of them (calories access, electricity access and so on) instead.
for ex Italy and Norway appear with the same Gini in your graph, trust me Norway poors do better than ours
Thanks, but I'd still rather live in a society where everyone has a decent standard of living, not just the middle and upper classes.
Good for you?
Tbh it sounds like you spend too much time on the internet and don’t really know what you’re talking about. Maybe you spend a lot of time on spaces like Twitter and Reddit?
And not a normalised occurrence to have children shot up on a weekly basis. 12 a week is the current American average, I believe.
Gun violence and gun control are big issues in America and a lot of sane citizens want there to be change. You seem to be throwing out random “America bad” statements though. Despite the gun violence, average Americans still live better lives than almost anyone else in the world.
low Gini doesn't mean everyone has an adequate life, and high Gini doesn't mean the poors live horrible lives necessarily.
if you care about the poors check the absolute living conditions of them (calories access, electricity access and so on) instead.
for ex Italy and Norway appear with the same Gini in your graph, trust me Norway poors do better than ours
Thank you for explaining what the Gini is 🙄
However, you measure it, the UK is a fairer country than the US. So in the UK, it doesn't matter how much you earn, everyone gets the same standard of care in the NHS. This is a really important principle (for me) when discussing equality.
Is it perfect? No. Could it be better? Yes.
Thank you for explaining what the Gini is 🙄
However, you measure it, the UK is a fairer country than the US. So in the UK, it doesn't matter how much you earn, everyone gets the same standard of care in the NHS. This is a really important principle (for me) when discussing equality.
Is it perfect? No. Could it be better? Yes.
Oh if intrinsic equality even with everyone worse off is a value for you sure, i thought you cared about absolute conditions. The NHS is worse than what the poors get in the USA.
If you prefer everyone having a 3 (from 1 to 10) service, instead of the worst off having a 5, with the better offs havin 6s, 7s, 8s, then yes UK is better for healthcare in your model.
That would truly subscribe to Churchill definition of socialism though , " its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery".
I thought you mistakenly thought that the poors were unconvered in the USA, instead even when told they are in fact all covered if they want to, that doesn't change your opinion.
I don't think you truly believe a country where, say , nurses earn 30k and doctors 50k is a better country than one where, say, nurses earn 50k and doctors earn 200k, but you do you.
As for the claim of "more fair", it can be very subjective but, for example, one topic often used to describe society failure to cater for the worst off is homelessness.
UK has more than twice the rate of homelessness than the USA have.
300k homeless people (at least) in the UK vs 650k in the USA, with a population that for the USA is 5 times bigger.
The UK government is telling the judiciary to deal with recent riot cases fast, and to make sure both sides are dealt with publicly, by televising sentencing, and the judiciary is doing what it's told? Is that what is happening?
The reason they seem to be dealing with cases fast is because those who have been sentenced have pled guilty. That's all pretty normal. There will be a lot of media interest in the cases given it's a major ongoing news story but it will also be in the governments interest that they are widly covered to act as a detterent. Again, this doesn't seem like anything out of the normal.
Gun violence and gun control are big issues in America and a lot of sane citizens want there to be change. You seem to be throwing out random “America bad” statements though. Despite the gun violence, average Americans still live better lives than almost anyone else in the world.
Stating a fact is all.
i have considered working in the states, and still might, bc the after-tax wages i could expect come out to roughly 2x. however, i have heard convincing work/life balance horror stories from some colleagues that have done it
canada is supposedly the worst, where you apparently work yank hours for euro pay
--
the homeless stat is obviously wrong
I'd be surprised if this were true, but I don't know this for sure as it was largely an assumption - do you have any data to support this assertion?
While there can be a variety of ways to judge the quality of a healthcare service, and it's hard to come up with a single number capturing all the variance as well (some systems might be better at something while being worse at something else), i think that using waiting times for specialist visits is a very good proxy of overall quality of the service.
It's often the most complained about part of healthcare as well.
In the USA waiting times are under 30 days for medicaid patients. On average they wait 1-2 days more than privately insured folks, that's about it.
Source for the extra-time for medicaid patients (2021)
https ://www.jabfm.org/content/jabfp/34/3/571.full.pdf (removes the spaces after https)
Source for the generic waiting time (all insurances) (2022)
https://ir.amnhealthcare.com/news-releas...
Average physician appointment wait times have
increased significantly since the survey was last
conducted in 2017 and first conducted in 2004. The
average wait time for a physician appointment for
the 15 large metro markets surveyed in 2022 is 26.0
days, up from is 24.1 days in 2017, an 8% increase,
and up from 20.9 days in 2004, a 24% increase.
In UK it's 14.3 weeks currently
a median waiting time for treatment of 14.3 weeks – almost double the pre-COVID median wait of 7.5 weeks in June 2019.
And that's on top of the waiting time to get the referral from the GP. In the USA it's complicated, but you often don't need a family doctor referral to go see a specialist.
So we are at what, 3x longer waiting time to see a specialist in the NHS vs the access an homeless person covered by medicaid has in the USA?
EDIT: had to change the links to sources, can't link to a pdf for some reasons
i have considered working in the states, and still might, bc the after-tax wages i could expect come out to roughly 2x. however, i have heard convincing work/life balance horror stories from some colleagues that have done it
canada is supposedly the worst, where you apparently work yank hours for euro pay
--
the homeless stat is obviously wrong
Why do you think that?
Source for the UK
New research from Shelter shows at least 309,000 people in England will spend Christmas without a home, including almost 140,000 children. This is a stark increase of 14%, 38,100 people, in one year.
Shelter’s comprehensive analysis of official homelessness figures and responses to Freedom of Information requests reveals 1 in 182 people in England are homeless today. The charity’s research shows homelessness has risen rapidly in just 12 months: over 3,000 people are sleeping rough on any given night (26% increase) and 279,400 are living in temporary accommodation (14% increase) - most of whom are families. There are also 20,000 people in hostels or supported accommodation.
Source for the USA
Record-High Homeless Counts. A record-high 653,104 people experienced homelessness on a single night in January 2023. This is more than a 12.1 percent increase over the previous year.
On the homelessness numbers I'm guessing the availability of support plays a fairly large role in the baseline numbers. While the numbers without a home do look bad for the UK, the vast majority of them are in temporary accomodation so do at least have a place to sleep. On the other hand almost 40% of homeless in the US have no accommodation at all and as a result the number actually sleeping rough is more than 70x higher in the US than the UK.
