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.
Pro-Euers should definitely have talked a lot more about sovereignty, democracy and deciding if we wanted to have to trust the USA etc (on defense, trade etc) or be part of something big enough to stand up for itself.
We ceded all that ground to the leavers while we talked endlessly about what it cost and bigots
lol, remainers needed to avoid that one like the plague
These important issues don't go away when we ignore them. It just means we don't make our case, look ridiculous and lose a lot of support. Even worse when, as we did, we attack anyone who does bring it up.
The NHS will have to divert £45bn from essential services to pay for new medicines under the terms of the UK-US trade deal agreed last December, leading to more than 200,000 avoidable deaths of patients, analysis has found.
Ministers have defended the deal as a way of helping British drug exports to the US avoid tariffs, and giving patients in England access to potentially life-extending drugs that would otherwise be denied.
But they have been accused of caving in to US demands to spend billions of pounds a year extra on drugs supplied to the NHS after pressure from Donald Trump. The potentially devastating impact on NHS care has also caused growing alarm among health experts.
Now analysis, published in the British Medical Journal, lays bare the likely cost of the deal to the NHS – and the projected deadly impact of cuts to health services on the population in England – for the first time.
Terrible news, but thankfully cushioned somewhat by the extra £350M per week increase in funding thanks to Brexit.
Depends what happens at the meeting where the consequences of cancelling the contract, including the issues around devising a backup plan, are explained to him.
Adapting the old Bill Hicks joke, it depends on the meeting where Burnham is shown the actual, real, autopsy of John Smith.
Mostly the usual bollocks but starmers political genius advisor has finally noticed that a plan to do **** all was possibly a mistake
Sir Keir Starmer's former chief of staff has conceded that Labour failed to properly prepare for power in the run-up to its landslide general election win.
Quite strange that nobody spotted that snag at the time. You wonder what they thought was going to happen.
Mostly the usual bollocks but starmers political genius advisor has finally noticed that a plan to do **** all was possibly a mistake
lol, doing nothing (good) always was the plan from the start
I agree but they forgot to have a plan to spin it as a positive & transformative radical program.
Quite strange that nobody spotted that snag at the time. You wonder what they thought was going to happen.
strange indeed but hard to hard to argue with the immense genius of mcsweeny - c'mon the man delivered 32% in the face of the collapse of the main opposition parties
As you've raised this you might be interested to know that when I do read 2+2 over breakfast with my wife
Sounds like you and your imaginary wife are living the dream - Do you also spend Xmas day together posting on 2+2, or is that just you?
Keep pretending to be normal, weirdo.
Must be all those immigrants who wake you up so early every morning.
Mostly the usual bollocks but starmers political genius advisor has finally noticed that a plan to do **** all was possibly a mistake
Give him a break, there can't have been much time left each day once they'd finished attacking the left.
Welfare, frequently described in the MSM as "out of control", accounts for less than 11% of GDP, lower than many European countries and a similar level to the '80s when Thatcher was in power, but with a much older and sicker population.
The current agreement among the political class that further cuts should be made so we can spend more to defend ourselves against unnamed enemies is a new low for the UK.
I think the threats are real. So I believe do the majority. Real and serious.
Welfare is nothing to do with it. Cooperate more with Europe and other countries, tax those who are better off, raise war bonds or whatever but making the worst off pay is an unnecessary and awful right wing solution.
I see widespread geopolitical instability, very rapid technological advances and climate change as strong indicators of real risk which would be extremely foolish to ignore.
In the European theatre, the potential enemy that the government has in mind is Russia, as is fairly obvious from the threat the Russians present to our NATO allies, the bizarre obsession their leader has with us, the fact that they keep snooping on our vital undersea infrastructure with a clear view to military attack and the fact that they have already carried out information warfare, radiological warfare and chemical warfare on British soil.
There's also China, which so far is shy of overtly aggressive military action (unlike Russia), but is re-arming on a very large scale even while acquiring political and economic influence all over, such as in Africa. As far as the Indo-Pacific goes, we'd have a minor but non-negligible contribution beside the US and Australia, hence the AUKUS programme to counter the Chinese navy.
China is re-arming, therefore we must increase military spending. Sounds like an arms race over **** all.
