should the government be ashamed

Farzanah

Sadly some members of the present government feel no shame at all. Just check out a card which Priti Patel has sent out for Christmas. I didn’t believe it was for real but seems it is.
Sorry can’t link on iPad.

Patel's Christmas card.

static.independent.co.uk/2022/12/20/18/patel-xmas-card.jpg?quality=75&width=1368&auto=webp

nanna8

MaizieD

nanna8

You will probably end up with a system similar to ours. A lot of private hospitals and medical services alongside the public system. The private hospitals seem to do very well, thank you very much and are forever expanding but the public hospitals tend to lag behind. I don’t see that the standard of medical care is any different but there are huge waiting lists for public hospitals whereas you can get into a private hospital quite quickly.

I don't think we want a system similar to yours, thank you. We would just like ours to be sorted properly.

Good luck with that! I also notice that some of the British private health providers are moving here- BUPA being one. They are not the best and don’t have a very good reputation for standards of care.
Hang on to your current system if you can. Strike, rebel, go on marches to preserve it, it is worth it, believe me. Don’t let them undermine the NHS so people turn to the private system- I can see that happening.

Hang on to your current system if you can. Strike, rebel, go on marches to preserve it, it is worth it, believe me. Don’t let them undermine the NHS so people turn to the private system- I can see that happening.

There appears to be a swathe of the British public already having fallen for the Tory narrative regarding the NHS. They won't rebel or go on marches - no, they will condemn the striking NHS workers for being "greedy", tell us "the country can't afford it" or, as some are saying, "get another job then" and there are even those who don't think NHS workers deserve a pay rise.

Why is the NHS in such a desperate state? Why are there not sufficient numbers of care homes, rehabilitation units, care workers? The Tories have been in government for 12 years during which time all these issues have been kicked into the long grass. They know we have an ageing population, they know what the problems are - what have they actually done to alleviate the distress caused to patients who can't be discharged because there is nowhere for them to go, and not sufficient numbers of care workers to support them. Why? because it's a stressful job with poor pay. Privatisation of these social / care services was the worst thing that could have happened. I won't be convinced otherwise.

The current Tory mob simply do not care - they are not in government to make life better for the population, they are in the business to make life better for themselves and their various backers and donors at the expense of the population who, themselves, will - some of them - still vote this government back into power, even whilst they are languishing in a hospital bed waiting for a 'care package'.

What are pale soft skinned robotniks? Sunak doesn’t appear like that and neither do many others. He looks to be on the dark side to me. Prince of Darkness ?

Sorry it’s on Twitter.

Sadly some members of the present government feel no shame at all. Just check out a card which Priti Patel has sent out for Christmas. I didn’t believe it was for real but seems it is.
Sorry can’t link on iPad.

Gabrielle56 I assume that you do not know any Conservatives or Business Owners as your post is a biased caricature of the U.K.

As for money laundering activities based in London that is just a slur on hardworking Londoners…

Having nearly lost my home in 1984 due to Tory policies of "destroy all working class industry and replace with money laundering activities based in London" and again in 1999 losing a huge £17k on a terrace house bought a mere 4 years earlier in Lancashire whilst south east houses rocketted in to space in value, then seeing the heartbreaking demise of young people not being able to afford to start their lives by having own home/safe tenancy, I Know that tories' goals are to create their idea of an 'elite' society of soft pale skinned robotniks existing only to produce money that ultimately finances the very very few elitists in their perverse lives of debauchery and Botox...... Oops bit Hollywood there! But still ,they detest those who actually keep the show on the road. Maybe demos and uncollected rubbish and medical waste should be tipped into their west end designer gardens( with plastic water features!) And left to fester? .....sad thing is they'll just employ some desperate folks to clear up , cash I. Hand of course! Don't want to be liable for any safety issues or tax/ni contribs now do we? Keep it under the radar and out of site , then we can happily pretend it don't exist?! Win win!

MaizieD

nanna8

You will probably end up with a system similar to ours. A lot of private hospitals and medical services alongside the public system. The private hospitals seem to do very well, thank you very much and are forever expanding but the public hospitals tend to lag behind. I don’t see that the standard of medical care is any different but there are huge waiting lists for public hospitals whereas you can get into a private hospital quite quickly.

I don't think we want a system similar to yours, thank you. We would just like ours to be sorted properly.

Good luck with that! I also notice that some of the British private health providers are moving here- BUPA being one. They are not the best and don’t have a very good reputation for standards of care.
Hang on to your current system if you can. Strike, rebel, go on marches to preserve it, it is worth it, believe me. Don’t let them undermine the NHS so people turn to the private system- I can see that happening.

Found this though when I was looking for the working class report. This was produced in 2018, and one can only think in fact be absolutely certain, that things have got an enormous amount worse since then.

London (CNN) — Government austerity policies and the dismantling of the social safety net have entrenched poverty and inflicted unnecessary misery on the poorest people in the United Kingdom, a damning report by a UN human rights expert said Friday.
Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, described the situation – in the fifth richest country in the world – as “not just a disgrace, but a social calamity and an economic disaster, all rolled into one.”
Some 14 million people, a fifth of the population, live in poverty, his report said. Of those, 1.5 million are destitute, unable to afford basic essentials, it said, citing figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Social Metrics Commission and Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
After years of progress, poverty is increasing again, the report said, with child poverty predicted to rise by 7% between 2015 and 2022. Meanwhile, homelessness has increased by 60% since 2010, when a Conservative-led coalition government came to power, and the use of food banks is on the rise.
Almost all studies have shown that the UK economy will be worse off after Brexit – or the country’s scheduled departure from the European Union (EU) in March 2019 – the news release said. More people will be driven into poverty by inflation, lower wages and rising prices unless the government takes action to shield those most vulnerable and replaces current EU funding for combating poverty, it added.
…………. nearly 4 million children in the UK were living in households that struggle to afford fruit, vegetables and other foods conducive to healthy living, according to research by the Food Foundation.

Here is something to consider though.

That’s the problem, my ears only pricked up with the tail end of the report.

It’s bound to come up again though.

Whitewavemark2

No I can’t do links. It was on CNN though.

If we know what it's called we can look it up.

No I can’t do links. It was on CNN though.

Do you have a link to the report?

Or even its title, so we can look it up?

Whitewavemark2

There is a report produced by an American university which reckons that the more conservative the government, the worse working class outcomes.

This government is proving that beyond doubt.

This government is proving that beyond doubt.

It certainly is!

I think this government has gone beyond "conservative" though - further north if you like. Though some in the party think it's drifting to a more centrist position and are defecting to Reform UK, the new kid on the block.

For Tories less preoccupied with Brexit but concerned about what they see as their party’s broader centrist drift, Reform UK is also proving attractive, with its deliberately wide policy offerings. One of which is "doing Brexit better". Well it sure couldn't have been "done" any worse. What was promised and what was and is being delivered has left Brexit voters feeling betrayed, because it isn't what they voted for, and when you look at the promises and hype pre-referendum, you can see they have a point. The main beneficiaries of Brexit appear to be lobbying groups chasing the corporate vision of a post-Brexit UK where rights, protections and standards are removed.

Do you have a link to the report?

There is a report produced by an American university which reckons that the more conservative the government, the worse working class outcomes.

This government is proving that beyond doubt.

Rabbitgran

A resounding Yes. This government is heartless and incompetent unless you're super rich. I think it's part of a deliberate agenda towards privatization or two tiering of the NHS. I can't describe how very low and sad I feel at what the UK ( and more particularly, England ) is becoming. Backward and barbaric, Victorian times minus the philanthropy.

The belief in free-market, libertarian ideology requires a degree of 'heartlessness'. Compassion and concern for the wellbeing of ordinary people are not part of its tenets. Minimal state intervention and spending are.

If you factor in the incompetence - which has been clearly evident (witness the number of hasty u-turns, not to mention the disastrous short reign - of Truss - the Tory favourite for the position of PM at the time), you can see why we are where we are at the moment.

If you then add the party's self-interest, its determination to remain in power at all cost, then none of what is happening should come as a surprise.

nanna8

You will probably end up with a system similar to ours. A lot of private hospitals and medical services alongside the public system. The private hospitals seem to do very well, thank you very much and are forever expanding but the public hospitals tend to lag behind. I don’t see that the standard of medical care is any different but there are huge waiting lists for public hospitals whereas you can get into a private hospital quite quickly.

I don't think we want a system similar to yours, thank you. We would just like ours to be sorted properly.

You will probably end up with a system similar to ours. A lot of private hospitals and medical services alongside the public system. The private hospitals seem to do very well, thank you very much and are forever expanding but the public hospitals tend to lag behind. I don’t see that the standard of medical care is any different but there are huge waiting lists for public hospitals whereas you can get into a private hospital quite quickly.

A resounding Yes. This government is heartless and incompetent unless you're super rich. I think it's part of a deliberate agenda towards privatization or two tiering of the NHS. I can't describe how very low and sad I feel at what the UK ( and more particularly, England ) is becoming. Backward and barbaric, Victorian times minus the philanthropy.

Today we have learnt that the government will delay improving the quality of our waters to a good standard from 2027 (as mandated by the EU) to, wait for it, 2063.
Another reason to feel shame in the U.K. Vote for Brexit and watch how they turn our rivers into open sewers. They have no conscience.

Has any democratic country ever been so broken by its own government than ours?

Gwenisgreat1

The NHS has too many managers and too few hands on staff. Until that is reversed there will be no change

Unfortunately, unless the 'internal market' is reversed the layers of admin and management will not change.

Did you know that the NHS sometimes has to employ people to work out how it should bill itself because the system is so complex? According to my consultant.

No-one actually knows the cost, nor the benefit, of the internal market.

We read a lot about how poorly paid they are,but never hear how much they actually get. These people are all graded and dont all earn the same amount. The experienced ambulance drivers and paramedics earn more than the others, which is right. Also a number of nurses work in their spare times for agencies which cost the NHS more.

Mollygo

MaizieD
I have to point out that the last Labour government didn't leave the country in a mess.
So why were they voted out? We seem to elect a new government when we are unhappy with what the existing government is doing. I thought David Cameron only got in because more voters were unhappy with what Gordon Brown did.

I think they were voted out because Labour had been in government for over a decade and voters don't seem to like long administrations.

And because the tories told a better story; which just happened to be lies. But it chimed nicely with the Thatcher declaration that a nation's economy was like that of a household.

(I also think that Cameron's promise to reduce immigration by a lot was instrumental, too. The British are xenophobes at heart)

By coincidence, I have just been reading a piece in the Guardian about political bullshitting.

We all lie sometimes, and around millions of tables there will be much bullshit spoken over the Christmas turkey. In British politics, the era of bullshit followed on naturally from a long spell of lies. Before Johnson, the most effective Tory of the post-Thatcher era was Osborne.

He blamed Labour and Gordon Brown for the banking crash, only later admitting that was untrue. He declared Labour’s 2008 package to bail out the banks would spark a run on the pound, before confessing: “Broadly speaking, the government did what was necessary.”

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/22/politics-difference-between-lies-bullshit

Interesting article. Worth a read.