2015 Election - antidotes?

I have much admiration for the work you have put in to support what your believe in and challenge what you feel is wrong Mogette.

You, like me, are obviously not a fan of the Conservative Party and in particular its attack on the NHS.

I wonder how you feel about Labour's efforts so far? Personally I feel it has to date been fairly lacklustre and seems to be offering "austerity light" rather than a real alternative. I realise that anything which strays from the austerity agenda will be jumped on by the largely right wing press, but is it a possibility that even though many people are nervous of what The Sun, et al, call "the loony Left", they might have more respect for a party that has the courage to present a real and principled alternative?

I hadn't heard of the Oliver Stone film. It sounds very interesting. I agree with what you say about Greece. The US will be gunning for the new government - it wouldn't do to show that there may be an alternative to punishing the poor in order to protect and enhance the position of the rich.

Mogette1 I don't think the NHS under the Conservative government has a monopoly on mistakes.
How Andy Burnham can stand there and criticise the NHS is beyond me. He must think people have very short memories. However, some of us do not and for very good reasons.

I do hope your hip replacement is successful and that you do not have to wait too long, unlike those people in Wales enduring such a length of time on the waiting lists.

Surely we do not have to be avid political animals to be concerned about what happens in our country and overseas and how it affects our lives and those of our DC and DGC.
Surely anyone is allowed to make a comment on a thread even if we do not have a proven political history.

I compare today's Labour Party to the one which my father supported and despair.

Mogette, this is a letter from the Guardian about the Greek elections.

www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/26/people-of-greece-have-chosen-hope?CMP=share_btn_tw

I was surprised to find out that Oxfam was set up to stop the Greeks from starving after the second world war.

For anyone interested in the tax system, 71% of households in this country in receipt of tax credit are in work. That means there are an awful lot of employers being subsidised by the taxpayer.

Or it could mean that at least some of the householders in question are working part time (by choice).

It is not my intention to criticise anyone for making comments on a political blog, I was just puzzled but perhaps I should be delighted that so many want to be engaged in discussion.

Of course the LP has made mistakes and I haven't forgotten it was the Labour government which first started using the private sector to get waiting lists down. There is a difference between buying in services to save patients from dying from their heart condition and selling huge contracts to the private companies. And yes PFI was a mistake but like I said, you don't always get what you want. The whole NHS (and education) estate was in a dire state of disrepair.

Why is there such an expectation that we should not wait for years for our medical care? because the last Labour govt raised those expectations. Why are there no outside toilets in our schools now? because the last Labour govt made it so.

I have a long list of achievements by the last (imperfect) Labour govt which made some headway in to putting right 18 years of Tory meanness and deliberate diminution of local control. After 5 years of Cameron, we are once again at risk of having no state to support those most in need. See tonight's news that care of the elderly is seriously underfunded.

Agreed, Mogette. It's not as if the number of elderly came as a surprise to anyone.

I've been wondering why Alan Milburn has suddenly started talking about the NHS, and disagreeing with his Labour colleagues. I think I've found out.

"In 2013 Milburn joined PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as Chair of PwC's UK Health Industry Oversight Board, whose objective is to drive change in the health sector, and assist PwC in growing its presence in the health market."

rosequartz Around what period did your father support the Labour Party? I guess it was before it became "New Labour"?

Eloethan oh yes, he was a supporter of Aneurin Bevan et al. They lodged with us (well, that's how it seemed!).
I think he lost heart when Sunny Jim was in charge.

Mogette1 Why is there such an expectation that we should not wait for years for our medical care? because the last Labour govt raised those expectations.
Sorry, I thought you would be aware (perhaps not) that the Labour Party is in charge of the NHS in Wales!! If not, I am sorry for merely inferring it in my previous post and not making it plain.
One of my friends was waiting nearly 3 years for a knee replacement in Wales.
Two other friends have given up in despair waiting for hip replacements in Wales and have spent their retirement savings going privately.

So who can you trust with the NHS?
Sorry, wrong thread.

Antidotes: A glass of or and chocolate.
Some earphones and lovely music.
Or go abroad for a few months.

papa may have different suggestions

Sorry if that is not serious enough, just answering the OP title.

Where is papaoscar?

We need one of his updates on the Archers thread.

He's antidoting - is that a word?

Hope he is OK.

Ana, 20% of those working part time in the UK would work full time if there were jobs for them. That's over a million people. (Figures from OECD.)

Yes, I'm not arguing that point, durhamjen.

Just pointing out that the employers of the 71% of households in this country in receipt of tax credit who are working may not all be being subsidised by the taxpayer.

Thought Ed Miliband got severely trounced today on the subject of the NHS by Cameron ! On PMQ's. Poor old Ed looked dejected.Him and his 'weaponise' LOL.

Labour can't argue about the mess [the NHS in Wales.]

Even Alan Milburn was attacking Labour's ideas on the NHS.

www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2015/01/28/alan-milburn-s-personal-interest-in-resisting-a-public-nhs

This is why.
I thought Miliband did quite well. All Cameron can say is Weaponise. He did not answer the questions.

All people in receipt of tax credits are being subsidised by the tax payer, Ana, even if it's paying taxes in, then taking tax credits out. It's all a subsidy, and it does not matter whether they want to work part time or not.

It's a pity Miliband gave him the ammunition then - talking about 'weaponising' the NHS and refusing to admit that he ever said it (although there's no doubt that he did) put him on the back foot straight away.

Durhamjen, you talked about employers being subsidised by the taxpayer, and that was the point I was disputing. Yes, you can lump all benefits together and of course the taxpayer pays at the end of the day.

"Cameron bequeaths a country that is fractious and anxious. He has proved to be the great separatist. Once his party were unionists, now Wales never escapes prime ministerial mention without a sneer; under him Scotland came close to dissolving the United Kingdom. Us and them has been his governing style. His macroeconomic policy failed; national debt has kept rising; productivity and investment levels are as dismal as the trade balance. Unpicking the values of the welfare state has meant undermining the idea that people should care for others beyond their own. The big society is hardly spoken of these days.

As recovery takes hold, the indices of inequality resume their upward flight: the top 1% has flourished in the great recession. Social mobility depends on opening up the closed spaces of elite Britain but they remain, as they were, stuffed with ex-public schoolboys. Social policy has ossified, no longer attuned to families with young children. The government has shrunk or shut Sure Start children’s centres, abandoning a great evidence-based experiment in improving the life chances of disadvantaged families.

Before Margaret Thatcher’s era, the Tories had a penchant for muddling through, avoiding confrontations and sharp edges; they were conservators, not wreckers. Cameron has gone much further than Thatcher dared. The survival of the United Kingdom itself is in doubt and it’s an open question who “the British” now are. An election result leaving the Tories at the helm would see more destruction, financial, social and moral. What they offer as a vision of who we are, what we value and where we belong in the world is small and mean."

The last three paragraphs of a very long article in the Guardian by David Walker and Polly Toynbee.
Believe it or not, I found myself agreeing with everything in the article. I think the book would be too depressing to read.

Ana, of course the tax payer subsidises employers. If employers pay low wages, and the employees have to apply for tax credits because of that, the tax payer is subsidising the employer.
You mentioned people who worked part-time getting tax credits. Not all people claiming tax credits work part time. Lots of them work full time and still get tax credits because they do not have enough money for the family to live on.

The Guardian Newspaper again, left wing propaganda.

Once his party were unionists, now Wales never escapes prime ministerial mention without a sneer; under him Scotland came close to dissolving the United Kingdom

I thought Tony Blair et al managed to cause all the divisions. I have not heard DC sneering about Wales, rather being concerned about those of us who live here.
Wales only got devolution by the very narrowest of margins.
All such a waste of public money.

As usual, it's the spin that different people put on things!
Or, as I said before, 'it's the way you tell'em'

Believe it or not, I found myself agreeing with everything in the article.
djen I cannot believe that you agree with something you read in the Guardian

I think some of djs post is right, and some wrong.
I dont think that dc wants a seperist Great Britain.
And he cant be held responsible for the thoughts of the electorate.
I wouldnt have said that productivity is dismal either.

magpie Well it's nice to have one or two newspapers that provide a counterbalance to the right wing propaganda of the majority of the press in this country.

*soontobe" from the Guardian 20 February:

"Britain's productivity gap with its main developed country rivals is at its widest in 20 years, following the flat-lining of the economy after the deep recession of 2008-09.

"International comparisons released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that output per hour worked in the UK is 21% lower than the average for the other six members of the G7 – the US, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada."