Magic Bullet

This was reported in several newspapers, The Telegraph, The Sun, The Mail. The following is from the Telegraph (sorry can't do links)

Steven Swinford, deputy political editor
7 FEBRUARY 2017 • 12:19AM
The UK is planning to spend taxpayers’ money on improving social care for China’s elderly population and boosting its fashion industry.

The Government has announced plans to spend £1.3 billion on improving economic growth in “middle-income” countries such as China, India and Mexico.

The Foreign Office has outlined a series of “policy objectives” for the funding in China with “suggested projects” including improving “care in the community for elderly people in China” and the “sustainability of the health system”.

Sorry Sunseeker, please can you tell me more about the money to China to support elderly Chinese?

Sorry - too many "increases"! Must start proof reading my posts!

The debt has gone up but how could the avoid that when they came into power at the start of a 5 year global recession where tax receipts went down and they still had to borrow huge amounts of money and pay interest on existing debt? The deficit is reducing so the increase in the increase in the debt is finally levelling off. Labour, I believe, want to increase borrowing substantially. I can't say I find that appealing.

We could always stop sending money to China to help their elderly and spend it on ours I suppose

I saw some people being interviewed on the news last night and they agreed that we need more social care, more council services.
However, they said that they did not want to pay more council tax nor pay to have their green waste collected.

Although Scotland is more than £15 billion in debt and its deficit is almost twice as large as the UK as a whole, so who knows how long they can keep their NHS going as well as it apparently is?

they inherited a debt of just over 800 BILLION now after their amazing finacial ability its sitting at 1 .6 TRILLION ...I think the problem is the Government ,the NHS in England is in an appalling state ,Scotland is in a better place but then WE cant borrow we have to balance our budget.A nd E figures for this winter show 92% of patients presenting at A and E were seen and sent home or moved to a ward well within the 4 hour schedulle .96% of patients say they are "more than satiisfied" with NHS Scotland ,although we DO still have issues that need dealing with we appear to be managing the system better than the rest of the UK .Better management is the key to sorting the problems ,however the Tories would rather run it into the ground so they have an excuse to privatise it.You have my sympathy ,things will only get worse.

VQ I doubt there is much more money to be found by targeting the rich and large companies. We could scrap trident but I believe even Corbyn's Labour say any savings would need to go to shore up our woefully deflated defence services. As to what's happened over the last 10 years, the Tory Govt. inherited a huge debt. I don't recall their election platform being "don't worry about the debt. We'll adopt the Greek system and borrow until we are truly bankrupt". Had this been in their manifesto I wouldn't think they would have got many votes! Actually, the health service has probably been subject to less pain than most other bufgets. In any event, if we are to find a lot more money I would think it will have to be via general taxation - all of us chipping in. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't see much enthusiasm for across the board income tax rises. Everybody seems to want someone else to foot the bill!

Fat cats have already taken over many services including the parts of the Ambulance Service, its been going on for years I'm afraid by the back door and the public are only just realising whats been going on but it seems many of them either don't care or believe the Governments mantra that its not a bad thing..

Good post VQ although a depressing situation not likely to get better any time soon.

The health secretary said there was “no excuse” for some of the problems being seen in the health service and that some of the care being offered was not what anyone would want for their family.

Well I couldn't agree more Mr Hunt. So why the excuses? Run the system down, blame everyone but yourself and then tell us it's not working? confused There is only one person who can put this right and it's YOU.

The failure is not the NHS, but his and the government's. They're driving this policy of starving the service of funds.

Even if Hunt did the right thing and resigned,it must be Tory policy. He must be doing what TM wants, so she would simply replace him with another with the brief to prove the NHS is unworkable and will have to be privatised.

Cue fat cats moving in to buy hospitals paid for by working people and many of them round here newly upgraded and ready for sale.

It's a start, that's all.

It needs to be tackled from both ends and the middle. More money put in to provide more beds ( seeing surgeons sitting around unable to perform operations because of lack of beds is totally a waste of money) and more care beds and care packages to move those out of hospital who need it.

Then the general public need to take responsibility for their own health and stop digging themselves into early graves with their knives and forks.

Just those three measures financed, sourced and implemented for a start would go a long way to easing the situation.

Our local council are going to raise our Council Tax 2% this year and ring fence the money for the social care budget. I hope it helps and don't begrudge the rise if it goes where its supposed to.

I agree with what you say vampirequeen it is very complicated but they need to start somewhere to put things right.