So what do we want?

What I REALLY want from politics but fear we're never likely to get is for the whole bloody system to stop being like an episode from "In the thick of it" and get on with the job - NOT Theresa May's inept, backsliding,u-turning cos stuff ain't popular version of "getting on with the job" (even Armando Iannuci would struggle to make up a character like her) but genuine honest hard work for the benefit of all. I'm 67 how can I still be so naive?

Hell bells, why such nasty posts GG, Lillyflower did not weep and whinge, she posted her opinion

I can't get an appointment to see my doctor for 3 or 4 weeks. I'd pay to see one sooner if I could.
My niece did say if you had a chronic illness you could see a doctor 4 times a year but yes she did say people found it difficult to pay.
I'm not uncaring, I just feel some people go to the doctor more than they need to.

Oh well! I'd be dead by now, if I'd had to pay that much. Maybe some people wouldn't care, but maybe my children would.

I think I would be joining you daphne. The problem is that often ill-health brings low income whatever you were earning in the past. What would you do to pay amt101 - like America take out private insurance and let the poor die?

I have no doubt I will be told off for inferring you are uncaring - I don't doubt you are not but we really need to think about the outcomes of the decisions we want our politicians to take. We are responsible if we vote these people in.

I do think we need a lot more triaging at the GP surgeries but I was watching a old peoples forum the other day and they were complaining that they could not see a doctor - not that they couldn't see anyone, they had appointments with nurses where applicable and one with a doctor who "wasn't his". We have general nurses and specialist ones and they can often lift the load. Triaging could also send people to the pharmacist. Our needs must be assessed by the medical profession not by our prejudices.

What a absolute load of tosh Lilyflower. Each of the things you ascribe to ALL right-wing Conservatives could be said about ALL left-wing voters and NEITHER would be true. Could we have some sanity if you are going to weep and whinge about people disagreeing on right-wing Conservative VIEWS not, as you suggest, attacking you personally.

By saying (again such an ridiculous claim to make of ALL Conservatives) Conservatives are decent, tax-paying, generous, responsible people you infer that those who are left-leaning are not. So much for not attacking others.

It is, without doubt, true that many of the recent Conservative governments actions have been ideologically and not economically driven - even Conservatives are commenting on that today - and have caused, and will continue to cause, a great deal of hardship for the poor and less able. If you voted for that government THAT is part of what you were voting for and I and others have every right to point out the policies and their outcomes.

Oh well! I'd be dead by now, if I'd had to pay that much. Maybe some people wouldn't care, but maybe my children would.

Trisher you named Rees Mogg

The 1922 committee is one MP Annie?

I have my niece from NZ here at the moment and she tells me GPs' costs are $45 -$60 and descriptions are around $5. That's £22-£30 and £3.
I think we need to start paying for visits to GPs.
Watching a GP programme on channel 5 people don't seem to have much common sense today about going to see the GP.

Unfortunately, the NHS can't be free of politics, because it uses such a big share of national wealth. One of the main roles of politics is to allocate scarce (in the economic sense) resources.

Put aside arguments about health tourism and unnecessary procedures for the moment. I'm not denying them, but they actually only cost a fraction of the overall budget.

Most money is spent on the elderly and, to a lesser extent, premature and sickly children. If people want to save serious money on healthcare, they need to face up to the fact that we might not be able to afford expensive cancer drugs or care for very premature children - or, at least, that they will only be available for those who can afford them. Mental health services have borne the brunt of many cuts.

I don't know the answer. As a country, we need to have an honest discussion. Do we want a first class health service or not? If we do, we need to pay for it.

The same is true of schools, which are facing serious cuts, to the extent that they cannot possibly maintain what they've been doing.

Interestingly, it appears that the biggest swing from Conservative to Labour in the last election was amongst 25-44 year olds (not the students wanting their "sweeties"). These are the people, who can see what's happening in their children's schools, the inadequacies in maternity services, are struggling to get on the housing ladder, have had their pay frozen year after year if they are public servants, etc.

Trisher, is it fair to use one MP as an example of all who vote for his party? I am a Labour Party member as is John McDonald, I do not consider the majority of Labour MP's f**** losers he does.

Thank youMaizie, I took your comment not everyone is civic minded to mean those who do not support labour, so I too am sorry

If people look through that horribly long list Blinko they will see that vocational qualifications do go hand in hand with the academic ones. My daughter is looking at teaching on a level 6 apprenticeship which is the equivalent to a first degree.

We actually have some really good VQs but they are not discussed by those who are not undertaking or delivering education. If people understood they exist we could move on to how they can be provided for more. It is also noticeable that more academic courses are adding a practical semester or year. Our young people are becoming very aware that they are most likely to get the best jobs if they can show they have worked over their later years in education. (I have a feeling I am talking to the converted with you - but I do want it 'out there' for all).

The problem is less with the courses - although there are always improvements that can be made - than, as you so rightly say, the provision. Our FE provision has been decimated - do we ask people to pay for their own courses or do we bring in an extra bit of tax to pay for all? What do we ask of the employers. The apprenticeship levy seems to be starting to work - it certainly encourages the bigger companies to "get their money back" by putting their on people on apprenticeships but is it flexible enough?

More questions than answers I fear.

"not everyone is civic minded".

This implication that Conservatives cannot be 'civic minded' is not a logical conclusion to an argument underpinned by evidence and a rationally built point but an unsupported assertion. It is akin to the tenet that you are Labour and, therefore, compassionate, so if you are not Labour you are not compassionate.

Most Conservatives are civic minded and compassionate but they are also practical, intelligent, pragmatic and prudent. They want many of the same things as those on the left but would go about getting them in different ways, usually with prudence and efficiency.

Conservatives don't like waste and squandering. That doesn't make them ungenerous. In fact it makes them doubly virtuous because they are conscious both of the recipient of any benefit and also aware that they are spending the money of many who have little to spare. To me, it is heartless and thoughtless to waste the tax of the poor by hosing it indiscriminately at problems.

When I hear and read of how many left wingers (and as a former teacher I know a lot) abuse their fellows and I compare their actual behaviour with their 'generous' words I realsise that it is virtue-signalling in which they are interested, not in virtue itself.

Conservatives are decent, tax-paying, generous, responsible people.

So what the Tory voters are saying (and if I have it wrong please enlighten me) is that they don't really believe that people like Jacob Rees Mogg who speaks openly of a smaller state are at the heart of the Tory party? Please could someone explain the "different way" that Tory voters intend the difficulties to be solved. Because I am afraid I believe Rees-Mogg and his friends in the 1922 committee really do intend the vulnerable to suffer. That they would be quite happy to see the NHS flounder and the poorest and weakest dependent on charity, much as it was before the welfare state was introduced.
And for all those who post about how there should be a cross-party agreement on the NHS, it's bit difficult when you have a party that have only ever paid lip service to really supporting it.

Before I start I KNOW that things are not perfect but I just want to point out some differences in emphasis in Scotland which has had a Left of Centre Government since devolution.

All state schools are comprehensive and designed/extended to accommodate all children from their catchment area. More students than ever before are leaving school with better qualifications and positive destinations.

There already is Free Personal Care for the elderly. People in care homes only pay accommodation and food costs.

Frontline Police numbers are UP while creating a single force has allowed cuts to top heavy management = Less chiefs, more indians.

Free school dinners until P3, free nursery provision for under 5s.

No Tax cut for the wealthiest.

Free prescriptions for all - a cost neutral change because the cost of monitoring and managing the payment system was so high.

Free bus passes for elderly, which has reduced car usage and helped maintain bus routes in rural areas as well as allowing people to get out and about and families to visit more often. No Bridge tolls, Road Equivalent Tariffs for Ferries, reduced air fares for Island residents have boosted Island economies and led to big increases in tourism.

100,000 small businesses pay no business rates at all.

No privatisation of NHS services.

Bedroom Tax mitigated, currently looking at ways to mitigate the 2 child policies and Dementia Tax.

I could go on but just wanted to highlight what can be achieved within a strictly limited budget, which has been annually reduced in real terms, by prioritising certain policy areas and VERY careful management of strictly limited finances.

Absolutely agree, GGMk2. Lifelong learning for all, with achievements not simply in terms of a University degree, but also through a wide range of vocational qualifications which should be equally highly regarded and rewarded. We need to see more support and encouragement for vocational training by employer organisations, so that skills cascade down to benefit small businesses. To some extent this happens already, but it is 'market led' and piecemeal across the various sectors of industry. There must be a better way than urging all and sundry into unsuitable university places to obtain third class degrees in social media and marketing.

Voting Tory does not mean wanting the vunerable to suffer, for many it means seeing solving these difficulties in a different way

That is genuinely what I was trying to say in my first post this morning. That some tory voters have an honest belief that there is a different way of solving difficulties.

I'm sorry you took it the wrong way.

True Jalima, I don't agree with my Tory voting friends on much but I respect their right to hold and voice their views .

Voting Tory does not mean wanting the vunerable to suffer, for many it means seeing solving these difficulties in a different way

When I say both, I mean both sets of views.

Reading through all the posts this is the first time I have felt I have been looking at the thoughts of a real community of people both with sensible and important things to say about the economy and care. Please may we have more of this so I feel I could join in without someone being rude about my views!

Reading some of the posts perhaps the question should have been "are you prepared to pay for a,b,c for all" It does seem that some want these things but cannot comprehend how they will be paid for, some want them for all and can see how they will be paid for and some do not want to think they may be paying for certain groups of people.

Refelecting on what some people want must I suppose be predicated upon some much more fundamental questions. Firstly, the role and size of the state. Generally, the more right wing you are, the smaller you want the role of the state to be. From that follows, what areas of life should the state be involved? Clearly security would be agreed on by practically everyone. After that, if there is to be state provision, how should it be funded? What should be the balance between taxes on income, expenditure and capital? What role should there be for self- funding or partial contributions? Different aspects of state provision can and are of course funded differently. If we take social care, one of my many problems with the dementia tax was that basic principles were nit thought through

Topcat that obviously isn't about my post so whose does it refer to?

What you see as 'sense' may not be what others see as 'sense' and it may not even be fact. Why do you think you are right when other very successful countries are so much socially democratic. Are we so poor - I thought we were the fifth or sixth richest country - that we cannot set up to do the same?

We don't need a magic money tree we just need to get away from the idiotic economics the far-right Tories have convinced you are the only way. It is simply not true and there are examples all over the world where everyone is considered.

This government's childish view of economics is a busted-flush and we are going to be punished for giving them a free rein to test them out on us.

Do we want well trained and sufficient police numbers?

But I would like a decent insight into what exactly we need and what exactly it will cost - not one interpreted through whichever party is in power.