rw press painted Milliband as dangerous commie

IIRC I recall one very lame attempt at a weak story about his Dad which fizzled out straight away because it was obviously bollocks. Then there was the bacon roll story which can’t have cost him many votes and (critically) quashed rumours among the Labour core vote that he was Jewish! In short the media had nothing on him.

In contrast there has been an endless stream of true, verifiable stuff about the current leadership which they admit they actually did. …and because it’s true it’s been widely reported on Radio an TV, which people see in large numbers, in contrast to the RW press which very few people read.

Didn’t someone on here say that it costs £80 to change a lightbulb at the hospital his wife works in?
Privatisation in action.

Are you arguing that only a state owned entity can affordably change a lightbulb? Seems unlikely since most of us work for private firms that have their lightbulbs changed without drama.

Or are you arguing that state owned entities are rubbish at negotiating contracts and private hospitals get their bulbs changed at lower cost?

This. The Tory party is an omnishambles and has been for years. (Even if they weren’t 9 years in Government *alone* would be enough to condemn most Governments to lose just out of voter feeling it’s ‘time for change’.)

Any Labour leadership since Foot would be looking at a landslide right now. The only thing that could have saved the Torys is Corbyn/Abbot/McDonnell.

For me there’s two parts to this, firstly the overall toxicity of Corbyn because of his past and current affiliations, which his supporters seem happy to overlook. But then there’s the economic policies Labour are proposing, and the capital flight and economic downturn which would ensue.
I could just about hold my nose and vote for Corbyn – he’d be an embarrassment, but perhaps no worse than the current government. But with McDonnell behind him, Labour are positively dangerous. With the current Tories beyond the pale, I won’t be voting for them either. Tragic.

If anyone thinks this echo chamber is representative of the population as a whole they are seriously deluded. Fact is the tory vote is substantially more popular amongst the boomers and only becomes more so as population segments get older despite the protestations of the forum members.

Nobody is accusing you personally, get over it. I’ll be voting SNP but have little appetite for another referendum if this goes the right way. That doesn’t make me a nationalist just as mush as being a certain age doesn’t automatically make you a tory. I’m honestly amazed this needed to be said at all.

But then there’s the economic policies Labour are proposing, and the capital flight and economic downturn which would ensue.

But then again, none of that may actually happen.

But with McDonnell behind him, Labour are positively dangerous.

Yeah, really dangerous. They may even make society a bit better, god forbid.

Also depressing

10/10 absolutely certain to vote by age:

18-24: 48%
25-34: 56%
35-44: 63%
45-54: 72%
55-64: 77%
65-74: 74%
75+: 85%

ICM 29 Nov-2 Dec#GE2019 #Marr

— Matthew Goodwin (@GoodwinMJ) December 8, 2019

I don’t really get it, I spent a good part of my 18-24 years being hissed &/or stoned but I think I’ve only missed voting in one election, when Id just graduated and started my first job but hadn’t registered to vote in a new town

Hope? Jesus H ****ing Corbett! Have a word with yourself. You should familiarise yourself with the concept of democracy. You know… actually needing to get elected before you get to do anything

Tony Blair did

Waving placards and railing about the injustice of it all on Internet forums changes nothing!

Have fun wallowing in your moral indignation during the next 5 years of Tory rule 🙄

Good look with permanent opposition in the Corbynite political wilderness.

We’re all relishing the Tory hegemony as a little satellite of Trumps America

The sixth formers can all wrap themselves up in their blanket of sanctimonious pious placard-waving that will change nothing.

The far right neoliberal ultras are looking at people like you and the rest of the Corbynite fantasists and they can’t believe their luck

Huge chunks of NHS service delivery have been sold off, that has been the major contributor to inefficiency in the past 10 years, not the fabled army of bureaucracy.

OK, as some-one who works in the Healthcare sector, let’s have a look at one example of delivery in the private sector and how that’s effected efficiency . In 2016 I was part of a pilot scheme that used un-used GP consulting rooms to bring Ophthalmologists out into the community, recruited some diagnostic technicians and we set up a community based service. Pts are directed to us from High street opticians in the same way that they would have gone to the trust, pts are triaged and those that need to seen quickly or are routine (much in ophthalmology is routine) go to the community service. This cut waiting list time from 18 to 4 weeks (as an incentive there some onerous financial penalties for missing targets), plus we saw patients in a “one stop” model, ie they got diagnosed, got results, got seen by the doctor, got a treatment plan and recalled appt sorted in one visit, as opposed to the two or three 18 week wait appts it used to take at the Trust. More people had their sight restored and stabilized in the 9 months of the first year than were treated at the trust in the previous 5 years.  Working with the sight loss charities we did outreach work where we funded the ECLO service and could direct patients to it. We also ran a programme counselling older patients with advancing sight loss (we started the programme developed by the trust, that they’d never managed to implement)*

Now, there were some issues, as you’ve pointed out there is in fact a lack of management at most Trusts, they are woefully undermanged to the extent that I pretty much had to step in to manage the dept pathway. We also recognised that recently qualified eye doctors weren’t seeing the numbers of routine patients in the Trust, so we established a programme to have them come to the community service model instead.

This model is being repeated all over the country in Eye, ENT, sexual health, dermatology services and so on. Patients are being seen quicker, diagnosed earlier, and it saves money. (including taking into the capped profit we’re allowed to make) People are having better sight for longer, and it’s a more efficient use of the meagre resources we have and working with the system we’ve been handed.

Also, bear in mind this point about the Public face of the NHS…Where most people interact with it (that’s mostly: The GP, the Optician, the Dentist and the Pharmacy) have been from the beginning of the service, and remain to this day: Profit making organisations mostly held in private hands. I could bore on for England about the damage that the UDA system of payments has done to NHS dental care, but my point is this. Never in it’s history has the NHS not been partly run by private organisations for profit.

I’m not arguing that entirely privatised healthcare is the way forward, but neither is the wholly state funded model either.  Most countries see somewhere in the middle as the best way, the most successful European healthcare services have a blend of public and private (top up) insurance models, as it does seem to (as the lecture I went to in Spain recently pointed out) make people invest some care into their own health (but it is also true that they tend to invest more of their GDP in healthcare) we are not far from that.

It’s my belief that the NHS is a handy motif for both parties to use, like most things the truth is mostly duller than the headlines and soundbites suggest.

* it was a part of contract that we had to provide these services and they had to entirely funded by us

Also.

Of the US healthcare corps I’ve spoken to (and I’m willing to bet it’s more than most on here have) have ZERO interest to replicate the healthcare system as it currently operates in the states. Why? Folk in the US aren’t stupid’ that’s why. They look at the European model, and they see a system that works, costs hugely less than theirs and has significantly better outcomes for more people than theirs has. Most states are beginning to enrol more and more people into partly state funded models, MediCare and MedicAid  and maternity services are being expanded, in many states they are slowly moving towards a European model.

Doesn’t make for scary headlines though, sorry.

If you listen to many older people from northern colliery towns, you’d have thought that the past in these places was some sort of industrial utopia that the Tories destroyed in the 80s.

Hmm.

A quick google reveals that Journey through England (which I’ve not read) was published in 1934. At that time in South Wales the coal industry was huge, supplying steam coal to keep the Empire running. Employers held all the cards as usual so people who needed the work were being exploited, and yes, conditions were miserable as they were in many industrial areas across the UK. People who’d been rich enough to invest in industry in the first place were raking in obscene sums of money, whilst those doing the work suffered terrible conditions.

So what happened next? The Labour movement became stronger, worker rights were won, and conditions improved. By the 60s, where most of the old northern people you are talking about were young, things were fairly buoyant. They finally had better conditions, more modern housing and importantly, a sense of identity and purpose. This happened because of the post-war settlement, and Labour governments that wanted to improve conditions for the workers.

This is what Thatcher tossed in the bin. That’s why the miners’ strikes were so important. It wasn’t just the loss of work, it was the systematic way that communities were being gutted and thrown in the bin, deliberately.

So I think your reference to the poverty 1930s industrial towns actually demonstrates the benefits of a strong left leaning governemnt – it improved things.

Doesn’t make for scary headlines though, sorry.

The headlines are simplistic. But what I am worried about is the gradual reduction and erosion of NHS services and the more widespread adoption of insurance-based provision. This is what I think the Tories would rather see, and what would be worse for us.

That and that no-one should profit from people being ill, from a moral standpoint.

From the public purse, like your GP is.

That’s what I expected. But you also made the point “I’m not arguing that entirely privatised healthcare is the way forward, but neither is the wholly state funded model either”. Your scheme was state funded but outsourced. Having been to similar clinics myself they worked very well and I don’t necessarily see a big problem there. I think the major concern of “privatising” the NHS is that it becomes funded by insurance companies. It’s clear that where that happens the cost to the user increases massively.

We have an increasing elderly population that over most of their lifetimes have not had enough intervention, have had mostly zero incentive to look after their own health, and are increasingly suffering lifestyle diseases that at best can be mitigated rather than cured.

Yes I agree. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a healthcare system set up in such a way to encourage people to be healthy?

So, how’s FPTP looking to people now?

They'll never give it up. It offers Labour and the Tories a stranglehold on the electorate. But electoral reform is a precondition for all sorts of other honourable political values. It's as important an issue as you can imagine.

— Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) December 8, 2019

Right, we’d better get cracking then.

have had mostly zero incentive to look after their own health

Having private insurance doesn’t incentivise people either – people in the US are even less healthy than we are. We have TV adverts (and programming) trying to encourage us to be healthy. They have adverts to sell you drugs and promise you that everything will be fine if you just ask your healthcare provider about our drug.

@nickc, that all sounds great, changing the way something was done improved outcomes. What you fail to explain is why “privatisation” of the service created better outcomes than if the same changes were made keeping the service in the public sector, and how the requirement for profit over the contract in any way helps improve services.

(Healthcare) Folk in the US aren’t stupid’ that’s why.

Oh, they are. They do one million heart stent operations a year in the US “to stop any problems before they happen”

Of these operations 2% die during the procedure. 20,000 die from something they don’t really need, because it’s sold to them as a good thing, and makes lots of money for hospitals. Less than half even say they feel better afterwards.

Plus, the number one reason for bankruptcy in the US is medical bills.

It looks a bit stupid from this side of the atlantic

or a disconnected mix of public and private which will also probably be bureaucratic and inflexible, neither with a great incentive to change.

No, in order to make the service I describe profitable, we cannot be disconnected, we were incentivised to make sure everyone and their dog knew about it. Same with the incentive to change, what it needs are people who can see profit in risk, and CCGs willing to innovate. There will likely be mistakes, but we cannot afford not to change how we talk about healthcare in this country.

The Tories will want to do that as secondary to making their friends rich. Vote Labour.

They do one million heart stent operations a year in the US

Sure, if you want scarey waste, look up the survival rate of single women over 70 who’ve had a hip replacement. No healthcare system is perfect.