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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Tipping point. Why Scotland’s ultimate independence now looks

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  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263

    On topic, this all seems totally plausible but the problem is that despite a clealrly incompetent Tory government of English nostalgics arguing with each other when they're supposed to be negotiating with the EU, there is absolutely zero movement towards independence in the polling. Why aren't we seeing the movement now, and when is it going to start showing up?

    I wonder whether the Brexit mess isn't going to have an effect on constitutional reform of any kind for a decade or so - perhaps Scottish (and other) voters feel they've had enough dramatic change in arrangements, years of fractious negotiations, etc. etc.

    Also, feeling the UK Government is incompetent doesn't necessarily feed the idea that independence is a good thing - if it did, then the same would apply to, say, London, with a big Remain and anti-Tory majority and an obvious potential to be a thriving independent state.
  • OblitusSumMeOblitusSumMe Posts: 9,143

    Good morning, everyone.

    Not sure I buy this.

    If our departure* is essentially ok, then there won't be any drive to leave. If our departure is a mess, then that makes the SNP going for another independence referendum harder because they'll be arguing for a similar split but one that will have a deeper impact.

    *Assuming we leave.

    Set against that is a resurgent English nationalism that is set to antagonise Scots with a mixture of indifference, ignorance and arrogance.

    It will take a while, for the reasons you state, but we have seen with Brexit how opinion can change over decades in response to a continual series of antagonisms, real or imagined.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Just seen Polly Toynbee talking bollocks on Marr.. She said that the evidence suggests(via polls) that people were happy to pay more for the NHS and Social Care if taxes went up and people had to pay.. The Tories tried that at GE 2017.. it was a sub optimal outcome.

    Polls show only a minority of voters will pay a wealth tax, a 'dementia tax' or higher income tax for the NHS and Social Care but over 50% of voters will pay more National Insurance for the NHS and Social Care
    First step equalise it for all employed and self employed
    Agree on that
  • RoyalBlueRoyalBlue Posts: 3,223
    An unusually poor thread header from Mr Meeks.

    I think he commits 2 errors:

    1) conflating Scotland and the SNP

    2) thinking that disquiet at Brexit and Westminster’s stance on it is more important than Scotland’s relative economic and fiscal weakness

    Scotland isn’t going anywhere. We have 3 more years of this destructive melodrama, after which the SNP will be out of office or at the very least, unable to propose another indyref.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842

    Mr. Pulpstar, disagree with you entirely on that. It may well happen, but the self-employed don't have company pensions, paid sick days, paid holidays. It's entirely correct we pay lower NI contributions, because we don't have the same benefits as the employed.

    Ed Miliband did have a policy of apparently giving such benefits to the self-employed but I don't think any details actually emerged, and the basic idea sounded utterly bonkers in any case. [Which makes it mildly surprising May hasn't copied it].

    Edited extra bit: Mr. Sandpit, one had not forgotten that :)

    Those "perks" are completely outwith the state. They're all from the employer !
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Me, if English nationalism is rising, that's partly down to the total lack of commensurate devolution here, coupled with the quiet consensus of the political class that the answer to the West Lothian Question is not to ask it.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,723
    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Just seen Polly Toynbee talking bollocks on Marr.. She said that the evidence suggests(via polls) that people were happy to pay more for the NHS and Social Care if taxes went up and people had to pay.. The Tories tried that at GE 2017.. it was a sub optimal outcome.

    Polls show only a minority of voters will pay a wealth tax, a 'dementia tax' or higher income tax for the NHS and Social Care but over 50% of voters will pay more National Insurance for the NHS and Social Care
    First step equalise it for all employed and self employed
    Agree on that
    Thirded

    Cross party support
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited June 2018
    kle4 said:

    While there's much I would agree with in this piece - that the SNP continue to strike a chord, that England has not given due care to devolution matters, that economic difficulties of separation will not by itself prevent independence winning - and have long lamented that I think Scottish independence may be inevitable in the long run given how popular the SNP and their grievances remain even when they are not riding as high as 2015, I do think a case that independence looks inevitable is not made in the header itself.

    Does it look more likely for the reasons given? I'd say yes. Are some unionists still complacent? Undoubtedly. Do I still think it will happen? Regretfully so. But I do think that independence has looked closer before and didn't come to pass and this case presumes no fightback is possible on some arguments which I think there will be.

    What Scotland wants is not ultimately independence but devomax and control of almost all domestic policy and taxation set by Holyrood.

    Giving that to the Quebec provincial government was ultimately how Canada narrowly won the second Quebec independence referendum 51% to 49% in 1995 on an astonishing 93% turnout and Quebec has not had any further independence referenda in the 23 years since
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,063
    Cyclefree said:

    Can I be a little provocative?

    I can. Good!

    Sure: good to see the NHS getting some extra funding.

    But ..... deep breath .....

    1. I’m sure I remember a few years ago Brown announcing some fantastic NHS settlement which would settle things for years and then again under the coalition. So how soon will the NHS be back asking for more? There must come a time when we say: “ Enough”.

    2. Is this really the most important priority to be spending our money on? Especially now at the start of an uncertain future outside the structures we have been used to for 4 decades. What about social care? Or education, skills training, apprenticeships, AI, technology, housing etc? Shouldn’t we be aiming for more than an an economy consisting of coffee shops staffed by people living in overcrowded rented flats who are able to get seen in A&E in less than 4 hours? Health is important but it is not - for an economy - the most important thing. And much of good health for an individual depends on their own choices.

    3. So maybe we should be thinking about what individuals should be doing for and spending on their own health. And maybe, just maybe, if they make stupid choices, they have to bear the consequences. You know, like adults.

    I hope this money is spent wisely and on those areas of health which need it - mental health, for instance - but I can’t help feeling that in a few years we’ll be back in the same place with yet more demands, more crises, more plugging of gaps. And so some hard thinking is needed about what an NHS should do and what it shouldn’t and what people may have to do and pay for themselves.

    Indeed, I substantially agree.

    I had an interesting conversation with one of our respiratory physicians during the long winter bed crisis. He argued that paying for central heating for at risk patients would lead to better health outcomes than a new respiratory ward.
  • OblitusSumMeOblitusSumMe Posts: 9,143
    You just have to compare posts by some English posters on here about Scotland with those about the EU. Plenty of complaints that if the EU wanted us to stay they'd behave in a friendlier way to accommodate British concerns. Then when it comes to Scotland they exhibit the same mixture of arrogance and condescension they accuse the EU of demonstrating.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,748
    edited June 2018

    Mr. Divvie, by that choice of words every government since WWII (possibly with one exception) was 'imposed upon the country against its will'.

    Scotland voted to remain part of the UK. The UK voted to leave the EU. The fact that England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted in differing ways doesn't matter because every Briton's vote counted equally.

    The alternatives to your grumpy SNP take on the result would be either for Scotland to have a veto, which would work wonderfully for stoking internal UK resentment and division, or for Scottish votes to be weighed more heavily than English ones, which would have a similar result.

    It's also rather odd that the SNP and their ilk are grumpy about leaving the EU, when their victory in 2014 would have ensured Scotland leaving the EU. It's almost as if leaving the EU without England, Wales and Northern Ireland is wonderful, and leaving it with England, Wales and Northern Ireland is catastrophic. Which is a nonsensical position to hold.

    Tbh honest my appetite for debating with those who have a vote in and live in my country over why their preferred option should be imposed on that country is pretty diminished. For those who don't live and vote here, its zilch.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,717
    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Just seen Polly Toynbee talking bollocks on Marr.. She said that the evidence suggests(via polls) that people were happy to pay more for the NHS and Social Care if taxes went up and people had to pay.. The Tories tried that at GE 2017.. it was a sub optimal outcome.

    The specific tax and how well it is presented matters perhaps.
    The vast majority of those needing costly NHS care are not taxpayers, though they maywell have been in the past, and their families may continue to be paying tax. This is the nature of being elderly, or chronically physically or mentally ill. All universal systems, whether governmental or compulsory insurance based wrestle with the issue that those that use rarely pay in, and those that pay in rarely use.
    Agree; when I was concerned with GP budgets we anticipated people over 60 having on average 10 prescriptions per year, whereas younger men had 1 or 2, younger women 3 or 4. Children had rather more, largely due to chidhood illnesses and vaccinatiopns.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,763
    RoyalBlue said:

    An unusually poor thread header from Mr Meeks.

    I think he commits 2 errors:

    1) conflating Scotland and the SNP

    2) thinking that disquiet at Brexit and Westminster’s stance on it is more important than Scotland’s relative economic and fiscal weakness

    Scotland isn’t going anywhere. We have 3 more years of this destructive melodrama, after which the SNP will be out of office or at the very least, unable to propose another indyref.

    I am not sure about your final conclusion. My expectation is that the SNP will remain the largest party after the next Scottish elections. They are therefore likely to remain in power as a minority or the larger part of a coalition. But I do not think that there will be a majority for any further referendum in Holyrood.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    Cyclefree said:

    Can I be a little provocative?

    I can. Good!

    Sure: good to see the NHS getting some extra funding.

    But ..... deep breath .....

    1. I’m sure I remember a few years ago Brown announcing some fantastic NHS settlement which would settle things for years and then again under the coalition. So how soon will the NHS be back asking for more? There must come a time when we say: “ Enough”.

    2. Is this really the most important priority to be spending our money on? Especially now at the start of an uncertain future outside the structures we have been used to for 4 decades. What about social care? Or education, skills training, apprenticeships, AI, technology, housing etc? Shouldn’t we be aiming for more than an an economy consisting of coffee shops staffed by people living in overcrowded rented flats who are able to get seen in A&E in less than 4 hours? Health is important but it is not - for an economy - the most important thing. And much of good health for an individual depends on their own choices.

    3. So maybe we should be thinking about what individuals should be doing for and spending on their own health. And maybe, just maybe, if they make stupid choices, they have to bear the consequences. You know, like adults.

    I hope this money is spent wisely and on those areas of health which need it - mental health, for instance - but I can’t help feeling that in a few years we’ll be back in the same place with yet more demands, more crises, more plugging of gaps. And so some hard thinking is needed about what an NHS should do and what it shouldn’t and what people may have to do and pay for themselves.

    It will never be enough. What party vying power with polls close will dare to suggest a more nuanced approach even in addition to more money?
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,014
    Cyclefree said:

    Roger said:

    Lazarus! It's just turned up....

    An excellent header Alastair if for no other reason than that I've been looking unsuccessfully for a clear explanation of what the Scottish walkout was all about and you've finally provided one which is clear and succinct.

    The further we travel into the murky underbelly of Brexit the more impossible it starts to look. It is like several trees which have over the years grown together and then trying to separate them without damaging the roots. It's impossible. Moreso when those doing the separating aren't experts and have little interest in the future of the trees other than wrenching them apart.

    Brexit looks like its going to fail on many levels. This would be a catastrophy under any circumstances but particularly egregious when you realize it was done for the most base of reasons

    You may be right on Brexit. But you know little about gardening. Plants often have to be separated, sometimes quite brutally, and the roots torn or cut to stimulate new growth. What matters is whether they are alive and how they are treated after separation. All good gardeners will from time to time divide their plants and replant - usually to avoid overcrowding.

    If gardening is an analogy for anything it is for allowing living things the space to breathe and grow not for jammimg them together in an overcrowded mess.
    That's my job for this morning.

    I'm also a bit of sap (no pun intended) and always feel emotionally conflicted thinning seedlings, and throwing away less than successful plants.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Divvie, lucky for me we're countrymen :)
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    hunchman said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Roger said:

    Lazarus! It's just turned up....

    An excellent header Alastair if for no other reason than that I've been looking unsuccessfully for a clear explanation of what the Scottish walkout was all about and you've finally provided one which is clear and succinct.

    The further we travel into the murky underbelly of Brexit the more impossible it starts to look. It is like several trees which have over the years grown together and then trying to separate them without damaging the roots. It's impossible. Moreso when those doing the separating aren't experts and have little interest in the future of the trees other than wrenching them apart.

    Brexit looks like its going to fail on many levels. This would be a catastrophy under any circumstances but particularly egregious when you realize it was done for the most base of reasons

    You may be right on Brexit. But you know little about gardening. Plants often have to be separated, sometimes quite brutally, and the roots torn or cut to stimulate new growth. What matters is whether they are alive and how they are treated after separation. All good gardeners will from time to time divide their plants and replant - usually to avoid overcrowding.

    If gardening is an analogy for anything it is for allowing living things the space to breathe and grow not for jammimg them together in an overcrowded mess.
    Quite right. Has Woger ever gardened before? ! In the whole Brexit debate it's remarkable how little attention is paid to the EU and it's coming demise. Will Merkel still be around in a fortnight let alone a years time?
    We're still reeling from your prediction of a stock market collapse when the FT was standing at 4000. I hope Merkel doesn't see your prediction. she'll be worried
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,571
    Cyclefree said:

    Can I be a little provocative?

    I can. Good!

    Sure: good to see the NHS getting some extra funding.

    But ..... deep breath .....

    1. I’m sure I remember a few years ago Brown announcing some fantastic NHS settlement which would settle things for years and then again under the coalition. So how soon will the NHS be back asking for more? There must come a time when we say: “ Enough”.

    2. Is this really the most important priority to be spending our money on? Especially now at the start of an uncertain future outside the structures we have been used to for 4 decades. What about social care? Or education, skills training, apprenticeships, AI, technology, housing etc? Shouldn’t we be aiming for more than an an economy consisting of coffee shops staffed by people living in overcrowded rented flats who are able to get seen in A&E in less than 4 hours? Health is important but it is not - for an economy - the most important thing. And much of good health for an individual depends on their own choices.

    3. So maybe we should be thinking about what individuals should be doing for and spending on their own health. And maybe, just maybe, if they make stupid choices, they have to bear the consequences. You know, like adults.

    I hope this money is spent wisely and on those areas of health which need it - mental health, for instance - but I can’t help feeling that in a few years we’ll be back in the same place with yet more demands, more crises, more plugging of gaps. And so some hard thinking is needed about what an NHS should do and what it shouldn’t and what people may have to do and pay for themselves.

    I agree with much of that, and note that various commentators are already saying that the proposed ‘settlement’ is insufficient.
    A culture based entirely around entitlement is not consistent with economic progress.

    None of which is to say that the NHS does not require funding increases.
  • prh47bridgeprh47bridge Posts: 441
    Foxy said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Foxy said:

    Pulpstar said:

    So £20bn extra for the NHS by 2023/4 (good) - looks like yet another Labour-inspired policy.

    Is the choice now between New Labour (aka the Tories) and Labour?

    Spending on the NHS will actually be going down.
    https://twitter.com/chrisgiles_/status/1008224284945403904?s=21
    That's incorrect, any % real increase is an increase. Spending has never gone down on the NHS.
    Well, yes and no. Any increase in real terms by definition is an increase, but the real issue is whether the increase in funds is meeting the increase in medical need of an ageing and increasingly obese population, with expensive chronic diseases.
    Pulpstar said:

    The truth is the NHS and medicine in general is a victim of its own success in raising the average age we can all expect (In the mathematical sense of the word) to live to, so more spending is then needed to make those years as good as possible.
    But it's easier to tweet that spending is going down when it isn't.

    Doctors like to claim longevity as a success of Medicine, but it is mostly a result of lifestyle and economics. For example the country of Albania has a life expectancy of 75 years for males and 80 years for females. In the UK it is 78 and 82 respectively. If we go to Glasgow, life expectancy is 71 and 78 respectively, with the differences between the West End and East End being dramatic even within Glasgow. This is despite the Scottish NHS getting more percapita funding than the English.
    To note Deanos point, clearly spending 100% of our GDP on the NHS would be too much. How much cash do you think would be appropriate for the NHS. It can not go up in real terms forever.
    I would suggest that about 10% of GDP needs to be spent on healthcare (note; not just the NHS) in a developed country with an age profile like ourselves, but projecting forward to the age profile of 2030, when the population over 65% will have increased by about 3 million, that will need revision as time goes on.
    According to the ONS we currently spend 9.9% of GDP on healthcare. The government spends 80% of that figure. So either you are happy with the current situation or you want government to increase spending on healthcare by 25% which is unlikely to happen any time soon regardless of which party is in power.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    hunchman said:

    felix said:

    I voted Remain and would do so again but I'm weary of the relentless negativity of those who cannot cope with a democratic result and now look for punishment scenarios everywhere against the effrontery of those who see a different future for the UK. All Brexiteers become thick Xenophobes leading the country to destruction. It's all over the top and reveals a profound contempt for millions of people which is distasteful. It also reveals perhaps a never to be admitted guilt that maybe, just maybe the responsibility for the decision needs to be collectively shared not just within the UK but beyond to the EU too.

    Well said. Never, ever do we hear an ardent Remainer admit that maybe, just maybe, bouncing the UK into an inextricable relationship with the EU without asking for voter permission (because they knew that permission would not be forthcoming) might be a reason for Brexit. So many of them worked so hard for so long to make Brexit impossible. Then they belly ache that "Brexit is too hard". Well, yes, there's a reason for that. THEY are that reason, from the risible Article 50 on through the whole process, quite intentionally a cluster fuck of cluster mines. But just because they tried to rig the game, doesn't mean we should be bounced into eternal Remainderdom.
    Excellent post.
    I have clear memories of campaigning in 1975 to stay in the Common Market and of winning a clear victory. I have no memory of objection from any major section of the public to our continued participation in the development towards increased union, until very, very recently.
    But when were the people actually asked between 1975 and 2016? (Clue: they weren't.)

    The rise of UKIP might just have been a sign of that objection you never saw.....

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/26/ukip-european-elections-political-earthquake
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Greek PM survives a no confidence vote, over the North Macedonia name change [which has a long way to go]:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44509996
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Just seen Polly Toynbee talking bollocks on Marr.. She said that the evidence suggests(via polls) that people were happy to pay more for the NHS and Social Care if taxes went up and people had to pay.. The Tories tried that at GE 2017.. it was a sub optimal outcome.

    Polls show only a minority of voters will pay a wealth tax, a 'dementia tax' or higher income tax for the NHS and Social Care but over 50% of voters will pay more National Insurance for the NHS and Social Care
    First step equalise it for all employed and self employed
    Agree on that
    Thirded

    Cross party support
    It is the only realistic solution acceptable to most voters
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    HYUFD said:

    Just seen Polly Toynbee talking bollocks on Marr.. She said that the evidence suggests(via polls) that people were happy to pay more for the NHS and Social Care if taxes went up and people had to pay.. The Tories tried that at GE 2017.. it was a sub optimal outcome.

    Polls show only a minority of voters will pay a wealth tax, a 'dementia tax' or higher income tax for the NHS and Social Care but over 50% of voters will pay more National Insurance for the NHS and Social Care
    About 50% of the electorate won't pay NI, will they?
    The government is at least going to extend the obligation to pay NI to over 65s still in work
  • david_herdsondavid_herdson Posts: 17,401

    Mr. Divvie, by that choice of words every government since WWII (possibly with one exception) was 'imposed upon the country against its will'.

    Scotland voted to remain part of the UK. The UK voted to leave the EU. The fact that England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted in differing ways doesn't matter because every Briton's vote counted equally.

    The alternatives to your grumpy SNP take on the result would be either for Scotland to have a veto, which would work wonderfully for stoking internal UK resentment and division, or for Scottish votes to be weighed more heavily than English ones, which would have a similar result.

    It's also rather odd that the SNP and their ilk are grumpy about leaving the EU, when their victory in 2014 would have ensured Scotland leaving the EU. It's almost as if leaving the EU without England, Wales and Northern Ireland is wonderful, and leaving it with England, Wales and Northern Ireland is catastrophic. Which is a nonsensical position to hold.

    Tbh honest my appetite for debating with those who have a vote in and live in my country over why their preferred option should be imposed on that country is pretty diminished. For those who don't live and vote here, its zilch.
    Morris Dancer does live in and vote in your country. As do I. It's the United Kingdom.

    Of course, if you're referring to Scotland, then you're more than welcome to set up and run an equivalent blog and online discussion zone. But it's a bit hypocritical to come here and then complain that you don't want to talk to the English.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,571
    edited June 2018

    You just have to compare posts by some English posters on here about Scotland with those about the EU. Plenty of complaints that if the EU wanted us to stay they'd behave in a friendlier way to accommodate British concerns. Then when it comes to Scotland they exhibit the same mixture of arrogance and condescension they accuse the EU of demonstrating.

    Sadly true.
    Would it really have been so difficult to allow some time for the Scottish issue to be debated? If the ‘no power grab’ line is true, then what better way to make that clear ?
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891

    hunchman said:

    felix said:

    I voted Remain and would do so again but I'm weary of the relentless negativity of those who cannot cope with a democratic result and now look for punishment scenarios everywhere against the effrontery of those who see a different future for the UK. All Brexiteers become thick Xenophobes leading the country to destruction. It's all over the top and reveals a profound contempt for millions of people which is distasteful. It also reveals perhaps a never to be admitted guilt that maybe, just maybe the responsibility for the decision needs to be collectively shared not just within the UK but beyond to the EU too.

    Well said. Never, ever do we hear an ardent Remainer admit that maybe, just maybe, bouncing the UK into an inextricable relationship with the EU without asking for voter permission (because they knew that permission would not be forthcoming) might be a reason for Brexit. So many of them worked so hard for so long to make Brexit impossible. Then they belly ache that "Brexit is too hard". Well, yes, there's a reason for that. THEY are that reason, from the risible Article 50 on through the whole process, quite intentionally a cluster fuck of cluster mines. But just because they tried to rig the game, doesn't mean we should be bounced into eternal Remainderdom.
    Excellent post.
    I have clear memories of campaigning in 1975 to stay in the Common Market and of winning a clear victory. I have no memory of objection from any major section of the public to our continued participation in the development towards increased union, until very, very recently.
    But when were the people actually asked between 1975 and 2016? (Clue: they weren't.)

    The rise of UKIP might just have been a sign of that objection you never saw.....

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/26/ukip-european-elections-political-earthquake
    But the Lib Dems rise was even greater. They grew to a party of over 50 MPs and they were big supporters of the EU. Perhaps UKIP was simply proof that if you give a home to racists you'll always find a few.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,763
    Cyclefree said:

    Can I be a little provocative?

    I can. Good!

    Sure: good to see the NHS getting some extra funding.

    But ..... deep breath .....

    1. I’m sure I remember a few years ago Brown announcing some fantastic NHS settlement which would settle things for years and then again under the coalition. So how soon will the NHS be back asking for more? There must come a time when we say: “ Enough”.

    2. Is this really the most important priority to be spending our money on? Especially now at the start of an uncertain future outside the structures we have been used to for 4 decades. What about social care? Or education, skills training, apprenticeships, AI, technology, housing etc? Shouldn’t we be aiming for more than an an economy consisting of coffee shops staffed by people living in overcrowded rented flats who are able to get seen in A&E in less than 4 hours? Health is important but it is not - for an economy - the most important thing. And much of good health for an individual depends on their own choices.

    3. So maybe we should be thinking about what individuals should be doing for and spending on their own health. And maybe, just maybe, if they make stupid choices, they have to bear the consequences. You know, like adults.

    I hope this money is spent wisely and on those areas of health which need it - mental health, for instance - but I can’t help feeling that in a few years we’ll be back in the same place with yet more demands, more crises, more plugging of gaps. And so some hard thinking is needed about what an NHS should do and what it shouldn’t and what people may have to do and pay for themselves.

    I agree in part. We are constantly told that health care inflation is higher than general inflation. This arises because we are getting older as a society, ever more expensive drugs are available and doctors have a huge sense of entitlement.

    But a moments thought makes it obvious that this is not sustainable indefinitely. We simply cannot allocate an ever increasing share of our economy to health. If we do we will eventually find that economy shrinking as it becomes less and less competitive.
  • RecidivistRecidivist Posts: 4,679

    hunchman said:

    felix said:

    I voted Remain and would do so again but I'm weary of the relentless negativity of those who cannot cope with a democratic result and now look for punishment scenarios everywhere against the effrontery of those who see a different future for the UK. All Brexiteers become thick Xenophobes leading the country to destruction. It's all over the top and reveals a profound contempt for millions of people which is distasteful. It also reveals perhaps a never to be admitted guilt that maybe, just maybe the responsibility for the decision needs to be collectively shared not just within the UK but beyond to the EU too.

    Well said. Never, ever do we hear an ardent Remainer admit that maybe, just maybe, bouncing the UK into an inextricable relationship with the EU without asking for voter permission (because they knew that permission would not be forthcoming) might be a reason for Brexit. So many of them worked so hard for so long to make Brexit impossible. Then they belly ache that "Brexit is too hard". Well, yes, there's a reason for that. THEY are that reason, from the risible Article 50 on through the whole process, quite intentionally a cluster fuck of cluster mines. But just because they tried to rig the game, doesn't mean we should be bounced into eternal Remainderdom.
    Excellent post.
    I have clear memories of campaigning in 1975 to stay in the Common Market and of winning a clear victory. I have no memory of objection from any major section of the public to our continued participation in the development towards increased union, until very, very recently.
    Exactly so.

    We also had a general election in 1983 where one of the main parties promised to leave the EU - and even had a plan for how they were going to do it. I've often seen both UKIP and the Referendum Party on ballot papers. We've had elections to the European parliament which gave us influence over how the EU behaves.

    The argument that either the EU itself or our participation in it is somehow undemocratic is so obviously unfounded it makes me question the honesty or the sanity of anyone suggesting it.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,748

    Mr. Divvie, lucky for me we're countrymen :)

    Wiki
    Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: Alba pronounced [ˈaɫ̪apə]) is a country that occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain and forms part of the United Kingdom.

    Cambridge Dictionary
    a country that is part of the United Kingdom

    Collins Dictionary
    Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom

    Oxford Dictionary
    A country forming the northernmost part of Great Britain and of the United Kingdom

    etc.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,723
    NHS safe in Tories hands.


    Good politics


    Will be enough to stop the collapse of services.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,063

    Foxy said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Foxy said:

    Pulpstar said:

    So £20bn extra for the NHS by 2023/4 (good) - looks like yet another Labour-inspired policy.

    Is the choice now between New Labour (aka the Tories) and Labour?

    Spending on the NHS will actually be going down.
    https://twitter.com/chrisgiles_/status/1008224284945403904?s=21
    That's incorrect, any % real increase is an increase. Spending has never gone down on the NHS.
    Well, yes and no. Any increase in real terms by definition is an increase, but the real issue is whether the increase in funds is meeting the increase in medical need of an ageing and increasingly obese population, with expensive chronic diseases.
    Pulpstar said:

    The truth is the NHS and medicine in general is a victim of its own success in raising the average age we can all expect (In the mathematical sense of the word) to live to, so more spending is then needed to make those years as good as possible.
    But it's easier to tweet that spending is going down when it isn't.

    Doctors like to claim longevity as a success of Medicine, but it is mostly a result of lifestyle and economics. For example the country of Albania has a life expectancy of 75 years for males and 80 years for females. In the UK it is 78 and 82 respectively. If we go to Glasgow, life expectancy is 71 and 78 respectively, with the differences between the West End and East End being dramatic even within Glasgow. This is despite the Scottish NHS getting more percapita funding than the English.
    To note Deanos point, clearly spending 100% of our GDP on the NHS would be too much. How much cash do you think would be appropriate for the NHS. It can not go up in real terms forever.
    I would suggest that about 10% of GDP needs to be spent on healthcare (note; not just the NHS) in a developed country with an age profile like ourselves, but projecting forward to the age profile of 2030, when the population over 65% will have increased by about 3 million, that will need revision as time goes on.
    According to the ONS we currently spend 9.9% of GDP on healthcare. The government spends 80% of that figure. So either you are happy with the current situation or you want government to increase spending on healthcare by 25% which is unlikely to happen any time soon regardless of which party is in power.
    Yes, I am broadly happy with current funding, though I would spend the money somewhat differently.
  • volcanopetevolcanopete Posts: 2,078
    Totally agree.A Border Poll is only a matter of time in NI.For those of us supporting the re-unification of the island of Ireland,Brexit's effects are pulling in this direction which will grow into a clamour for change if the UK government breaches the Good Friday Agreement.
    Westminster would only have purview for England and a reluctant Wales.The English nationalists have won.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,717
    Foxy said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Can I be a little provocative?

    I can. Good!

    Sure: good to see the NHS getting some extra funding.

    But ..... deep breath .....

    1. I’m sure I remember a few years ago Brown announcing some fantastic NHS settlement which would settle things for years and then again under the coalition. So how soon will the NHS be back asking for more? There must come a time when we say: “ Enough”.

    2. Is this really the most important priority to be spending our money on? Especially now at the start of an uncertain future outside the structures we have been used to for 4 decades. What about social care? Or education, skills training, apprenticeships, AI, technology, housing etc? Shouldn’t we be aiming for more than an an economy consisting of coffee shops staffed by people living in overcrowded rented flats who are able to get seen in A&E in less than 4 hours? Health is important but it is not - for an economy - the most important thing. And much of good health for an individual depends on their own choices.

    3. So maybe we should be thinking about what individuals should be doing for and spending on their own health. And maybe, just maybe, if they make stupid choices, they have to bear the consequences. You know, like adults.

    I hope this money is spent wisely and on those areas of health which need it - mental health, for instance - but I can’t help feeling that in a few years we’ll be back in the same place with yet more demands, more crises, more plugging of gaps. And so some hard thinking is needed about what an NHS should do and what it shouldn’t and what people may have to do and pay for themselves.

    Indeed, I substantially agree.

    I had an interesting conversation with one of our respiratory physicians during the long winter bed crisis. He argued that paying for central heating for at risk patients would lead to better health outcomes than a new respiratory ward.
    Some years ago I was part of a long-running discussion on a PCT budget, and at one stage we debated the value of a chiropody service. It was argued, I think rightly, that it was important to keep elderly people mobile, since that would help to maintain their general health.
    A serious error on the part of some at least of my own profession has been to offer prescription delivery services to far too many people. It’s far better to walk down to the pharmacy.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Foxy said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Foxy said:

    Pulpstar said:

    So £20bn extra for the NHS by 2023/4 (good) - looks like yet another Labour-inspired policy.

    Is the choice now between New Labour (aka the Tories) and Labour?

    Spending on the NHS will actually be going down.
    https://twitter.com/chrisgiles_/status/1008224284945403904?s=21
    That's incorrect, any % real increase is an increase. Spending has never gone down on the NHS.
    Well, yes and no. Any increase in real terms by definition is an increase, but the real issue is whether the increase in funds is meeting the increase in medical need of an ageing and increasingly obese population, with expensive chronic diseases.
    Pulpstar said:

    The truth is the NHS and medicine in general is a victim of its own success in raising the average age we can all expect (In the mathematical sense of the word) to live to, so more spending is then needed to make those years as good as possible.
    But it's easier to tweet that spending is going down when it isn't.

    Doctors like to claim longevity as a success of Medicine, but it is mostly a result of lifestyle and economics. For example the country of Albania has a life expectancy of 75 years for males and 80 years for females. In the UK it is 78 and 82 respectively. If we go to Glasgow, life expectancy is 71 and 78 respectively, with the differences between the West End and East End being dramatic even within Glasgow. This is despite the Scottish NHS getting more percapita funding than the English.
    To note Deanos point, clearly spending 100% of our GDP on the NHS would be too much. How much cash do you think would be appropriate for the NHS. It can not go up in real terms forever.
    I would suggest that about 10% of GDP needs to be spent on healthcare (note; not just the NHS) in a developed country with an age profile like ourselves, but projecting forward to the age profile of 2030, when the population over 65% will have increased by about 3 million, that will need revision as time goes on.
    According to the ONS we currently spend 9.9% of GDP on healthcare. The government spends 80% of that figure. So either you are happy with the current situation or you want government to increase spending on healthcare by 25% which is unlikely to happen any time soon regardless of which party is in power.
    The only way healthcare spending in general can go up significantly, is if there are more incentives for employers to offer private insurance to their staff and families. For example a reversal of the benefit-in-kind tax arrangements on such policies.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,014

    NHS safe in Tories hands.


    Good politics


    Will be enough to stop the collapse of services.

    Generous of you to say so.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,748

    Mr. Divvie, by that choice of words every government since WWII (possibly with one exception) was 'imposed upon the country against its will'.

    Scotland voted to remain part of the UK. The UK voted to leave the EU. The fact that England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted in differing ways doesn't matter because every Briton's vote counted equally.

    The alternatives to your grumpy SNP take on the result would be either for Scotland to have a veto, which would work wonderfully for stoking internal UK resentment and division, or for Scottish votes to be weighed more heavily than English ones, which would have a similar result.

    It's also rather odd that the SNP and their ilk are grumpy about leaving the EU, when their victory in 2014 would have ensured Scotland leaving the EU. It's almost as if leaving the EU without England, Wales and Northern Ireland is wonderful, and leaving it with England, Wales and Northern Ireland is catastrophic. Which is a nonsensical position to hold.

    Tbh honest my appetite for debating with those who have a vote in and live in my country over why their preferred option should be imposed on that country is pretty diminished. For those who don't live and vote here, its zilch.
    Morris Dancer does live in and vote in your country. As do I. It's the United Kingdom.

    Of course, if you're referring to Scotland, then you're more than welcome to set up and run an equivalent blog and online discussion zone. But it's a bit hypocritical to come here and then complain that you don't want to talk to the English.
    Unless you're now the PB arbiter on such things, I think I'll decide who I choose to engage with.

  • RoyalBlueRoyalBlue Posts: 3,223
    Scotland is the only part of the country where deaths exceed births. Not exactly the best indicator of a bright future.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,014

    Mr. Divvie, by that choice of words every government since WWII (possibly with one exception) was 'imposed upon the country against its will'.

    Scotland voted to remain part of the UK. The UK voted to leave the EU. The fact that England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted in differing ways doesn't matter because every Briton's vote counted equally.

    The alternatives to your grumpy SNP take on the result would be either for Scotland to have a veto, which would work wonderfully for stoking internal UK resentment and division, or for Scottish votes to be weighed more heavily than English ones, which would have a similar result.

    It's also rather odd that the SNP and their ilk are grumpy about leaving the EU, when their victory in 2014 would have ensured Scotland leaving the EU. It's almost as if leaving the EU without England, Wales and Northern Ireland is wonderful, and leaving it with England, Wales and Northern Ireland is catastrophic. Which is a nonsensical position to hold.

    Tbh honest my appetite for debating with those who have a vote in and live in my country over why their preferred option should be imposed on that country is pretty diminished. For those who don't live and vote here, its zilch.
    Morris Dancer does live in and vote in your country. As do I. It's the United Kingdom.

    Of course, if you're referring to Scotland, then you're more than welcome to set up and run an equivalent blog and online discussion zone. But it's a bit hypocritical to come here and then complain that you don't want to talk to the English.
    That's typical of how nationalists think.
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    Its a shame to see both @DavidL and @david_herdson recite the argument, without any rationale other than convenience for the UK government, that Brexit is so difficult that it has to be negotiated without Holyrood’s involvement. Perhaps the Scottish government would have acted as wreckers, though the evidence for that in reality is skimpy. The attempt should have been meaningfully made.

    And the Westminster Parliament should have found a proper length of time to debate the impact of Brexit on devolution. Scots will correctly draw the conclusion that Westminster doesn’t take devolution seriously as a consequence.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,717

    hunchman said:

    felix said:

    I voted Remain and would do so again but I'm weary of the relentless negativity of those who cannot cope with a democratic result and now look for punishment scenarios everywhere against the effrontery of those who see a different future for the UK. All Brexiteers become thick Xenophobes leading the country to destruction. It's all over the top and reveals a profound contempt for millions of people which is distasteful. It also reveals perhaps a never to be admitted guilt that maybe, just maybe the responsibility for the decision needs to be collectively shared not just within the UK but beyond to the EU too.

    Well said. Never, ever do we hear an ardent Remainer admit that maybe, just maybe, bouncing the UK into an inextricable relationship with the EU without asking for voter permission (because they knew that permission would not be forthcoming) might be a reason for Brexit. So many of them worked so hard for so long to make Brexit impossible. Then they belly ache that "Brexit is too hard". Well, yes, there's a reason for that. THEY are that reason, from the risible Article 50 on through the whole process, quite intentionally a cluster fuck of cluster mines. But just because they tried to rig the game, doesn't mean we should be bounced into eternal Remainderdom.
    Excellent post.
    I have clear memories of campaigning in 1975 to stay in the Common Market and of winning a clear victory. I have no memory of objection from any major section of the public to our continued participation in the development towards increased union, until very, very recently.
    Exactly so.

    We also had a general election in 1983 where one of the main parties promised to leave the EU - and even had a plan for how they were going to do it. I've often seen both UKIP and the Referendum Party on ballot papers. We've had elections to the European parliament which gave us influence over how the EU behaves.

    The argument that either the EU itself or our participation in it is somehow undemocratic is so obviously unfounded it makes me question the honesty or the sanity of anyone suggesting it.
    The promise to Leave by that one major perty didn’t exactly do it a lot of good, did it!
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited June 2018
    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Just seen Polly Toynbee talking bollocks on Marr.. She said that the evidence suggests(via polls) that people were happy to pay more for the NHS and Social Care if taxes went up and people had to pay.. The Tories tried that at GE 2017.. it was a sub optimal outcome.

    Polls show only a minority of voters will pay a wealth tax, a 'dementia tax' or higher income tax for the NHS and Social Care but over 50% of voters will pay more National Insurance for the NHS and Social Care
    First step equalise it for all employed and self employed
    What’s needed is the merging of employee NI into income tax. This will not only simplify the administration of such things, but will also raise significant income due to IT having wider scope than NI. It’s easily possible to cut a penny from the combined tax for all standard rate taxpayers on PAYE while raising significant extra revenue, so most people would see a tax cut as a result.

    Employer NI is quite literally a tax on jobs, and needs to be reduced as much as possible - especially as it’s the subject of a lot of avoidance via ‘gig’ working and bogus self-employment.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,014

    Foxy said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Can I be a little provocative?

    I can. Good!

    Sure: good to see the NHS getting some extra funding.

    But ..... deep breath .....

    1. I’m sure I remember a few years ago Brown announcing some fantastic NHS settlement which would settle things for years and then again under the coalition. So how soon will the NHS be back asking for more? There must come a time when we say: “ Enough”.

    2. Is this really the most important priority to be spending our money on? Especially now at the start of an uncertain future outside the structures we have been used to for 4 decades. What about social care? Or education, skills training, apprenticeships, AI, technology, housing etc? Shouldn’t we be aiming for more than an an economy consisting of coffee shops staffed by people living in overcrowded rented flats who are able to get seen in A&E in less than 4 hours? Health is important but it is not - for an economy - the most important thing. And much of good health for an individual depends on their own choices.

    3. So maybe we should be thinking about what individuals should be doing for and spending on their own health. And maybe, just maybe, if they make stupid choices, they have to bear the consequences. You know, like adults.

    I hope this money is spent wisely and on those areas of health which need it - mental health, for instance - but I can’t help feeling that in a few years we’ll be back in the same place with yet more demands, more crises, more plugging of gaps. And so some hard thinking is needed about what an NHS should do and what it shouldn’t and what people may have to do and pay for themselves.

    Indeed, I substantially agree.

    I had an interesting conversation with one of our respiratory physicians during the long winter bed crisis. He argued that paying for central heating for at risk patients would lead to better health outcomes than a new respiratory ward.
    Some years ago I was part of a long-running discussion on a PCT budget, and at one stage we debated the value of a chiropody service. It was argued, I think rightly, that it was important to keep elderly people mobile, since that would help to maintain their general health.
    A serious error on the part of some at least of my own profession has been to offer prescription delivery services to far too many people. It’s far better to walk down to the pharmacy.
    I'd like to see far more of that joined up sort of thinking.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,748

    IanB2 said:

    The underlying issue here is the same one that imperils local government - the absence of a written constitution means that no subsidiary level of government has any power or autonomy that central government cannot ultimately override.

    This was quite shocking from a senior political journalist:

    https://twitter.com/shippersunbound/status/1006912652734533633?s=21
    There's a Nat view that believes that in spite of his sneering boorishness, we should be grateful to Shipman for scraping away the useful hypocricy of 'partnership of equals' & 'union of nations' bollox.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    edited June 2018

    Mr. Divvie, by that choice of words every government since WWII (possibly with one exception) was 'imposed upon the country against its will'.

    Scotland voted to remain part of the UK. The UK voted to leave the EU. The fact that England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted in differing ways doesn't matter because every Briton's vote counted equally.

    The alternatives to your grumpy SNP take on the result would be either for Scotland to have a veto, which would work wonderfully for stoking internal UK resentment and division, or for Scottish votes to be weighed more heavily than English ones, which would have a similar result.

    It's also rather odd that the SNP and their ilk are grumpy about leaving the EU, when their victory in 2014 would have ensured Scotland leaving the EU. It's almost as if leaving the EU without England, Wales and Northern Ireland is wonderful, and leaving it with England, Wales and Northern Ireland is catastrophic. Which is a nonsensical position to hold.

    Tbh honest my appetite for debating with those who have a vote in and live in my country over why their preferred option should be imposed on that country is pretty diminished. For those who don't live and vote here, its zilch.
    Morris Dancer does live in and vote in your country. As do I. It's the United Kingdom.

    Of course, if you're referring to Scotland, then you're more than welcome to set up and run an equivalent blog and online discussion zone. But it's a bit hypocritical to come here and then complain that you don't want to talk to the English.
    That's typical of how nationalists think.
    That's an ironic comment as I think most would agree you are the most fervent nationalist on here particularly using your definition
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    RoyalBlue said:

    An unusually poor thread header from Mr Meeks.

    I think he commits 2 errors:

    1) conflating Scotland and the SNP

    2) thinking that disquiet at Brexit and Westminster’s stance on it is more important than Scotland’s relative economic and fiscal weakness

    Scotland isn’t going anywhere. We have 3 more years of this destructive melodrama, after which the SNP will be out of office or at the very least, unable to propose another indyref.

    They already proposed another IndyRef.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,585
    edited June 2018
    Cyclefree said:

    Can I be a little provocative?

    I can. Good!

    Sure: good to see the NHS getting some extra funding.

    But ..... deep breath .....

    1. I’m sure I remember a few years ago Brown announcing some fantastic NHS settlement which would settle things for years and then again under the coalition. So how soon will the NHS be back asking for more? There must come a time when we say: “ Enough”.

    2. Is this really the most important priority to be spending our money on? Especially now at the start of an uncertain future outside the structures we have been used to for 4 decades. What about social care? Or education, skills training, apprenticeships, AI, technology, housing etc? Shouldn’t we be aiming for more than an an economy consisting of coffee shops staffed by people living in overcrowded rented flats who are able to get seen in A&E in less than 4 hours? Health is important but it is not - for an economy - the most important thing. And much of good health for an individual depends on their own choices.

    3. So maybe we should be thinking about what individuals should be doing for and spending on their own health. And maybe, just maybe, if they make stupid choices, they have to bear the consequences. You know, like adults.

    I hope this money is spent wisely and on those areas of health which need it - mental health, for instance - but I can’t help feeling that in a few years we’ll be back in the same place with yet more demands, more crises, more plugging of gaps. And so some hard thinking is needed about what an NHS should do and what it shouldn’t and what people may have to do and pay for themselves.

    Let's face it the £20b figure is as disingenous today as a different figure posted on the side of a bus two years ago.

    You are nonetheless correct in your assertion that this can't go on.

    The trouble is where do you start. Smokers? The obese? Libertarians won't like that! Maybe an RAC style service where after six call outs a year one pays with caveats for genuine need. But what constitutes genuine need?

    Perhaps a nominal, returnable up-front fee would dissuade vexatious users of the service (and maybe the poor?). It is a conundrum that would take decades to work out, unless it was taken on board by someone like PM JRM who wouldn't give two hoots about the political ramifications.

    What could be done fairly swiftly is put in place safeguards against spurious litigation claims.

    And from a personal viewpoint a total rethink on the spending of hundreds of thousands of pounds on individuals to extend poor or zero life quality for weeks, months or even years to life-end. Once again this opens up a moral debate, but surely- having watched my 87 year old Father 'survive' for six months to his inevitable death with a dreadful quality of life towards the end- the resources saved on keeping him alive in pain would have been better spent saving babies and children!
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Just seen Polly Toynbee talking bollocks on Marr.. She said that the evidence suggests(via polls) that people were happy to pay more for the NHS and Social Care if taxes went up and people had to pay.. The Tories tried that at GE 2017.. it was a sub optimal outcome.

    Polls show only a minority of voters will pay a wealth tax, a 'dementia tax' or higher income tax for the NHS and Social Care but over 50% of voters will pay more National Insurance for the NHS and Social Care
    First step equalise it for all employed and self employed
    What’s needed is the merging of employee NI into income tax. This will not only simplify the administration of such things, but will also raise significant income due to IT having wider scope than NI. It’s easily possible to cut a penny from the combined tax for all standard rate taxpayers on PAYE while raising significant extra revenue, so most people would see a tax cut as a result.

    Employer NI is quite literally a tax on jobs, and needs to be reduced as much as possible - especially as it’s the subject of a lot of avoidance via ‘gig’ working and bogus self-employment.
    I'm astonished by the lack of debate surrounding any NI implications on the recent Pimlico plumbing court case. Are HMCE just going to allow both Mullins and the plumber to have their cake and eat it ?
  • RecidivistRecidivist Posts: 4,679

    hunchman said:

    felix said:

    I voted Remain and would do so again but I'm weary of the relentless negativity of those who cannot cope with a democratic result and now look for punishment scenarios everywhere against the effrontery of those who see a different future for the UK. All Brexiteers become thick Xenophobes leading the country to destruction. It's all over the top and reveals a profound contempt for millions of people which is distasteful. It also reveals perhaps a never to be admitted guilt that maybe, just maybe the responsibility for the decision needs to be collectively shared not just within the UK but beyond to the EU too.

    Well said. Never, ever do we hear an ardent Remainer admit that maybe, just maybe, bouncing the UK into an inextricable relationship with the EU without asking for voter permission (because they knew that permission would not be forthcoming) might be a reason for Brexit. So many of them worked so hard for so long to make Brexit impossible. Then they belly ache that "Brexit is too hard". Well, yes, there's a reason for that. THEY are that reason, from the risible Article 50 on through the whole process, quite intentionally a cluster fuck of cluster mines. But just because they tried to rig the game, doesn't mean we should be bounced into eternal Remainderdom.
    Excellent post.
    I have clear memories of campaigning in 1975 to stay in the Common Market and of winning a clear victory. I have no memory of objection from any major section of the public to our continued participation in the development towards increased union, until very, very recently.
    Exactly so.

    We also had a general election in 1983 where one of the main parties promised to leave the EU - and even had a plan for how they were going to do it. I've often seen both UKIP and the Referendum Party on ballot papers. We've had elections to the European parliament which gave us influence over how the EU behaves.

    The argument that either the EU itself or our participation in it is somehow undemocratic is so obviously unfounded it makes me question the honesty or the sanity of anyone suggesting it.
    The promise to Leave by that one major perty didn’t exactly do it a lot of good, did it!
    No it didn't. It lost a shedload of votes to a party that was distinctly pro-EU.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,717

    Foxy said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Can I be a little provocative?

    I can. Good!

    Sure: good to see the NHS getting some extra funding.

    But ..... deep breath .....

    1. I’m sure I remember a few years ago Brown announcing some fantastic NHS settlement which would settle things for years and then again under the coalition. So how soon will the NHS be back asking for more? There must come a time when we say: “ Enough”.

    2. Is this really the most important priority to be spending our money on? Especially now at the start of an uncertain future outside the structures we have been used to for 4 decades. What about social care? Or education, skills training, apprenticeships, AI, technology, housing etc? Shouldn’t we be aiming for more than an an economy consisting of coffee shops staffed by people living in overcrowded rented flats who are able to get seen in A&E in less than 4 hours? Health is important but it is not - for an economy - the most important thing. And much of good health for an individual depends on their own choices.

    3. So maybe we should be thinking about what individuals should be doing for and spending on their own health. And maybe, just maybe, if they make stupid choices, they have to bear the consequences. You know, like adults.

    I hope this money is spent wisely and on those areas of health which need it - mental health, for instance - but I can’t help feeling that in a few years we’ll be back in the same place with yet more demands, more crises, more plugging of gaps. And so some hard thinking is needed about what an NHS should do and what it shouldn’t and what people may have to do and pay for themselves.

    Indeed, I substantially agree.

    I had an interesting conversation with one of our respiratory physicians during the long winter bed crisis. He argued that paying for central heating for at risk patients would lead to better health outcomes than a new respiratory ward.
    Some years ago I was part of a long-running discussion on a PCT budget, and at one stage we debated the value of a chiropody service. It was argued, I think rightly, that it was important to keep elderly people mobile, since that would help to maintain their general health.
    A serious error on the part of some at least of my own profession has been to offer prescription delivery services to far too many people. It’s far better to walk down to the pharmacy.
    I'd like to see far more of that joined up sort of thinking.
    Thank you; sadly I generally ended up on the losing side!
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,063

    Its a shame to see both @DavidL and @david_herdson recite the argument, without any rationale other than convenience for the UK government, that Brexit is so difficult that it has to be negotiated without Holyrood’s involvement. Perhaps the Scottish government would have acted as wreckers, though the evidence for that in reality is skimpy. The attempt should have been meaningfully made.

    And the Westminster Parliament should have found a proper length of time to debate the impact of Brexit on devolution. Scots will correctly draw the conclusion that Westminster doesn’t take devolution seriously as a consequence.

    It would have been wise for Brexit policy to not be decided by a Cabinet subcommittee, but rather by a cross party ad hoc Committee, including representation of devolved governments. This would be the most effective way to get an areement that sticks, rather than one likely to be back to the drawing board as soon as we have regime change.
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    It is, as always, diverting to see the self-same posters who assured us before the referendum that leaving the EU would be a piece of cake now angrily denouncing Remainers for making the process so difficult. The intervening stage of reflection, public acknowledgement of error and contrition must have lasted nanoseconds.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,014

    hunchman said:

    felix said:

    I voted Remain and would do so again but I'm weary of the relentless negativity of those who cannot cope with a democratic result and now look for punishment scenarios everywhere against the effrontery of those who see a different future for the UK. All Brexiteers become thick Xenophobes leading the country to destruction. It's all over the top and reveals a profound contempt for millions of people which is distasteful. It also reveals perhaps a never to be admitted guilt that maybe, just maybe the responsibility for the decision needs to be collectively shared not just within the UK but beyond to the EU too.

    Well said. Never, ever do we hear an ardent Remainer admit that maybe, just maybe, bouncing the UK into an inextricable relationship with the EU without asking for voter permission (because they knew that permission would not be forthcoming) might be a reason for Brexit. So many of them worked so hard for so long to make Brexit impossible. Then they belly ache that "Brexit is too hard". Well, yes, there's a reason for that. THEY are that reason, from the risible Article 50 on through the whole process, quite intentionally a cluster fuck of cluster mines. But just because they tried to rig the game, doesn't mean we should be bounced into eternal Remainderdom.
    Excellent post.
    I have clear memories of campaigning in 1975 to stay in the Common Market and of winning a clear victory. I have no memory of objection from any major section of the public to our continued participation in the development towards increased union, until very, very recently.
    Well, it might be worth refreshing your memory. Over the last 15 years, a majority of the public in the answered "yes" in opinion polling to questions asking whether centralisation of powers at European level has gone too far, and for more powers to be returned to Westminster. They have also been firmly against the euro. There's also been a strong minority of 30-35% who wanted full withdrawal from the European Union.

    What spiked that 30-35% into the 52% who voted Leave? That's simple: the hubris and complacency of both the UK Government, and the European Union, who failed to address both immigration, and the smoking gun of the Lisbon Treaty, on which we never had a vote.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,394
    RoyalBlue said:

    Scotland is the only part of the country where deaths exceed births. Not exactly the best indicator of a bright future.

    Sounds like a good thing to me. Reducing the population over time would solve a whole host of problems.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    Its a shame to see both @DavidL and @david_herdson recite the argument, without any rationale other than convenience for the UK government, that Brexit is so difficult that it has to be negotiated without Holyrood’s involvement. Perhaps the Scottish government would have acted as wreckers, though the evidence for that in reality is skimpy. The attempt should have been meaningfully made.

    And the Westminster Parliament should have found a proper length of time to debate the impact of Brexit on devolution. Scots will correctly draw the conclusion that Westminster doesn’t take devolution seriously as a consequence.

    Partnership of equals

    Lead the UK not Leave the UK.

    Get back in your box.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Alistair said:

    RoyalBlue said:

    An unusually poor thread header from Mr Meeks.

    I think he commits 2 errors:

    1) conflating Scotland and the SNP

    2) thinking that disquiet at Brexit and Westminster’s stance on it is more important than Scotland’s relative economic and fiscal weakness

    Scotland isn’t going anywhere. We have 3 more years of this destructive melodrama, after which the SNP will be out of office or at the very least, unable to propose another indyref.

    They already proposed another IndyRef.
    And got thumped at GE17 as a result
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891

    Cyclefree said:

    Can I be a little provocative?

    I can. Good!

    Sure: good to see the NHS getting some extra funding.

    But ..... deep breath .....

    2. Is this really the most important priority to be spending our money on? Especially now at the start of an uncertain future outside the structures we have been used to for 4 decades. What about social care? Or education, skills training, apprenticeships, AI, technology, housing etc? Shouldn’t we be aiming for more than an an economy consisting of coffee shops staffed by people living in overcrowded rented flats who are able to get seen in A&E in less than 4 hours? Health is important but it is not - for an economy - the most important thing. And much of good health for an individual depends on their own choices.

    3. So maybe we should be thinking about what individuals should be doing for and spending on their own health. And maybe, just maybe, if they make stupid choices, they have to bear the consequences. You know, like adults.

    I hope this money is spent wisely and on those areas of health which need it - mental health, for instance - but I can’t help feeling that in a few years we’ll be back in the same place with yet more demands, more crises, more plugging of gaps. And so some hard thinking is needed about what an NHS should do and what it shouldn’t and what people may have to do and pay for themselves.

    Let's face it the £20b figure is as disingenous today as a different figure posted on the side of a bus two years ago.

    You are nonetheless correct in your assertion that this can't go on.

    The trouble is where do you start. Smokers? The obese? Libertarian won't like that. Maybe an RAC style service where after six call outs a year one pays with caveats for genuine need. But what constitutes genuine need?

    Perhap a nominal, returnable up-front fee would dissuade vexatious users of the service (and maybe the poor?). It is a conundrum that would take decades to work out, unless it was taken on board by someone like PM JRM who wouldn't give two hoots about the political ramifications.

    What could be done fairly swiftly is put in place safeguards against spurious litigation claims.

    And from a personal viewpoint a total rethink on the spending of hundreds of thousands of pounds on individuals to extend poor or zero life quality for weeks months or even years to life end. Once again this opens up a moral debate, but surely- having watched my 87 year old Father 'survive' for six months to his inevitable death with a dreadful quality of life towards the end- the resources saved on keeping him alive in pain would have been better spent saving babies and children!
    The obese. I'd put doors of a certain width outside hospitals and doctors surgeries rather like they do height restrictions for kids at fairgrounds. They get in when they get thin
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Just seen Polly Toynbee talking bollocks on Marr.. She said that the evidence suggests(via polls) that people were happy to pay more for the NHS and Social Care if taxes went up and people had to pay.. The Tories tried that at GE 2017.. it was a sub optimal outcome.

    Polls show only a minority of voters will pay a wealth tax, a 'dementia tax' or higher income tax for the NHS and Social Care but over 50% of voters will pay more National Insurance for the NHS and Social Care
    First step equalise it for all employed and self employed
    What’s needed is the merging of employee NI into income tax. This will not only simplify the administration of such things, but will also raise significant income due to IT having wider scope than NI. It’s easily possible to cut a penny from the combined tax for all standard rate taxpayers on PAYE while raising significant extra revenue, so most people would see a tax cut as a result.

    Employer NI is quite literally a tax on jobs, and needs to be reduced as much as possible - especially as it’s the subject of a lot of avoidance via ‘gig’ working and bogus self-employment.
    The reverse, NI should return to its original function and be hypothecated for NHS, social care and welfare funding only
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Divvie, the Scots voted to remain part of the UK. You and I both vote in the Westminster elections. Our taxes both pay for the same Defence policy. We share the same head of state and head of government.

    The whole purpose of the SNP is to stop us being countrymen by removing Scotland from the UK.

    Anyway, if you don't want to talk, that's up to you.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,748
    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    RoyalBlue said:

    An unusually poor thread header from Mr Meeks.

    I think he commits 2 errors:

    1) conflating Scotland and the SNP

    2) thinking that disquiet at Brexit and Westminster’s stance on it is more important than Scotland’s relative economic and fiscal weakness

    Scotland isn’t going anywhere. We have 3 more years of this destructive melodrama, after which the SNP will be out of office or at the very least, unable to propose another indyref.

    They already proposed another IndyRef.
    And got thumped at GE17 as a result
    I can't remember, was it almost half or over a third of their MPs that the SNP lost?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    Its a shame to see both @DavidL and @david_herdson recite the argument, without any rationale other than convenience for the UK government, that Brexit is so difficult that it has to be negotiated without Holyrood’s involvement. Perhaps the Scottish government would have acted as wreckers, though the evidence for that in reality is skimpy. The attempt should have been meaningfully made.

    And the Westminster Parliament should have found a proper length of time to debate the impact of Brexit on devolution. Scots will correctly draw the conclusion that Westminster doesn’t take devolution seriously as a consequence.

    We have not even Brexited yet, the SNP want every EU power reclaimed restored to Holyrood immediately which on things on food safety regulations etc is not possible if we want any hope of an EU FTA deal they have to be standardised UK wide
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,748


    Anyway, if you don't want to talk, that's up to you.

    Thanks for the permission.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Pulpstar said:

    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Just seen Polly Toynbee talking bollocks on Marr.. She said that the evidence suggests(via polls) that people were happy to pay more for the NHS and Social Care if taxes went up and people had to pay.. The Tories tried that at GE 2017.. it was a sub optimal outcome.

    Polls show only a minority of voters will pay a wealth tax, a 'dementia tax' or higher income tax for the NHS and Social Care but over 50% of voters will pay more National Insurance for the NHS and Social Care
    First step equalise it for all employed and self employed
    What’s needed is the merging of employee NI into income tax. This will not only simplify the administration of such things, but will also raise significant income due to IT having wider scope than NI. It’s easily possible to cut a penny from the combined tax for all standard rate taxpayers on PAYE while raising significant extra revenue, so most people would see a tax cut as a result.

    Employer NI is quite literally a tax on jobs, and needs to be reduced as much as possible - especially as it’s the subject of a lot of avoidance via ‘gig’ working and bogus self-employment.
    I'm astonished by the lack of debate surrounding any NI implications on the recent Pimlico plumbing court case. Are HMCE just going to allow both Mullins and the plumber to have their cake and eat it ?
    The ***WHOLE POINT*** of these sort of arrangements is to avoid employer NI, and benefits such as sick pay.

    In my field (IT) we went through this a decade and a half ago with IR35, which is now belatedly arriving with other sectors such as the media - much to he chagrin of those involved who have a pen or microphone and an audience!

    One thing for sure is that these tax-avoiding arrangements are far more common than HMRC have resources to investigate - making the whole thing simpler and less discriminating of the precise arrangement between worker and company will lead to increased revenue for the worker, the company and the government. Everyone except tax accountants and lawyers would benefit - which is why it will probably never happen.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Mr. Divvie, lucky for me we're countrymen :)

    Wiki
    Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: Alba pronounced [ˈaɫ̪apə]) is a country that occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain and forms part of the United Kingdom.

    Cambridge Dictionary
    a country that is part of the United Kingdom

    Collins Dictionary
    Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom

    Oxford Dictionary
    A country forming the northernmost part of Great Britain and of the United Kingdom

    etc.
    Yes? This is a country of countries. We are countrymen and not countrymen at the same time until such time as a formal separation. Obviously not everyone in Scotland, England, Wales or NI wants us all to be countrymen but for the moment we are.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,763

    Its a shame to see both @DavidL and @david_herdson recite the argument, without any rationale other than convenience for the UK government, that Brexit is so difficult that it has to be negotiated without Holyrood’s involvement. Perhaps the Scottish government would have acted as wreckers, though the evidence for that in reality is skimpy. The attempt should have been meaningfully made.

    And the Westminster Parliament should have found a proper length of time to debate the impact of Brexit on devolution. Scots will correctly draw the conclusion that Westminster doesn’t take devolution seriously as a consequence.</blockquote

    That’s not what I said Alastair. I am not saying that the U.K. government has handled this well. What I am saying is that it is difficult to have a meaningful conversation about the extent to which powers can be devolved until we know what the agreement with the EU is.

    Difficult, but not impossible. I do agree some principles could have been usefully discussed. I don’t agree that the failure to do so to date makes Scottish independence inevitable.

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited June 2018

    Mr. Divvie, lucky for me we're countrymen :)

    Wiki
    Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: Alba pronounced [ˈaɫ̪apə]) is a country that occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain and forms part of the United Kingdom.

    Cambridge Dictionary
    a country that is part of the United Kingdom

    Collins Dictionary
    Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom

    Oxford Dictionary
    A country forming the northernmost part of Great Britain and of the United Kingdom

    etc.
    Scotland is a ceremonial country, as are England and Wales too, the only actual sovereign country we live in and the only one recognised by the UN is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,014
    Cyclefree said:

    Can I be a little provocative?

    I can. Good!

    Sure: good to see the NHS getting some extra funding.

    But ..... deep breath .....

    1. I’m sure I remember a few years ago Brown announcing some fantastic NHS settlement which would settle things for years and then again under the coalition. So how soon will the NHS be back asking for more? There must come a time when we say: “ Enough”.

    2. Is this really the most important priority to be spending our money on? Especially now at the start of an uncertain future outside the structures we have been used to for 4 decades. What about social care? Or education, skills training, apprenticeships, AI, technology, housing etc? Shouldn’t we be aiming for more than an an economy consisting of coffee shops staffed by people living in overcrowded rented flats who are able to get seen in A&E in less than 4 hours? Health is important but it is not - for an economy - the most important thing. And much of good health for an individual depends on their own choices.

    3. So maybe we should be thinking about what individuals should be doing for and spending on their own health. And maybe, just maybe, if they make stupid choices, they have to bear the consequences. You know, like adults.

    I hope this money is spent wisely and on those areas of health which need it - mental health, for instance - but I can’t help feeling that in a few years we’ll be back in the same place with yet more demands, more crises, more plugging of gaps. And so some hard thinking is needed about what an NHS should do and what it shouldn’t and what people may have to do and pay for themselves.

    1. It will probably get us through to about 2024-2025.

    2. I'd prioritise education above health, as it's more likely to generate the economic returns 10-20 years down the line to pay for other things, but it's also clear the current NHS funding settlement wasn't politically sustainable. The Tories have concluded they must act, or lose office.

    3. Yes. I'm firmly on the side of not adding to the nanny state, because some people make poor health choices, but of making them bear the costs of their own actions. That said, I'd welcome soft "nudge" initiatives encouraging people to be more active, and get off their phones.

    Finally, the hard thinking on the NHS is almost politically impossible to do because of its quasi-religious status. I'd start with all working people having a (very small) level of basic health insurance with their employer to supplement the NHS, encourage those aged between 65-75 to do part time working, and also extend the NI horizon out to the age of 75.

    But then, I probably wouldn't win office.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,723
    TM was doing quite well.

    Why did you give him a Knighthood though was Tezza at her worst
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,063

    RoyalBlue said:

    Scotland is the only part of the country where deaths exceed births. Not exactly the best indicator of a bright future.

    Sounds like a good thing to me. Reducing the population over time would solve a whole host of problems.
    Not really!

    Such a solution, short of a Logan's Run approach, just increases the dependancy ratio and the burden on the remaining workforce.

    It is worth noting that not only do Scots (especially Clydesiders) die young, they have a longer period of ill health than other Britons beforehand. Their DALYs (Disability Adjusted Life Years) are even worse than their life expectancy. There may be little saving to the tax payer of early death, as well as being obviously an undesirable social outcome!
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited June 2018
    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Just seen Polly Toynbee talking bollocks on Marr.. She said that the evidence suggests(via polls) that people were happy to pay more for the NHS and Social Care if taxes went up and people had to pay.. The Tories tried that at GE 2017.. it was a sub optimal outcome.

    Polls show only a minority of voters will pay a wealth tax, a 'dementia tax' or higher income tax for the NHS and Social Care but over 50% of voters will pay more National Insurance for the NHS and Social Care
    First step equalise it for all employed and self employed
    What’s needed is the merging of employee NI into income tax. This will not only simplify the administration of such things, but will also raise significant income due to IT having wider scope than NI. It’s easily possible to cut a penny from the combined tax for all standard rate taxpayers on PAYE while raising significant extra revenue, so most people would see a tax cut as a result.

    Employer NI is quite literally a tax on jobs, and needs to be reduced as much as possible - especially as it’s the subject of a lot of avoidance via ‘gig’ working and bogus self-employment.
    The reverse, NI should return to its original function and be hypothecated for NHS, social care and welfare funding only
    No. Hypotheticated taxes are always a bad idea, and the whole point of the change would be to bring pension and other unearned income into scope of the tax - meaning that Mr and Mrs Average on PAYE could get a tax cut as a result while still increasing revenue. Conservatives like tax cuts, no?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,585
    Roger said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Can I be a little provocative?

    I can. Good!

    Sure: good to see the NHS getting some extra funding.

    But ..... deep breath .....

    2. Is this really the most important priority to be spending our money on? Especially now at the start of an uncertain future outside the structures we have been used to for 4 decades. What about social care? Or education, skills training, apprenticeships, AI, technology, housing etc? Shouldn’t we be aiming for more than an an economy consisting of coffee shops staffed by people living in overcrowded rented flats who are able to get seen in A&E in less than 4 hours? Health is important but it is not - for an economy - the most important thing. And much of good health for an individual depends on their own choices.

    3. So maybe we should be thinking about what individuals should be doing for and spending on their own health. And maybe, just maybe, if they make stupid choices, they have to bear the consequences. You know, like adults.

    I hope this money is spent wisely and on those areas of health which need it - mental health, for instance - but I can’t help feeling that in a few years we’ll be back in the same place with yet more demands, more crises, more plugging of gaps. And so some hard thinking is needed about what an NHS should do and what it shouldn’t and what people may have to do and pay for themselves.

    The obese. I'd put doors of a certain width outside hospitals and doctors surgeries rather like they do height restrictions for kids at fairgrounds. They get in when they get thin
    You are being silly now! At, probably a stone and a half over weight I pay my 'sugar tax' with pride.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,717

    hunchman said:

    felix said:

    I voted Remain and would do so again but I'm weary of the relentless negativity of those who cannot cope with a democratic result and now look for punishment scenarios everywhere against the effrontery of those who see a different future for the UK. All Brexiteers become thick Xenophobes leading the country to destruction. It's all over the top and reveals a profound contempt for millions of people which is distasteful. It also reveals perhaps a never to be admitted guilt that maybe, just maybe the responsibility for the decision needs to be collectively shared not just within the UK but beyond to the EU too.

    Well said. Never, ever do we hear an ardent Remainer admit that maybe, just maybe, bouncing the UK into an inextricable relationship with the EU without asking for voter permission (because they knew that permission would not be forthcoming) might be a reason for Brexit. So many of them worked so hard for so long to make Brexit impossible. Then they belly ache that "Brexit is too hard". Well, yes, there's a reason for that. THEY are that reason, from the risible Article 50 on through the whole process, quite intentionally a cluster fuck of cluster mines. But just because they tried to rig the game, doesn't mean we should be bounced into eternal Remainderdom.
    Excellent post.
    I have clear memories of campaigning in 1975 to stay in the Common Market and of winning a clear victory. I have no memory of objection from any major section of the public to our continued participation in the development towards increased union, until very, very recently.
    Well, it might be worth refreshing your memory. Over the last 15 years, a majority of the public in the answered "yes" in opinion polling to questions asking whether centralisation of powers at European level has gone too far, and for more powers to be returned to Westminster. They have also been firmly against the euro. There's also been a strong minority of 30-35% who wanted full withdrawal from the European Union.

    What spiked that 30-35% into the 52% who voted Leave? That's simple: the hubris and complacency of both the UK Government, and the European Union, who failed to address both immigration, and the smoking gun of the Lisbon Treaty, on which we never had a vote.
    There were a few people in and around politics who, for their own reasons, wanted to Leave and pushed and pushed, sometimes truthfully, the disadvantages of membership. Meanwhile a very significant number of businesses built relationships, often complex, with similar organisations elsewhere in the Union and these now have to be unravelled.
  • david_herdsondavid_herdson Posts: 17,401

    Mr. Divvie, by that choice of words every government since WWII (possibly with one exception) was 'imposed upon the country against its will'.

    Scotland voted to remain part of the UK. The UK voted to leave the EU. The fact that England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted in differing ways doesn't matter because every Briton's vote counted equally.

    The alternatives to your grumpy SNP take on the result would be either for Scotland to have a veto, which would work wonderfully for stoking internal UK resentment and division, or for Scottish votes to be weighed more heavily than English ones, which would have a similar result.

    It's also rather odd that the SNP and their ilk are grumpy about leaving the EU, when their victory in 2014 would have ensured Scotland leaving the EU. It's almost as if leaving the EU without England, Wales and Northern Ireland is wonderful, and leaving it with England, Wales and Northern Ireland is catastrophic. Which is a nonsensical position to hold.

    Tbh honest my appetite for debating with those who have a vote in and live in my country over why their preferred option should be imposed on that country is pretty diminished. For those who don't live and vote here, its zilch.
    Morris Dancer does live in and vote in your country. As do I. It's the United Kingdom.

    Of course, if you're referring to Scotland, then you're more than welcome to set up and run an equivalent blog and online discussion zone. But it's a bit hypocritical to come here and then complain that you don't want to talk to the English.
    Unless you're now the PB arbiter on such things, I think I'll decide who I choose to engage with.

    If you post on PB, then expect answers on PB.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    Totally agree.A Border Poll is only a matter of time in NI.For those of us supporting the re-unification of the island of Ireland,Brexit's effects are pulling in this direction which will grow into a clamour for change if the UK government breaches the Good Friday Agreement.
    Westminster would only have purview for England and a reluctant Wales.The English nationalists have won.

    A border poll in NI is not on the cards unless Sinn Fein becomes the largest party in the NI Assembly and has a majority with the SDLP, which is not on the cards anytime soon with the Stormont Executive still suspended and pre suspension the largest party in the Assembly and the party of the NI First Minister was from the DUP.

    Plus any border poll would require overwhelming support in the polls for one under the Good Friday Agreement and there is no real evidence for that either
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709


    Cyclefree said:

    Can I be a little provocative?

    I can. Good!

    Sure: good to see the NHS getting some extra funding.

    But ..... deep breath .....

    1. I’m sure I remember a few years ago Brown announcing some fantastic NHS settlement which would settle things for years and then again under the coalition. So how soon will the NHS be back asking for more? There must come a time when we say: “ Enough”.

    2. Is this really the most important priority to be spending our money on? Especially now at the start of an uncertain future outside the structures we have been used to for 4 decades. What about social care? Or education, skills training, apprenticeships, AI, technology, housing etc? Shouldn’t we be aiming for more than an an economy consisting of coffee shops staffed by people living in overcrowded rented flats who are able to get seen in A&E in less than 4 hours? Health is important but it is not - for an economy - the most important thing. And much of good health for an individual depends on their own choices.

    3. So maybe we should be thinking about what individuals should be doing for and spending on their own health. And maybe, just maybe, if they make stupid choices, they have to bear the consequences. You know, like adults.

    I hope this money is spent wisely and on those areas of health which need it - mental health, for instance - but I can’t help feeling that in a few years we’ll be back in the same place with yet more demands, more crises, more plugging of gaps. And so some hard thinking is needed about what an NHS should do and what it shouldn’t and what people may have to do and pay for themselves.

    1. It will probably get us through to about 2024-2025.

    2. I'd prioritise education above health, as it's more likely to generate the economic returns 10-20 years down the line to pay for other things, but it's also clear the current NHS funding settlement wasn't politically sustainable. The Tories have concluded they must act, or lose office.

    3. Yes. I'm firmly on the side of not adding to the nanny state, because some people make poor health choices, but of making them bear the costs of their own actions. That said, I'd welcome soft "nudge" initiatives encouraging people to be more active, and get off their phones.

    Finally, the hard thinking on the NHS is almost politically impossible to do because of its quasi-religious status. I'd start with all working people having a (very small) level of basic health insurance with their employer to supplement the NHS, encourage those aged between 65-75 to do part time working, and also extend the NI horizon out to the age of 75.

    But then, I probably wouldn't win office.
    In Australia if you are a high income earner and lack private health insurance you face an additional levy beyond the levy you have to pay for Medicare
  • david_herdsondavid_herdson Posts: 17,401

    Its a shame to see both @DavidL and @david_herdson recite the argument, without any rationale other than convenience for the UK government, that Brexit is so difficult that it has to be negotiated without Holyrood’s involvement. Perhaps the Scottish government would have acted as wreckers, though the evidence for that in reality is skimpy. The attempt should have been meaningfully made.

    And the Westminster Parliament should have found a proper length of time to debate the impact of Brexit on devolution. Scots will correctly draw the conclusion that Westminster doesn’t take devolution seriously as a consequence.

    I agree that 15 minutes was ridiculous.

    However, foreign relations are a reserved matter and to the extent that there's been any attempted power-grab, it's been by the Scottish Executive, seeking to impose itself on matters that don't concern it. Sturgeon should be reminded that Scotland returns 59 MPs to Westminster to voice its interests and to hold the UK government to account.

    As soon as you invite Holyrood, you also invite Wales, NI (if it's around) and potentially others, and the whole thing becomes both cumbersome and a case of additional tails wagging the dog. A line has to be drawn and indeed, a line has been drawn. EU negotiations are a reserved power.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Just seen Polly Toynbee talking bollocks on Marr.. She said that the evidence suggests(via polls) that people were happy to pay more for the NHS and Social Care if taxes went up and people had to pay.. The Tories tried that at GE 2017.. it was a sub optimal outcome.

    Polls show only a minority of voters will pay a wealth tax, a 'dementia tax' or higher income tax for the NHS and Social Care but over 50% of voters will pay more National Insurance for the NHS and Social Care
    First step equalise it for all employed and self employed
    What’s needed is the merging of employee NI into income tax. This will not only simplify the administration of such things, but will also raise significant income due to IT having wider scope than NI. It’s easily possible to cut a penny from the combined tax for all standard rate taxpayers on PAYE while raising significant extra revenue, so most people would see a tax cut as a result.

    Employer NI is quite literally a tax on jobs, and needs to be reduced as much as possible - especially as it’s the subject of a lot of avoidance via ‘gig’ working and bogus self-employment.
    The reverse, NI should return to its original function and be hypothecated for NHS, social care and welfare funding only
    No. Hypotheticated taxes are always a bad idea, and the whole point of the change would be to bring pension and other unearned income into scope of the tax - meaning that Mr and Mrs Average on PAYE could get a tax cut as a result while still increasing revenue. Conservatives like tax cuts, no?
    I disagree, hypothecated taxes (and technically given it was originally set up as a National INSURANCE we should be thinking of it as an insurance for health needs or retirement or periods of unemployment rather than a tax) ensure spending is focused on a specific need and is not just a piggy bank for government to spend on whatever it feels like.

    Taxing pensions and then saying you are 'cutting tax by 1p' will also not wash with most voters as a tax cut, though all means extend National Insurance to the over 65s working either full or part time
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    edited June 2018

    Cyclefree said:

    Let's face it the £20b figure is as disingenous today as a different figure posted on the side of a bus two years ago.

    You are nonetheless correct in your assertion that this can't go on.

    The trouble is where do you start. Smokers? The obese? Libertarians won't like that! Maybe an RAC style service where after six call outs a year one pays with caveats for genuine need. But what constitutes genuine need?

    Perhaps a nominal, returnable up-front fee would dissuade vexatious users of the service (and maybe the poor?). It is a conundrum that would take decades to work out, unless it was taken on board by someone like PM JRM who wouldn't give two hoots about the political ramifications.

    What could be done fairly swiftly is put in place safeguards against spurious litigation claims.

    And from a personal viewpoint a total rethink on the spending of hundreds of thousands of pounds on individuals to extend poor or zero life quality for weeks, months or even years to life-end. Once again this opens up a moral debate, but surely- having watched my 87 year old Father 'survive' for six months to his inevitable death with a dreadful quality of life towards the end- the resources saved on keeping him alive in pain would have been better spent saving babies and children!
    Off the top of my head: why not require people on higher earnings to have health insurance and use it? Why not concentrate the NHS on those things which cannot be provided by health insurance - public health, vaccinations, A&E, child health etc? And yes maybe those who smoke should take the consequences and have to contribute towards the costs and/or go to the back of the queue or have to give up smoking before they get treatment?

    Difficult questions I know. But I think we have to take responsibility for our own health and not simply expect the NHS to be the answer to everything. It should do what it does well. But maybe it has to do less. And if people want what it cannot provide they will have to put their hands in their pockets.

    People - even the less well off - spend enough on holidays and football tickets and all sorts of other luxuries that it is absurd to say that they can’t spend some of that on their own health. That is, if they really mean it when they say they value it.

    And I also think some of the money has to go on keeping expensively trained doctors as doctors. I read the other day that within 5 years of qualifying quite a significant proportion have moved away from medecine. That is an absurd waste of resources.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958


    However, foreign relations are a reserved matter and to the extent that there's been any attempted power-grab, it's been by the Scottish Executive, seeking to impose itself on matters that don't concern it. Sturgeon should be reminded that Scotland returns 59 MPs to Westminster to voice its interests and to hold the UK government to account.

    +1
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Foxy said:

    RoyalBlue said:

    Scotland is the only part of the country where deaths exceed births. Not exactly the best indicator of a bright future.

    Sounds like a good thing to me. Reducing the population over time would solve a whole host of problems.
    Not really!

    Such a solution, short of a Logan's Run approach, just increases the dependancy ratio and the burden on the remaining workforce.

    It is worth noting that not only do Scots (especially Clydesiders) die young, they have a longer period of ill health than other Britons beforehand. Their DALYs (Disability Adjusted Life Years) are even worse than their life expectancy. There may be little saving to the tax payer of early death, as well as being obviously an undesirable social outcome!
    Are the old and overweight who use mobility scooters included in the disability statistics these days >.> ?
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,748
    edited June 2018

    Mr. Divvie, by that choice of words every government since WWII (possibly with one exception) was 'imposed upon the country against its will'.

    Scotland voted to remain part of the UK. The UK voted to leave the EU. The fact that England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted in differing ways doesn't matter because every Briton's vote counted equally.

    The alternatives to your grumpy SNP take on the result would be either for Scotland to have a veto, which would work wonderfully for stoking internal UK resentment and division, or for Scottish votes to be weighed more heavily than English ones, which would have a similar result.

    It's also rather odd that the SNP and their ilk are grumpy about leaving the EU, when their victory in 2014 would have ensured Scotland leaving the EU. It's almost as if leaving the EU without England, Wales and Northern Ireland is wonderful, and leaving it with England, Wales and Northern Ireland is catastrophic. Which is a nonsensical position to hold.

    Tbh honest my appetite for debating with those who have a vote in and live in my country over why their preferred option should be imposed on that country is pretty diminished. For those who don't live and vote here, its zilch.
    Morris Dancer does live in and vote in your country. As do I. It's the United Kingdom.

    Of course, if you're referring to Scotland, then you're more than welcome to set up and run an equivalent blog and online discussion zone. But it's a bit hypocritical to come here and then complain that you don't want to talk to the English.
    Unless you're now the PB arbiter on such things, I think I'll decide who I choose to engage with.

    If you post on PB, then expect answers on PB.
    And if you give unsolicited answers to my posts expect me to to decide whether and how I reply to them, you pompous diddy.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,748
    Jeezo, and Massie's one of the brighter Unionists.

    https://twitter.com/WingsScotland/status/1008264719852081152
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,014
    Roger said:

    Mr. Divvie, by that choice of words every government since WWII (possibly with one exception) was 'imposed upon the country against its will'.

    Scotland voted to remain part of the UK. The UK voted to leave the EU. The fact that England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted in differing ways doesn't matter because every Briton's vote counted equally.

    The alternatives to your grumpy SNP take on the result would be either for Scotland to have a veto, which would work wonderfully for stoking internal UK resentment and division, or for Scottish votes to be weighed more heavily than English ones, which would have a similar result.

    It's also rather odd that the SNP and their ilk are grumpy about leaving the EU, when their victory in 2014 would have ensured Scotland leaving the EU. It's almost as if leaving the EU without England, Wales and Northern Ireland is wonderful, and leaving it with England, Wales and Northern Ireland is catastrophic. Which is a nonsensical position to hold.

    Tbh honest my appetite for debating with those who have a vote in and live in my country over why their preferred option should be imposed on that country is pretty diminished. For those who don't live and vote here, its zilch.
    Morris Dancer does live in and vote in your country. As do I. It's the United Kingdom.

    Of course, if you're referring to Scotland, then you're more than welcome to set up and run an equivalent blog and online discussion zone. But it's a bit hypocritical to come here and then complain that you don't want to talk to the English.
    That's typical of how nationalists think.
    That's an ironic comment as I think most would agree you are the most fervent nationalist on here particularly using your definition
    Your inability to understand me, my side of the argument, and how so many others view it, is only matched by your record at political punditry, where you've consistently shown yourself to be about as sharp as a bag of wet mice.

    So, I'll take that as a term of endearment; because this site just wouldn't be the same without you.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    .

    First step equalise it for all employed and self employed
    What’s needed is the merging of employee NI into income tax. This will not only simplify the administration of such things, but will also raise significant income due to IT having wider scope than NI. It’s easily possible to cut a penny from the combined tax for all standard rate taxpayers on PAYE while raising significant extra revenue, so most people would see a tax cut as a result.

    Employer NI is quite literally a tax on jobs, and needs to be reduced as much as possible - especially as it’s the subject of a lot of avoidance via ‘gig’ working and bogus self-employment.
    The reverse, NI should return to its original function and be hypothecated for NHS, social care and welfare funding only
    No. Hypotheticated taxes are always a bad idea, and the whole point of the change would be to bring pension and other unearned income into scope of the tax - meaning that Mr and Mrs Average on PAYE could get a tax cut as a result while still increasing revenue. Conservatives like tax cuts, no?
    I disagree, hypothecated taxes (and technically given it was originally set up as a National INSURANCE we should be thinking of it as an insurance for health needs or retirement or periods of unemployment rather than a tax) ensure spending is focused on a specific need and is not just a piggy bank for government to spend on whatever it feels like.

    Taxing pensions and then saying you are 'cutting tax by 1p' will also not wash with most voters as a tax cut, though all means extend National Insurance to the over 65s working either full or part time
    There are more workers than pensioners. The people we need to extract more money from are those on comfortably large final salary pensions, it’s either that or property taxes. Phase in the change if you have to, but the vast majority of the electorate are on a standard PAYE job where they notice the deductions from their payslip at the end of the week or month. These people also live in marginal seats.

    The only possible reason I could see for hypotheticated taxes, is to make it more difficult for a theoretical Corbyn government to do stupid things. But he’ll do stupid things anyway. Imagine what hell he could do with an extant property tax.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,763
    Foxy said:

    RoyalBlue said:

    Scotland is the only part of the country where deaths exceed births. Not exactly the best indicator of a bright future.

    Sounds like a good thing to me. Reducing the population over time would solve a whole host of problems.
    Not really!

    Such a solution, short of a Logan's Run approach, just increases the dependancy ratio and the burden on the remaining workforce.

    It is worth noting that not only do Scots (especially Clydesiders) die young, they have a longer period of ill health than other Britons beforehand. Their DALYs (Disability Adjusted Life Years) are even worse than their life expectancy. There may be little saving to the tax payer of early death, as well as being obviously an undesirable social outcome!
    I would be very interested in any not overly technical description of DALYs you can link to with such regional statistics.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,014

    Mr. Divvie, by that choice of words every government since WWII (possibly with one exception) was 'imposed upon the country against its will'.

    Scotland voted to remain part of the UK. The UK voted to leave the EU. The fact that England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted in differing ways doesn't matter because every Briton's vote counted equally.

    The alternatives to your grumpy SNP take on the result would be either for Scotland to have a veto, which would work wonderfully for stoking internal UK resentment and division, or for Scottish votes to be weighed more heavily than English ones, which would have a similar result.

    It's also rather odd that the SNP and their ilk are grumpy about leaving the EU, when their victory in 2014 would have ensured Scotland leaving the EU. It's almost as if leaving the EU without England, Wales and Northern Ireland is wonderful, and leaving it with England, Wales and Northern Ireland is catastrophic. Which is a nonsensical position to hold.

    Tbh honest my appetite for debating with those who have a vote in and live in my country over why their preferred option should be imposed on that country is pretty diminished. For those who don't live and vote here, its zilch.
    Morris Dancer does live in and vote in your country. As do I. It's the United Kingdom.

    Of course, if you're referring to Scotland, then you're more than welcome to set up and run an equivalent blog and online discussion zone. But it's a bit hypocritical to come here and then complain that you don't want to talk to the English.
    Unless you're now the PB arbiter on such things, I think I'll decide who I choose to engage with.

    If you post on PB, then expect answers on PB.
    And if you give unsolicited answers to my posts expect me to to decide whether and how I reply to them, you pompous diddy.
    David Herdson is anything but pompous.

    You seem to suffer from a need to always have the last word, and are unusually sensitive on the subject of Scottish Independence. If someone disagrees with you, your responses (after you've had several minutes to compose what you think is the most biting) are usually dripping in sarcasm and exhibit all aspects of your charming personality.

    Why not simply engage politely with the substance of the argument?
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    edited June 2018
    Cyclefree said:



    And I also think some of the money has to go on keeping expensively trained doctors as doctors. I read the other day that within 5 years of qualifying quite a significant proportion have moved away from medecine. That is an absurd waste of resources.

    Aren't a significant number of those who leave actually just chosing to work abroad?

    That is, the terms and conditions for doctors say in Canada or Australia are markedly better than in the UK, and doctors have a highly-valued skill so they can easily leave the UK for a better job elsewhere.

    It is the other side of the coin to importing (or stealing) our doctors from poorer countries.

    Some of our expensively-trained doctors are exported to richer countries.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,063
    Pulpstar said:

    Foxy said:

    RoyalBlue said:

    Scotland is the only part of the country where deaths exceed births. Not exactly the best indicator of a bright future.

    Sounds like a good thing to me. Reducing the population over time would solve a whole host of problems.
    Not really!

    Such a solution, short of a Logan's Run approach, just increases the dependancy ratio and the burden on the remaining workforce.

    It is worth noting that not only do Scots (especially Clydesiders) die young, they have a longer period of ill health than other Britons beforehand. Their DALYs (Disability Adjusted Life Years) are even worse than their life expectancy. There may be little saving to the tax payer of early death, as well as being obviously an undesirable social outcome!
    Are the old and overweight who use mobility scooters included in the disability statistics these days >.> ?
    The short answer is yes.

    DALY and YLD (Years Lost to Disability) are increasingly used metrics in public health planning and health economics

    The methedology is discussed here reasonably well:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disability-adjusted_life_year
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Incidentally, unsure if anyone else here writes fantasy (I know others do write various stuff), but if you do, then it's well worth submitting (quickly) to the 4th SPFBO (Self-Publishing Fantasy Blog-Off) run by Mark Lawrence. And if you read fantasy, can be a good way to find new stuff to read.

    https://twitter.com/Mark__Lawrence/status/1008072197271904256
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    Pulpstar said:

    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Just seen Polly Toynbee talking bollocks on Marr.. She said that the evidence suggests(via polls) that people were happy to pay more for the NHS and Social Care if taxes went up and people had to pay.. The Tories tried that at GE 2017.. it was a sub optimal outcome.

    Polls show only a minority of voters will pay a wealth tax, a 'dementia tax' or higher income tax for the NHS and Social Care but over 50% of voters will pay more National Insurance for the NHS and Social Care
    First step equalise it for all employed and self employed
    What’s needed is the merging of employee NI into income tax. This will not only simplify the administration of such things, but will also raise significant income due to IT having wider scope than NI. It’s easily possible to cut a penny from the combined tax for all standard rate taxpayers on PAYE while raising significant extra revenue, so most people would see a tax cut as a result.

    Employer NI is quite literally a tax on jobs, and needs to be reduced as much as possible - especially as it’s the subject of a lot of avoidance via ‘gig’ working and bogus self-employment.
    I'm astonished by the lack of debate surrounding any NI implications on the recent Pimlico plumbing court case. Are HMCE just going to allow both Mullins and the plumber to have their cake and eat it ?
    Opening up the NI can of worms would upset a lot of people - see March 2017 Budget.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    Cyclefree said:



    And I also think some of the money has to go on keeping expensively trained doctors as doctors. I read the other day that within 5 years of qualifying quite a significant proportion have moved away from medecine. That is an absurd waste of resources.

    Aren't a significant number of those who leave actually just chosing to work abroad?

    That is, the terms and conditions for doctors say in Canada or Australia are markedly better than in the UK, and doctors have a highly-valued skill so they can easily leave the UK for a better job elsewhere.

    It is the other side of the coin to importing (or stealing) our doctors from poorer countries.

    Some of our expensively-trained doctors are exported to richer countries.
    That may be the case. So why not improve conditions here? Some of those improvements would improve conditions for others eg better and more affordable housing.

    But it seems to me absurd to train doctors here, export them abroad and then have to import more to replace them. Some element of this will always happen. But we should be doing more to train and keep our own health professionals. I would abolish the need to have a degree to become a nurse, for a start. And do something to improve the status of care workers so that it is seen and rewarded as a worthwhile career.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    Cyclefree said:

    Can I be a little provocative?

    I can. Good!

    Sure: good to see the NHS getting some extra funding.

    But ..... deep breath .....

    1. I’m sure I remember a few years ago Brown announcing some fantastic NHS settlement which would settle things for years and then again under the coalition. So how soon will the NHS be back asking for more? There must come a time when we say: “ Enough”.

    ' When the NHS was launched in 1948, it had a budget of £437 million (roughly £15 billion at today’s value). For 2015/16, the overall NHS budget was around £116.4 billion. '

    https://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/thenhs/about/Pages/overview.aspx
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,063
    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    RoyalBlue said:

    Scotland is the only part of the country where deaths exceed births. Not exactly the best indicator of a bright future.

    Sounds like a good thing to me. Reducing the population over time would solve a whole host of problems.
    Not really!

    Such a solution, short of a Logan's Run approach, just increases the dependancy ratio and the burden on the remaining workforce.

    It is worth noting that not only do Scots (especially Clydesiders) die young, they have a longer period of ill health than other Britons beforehand. Their DALYs (Disability Adjusted Life Years) are even worse than their life expectancy. There may be little saving to the tax payer of early death, as well as being obviously an undesirable social outcome!
    I would be very interested in any not overly technical description of DALYs you can link to with such regional statistics.
    It is covered very well in Michael Marmot's book The Health Gap, but much of this is just a lay presentation of his report for the UK Government:

    http://www.instituteofhealthequity.org/resources-reports/fair-society-healthy-lives-the-marmot-review
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Pulpstar said:

    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Just seen Polly Toynbee talking bollocks on Marr.. She said that the evidence suggests(via polls) that people were happy to pay more for the NHS and Social Care if taxes went up and people had to pay.. The Tories tried that at GE 2017.. it was a sub optimal outcome.

    Polls show only a minority of voters will pay a wealth tax, a 'dementia tax' or higher income tax for the NHS and Social Care but over 50% of voters will pay more National Insurance for the NHS and Social Care
    First step equalise it for all employed and self employed
    What’s needed is the merging of employee NI into income tax. This will not only simplify the administration of such things, but will also raise significant income due to IT having wider scope than NI. It’s easily possible to cut a penny from the combined tax for all standard rate taxpayers on PAYE while raising significant extra revenue, so most people would see a tax cut as a result.

    Employer NI is quite literally a tax on jobs, and needs to be reduced as much as possible - especially as it’s the subject of a lot of avoidance via ‘gig’ working and bogus self-employment.
    I'm astonished by the lack of debate surrounding any NI implications on the recent Pimlico plumbing court case. Are HMCE just going to allow both Mullins and the plumber to have their cake and eat it ?
    Opening up the NI can of worms would upset a lot of people - see March 2017 Budget.
    That issue was because it contradicted a specific manifesto commitment. We also saw what happens when a manifesto actually contains proposals to explicitly address the issue.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    Mr. Divvie, by that choice of words every government since WWII (possibly with one exception) was 'imposed upon the country against its will'.

    Scotland voted to remain part of the UK. The UK voted to leave the EU. The fact that England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted in differing ways doesn't matter because every Briton's vote counted equally.

    The alternatives to your grumpy SNP take on the result would be either for Scotland to have a veto, which would work wonderfully for stoking internal UK resentment and division, or for Scottish votes to be weighed more heavily than English ones, which would have a similar result.

    It's also rather odd that the SNP and their ilk are grumpy about leaving the EU, when their victory in 2014 would have ensured Scotland leaving the EU. It's almost as if leaving the EU without England, Wales and Northern Ireland is wonderful, and leaving it with England, Wales and Northern Ireland is catastrophic. Which is a nonsensical position to hold.

    Tbh honest my appetite for debating with those who have a vote in and live in my country over why their preferred option should be imposed on that country is pretty diminished. For those who don't live and vote here, its zilch.
    Morris Dancer does live in and vote in your country. As do I. It's the United Kingdom.

    Of course, if you're referring to Scotland, then you're more than welcome to set up and run an equivalent blog and online discussion zone. But it's a bit hypocritical to come here and then complain that you don't want to talk to the English.
    Unless you're now the PB arbiter on such things, I think I'll decide who I choose to engage with.

    If you post on PB, then expect answers on PB.
    And if you give unsolicited answers to my posts expect me to to decide whether and how I reply to them, you pompous diddy.
    David Herdson is anything but pompous.

    You seem to suffer from a need to always have the last word, and are unusually sensitive on the subject of Scottish Independence. If someone disagrees with you, your responses (after you've had several minutes to compose what you think is the most biting) are usually dripping in sarcasm and exhibit all aspects of your charming personality.

    Why not simply engage politely with the substance of the argument?
    If you think engaging politely with the substance of the argument is a runner, can I suggest you marry a Scot?
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    edited June 2018
    Cyclefree said:


    Off the top of my head: why not require people on higher earnings to have health insurance and use it? Why not concentrate the NHS on those things which cannot be provided by health insurance - public health, vaccinations, A&E, child health etc? And yes maybe those who smoke should take the consequences and have to contribute towards the costs and/or go to the back of the queue or have to give up smoking before they get treatment?

    Difficult questions I know. But I think we have to take responsibility for our own health and not simply expect the NHS to be the answer to everything. It should do what it does well. But maybe it has to do less. And if people want what it cannot provide they will have to put their hands in their pockets.

    People - even the less well off - spend enough on holidays and football tickets and all sorts of other luxuries that it is absurd to say that they can’t spend some of that on their own health. That is, if they really mean it when they say they value it.

    And I also think some of the money has to go on keeping expensively trained doctors as doctors. I read the other day that within 5 years of qualifying quite a significant proportion have moved away from medecine. That is an absurd waste of resources.

    People on higher earnings paying more tax so are funding the NHS more than the average person to begin with.

    Likewise people who smoke or drink alcohol are paying tax on their consumption.

    Perhaps a better way to incentivise people to take out private health insurance would be to make the costs tax deductible.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited June 2018
    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    .

    First step equalise it for all employed and self employed
    What’s needed is the merging of employee NI into income tax. This will not only simplify the administration of such things, but will also raise significant income due to IT having wider scope than NI. It’s easily possible to cut a penny from the combined tax for all standard rate taxpayers on PAYE while raising significant extra revenue, so most people would see a tax cut as a result.

    Employer NI is quite literally a tax on jobs, and needs to be reduced as much as possible - especially as it’s the subject of a lot of avoidance via ‘gig’ working and bogus self-employment.
    The reverse, NI should return to its original function and be hypothecated for NHS, social care and welfare funding only
    No. Hypotheticated taxes are always a bad idea, and the whole point of the change would be to bring pension and other unearned income into scope of the tax - meaning that Mr and Mrs Average on PAYE could get a tax cut as a result while still increasing revenue. Conservatives like tax cuts, no?
    I disagree, hypothecae
    There are more workers than pensioners. The people we need to extract more money from are those on comfortably large final salary pensions, it’s either that or property taxes. Phase in the change if you have to, but the vast majority of the electorate are on a standard PAYE job where they notice the deductions from their payslip at the end of the week or month. These people also live in marginal seats.

    The only possible reason I could see for hypotheticated taxes, is to make it more difficult for a theoretical Corbyn government to do stupid things. But he’ll do stupid things anyway. Imagine what hell he could do with an extant property tax.
    Final salary pensions have now ended in almost every private sector company, they still reside in the public sector but even there government will not be able to afford them for too much longer. Most pensions are now defined benefit contributions which also require direct contributions from employee and employer much like the higher National Insurance which will be required for more funding for the NHS and social care anyway (especially as polling shows while higher NI is accepted to pay for them higher property taxes clearly are not and of course it was Corbyn who led the opposition to the dementia tax).


  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:



    And I also think some of the money has to go on keeping expensively trained doctors as doctors. I read the other day that within 5 years of qualifying quite a significant proportion have moved away from medecine. That is an absurd waste of resources.

    Aren't a significant number of those who leave actually just chosing to work abroad?

    That is, the terms and conditions for doctors say in Canada or Australia are markedly better than in the UK, and doctors have a highly-valued skill so they can easily leave the UK for a better job elsewhere.

    It is the other side of the coin to importing (or stealing) our doctors from poorer countries.

    Some of our expensively-trained doctors are exported to richer countries.
    That may be the case. So why not improve conditions here? Some of those improvements would improve conditions for others eg better and more affordable housing.

    But it seems to me absurd to train doctors here, export them abroad and then have to import more to replace them. Some element of this will always happen. But we should be doing more to train and keep our own health professionals. I would abolish the need to have a degree to become a nurse, for a start. And do something to improve the status of care workers so that it is seen and rewarded as a worthwhile career.
    I agree with both your statements regarding care workers and nurses.

    If the state paid University tuition fees, then I think it would be reasonable to ask UK trained doctors to commit to the NHS for some years.

    I understand that medicine degrees are still subsidised, but the individual is now paying a much larger fraction of the training cost. As a consequence, we must compete for doctors in the market-place.

    The problem then is the Premier League. In such professions, the market-place is global. The NHS has a budget (as you just argued), and it can’t necessarily compete with salaries that are paid elsewhere.

    (I would introduce free university tuition for doctors willing to commit to the NHS for 10 years -- it would improve social mobility amongst other things).
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    Anyway, sorry to hijack Alaistair’s interesting thread header.

    In topic I don’t feel strongly about Scottish independence. If they want to go, good luck to them. I think the rest of the UK should be generous in the divorce settlement and aim to have a good and friendly long-term relationship with them, no matter how provocative or chippy some Scots Nats may get. It should do what the EU has notably failed to do in its relations with Britain post the Brexit vote, as Mr Meeks has himself pointed out.

    Whether relations with the EU are for the UK government or not, sometimes perceptions matter and it might have been wise to allocate more time to debate the Scottish perspective. But very little about Brexit has been handled wisely. Sadly.

    Anyway time to be off.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,763
    Foxy said:

    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    RoyalBlue said:

    Scotland is the only part of the country where deaths exceed births. Not exactly the best indicator of a bright future.

    Sounds like a good thing to me. Reducing the population over time would solve a whole host of problems.
    Not really!

    Such a solution, short of a Logan's Run approach, just increases the dependancy ratio and the burden on the remaining workforce.

    It is worth noting that not only do Scots (especially Clydesiders) die young, they have a longer period of ill health than other Britons beforehand. Their DALYs (Disability Adjusted Life Years) are even worse than their life expectancy. There may be little saving to the tax payer of early death, as well as being obviously an undesirable social outcome!
    I would be very interested in any not overly technical description of DALYs you can link to with such regional statistics.
    It is covered very well in Michael Marmot's book The Health Gap, but much of this is just a lay presentation of his report for the UK Government:

    http://www.instituteofhealthequity.org/resources-reports/fair-society-healthy-lives-the-marmot-review
    Many thanks. I will study that. My initial thoughts were that Clydesiders had a particularly onerous burden of heavy engineering such as shipbuilding with significant related health effects combined with large numbers of men in particular dumped on "disability benefits" when that engineering disappeared in their late 40s, early 50s, suffering from inevitable depression and a tendency to drink too much. If that is right, and it may be only part of the story (the climate is damp and unhealthy, for example) some of the effects will disappear in the next generation.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    .

    First step equalise it for all employed and self employed
    What’s needed is the merging of employee NI into income tax. This will not only simplify the administration of such things, but will also raise significant income due to IT having wider scope than NI. It’s easily possible to cut a penny from the combined tax for all standard rate taxpayers on PAYE while raising significant extra revenue, so most people would see a tax cut as a result.

    Employer NI is quite literally a tax on jobs, and needs to be reduced as much as possible - especially as it’s the subject of a lot of avoidance via ‘gig’ working and bogus self-employment.
    The reverse, NI should return to its original function and be hypothecated for NHS, social care and welfare funding only
    No. Hypotheticated taxes are always a bad idea, and the whole point of the change would be to bring pension and other unearned income into scope of the tax - meaning that Mr and Mrs Average on PAYE could get a tax cut as a result while still increasing revenue. Conservatives like tax cuts, no?
    I disagree, hypothecae
    There are more workers than pensioners. The people we need to extract more money from are those on comfortably large final salary pensions, it’s either that or property taxes. Phase in the change if you have to, but the vast majority of the electorate are on a standard PAYE job where they notice the deductions from their payslip at the end of the week or month. These people also live in marginal seats.

    The only possible reason I could see for hypotheticated taxes, is to make it more difficult for a theoretical Corbyn government to do stupid things. But he’ll do stupid things anyway. Imagine what hell he could do with an extant property tax.
    Final salary pensions have now ended in almost every private sector company, they still reside in the public sector but even there government will not be able to afford them for too much longer. Most pensions are now defined benefit contributions which also require direct contributions from employee and employer much like the higher National Insurance which will be required for more funding for the NHS and social care anyway (especially as polling shows while higher NI is accepted to pay for them higher property taxes clearly are not and of course it was Corbyn who led the opposition to the dementia tax).


    Or most pension schemes are now defined contribution rather than final salary defined benefit schemes more precisely
This discussion has been closed.