https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-65167520
It is no secret that the Conservative Party have for decades, indeed, since inception, wanted to get rid of the NHS in exchange for a more profitable US style insurance system.
Under this incarnation of the Tories we are seeing it happen at an accelerated rate.
It is my believe that they saw the Covid19 pandemic as an opportunity not to be missed to weaken the service so much as to be near impossible to fix without an unaffordable investment.
The theory is simple, for years use a policy of austerity to freeze the wages of all those working in the NHS. It would take years to kick in but eventually staff would leave so much as to make the service collapse. They likely never considered that they could escalate the process. Then there was Covid!
Staff within the NHS were put under enormous pressure whilst still living on ever shrinking wages. As staff left, as inevitably they would, conditions for the remaining staff became unbearable. Now doing the work intended for several staff members.
Staff, therefore, left even quicker placing even more pressure on the service.
Within the NHS they worked out two key points which are vital to understand to comprehend the current union action. The most important point is knowing that salaries need to be attractive to encourage staff to join the NHS and, the second, not quite as important as the first, compensation for all the current remaining staff for the years they had their salaries cut to fun the government austerity policy.
So, this is not a simply case of already OK paid people demanding an unrealistic salary, it is about the very survival of the NHS so, of course the @Conservative Party want them desperately to lose this fight.
What do the Conservatives hope to gain from destroying the NHS?
Wealth for the UK. The NHS costs a huge amount of money (7% of the entire wealth we produce), money a government could funnel into tax cuts. Tax cuts buy votes, it keeps them in power. Many of the current Conservative MP’s have connections, some direct, others indirect with private health care companies whether it be by directorships or investments. They personally will gain from the uptake of private health care.
With the reduction of the NHS budget they will be able to afford a much less version of the NHS for the very poor only and, they get to define who the very poor are. Many of the elderly and sick will (sadly) die off reducing the burden on the basic health service, social care and benefits. It is an Utopian world where the Government remains in power by tax hand outs and reduces costs on the most needy giving them yet more money to spend on tax handouts.
What can they realistically achieve before a general election?
Division. Division seems to be their entire game plan for the next General Election. Whether it be immigration, crime attributed to race or striking workers crippling the country, it seems to be what they are going with. They have to really as they sure don’t want anyone analysing their 13 year long record of mismanagement!
Could an incoming Labour government repair the NHS?
Simple answer is, no. They won’t have the money to do it with unless they commit to record levels of borrowing. To do that assures they will be a one term government. As debt rises they will need to either radically increase growth, nigh on impossible since leaving the EU else, raise taxes.
Would they rejoin the EU?
Yes, if they have the balls for it! It is the only sensible thing to do. Nothing promised from Brexit, none of the benefits happened. I can tell you that Northampton still sounds just as Eastern European as it did prior to Brexit, there are just as many perceived ‘foreigners’. I added to it by marrying one so, I obviously support migration in both directions.
As has been seen by the utter disinterest of the US to strike a trade deal with the UK, we are just not significant any more on the world stage. Best this government can come with is some weird trade deal with countries like Peru. They cannot even come up with a single guaranteed benefit of that. It is all based on the vague possibility that some of those signed up to it might sort themselves out and offer as maybe 1% of what we lost when we left the EU.
Conclusion is simple. The NHS is near death and the government despite their protestations that they are investing millions extra in it, are letting it die. They are letting the situation of our country get desperate because desperate people go for desperate solutions, accept crazy reasons for why things are the way things are.
If the country comes together and votes in the next general election for whichever party will get this government out of office, the country will be all the better for it, we will all be the better for it.
In my area, only Labour can beat the Conservative MPs. Voting for anyone else leaves those MP’s with the chance of holding onto their seats.
To steal a line for yet another Idiotic ex World Leader, Donald J Trump and, corrupt it.
Let’s Make Britain Great Again … not that MBGA is particularly catchy and won’t look great on a hat.
Making us great again as we used to be and I mean, really used to be. That has nothing to do with immigration, nothing to do with striking workers, unmarried mothers, those on benefits, pensioners and so on. Those things ‘USED’ to be things we supported, encouraged even. We knew that we needed skilled workers and they had to be paid, we knew we needed a growing population to pay tax in later life and grow the economy. We were proud we had a system in place which supported us at some of our lowest times and, most preciously, we valued our elderly, our grandparents, great aunts and uncles. We didn’t treat them as an unaffordable burden on society.
Just think about it, if we start downgrading our elderly like we are, it’s our own future we are damaging. Likely, most of us will some day be elderly, why would we dare to dismantle the safeguard in place now so that there is nothing left when we are old? You think we’re not? You are wrong. When the government went along with the triple lock on pensions and awarded a 10% increase in pensions, there were calls across the country to scrap it, how could we afford such a huge increase when the country is in so much need? Last year, pensioners were left effectively worse off as pensions rose less than inflation. Then the government announces a scheme to get pensioners back to work, they’re retiring too early, they need to work more. Actually, they have more than one scheme for it. They are already pathing the way to abolish the state pension entirely. With the long term wishes of this government clear, there are people born today who will never get a state retirement pension and, if the pension can go, what chance then the NHS?
One final thing just popped up
Doesn’t our Prime Minister just look like a kid sending a pic to his mates saying:
“Hey guys, it’s me, at Madame Tussauds, look who I am meeting” @rishi