National News Official 2019 General Election Thread

Foley said:
We are hardly allowed to discuss.
I am not saying hospital. I am saying that I would not mind paying £10 ,to see a GP if it allowed more operations to people who need them. I can afford it ( and nobody who cant should pay)
But I accept I am in a minority of 1!!!
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I'm with you Foley. Clearly the NHS needs major investment and the general populace seems reluctant to pay more in taxes. No such thing as a magic money tree!

Exclude U18's, pensioners, unemployed and benefit claimants. Everybody else makes a small contribution for a GP visit, overnight stay, ambulance ride etc capped to a certain level annually eg £250 a year. Quite a common approach on the continent.

I'm what Gaslighting Gary would label a leftie - yet this approach would be considered sacrilege by most! Yet many of these same people accept paying through the nose for other essential services (water, broadband, transport) ?
 
Navegante said:
I'm with you Foley. Clearly the NHS needs major investment and the general populace seems reluctant to pay more in taxes. No such thing as a magic money tree!

Exclude U18's, pensioners, unemployed and benefit claimants. Everybody else makes a small contribution for a GP visit, overnight stay, ambulance ride etc capped to a certain level annually eg £250 a year. Quite a common approach on the continent.

I'm what Gaslighting Gary would label a leftie - yet this approach would be considered sacrilege by most! Yet many of these same people accept paying through the nose for other essential services (water, broadband, transport) ?
Click to expand...
Is this instead of national insurance?
 
QR said:
Is this instead of national insurance?
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No.

NI pays for statepensions, statutory sick pay, maternity leave and additional unemployment benefits.

Why would this be replaced if actual users of the healthservice (who could afford it) contributed a little £ to the cost of their treatment?
 
QR said:
OMG Gary Baldi you really believe him!!!!
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I believe no politicians, like I believe no sales person. We both know I'm being spun and lied to, so they can get a deal or whatever, but it's where or if we meet to compromise on that.

Sadly, all of the bigger parties leaders in this election are as bad as each other when the truth comes into the mix - but I suppose as I posted the other day, a lot of people don't want to hear the truth so we're all complicit in encouraging the lies and half truths.

In some respects, I hope this is the last election we have in a long time - we've talked for much too long about what politicians might do, not seen enough action from them. I suppose that means, nah won't say it.
 
chuckbert said:
Looking at the polling I dispair for Britain. If I saw that distribution in Oz I would be confident of having a Progressive govt on Friday: the Tory+Brexit vote is less than the Labour+LibDem+Green+SNP vote.
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This is exactly the problem, yet it’s amazing how many people don’t seem to care/understand.

In a first past the post system if you have only one main rightwing party (Conservatives) and three broadly liberal parties (Labour, Lib Dems, Greens) then of course the Tories will consistently take seats and form governments even though most people in the country don’t share their views. How exactly is that democracy or ‘the will of the people’?

Imagine if it was the other way around and every left leaning or liberal person could only vote Labour, while the right vote was split between the Tories, UKIP and the Brexit Party. Labour would win easily.

Don’t pretend that if Boris Johnson gets a majority ‘the country has spoken’ - no, the FPP system is broken and makes a mockery of the idea of voting. Don’t even get me started on the fact that a constituency of 100,000 voters returns one MP, as does a constituency of 20,000... And yet whoever forms a government will have a ‘mandate’ on Brexit... ?
 
HampshireYellow said:
This is exactly the problem, yet it’s amazing how many people don’t seem to care/understand.

In a first past the post system if you have only one main rightwing party (Conservatives) and three broadly liberal parties (Labour, Lib Dems, Greens) then of course the Tories will consistently take seats and form governments even though most people in the country don’t share their views. How exactly is that democracy or ‘the will of the people’?

Imagine if it was the other way around and every left leaning or liberal person could only vote Labour, while the right vote was split between the Tories, UKIP and the Brexit Party. Labour would win easily.

Don’t pretend that if Boris Johnson gets a majority ‘the country has spoken’ - no, the FPP system is broken and makes a mockery of the idea of voting. Don’t even get me started on the fact that a constituency of 100,000 voters returns one MP, as does a constituency of 20,000... And yet whoever forms a government will have a ‘mandate’ on Brexit... ?
Click to expand...

If FPTP did not exist parliament would have a large UKIP/Brexit Party presence already. The only reason those parties are not holding seats is because of FPTP.

We do need PR but to say that FPTP is undemocratic is an exaggeration.
 
HampshireYellow said:
This is exactly the problem, yet it’s amazing how many people don’t seem to care/understand.

In a first past the post system if you have only one main rightwing party (Conservatives) and three broadly liberal parties (Labour, Lib Dems, Greens) then of course the Tories will consistently take seats and form governments even though most people in the country don’t share their views. How exactly is that democracy or ‘the will of the people’?

Imagine if it was the other way around and every left leaning or liberal person could only vote Labour, while the right vote was split between the Tories, UKIP and the Brexit Party. Labour would win easily.

Don’t pretend that if Boris Johnson gets a majority ‘the country has spoken’ - no, the FPP system is broken and makes a mockery of the idea of voting. Don’t even get me started on the fact that a constituency of 100,000 voters returns one MP, as does a constituency of 20,000... And yet whoever forms a government will have a ‘mandate’ on Brexit... ?
Click to expand...

Nothing stopping all those Lib Dem’s, Greens and Scottish nationalists voting labour though is there? Those party’s exist because they don’t agree with Labour policy, so to claim that voting for one is much the same as voting for another and that totalling up those parties votes negates the legitimacy of a (possible) Tory victory is getting your excuses in early.
 
bashamwonderland said:
If FPTP did not exist parliament would have a large UKIP/Brexit Party presence already. The only reason those parties are not holding seats is because of FPTP.

We do need PR but to say that FPTP is undemocratic is an exaggeration.
Click to expand...

Based on what? The 1.8% of the vote that UKIP got in the last election?

FPTP is vastly undemocratic, in the last election the Conservatives gained 2.3% more of the vote than Labour, and yet got 55 more seats in parliament!
 
Lets just leave this here...........
yougov.co.uk

The key findings from our final MRP poll | YouGov

After much anticipation, YouGov’s second and final MRP poll of the 2019 general election is here. The model which correctly called 93% of seats in 2017 currently shows that a small Conservative majority is likely. This is the final public polling YouGov will conduct before Thursday’s vote
yougov.co.uk yougov.co.uk

Scotland could be interesting.

Roll on when its over, we have a Tory majority, and the country gets back to being progressive & positive. ?
 
bashamwonderland said:
If FPTP did not exist parliament would have a large UKIP/Brexit Party presence already. The only reason those parties are not holding seats is because of FPTP.

We do need PR but to say that FPTP is undemocratic is an exaggeration.
Click to expand...
And that is something people of a certain POV would not want in a UK parliament - imagine the outrage if Farage were sat in Parliament. They see it through their own lens of self gain
 
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HampshireYellow said:
Based on what? The 1.8% of the vote that UKIP got in the last election?

FPTP is vastly undemocratic, in the last election the Conservatives gained 2.3% more of the vote than Labour, and yet got 55 more seats in parliament!
Click to expand...

Well historically (2015) UKIP got more than 10% of the vote which under our PR system would have translated into a proper share of seats, which would have legitimised the party and potentially arrested it's eventual decline. Who knows where it might have gone with a legitimate parliamentary base.

The Conservatives were the most voted-for party in 2015 and 2017 so it's not entirely as though democracy is not delivered by FPTP but I think we are in agreement that the system should change.
 
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