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Reply | Angela Rayner
at 21:12 28 May 2024
Not that you’d think that’s the case from the headline in The Telegraph. I suspect they are clutching at straws.
The story came about from an unofficial biography by a Conservative peer and has been pushed by the Conservative Party. Seemingly, no case to answer, which many suspected from day one. I’m not a Rayner fan, but she’s been exonerated.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/28/angela-rayner-no-further-action/
[Post edited 28 May 21:16]
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Reply | The return of National Service
at 12:55 28 May 2024
Nobody in the west wants to see children packed off to war and used as canon fodder, but there are times we have to stand up to aggressors and tyrants, you know 1939, Ukraine etc etc, if we don’t we’ll just be steamrollered in to servitude. |
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Reply | The return of National Service
at 16:26 27 May 2024
Just read that the bulk of the funding for this scheme will come from scrapping the shared prosperity scheme which was introduced to redistribute cash and level up post Brexit. |
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Reply | Summer holiday activities in Turkiye and similar
at 21:07 26 May 2024
The daughter of I guy I used to work with went back packing around Thailand and was involved in a crash whilst a pillion passenger on a moped, she sustained nasty injuries and a 5 figure medical bill - the insurance company refused to pay up.
You’ve got to read the small print in any policies. |
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Reply | Travel Insurance Advice
at 21:01 26 May 2024
Thanks all, I’ll have a good look at your suggestions over the next few days. |
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Reply | The return of National Service
at 21:00 26 May 2024
When I first saw the story in this mornings press I thought it was April Fools Day. It seems poorly thought out, back of a fag packet stuff. Conscripting 30,000 out of around 770,000 eighteen year old kids for 12 months - mental.
While I think there’s definitely a need to provide some young people with a means of developing their skills, a broad brush approach is not required. The kids who need to be targeted are those who are not in education, training or employment not the kids who’re in school and working hard or the kids who’re grafting in a Saturday or Sunday job.
In Wales, as part of the Welsh Bac A level kids have to do a volunteering placement. One of my children (who was a really strong swimmer) volunteered as a swimming coach at a local swimming club. They coached the children and helped the develop the adult volunteer coaches. It was far from easy and involved quite a lot of hard work, including lesson plans for the kids, lesson plans the adult coaches, delivering the session, feed back, reflections, feed back to the coaches etc etc. It also helped them develop their communication skills - it’s not easy for an 18 year old to tell and adult what to do! |
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Thread | Travel Insurance Advice
at 12:29 26 May 2024
I have an elderly relative in her 80’s who has a couple of underlying health issues, the relative is looking to book a holiday and needs to source travel insurance. I have obtained 1 quote which was, to be quite frank extortionate. I was wondering if anyone on here had suggestions on where I might be able to try and get a better price. |
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Reply | Rooney for Plymouth
at 21:19 25 May 2024
I’m shocked by this, Rooney had 2 wins in 15 games - Sheffield Wednesday and Cardiff City. 10 points out of a possible. |
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Reply | The ospreys new ground?
at 21:09 25 May 2024
Bridgend is the better ground, St Helens is a rubbish stadium and is completely unsuitable for top level rugby. If the O’s are looking for a long term home and they have money to spend, then it has to be in Swansea, if they font have any money and there’s limited support available from the council then it has to be Bridgend.
I watch a lot of club rugby, but have no interest in going to watch regional rugby. |
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Reply | Michael Gove
at 20:48 25 May 2024
But it’s not just “lefty-loon” types. We’ve got captains of industry, our right of centre government, treasury officials etc all pushing immigration because it gives them a pool of readily employable pool of people who will do the jobs the indigenous population won’t do for very low wages. |
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Reply | Michael Gove
at 20:41 25 May 2024
We defo need to know where the parties stand. Cameron’s 2010 manifesto claimed net migration would be reduced to the 10,000s of thousands - what we’ve seen since then is a huge unprecedented increase in migration - we’re being gaslighted and conned. |
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Reply | Michael Gove
at 20:37 25 May 2024
Between January 1997 and December 2009 (mainly Labour government) the population increased by 4m. Between Since 2010 to 2023 (mainly Conservative governments) the population increased by 5.5m. During the Blair/Brown years we had the implantation of the Maastricht Treaty (signed by John Major) which introduced Freedom of Movement.
In 2016, the U.K. voted for Brexit which allowed the U.K. to take control of its borders, but in reality nothing could be further from the truth because immigration has gone completely off the Richter scale, the last 2 or 3 years have seen unprecedented levels of immigration well beyond anything we had under Labour.
Most of the migrants are documented, but there are undocumented criminals lurking in crime gangs and as slave labour. The Home Office has lost contact with numerous migrants and efforts to deport criminals and undesirables are abject. The criminals and undesirables are the people we need to deport - end of.
In one of the other posts in this thread, someone said “countless PMs since have been unable to close the door since , all Home Secretaries since have failed dismally too” - it’s not a case of being unable to or failing to close the door - they haven’t even tried. Immigration is perceived to boost the economy and lots of employers need immigration to fill jobs etc.
Home Secretaries had failed to address the |
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Reply | General Election
at 19:51 25 May 2024
An adult conversation needs to be had with regards to what we expect the NHS to deliver because the status quo is unsustainable.
Covid saw a considerable increase in the amount of cash pumped in to the NHS, however if we disregard the additional funding provided for Covid and concentrate on non the situation minus the Covid funding it’s clear that spending on the NHS compares poorly to many countries.
Spending per capita in the U.K. in 2020 was less than 50% of the corresponding spend in the USA, it was also 10% lower per person than spend across Western Europe (EU15 + EFTA) and the Anglosphere average. If we look at NHS spending as a proportion of GDP it has increased in comparisons to other countries over the last few years, but that’s because our productivity and GDP has declined in comparison to other countries.
We have less doctors and less nurses than many other countries, we also have less beds and less equipment than our 19 OECD peers. For example Japan has the highest number of 166 CT /MRI scanners per 1m population, the US is next with 85.4 per 1m population, Denmark are in 10th place with 40 MRI machines per 1m population, while we are 19th with 16.1 machines per 1m of the population.
On the plus side, we have less managers and spend less on admin, but then again that may be part of the reasons some of the NHS’s outcomes are worse than outcomes in peer countries.
The data in the second paragraph implies that the NHS is underfunded in comparison to other health services. |
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Reply | Michael Gove
at 22:46 24 May 2024
And a few who have some serious question marks about their ability and integrity. |
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Reply | General Election
at 22:43 24 May 2024
You mention the NHS and having money”continually pumped into it” but there a lot of gaslighting going on in relation to NHS budget and things can be far from straightforward.
In terms of NHS England, the 2024 Spring Budget also announced an increase of £2.5bn to NHS England’s planned budget for 2024/25. Thats a lot of money, but in real terms it actually equates to the budget means the remaining relatively flat increasing by 0.2%, BUT if the budget is adjusted for to reflect the increasing population and the fact there are far more older people the planned NHS England budget will have DECREASED by an average of 1.6% per year in real terms. I dare say the same situation exists in the Wales and Scotland.
The NHS is in an unenvious position, it’s taking some flak from politicians who will trumpet the increased budgets, but the fact is it’s expected to treat more and more people who cost more to care for with less resources. I totally agree with you about being made non political, but that’s not likely to happen. |
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Reply | General Election
at 22:48 23 May 2024
I think the GP is on the money. I think anyone with half a brain could see the significant increase in the population as a result of immigration would put pressure on a raft of areas including the NHS, housing education, transportation, infrastructure such as roads, sewers etc.etc. We can’t increase the population by 10% and expect outcomes to improve without a corresponding significant increase in resources. Over and above the increased population, our aging population is going to cause medical costs to further increase. |
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Reply | General Election
at 22:24 23 May 2024
Labour have moved to the middle ground where they will attract increased levels of support, wherever they sit on the political spectrum they will still be to the left of the Conservative Party.
The Labour Party of Jeremy Corbyn was to many people simply unelectable, Corbyn didn’t attract enough support and Labour were wiped out at the last GE. According to Einstein the definition of insanity “is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” - quite simply Labour had to adapt or die, failure to do the former would result in the later.
The choice is a more right Labour which could be electable or a more left wing Labour which is unelectable which will mean you end up with a Conservative government. [Post edited 24 May 8:35]
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Reply | Unbelievable these Tories
at 19:58 22 May 2024
I think you’ll find the Conservative government over the last 14 years have left a lot more people (whether that’s via the illegal or legal routes) than Blair ever did. Last year we took in around 1.2m people - a net increase of around 750,000 people which is the equivalent of a city the size of Leeds - the 6th largest city in England and Wales. |
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Reply | Sunak
at 19:51 22 May 2024
I think it’s a fair point though, the country is in a mess. |
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Reply | General Election
at 19:27 22 May 2024
Blair was responsible for a significant increase in the standard of living, probably the biggest increase in my lifetime. In eras of the bust, the US sub prime started that and the contagion spread across the world. The consensus among economists was Brown did a tidy job of managing the fall out, but it cost a lot of cash and him a GE.
I never saw Brown as a leader, he struck me as being as someone who’d be good in a team but not having the charisma to be the leader. |
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