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Agreed...equally, back on the subject of dementia...it's bad enough that people should have to suffer from it and equally bad that their children should have to witness and experience such suffering. Like most health issues it's a bit of a lottery but why the hell should those unlucky enough to experience this condition have to pay the financial consequences as well? Looked horribly like the Tories were/are trying to sneak this through under cover of what they thought was a Brexit dominated foregone...until St.Theresa stipulated at lunchtime, with a look of pained anguish...'nothing has changed'.Originally Posted by Andy_Faber
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Except the system does not work! 45% default rate and increasing, costly to administer actually reaching a point where the cost is more than a means tested grant system.
Bit like the privatised railways where public subsidy is now nearly double at at 5.4 billion per year and fares are 110% higher! Got love these Tories they know how to pour tax payers money down the wallets of their rich friends!
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Easy with those exclamation marks Swale, we don't want another rant-driven meltdown
As usual, the power of your argument would be increased if you'd quote your sources
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That's treating dementia as a health issue not a care issue, so 'free at the point of need' - I totally agree with that too R, I'm sounding more socialist by the day! BUT, if the philosophy is to apply a direct charge, IMO the conservative proposal was a fair approach - a Bollinger-quaffing millionaire pays £900k, his cuppa-tea chauffeur in council accommodation and £100k in assets pays nothing. I really can't/couldn't see the prob with that, and i think Imelda's obvious U-turn and subsequent in-denial clarifications shows her to be a lot less 'strong and stable' than the spin would have you believe. As someone who has to think up headlines/byeline/slogans every now and then I'm surprised someone didn't jump on describing the Conservatives as 'The Non-Coalition Of Chaos'
the whole election period so far has just reinforced for me the old adage that anyone who expresses an interest in being a politician should automatically be barred from being one.
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Very fine lines Andy and dementia is certainly not alone in representing a health issue with repercussions for long term care.
Imo your millionaire/chauffeur example doesn't really work. This is something which impacts on the whole of society and is the result of scientists who have learned how to prolong life without giving enough thought to the attendant quality of life.
Again imo it is, just like health and education, something which society as a whole must accept responsibility for. Just as everyone, not just those with children, pays for schools and just as everyone, not just those who have accidents or are sick, contributes towards the NHS so it should be with social care and dementia and however unpalatable this may be for the Tory champions of low taxation and run down public services...the only answer is increased and properly targeted taxation.
A good education system, good systems of child care, appropriately financed emergency services, a good system of health care and a fitting system of care for the elderly are, imo, the prerequisites of a civilised society and I'd far rather my taxes were spent on such things rather than some of the nonsense successive governments have seen fit to invest in.
Can't help but agree with your last paragraph though.
Last edited by ramAnag; 23-05-2017 at 08:47 AM.
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The reason I try to stay out of political debates on a football forum is because the ignorance spouted is huge. Strangely the ignorant claim it's the others who are ignorant!
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The question now is: 'what effect will the latest monstrous act have on the election and should Manure's match be called off??'
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None and no, hopefully. Re the footy, if Derby had a game this evening I'd want Derby playing it and I'd want to be there. Accepted MU is the same city so slightly more raw.
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I don't see why anything should be called off. I'm sure each leader will be putting forward why their way is best.
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Im not quite sure where that leaves you Charlie! The fundamental point of argument here is simply that the "socialist" - in the wider sense of the word - agenda is simply unaffordable. Let us consider the following;
Pensions system - totally underfunded. Well not funded at all and reliant on a shrinking workforce supporting a growing ageing population. Insolvent and creaking badly. ****ed and reliant on buying people off with tax breaks on personal pensions.
NHS and Care in the Community - underfunded and has been for many years, no matter what government is in control. People living too long, diseases being cured to an extent, not enough wars - Malthusian economics required or the system will be fatally screwed in a few years.
Education - we realistically have introduced the need to pay for higher education via student loans. The under 18 school system seems to be stretched and has too big classroom sizes to be effective. It has been shaven down to the bare bones and is underfunded.
Benefits system - who knows what black holes exist in here: it may not be as bad as the TV "benefits scroungers" programmes would have you believe, but the JSA, income support, tax credit systems still eat up a lot of collective resource and is also presumed underfunded.
Policing - ask Dianne Abbott but essentially underfunded and undermanned. Probably same for all the armed forces, but Im not sure people in pretty uniforms matter much when the North Koreans can finally get a missile to US soil.
Transport - railways a nightmare for reliability and most expensive in Europe, roads (around me at least) mostly just joined up potholes. Massive infrastructural problems
Power - again massive infrastructual issues as we try to move away from fossil fuels to something else - nuclear in all probability as green energy just wont cut it, sadly.
So if we all got what we wanted from that picking list, then there would need to be a massive tax and NI hike - maybe 15 to 20% might go some way to halting the slide in service?
Also add HMRC as underfunded and inefficient - woefully understaffed and lacking skills training and experience. So if you cannot collect what you are due is there any point trying to increase rates?
Sadly I conclude that the objectives that lie behind all of these centralised "social" services, while laudable when first conceived, are now basically "pie in the sky" and unaffordable other than in a totalitarian state. If we did not live so long, did not all suddenly feel the need for university educations, all accepted illness and premature death as a part of life then such systems might be financially viable, but we dont. Our expectations of the state continue to rise whilst our willingness to pay for it via taxation continues to fall.
Corbyn wants to milk the rich and the companies, but even that will only scratch the surface of what is needed to correct our society At the core of this is the fact that the "well to do" do not, a few philanthropists aside, want to pay for the less well off. Socialist principles will only work where the big earners share those principles. But they don't, by and large.
But lets examine those principles a bit more. The low earner in this country is happy to accept the principle that the high earner contributes an extra (say) 15% of his earnings to pay for a fairer society. But how many of those low earners would give 15% of their earnings to better the life style of children in Africa and Asia to whom even our creaking social systems would seem a godsend?
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