OT. The futures Bright, the Futures Brexit!!!

[mistaram]

‘Taxes are relatively high but you get a lot back for your money’.

Wise words...seldom heard and ones that put this election into perspective.

The Parties are currently falling over themselves to make spending promises as far as the big four of health, education, policing and care for the elderly are concerned, rather begging the question of what the last nine years of savage cuts have been all about.

But how can they? Firstly it is currently impossible to factor in the cost of Brexit - because we don’t know what ‘deal’ we’ll be getting - and secondly we have to grasp the nettle that a low tax economy seems incompatible with one which supports high public spending.

The public might, imo, tolerate the truth of taxes needing to rise if they are to ‘get a lot back for their money’ but they need politicians to be honest and they need to see such spending translated into genuine resources i.e. hospitals, nurses and doctors, as opposed to more managers. Teachers, resources and smaller class sizes rather than highly paid ‘executive heads’ who all too often know next to nothing about children and proper policemen/law enforcement officers who ‘walk’ the streets rather than spend half their working lives as reluctant form fillers.

RA I watched Andrew Neil on Friday night interviewing Rishi Sunak chief Secretary to the Treasury . He was saying what they are going to spend on police, nhs, teachers etc Neil said to him us But your going to go to the money ,no we're not ,yes you are, well sort of, Neil there your going to borrow , yes but only because the economy is so strong and interest rates so low You couldn't make it up and they say Labour has a money tree

[swaledale]

May I suggest the Netherlands, Swale? I have enjoyed living here for the past 35 years and, if I move anywhere, it will be to warmer climes such as a Mediterranean island or the Canaries or maybe the coast of Greece, Italy or Spain where the cost of living is friendly to OAP's like me.

Health care? Insurance based. I have a top of the line policy that covers everything I am likely to need and it costs about £110 a month. I also pay the first £320 a year of all treatment and medicines. The meds I am on cost £1400 a year. The causes behind my needing those meds mean I have to have blood tests twice a year for the Cardiologist for heart related issues. Another twice a year for my GP practice where the rest is checked. Dental costs are also covered.

The hospitals etc aren't profit making organisations so the prices are "normal". The same goes for the insurance companies on their health policies. That is enshrined in Law.

The locals are very friendly and 99% speak English which means they are already assimilated

Taxes are relatvely high but you get a lot back for your money.

AS it happens MA I have a Dutch son in law, so I am well versed with life in the Netherlands, though he has lived and worked over here for over 10 years and is currently negotiating his way through the minefield that is "settled status".

Whilst I like the Dutch (no choice really ha ha!) I do find the flat landscape a touch depressing especially in the winter, my thoughts tend towards warmer climes with dramatic scenery.

[MadAmster]

Totally agree with you on the smear campaign the press has successfully waged against Corbyn. However, I do despair at the thought of Miss Abbott as Home Secretary. Forget the press, forget the social media memes....... she really does come across as being 3 votes short of a majority upstairs.

[ramAnag]

Totally agree with you on the smear campaign the press has successfully waged against Corbyn. However, I do despair at the thought of Miss Abbott as Home Secretary. Forget the press, forget the social media memes....... she really does come across as being 3 votes short of a majority upstairs.

Recognise your doubts over Diane Abbott, MA. I doubt that she’s a bad person - far from it - but she does come across as someone who has been promoted beyond her level of ability and is, as such, something of an electoral liability.

Then again, with characters like the ignorant and reprehensible Rees-Mogg and Dominic ‘I didn’t realise how important Dover is’ Raab likely to hold positions of power within any future Tory cabinet is she really that much worse?

Both you and Swale are, imo, absolutely right to flag up the role of the media in the forthcoming GE. Yesterday was a case in point...we saw Sky News broadcast Johnson’s departing address to his cabinet. Can’t recall that happening before but it wasn’t actually an address to the cabinet at all, it was an unofficial party political broadcast and Sky were complicit in that.

[Geoff Parkstone]

Sorry rA, Dianne Abbott is a total waste of space and an embarrassment to the party, her gender and her race. Does anyone think that, if she had been a white male MP she would still hold down a prominent position in any party. She is an example of tokenism at its worst.

[MadAmster]

Recognise your doubts over Diane Abbott, MA. I doubt that she’s a bad person - far from it - but she does come across as someone who has been promoted beyond her level of ability and is, as such, something of an electoral liability.

That's about the one thing she hasn't been accused of, being a bad person. I too don't think she is one. However, I stick with my 3 votes short of a majority upstairs conclusion on the good lady.

[ramAnag]

Sorry rA, Dianne Abbott is a total waste of space and an embarrassment to the party, her gender and her race. Does anyone think that, if she had been a white male MP she would still hold down a prominent position in any party. She is an example of tokenism at its worst.

No need for ‘sorry’, Parky...that’s your opinion.

Mine is that she’s someone who often doesn’t help herself but who has become a target of frequent misogynistic and racial attack from certain quarters and who has been judged too harshly on the basis of ill chosen words and miscalculations made at a time when, I believe, she had just started receiving treatment for Type 2 diabetes.
In truth ‘my’ Labour Party, if there is such a thing, is the one represented by Keir Starmer and Hilary Benn and to that extent I’d be happiest if we didn’t hear from Abbott at all during the election campaign. Having said that I’d take her general decency and compassion over the ignorant, disingenuous greed of those such as Gove, Rees-Mogg, Johnson and Raab etc any day.

[Geoff Parkstone]

" ill chosen words and miscalculations made at a time when, I believe, she had just started receiving treatment for Type 2 diabetes."

I have type 2 diabetes, and have had for some 10 years. I have no recollection of suddenly becoming illiterate or innumerate when I started treatment - be that diet restrictions, tablets and/or insulin. That's just an excuse - if indeed she ever expressed it a such. Far better MPs have put up with far more devastating ailments and it not descended into that chaos. Example David Blunkett

Ask your self this question: had she been Jewish, do you think she would still be in such high office (or even got there?)?

Your comparisons to Gove et al dont really get us anywhere. Its a bit like saying Viscount Halifax was a good guy when compared to Adolf Hitler.

[ramAnag]

" ill chosen words and miscalculations made at a time when, I believe, she had just started receiving treatment for Type 2 diabetes."

I have type 2 diabetes, and have had for some 10 years. I have no recollection of suddenly becoming illiterate or innumerate when I started treatment - be that diet restrictions, tablets and/or insulin. That's just an excuse - if indeed she ever expressed it a such. Far better MPs have put up with far more devastating ailments and it not descended into that chaos. Example David Blunkett

Ask your self this question: had she been Jewish, do you think she would still be in such high office (or even got there?)?

Your comparisons to Gove et al dont really get us anywhere. Its a bit like saying Viscount Halifax was a good guy when compared to Adolf Hitler.

I obviously bow to your infinitely greater knowledge of the condition.
My own awareness of T2 diabetes is limited to a friend who is a self employed electrician and his ability to work normally certainly suffered until his medication was properly and eventually regulated.

I have no idea whether or to what extent Abbott’s ethnicity has played a part in her rise within the Labour Party however, at the risk of repeating myself, I don’t have much faith in her but MA’s original point seemed to be that having such a person in potential high office might be detrimental to Labour. My point is...why just select Abbott when you look at some of the specimens who are likely to find themselves in the next potential Tory Government?

[MadAmster]

Abbott and Corbynto was one comment I saw earlier on asocial media.

[Geoff Parkstone]

"...who is a self employed electrician and his ability to work normally certainly suffered until his medication was properly and eventually reg ulated."

In a physical job then I can see there might be issues, with tiredness and a general feeling of weakness/fatigue as a result of excess blood sugar (or even low blood sugar). This can oscillate with poor control, which may be the case as you get used to the medication. In a physical job this can be debilitating, but not in a desk job such as mine or a politician

[ramAnag]

"...who is a self employed electrician and his ability to work normally certainly suffered until his medication was properly and eventually reg ulated."

In a physical job then I can see there might be issues, with tiredness and a general feeling of weakness/fatigue as a result of excess blood sugar (or even low blood sugar). This can oscillate with poor control, which may be the case as you get used to the medication. In a physical job this can be debilitating, but not in a desk job such as mine or a politician

As I have readily conceded your first hand experience obviously gives you greater knowledge as regards the condition.

I’m not sure Ms. Abbott’s appearance on QT, which if I remember correctly was where she made a fool of herself, quite constitutes the stress free environment you imply but let’s not quibble.

Point is...she clearly doesn’t impress you and I accept that she’s probably disadvantageous as far as the GE is concerned, but is she really any more unacceptable than those I have mentioned within the Tory Party or the likes of the frankly ridiculous Ann Widdecombe in the Brexit Party.
Not at all, imo...so let’s not become fixated on one individual.

[swaledale]

That's about the one thing she hasn't been accused of, being a bad person. I too don't think she is one. However, I stick with my 3 votes short of a majority upstairs conclusion on the good lady.

Yet she has a degree from Cambridge? I don't think its a question of intelligence, its not being quick with the BS when interviewed, something a politician needs to be able to do or at least believable bull****!

[Trickytreesreds]

Whilst RA is right that no one person should be singled out, she is the sterotypical token placement for any party. Had she been white/straight/in any other party. She'd have been binned years ago.

1) Diane Abbot has claimed Brexit was triggered by racists who did not like seeing people who look 'foreign' on their streets. She Branded Brexiters "Stupid and Racist"
2) She said Brexit supporters had attacked ethnic minority voters afterwards but has no evidence to back this up
2) Said when people spoke about immigrants, often included people like her from ethnic minority backgrounds who had been British for generations (Her Parents are Jamaican, she has been brought up traditionally Jamaican. Her loyalties are clearly biased towards West Indian people).
3) "London shouldn't have another white middle ages mayor"
4) "Blonde, blue-eyed Finnish girls" are unsuitable as nurses because they had "never met a black person before"
5) Abbott tweeted "White people love playing 'divide and rule' We should not play their game" in 2012
6) Abbott suggested that taxi drivers discriminate on racial grounds, tweeting that she was "Dubious of black people claiming they’ve never experienced racism. Ever tried hailing a taxi I always wonder?"
7) Abbott captures a central political fact, which is that white people in western societies have benefited from their histories of colonial exploitation. .She used the hashtag "tactics as old as colonialism."
8) “West Indian mothers would go to the wall for their children”, suggesting others would not, Andrew Neil responded: "So black mums love their kids more than white mums, do they?" She could not bring herself to say mothers of every race love their children just as much.
9) The MP was investigated by the Committee on Standards and Privileges in 2004 when it emerged she had failed to declare earnings of £17,300 for appearances on The Week.
10) Has a charity that helps black children only in education and spent 29K of its 35K budget on a party for Parliament.

[swaledale]

letting your Johnson make decisions whilst enjoyable at the time often leads to some interesting situations later “