[Politics] Are Labour going to turn this country around?

[drew]

NHS England was unpopular from the beginning and was part of a set of disastrous reforms by Andrew Lansley, who was health minister before Jeremy *unt.

This was when the privatisation by stealth kicked in as it was an attempt to introduce free market principles. Naturally, it fell on its arse.

NHS health reforms could change - Andrew Lansley

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley says he is ready to accept "substantial and significant" alterations to plans for changes in the NHS in England.

www.bbc.co.uk

To be fair, I thought that Blair first brought in private companies into the NHS! Not sure bringing full control under the dept of health is a good idea! Ok whilst labour are at the helm but not sure if the tories get back in! If there was duplication between NHS England and Dept of Health, reduce the D of H!

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I agree with this.

But it’s critical to do it in the right way and not have your MPs weaponising it like the last government did. There needs to be compassion and understanding when tackling this issue.

My big caveat is that the Government should be focusing on tax dodging by the super rich as this is where they’ll find more money and fairness and I hope the work done on the benefit system does not in anyway shadow what they are doing there.

Difficult and unpopular decisions are needed such as increasing inheritance tax on farmers (plugging a tax loophole that had seen investment funds buy thousands of acres of farmland to avoid tax payments) and removing the winter fuel allowance that has seen millions of wealthy pensioners lose the £300 or so they did not need. However, those decisions need more planning, more spin and more thought as in each of the cases above, there were perceived victims. For example, Farmers are not making enough money for what they do, we all know that. They needed to be given something such as revenue from a supermarket profit tax or protected minimum prices for their produce in return for increasing their tax burden. There was a lot more the government could have done with the removal of the winter fuel payment such as increasing the level payment or the level at which payment it received. I hope they iron out these sorts of mistakes going forward and make sure their policies are a little fairer.

If they are doing to do this we will find out only at the last minute.
It is no good Labour explaining what they plan to do in advance, or the super rich will simply take counter measures.
And of course if Labour do drop a solution when nobody expects it,
standby for the super rich, via their proxies such as the Daily Mail,
whining about how unfair it all is.

 

[SouthSaxon]

To be fair, I thought that Blair first brought in private companies into the NHS! Not sure bringing full control under the dept of health is a good idea! Ok whilst labour are at the helm but not sure if the tories get back in! If there was duplication between NHS England and Dept of Health, reduce the D of H!

I wasn’t implying it was the first use of private resources in the NHS, but that it was widely seen at the time as privatisation by stealth. Either way, you’ll struggle to find people willing to defend Lansley’s (a Conservative) reforms.

 

[Bodian]

Until the two big beasts of VAT and fuel duty are addressed we won't move forward. Governments are now so reliant on these two vast streams of revenue that they are reluctant to even discuss them. They are crippling us as a nation.

Trouble is - fuel duty needs to go up, not only to increase Government revenues, but to influence their wider policies of reducing reliance on fossil fuels. They are in a difficult place.

It's amazing how quiet the unions have been over this.

There will be a LOT of people losing their jobs.

Same in the Civil Service (in fact a lot more)

I thought the tories lost the election.

I wonder how many will be made redundant - and how many shifted across to other parts of the civil service where Labour want to improve other services? Don't know.