UKIP are now a parliamentary party

[BadFish]

I do have an issue in relation to UKIP stopping foreign aid. There are thousands of people dying and suffering in Africa at present as a result of Ebola, and as far as UKIP are concerned, they're foreign so let them die.

These days we are very much part of an internation community. The trouble with these kind of policies is that they ignore this fact and want every back to the nationalist agenda. My opinion is that this is riddled with problems. Maybe we should be a bit more futurist about it and see ourselves as part of the planet and use that ideology to inform our ideas and actions.

 

[BadFish]

When was the last time you visited an English doctors or hospital BF ?

Can you discern the factors by visiting?

About two years ago. I was helped by a very nice Indian Doctor. Bloody immigrants I thought.

My last visit has little effect on the factors that are causing the problems though SM. They have been underfunded for years.

 

[El Presidente]

I mean't the amount of patients......but then you knew that.

I'm from an immigrant family though, why shouldn't I benefit from the NHS? The costs of health tourism are insignificant compared to the scandal of PFI, embraced by both Labour and Tories, but as usual people aren't interested in that, as they are fed a constant diet of scare stories that ignore this issue.

 

[Soulman]

I do have an issue in relation to UKIP stopping foreign aid. There are thousands of people dying and suffering in Africa at present as a result of Ebola, and as far as UKIP are concerned, they're foreign so let them die.

The manifesto stated "Make cuts to foreign aid".....

 

[BadFish]

Cut back the wastage on some foreign aid. One example, we give about 280million a YEAR to India, even though a few years back the Indian prime minister stated they did not want it. Next year it will stop. How about the other countries that do not use the money to help the people, use it for weapons etc.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ndia-tells-Britain-We-dont-want-your-aid.html

I'll give you the leftie view as well.
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2011/feb/14/government-defends-1bn-aid-india

Can't disagree with this it is a disgrace. Don't china get a whole load of money too?

You should write the UKIP manifesto for them so you can fill in the details.

 

[BadFish]

I'm from an immigrant family though, why shouldn't I benefit from the NHS? The costs of health tourism are insignificant compared to the scandal of PFI, embraced by both Labour and Tories, but as usual people aren't interested in that, as they are fed a constant diet of scare stories that ignore this issue.

Why look at any other factors when you can use the 'blame umbrella' of immigration. Governments are happy because it deflects the blame from what they are up to, angry people are happy because they have someone to blame. It really is a win win.

 

[Soulman]

I'm from an immigrant family though, why shouldn't I benefit from the NHS? The costs of health tourism are insignificant compared to the scandal of PFI, embraced by both Labour and Tories, but as usual people aren't interested in that, as they are fed a constant diet of scare stories that ignore this issue.

If you keep comparing with other scandals, which should also be dealt with by the way, you will never sort things. That old chestnut of well look at that, and look at that, just gets us nowhere. Sort them all out, or don't vote for those that have had the chance and done feck all about it as you mentioned.

 

[BadFish]

If you keep comparing with other scandals, which should also be dealt with by the way, you will never sort things. That old chestnut of well look at that, and look at that, just gets us nowhere. Sort them all out, or don't vote for those that have had the chance and done feck all about it as you mentioned.

The point is there is more discussion about immigration and the EU than all those other scandals and factors put together. Are we really sure that Immigration is that much of an important factor that we need to talk about it so much and ignore everything else?

 

[Soulman]

Can't disagree with this it is a disgrace. Don't china get a whole load of money too?

You should write the UKIP manifesto for them so you can fill in the details.

I'm not saying that UKIP have the answers, but i can sure say that the two parties that have been in power and swopping governments for decades will not get my vote.
If UKIP ""Make cuts to foreign aid" and channels the rest where it is really needed, then surely the countries that do need it will get more and benefit.
Meanwhile by controlling immigration the people that live here will get better health care. Underfunding yes a bit, but the waste on management etc in the NHS is extraordinary.
Unemployment is down yet the GDP has also gone down, well with the amount of non producers, managers managing other managers etc, in all jobs, is it any wonder. The actual workers are dwindling and more people are managing them......crazy.

 

[El Presidente]

Meanwhile by controlling immigration the people that live here will get better health care.

How is that the case? A significant proportion of people who work in the NHS are immigrants. If you also look at the ages of the majority of people who come to this country, they are in the 25-45 age group, which statistically is that which has the lowest probability of using health services, and these age groups are also most likely to pay taxes, which fund the NHS.

 

[Soulman]

Why look at any other factors when you can use the 'blame umbrella' of immigration. Governments are happy because it deflects the blame from what they are up to, angry people are happy because they have someone to blame. It really is a win win.

Unfortunately that bandwagon gets jumped on. Most are not blaming the immigrants, they are blaming the amount of immigration, most people realise (and Labour admitted they cocked up on the amount with their open door policy) that we need to cut the amount, it could not be sustained at the level it was/is.

 

[Soulman]

How is that the case? A significant proportion of people who work in the NHS are immigrants. If you also look at the ages of the majority of people who come to this country, they are in the 25-45 age group, which statistically is that which has the lowest probability of using health services, and these age groups are also most likely to pay taxes, which fund the NHS.

Are you being obtuse on purpose. I realise that a significant amount of the NHS staff are immigrants. What i am saying is that by mass immigration under Labour, more people are using an already stretched NHS. Your 25-45 statistic is also the age of child bearing, which also swells the population and has an effect on the NHS. The NHS has had to grow because of the amount of people living in this country and you can add to that the health tourism/free treatment.

 

[El Presidente]

Are you being obtuse on purpose. I realise that a significant amount of the NHS staff are immigrants. What i am saying is that by mass immigration under Labour, more people are using an already stretched NHS. Your 25-45 statistic is also the age of child bearing, which also swells the population and has an effect on the NHS. The NHS has had to grow because of the amount of people living in this country and you can add to that the health tourism/free treatment.

But yet again you ignore the issue of PFI and concentrate on health tourism. Latest estimates of health tourism costs (and I personally believe this is an underestimate) are £20 million, out of an NHS budget of £104 billion. PFI schemes (under both Labour and Tory) have a capital cost of £56 billion but a total repayment cost of £229 billion in forthcoming years.

£20 million for health tourism is £20 million too high, but you are focussing on a fly when you're about to be run over by a hippo.

 

[drew]

Maybe the aid should be distributed properly.
The government has defended its decision to give £1bn in aid to India, despite the rapidly increasing wealth of the emerging economic giant.
A review of UK aid will maintain aid donations to India of £280m a year until 2015, while withdrawing assistance from countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Serbia and Moldova, the international development secretary, Andrew Mitchell, revealed.
The decision is likely to infuriate some Conservative MPs, who believe it is time to halt aid to India, which has economic growth of 8.5% a year, gives aid to Africa, spends £20bn a year on defence and has a £1.25bn space programme.

2015 is less than 12 weeks away (although I accept aid budget is likely to be from April). Where did you get the figure of £1b in aid to India, unless of course you are referring to several years of aid!

 

[spring hall convert]

It's not an argument I am making, it's a riposte to a poster who is denigrating the thick, elderly, white working class voters who have chosen to exercise their democratic right by voting for UKIP.

The anger expressed by some on here towards UKIP voters is astounding, not least when it's clear from the Middleton and Heywood result that it includes significant numbers of ex Labour voters choosing to vote for UKIP. A classic case of playing the man and not the ball, if ever there was one.

Quite why you feel so much bitterness at the baby boomer generation is also mind boggling; I suspect at heart you consider yourself to be a progressive liberal type and yet evidently you are prepared to stereotype and generalise across a generation of your fellow countrymen and women. I can only presume you must hate that generation of your family...........strange.

As for any comparison between the EU and the nazis, to be honest as evil as the ideology of the Nazis at least they did enter power through the German democratic system. I don't know if you know but recently the EU appointed some bloke to oversee their law making executive, essentially the most powerful man in the whole setup.

I didn't vote for him..........did you?

A riposte that was wrong though if you consider the numbers. The number of war vets is far less than you seemed to think there were.

The swing was less than 3%. In some ways I think it should have been more. It wasn't.

Don't ever make assumptions about my family. I don't know where I sit on the liberal scale, I believe passionately that societies that don't have huge disparities in wealth are happier and that all human beings are born equal and should be treated as such, call that what you like. They would be the generation that appears to be voting for UKIP the most. I find it strange when that generation could have created a much better world, instead they've created so many problems for the young of today to deal with and they now think the correct response in to go into a period of economic isolationism. Everything we know historically suggests this is a bad idea.

No one voted for our current Government. Only 23% of the electorate voted Conservative at the last election. Is that a democracy?

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

Much of this sounds good. If they could run their elections on this stuff rather than sweeping statements and half truths about immigration, scaremongering and the regular gaffes that expose their xenophobic underbelly. I am would probably vote for them. (apart from the wind farms - I like wind farms).

I would be interested to know how the first two points wouldn't work against each other. Surely any savings in services that are saved from cutting immigration would be lost butr cutting funding through council tax (Does council tax pay for Health education, housing or Welfare directly?

Saving £55 million a day would go a long way !
regards
DR

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

I do have an issue in relation to UKIP stopping foreign aid. There are thousands of people dying and suffering in Africa at present as a result of Ebola, and as far as UKIP are concerned, they're foreign so let them die.

Is that our resposibility, no one wants to see people suffer but we always seem to be putting our hands in our pockets year after year it never stops , maybe the governments affected should look at themselves a bit more
regards
DR

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

I'm not saying that UKIP have the answers, but i can sure say that the two parties that have been in power and swopping governments for decades will not get my vote.
If UKIP ""Make cuts to foreign aid" and channels the rest where it is really needed, then surely the countries that do need it will get more and benefit.
Meanwhile by controlling immigration the people that live here will get better health care. Underfunding yes a bit, but the waste on management etc in the NHS is extraordinary.
Unemployment is down yet the GDP has also gone down, well with the amount of non producers, managers managing other managers etc, in all jobs, is it any wonder. The actual workers are dwindling and more people are managing them......crazy.

As that saying goes look after your family first, we as a country spending far to much on foriegn aid, just remember they get foriegn aid when they arrive in this country
regards
DR

 

[Westdene Seagull]

True, but you'd hope that any party claiming such facts has done the number crunching in order to justify the claims? And ideally publish those findings in order to continue some semblance of transparency? Otherwise, how can people trust a party if they're not giving them the full facts? (that's not aimed directly at UKIP as I'm aware that can be levelled at any party, more of a general question).

The challenge is that none of this is a science. It's guess work and hunch and it happens with anything that is controlled by the government. Many said not joining the Euro would be bad for us - they were wrong. Labour said the Tory austerity wouldn't work yet the economy has turned around and is one of the strongest in the world ( although the deficit is being cut slower than the Tories claimed ).

All political parties make claims that can't be backed up with science or fact and their opponents make claims that the opposite would work. Nobody really knows, you just have to decide which one you think would be right.

As for UKIP, when they were just about leaving the EU their opponents attacked them as a 'single policy' party, which of course they were. To combat this they produced further reaching policies. Whether you agree with those policies or if they would be successful is subjective but now their opponents attack them for having policies outside their main one about the EU. They can't win.

Personally I wish they'd stayed a single policy party. Like any party they have some policies I don't agree with and that wouldn't be the case if they had stayed single policy. That said, my opinion is that the question of EU membership overrides anything else and so I will continue to support them ( although that doesn't mean always vote for them ) all the while the UK stays in the EU.

 

[Justice]

I don't think UKIP voters have "worked out" what membership of the EU costs us and how much we get in return. They just accept the drivel that UKIP spouts.

In terms of what goes on in Brussels and Strasbourg, I would rather be in there trying to do something about it than abandoning it. There has been a very good series of documentaries over the last few weeks on BBC2 about the legacy of the First World war, presented by a Cambridge professor whose name escapes me. It pointed out how important the European project is to "reconciliation" in many other parts of Europe. That is important to me.

And all the stuff about loss of control over our law-making and so on is grossly overstated. The trouble is that people believe what they read in the Daily Mail.

What do you believe? The ' Were in it together ' speech?