General British politics discussion thread

Never heard of that before but sounds really interesting looking at the wiki for it. Seems to have had widespread party and media approval and goes closer to universal basic income than the dole actually did.

Interesting the the war helped the founding of the NHS not just because of the social upheaval it created but also the need to set up a national medical body to deal with war wounded. Also a little mention as to how rationing actually improved the working class diet and war was the genesis of the free school meals service.

Just saw the tories lost a 3 line whip vote last night, 23 defections which is a huge number for a 3 line whip, who if they follow through will now be losing the whip.... This will be the straw that breaks the camels back as if he removes them he weakens himself and angers the party as this was an entirely unnecessary vote to whip against and if he doesn't hes shown he cant follow through on a whipped vote. I reckon he will be forced to call it early next year as there will undoubtedly be more rebellions after this.

The Bevridge report went much beyond healthcare and it pretty much personified the changes the British public wanted post-war. Unlike 1997 the Conservative party leant the lessons of the 1945 landslide very quickly.

Germany has a mixed public/private system. One key difference from the UK is there is a distinction between the agencies which provide care and the agencies which pay for it. In the UK the NHS funds and runs hospitals which provide care free at the point of delivery. In Germany there are both state and private insurance funds (the state funds covering about 90% of the population; the private funds about 10%) and they pay hospitals, clinics, GPs, specialists, etc who provide care to their insured members. Patients can choose the healthcare provider they want (if there is capacity, of course) and nearly all healthcare providers provide services both to members of the state insurance funds and members of the private insurance funds. The healthcare providers themselves are a mix of public, voluntary not-for-profit and private for-profit agencies. The health insurance funds don't cover all costs; about 12% of healthcare expenditure is paid directly by patients, either to cover a shortfall between what the care provider charges and what the insurer pays, or to get care which the insurer won't pay for.

The system works well but it's more expensive than the NHS; both in absolute terms and as a percentage of GDP, Germany spends more on healthcare than the UK does. The NHS model as a unitary payer and provider of healthcare seems to be a management and organisational nightmare, but it does offer considerable efficiencies; UK healthcare may be sometimes chaotic and sometimes overstretched, but it does offer value for money.

Having said that, as you point out no other country has copied it, so the general view seems to be that its deficiencies outweigh its advantages.

Tl;dr: UK healthcare provision, like UK indoor plumbing, may suffer from the fact that the UK was a world leader in rolling it out; it's left lumbered with antiquated and outdated systems that don't work as well as more modern systems in other countries.

Absolutely shocking and utterly disgraceful speech by Braverman in her 'resignation'

Not even proto fascist, full on fascists would be ashamed to give that speech

And now strong rumours Jenrick has resigned.

Time to plug in the toaster ?

seems it confirmed by multiple places. Funny your username is timberrrrrrrr as this may sound the beginning of the end of sunak and the conservatives in government.

Has Braverman fired the starting pistol? Obviously then, she hopes to emerge from the wreckage.

Seems she was intent on sending most of the refugees to foreign countries. A new version of colonial Britain.

Listening to LBC and the sitting AG hasn’t signed the back of the bill in question. I don’t know if that means she hasn’t actually signed it or it’s a figure of speech but the AG might be next out the door.

edit: just looked at the bill in question online and there are names on the last page and the AG Victoria prentis hasn’t put her name to it.

There’s been rumours in the Tory press over the past couple of weeks that about 100 MPs on the right.of the party were plotting to oust Sunak. They were just waiting to agree on who to rally behind. Braverman was considered too unpopular among her fellow MPs. The Express were naming Priti Patel as the front-runner(hard to believe I know). So yeah, this could be the start of something alright.