Labours pension threat - daily express

Terron

msallen wrote: »

Just for a bit of balance. I would neither believe anything in the Mail/Express OR vote for Corbyn.

The best chance this country has is a hung parliament, which continues until at least one of the main two parties decides to adopt some common sense and takes the centre ground (or somewhat less likely the LibDems or some other more moderate party/coalition grows exponentially).

The LibDems are the extremists currently Their position on Brexit is the furthest away from the centre.

Terron

nigelbb wrote: »

The Daily Express has always hated the Labour Party & spread lies about it. Here is a link to the front page in June 1945 with the headline of "Churchill Claims 'Gestapo In Britain If Socialists Win' General Election" Labour went on to win the election a month later with 393 seats to the Tories 197 & inaugurate the NHS amongst other reforms but with no Gestapo.

https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-1945-daily-express-front-page-reporting-churchill-claims-gestapo-in-87338571.html

The Daily Express was reporting the truth. Churchill did claim that or something very close.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TY7oUNobsY

JoeEngland

Deleted_User wrote: »

ITV debates were frustrating. Understand questions about Brexit. Yes, huge issue. Austerity, money trees... Fair enough.

Then they moved on to the terrible danger of American drugs finding their nefarious way into the NHS. “Give us your word that you are not a liar”. Then they got talking about being sorry for the victims of sex crimes in the US (presumably because this would never ever happen in Britain). Also sorry for the world poor because... climate. Presents, love for the UN General Secretary, Dickens, Monarchy... whatever.

Not one word about the issues in this topic. You’d have thought these are pertinent questions to be asked.

Surely the NHS already buys some drugs from the US?

Thrugelmir

Deleted_User wrote: »

Then they moved on to the terrible danger of American drugs finding their nefarious way into the NHS.

Some drug treatments are only available from US Companies. Orkambi for cystic fibrosis being one. Currently unavailable in the NHS to it's high pricing.

Spreadsheetman

JoeEngland wrote: »

Surely the NHS already buys some drugs from the US?

Yes they do, it's around 10% I think. I assume the the issue is the concern that we'd end up in a deal like the US's Medicare system where they aren't legally allowed to negotiate on drug prices and just have to accept the prices the drug companies propose.

That would be a crazy thing to agree to, but if the UK was desperate enough who knows what might happen.

Terron

JoeEngland wrote: »

Surely the NHS already buys some drugs from the US?

It certainly does. The insulin I take is from the US. The price for a box of 5 pens in the US is $592. Each pen lasts me a bit over a week. The NHS pays £28.79 per pen, The cost to make the drug is less than $6 per pen. The patent on insulin ran out long ago, though newer patents have been made on the delivery systems. The NHS uses it's size to negotiate on price. It's price is used by other countries. The largest US medical organisation - Medicare - is legally forbidden from negotiating prices. Other smaller organisation do do so.

JoeCrystal

Lib Dems just released their manifesto (I know that they will never get into power anyway). The main things they mentioned about the pensions are the following:

Retain the Triple Lock on the basic state pension, so that it rises in line with the highest of wages, prices or 2.5 per cent. Expensive!
• Ensure that the women born in the 1950s are properly compensated for the failure of the government to properly notify them of changes to the state pension age, in line with the recommendations of the parliamentary ombudsman. WASPI is going to be delighted with this!
• Address continuing inequalities in pensions law for those in same-sex relationships. Make sense

stronginthesun

Londonlisa12 wrote: »

They have planned no such thing.

This was recommended in a report by the Centre for Social Justice think tank. The Department for Work and Pensions told us it is not government policy to do this.

would probably love to do that thou but wont because they would loose too many votes

MarkCarnage

Terron wrote: »

The LibDems are the extremists currently Their position on Brexit is the furthest away from the centre.

Sorry? Furthest away from the centre of what?

I would suggest that their position represents a fairly significant part of the population, certainly here in Scotland. Whether that will be enough for them to get all these voters to vote for them is a different question.....

Malthusian

Hard-Brexit = the Tories, git it durn
Centre-Brexit = Labour, second referendum followed by git it durn slightly differently (probably)
Hard-Remain = Lib Dems, ignore the referendum and revoke

The centre position on the Brexit spectrum is a second referendum. That doesn't make it the sensible position or even the popular position, it just makes it the middle ground between Leaving without another referendum and Remaining without another referendum.

A centre-Remain position is not being campaigned for by any major party, but it does exist. It would be to hold a second referendum but bias it towards Remain, e.g. Daniel Finkelstein's idea of wording the question something like "The UK is going to stay in the EU customs union, do you think we should have a say in how that works or not?" (For those who don't get the joke, "Yes" means Remain and "No" means Boris' deal.) Or holding a referendum but pledging another multi-million war chest of taxpayers' money to fund the Remain campaign, and banning Leave campaigners from using the letter E.