Pick up almost any newspaper in the country at the moment, and all we hear is how terrible the NHS is. Frankly, I'm fucking sick of it because that simply isn't true.
Want to see a truly awful health service? Try the USA or Romania.
The fact of the matter is that for a mere £4ish out of each paycheck, you not only insure yourself against injury, but you also get a pension and unemployment cover. You go out and fucking find me a better deal for that kind of coverage and I'll eat my words. Theres no loopholes, no catches.. you need a hospital.. you just go, need a doctor? Again you just go, no insurance forms, no questions and no stress.
On top of this, I can firmly say in all confidence that people who do criticise the NHS are invariably ignorant foreigners who don't use it but have a selfish hatred for social health systems of any kind, people who can afford expensive private healthcare and idiots who believe everything they read in the paper.
Sure, people will criticise. They don't think their precious £4 should be used to care for strangers, immigrants and fat people. If I ever meet these people, I shall endeavour to set them on fire.
For £4!?! Shit.. go crazy, you can all have an eye exam on me. You are the kind of people who complain when they put the price of a postage stamp up to 31p.. I'd like to see you take it there personally for that much, you fucking idiot.
Then there are people who say thats its rundown and overstretched.. of course its overstretched, free things invariably are, and YOU won't pay more tax to pay the doctors and nurses a better wage, but, rundown? not on your life.
I recently had the pleasure of being at Lancaster Infirmary, the building looks from the outside about 150 years old.. it would.. its victorian. Inside though, I've seen less sophisticated space ships. EVERY bed has a personal TV/Phone/Internet/Radio combination.. EVERY single bed. Had I been able, I could have blogged from there, while watching digital, high-definition cable TV.
You know something else? The food is better than you could possibly imagine, its fresh and tasty and you actually get a menu full of choices.. not just what they happen to feel like serving. They even do a very good chicken curry.
Invariably, someone will now write to inform me of some terrible experience they had.. of course there is going to be the occasional bad hospital. Thats inevitable.
As long as David "call me Dave" Cameron doesn't start pulling the funding when he and his rich, right wing buddies get into power, then those minority hospitals will be just that.. a minority.
You may say that this system is open to abuse, thats true. Yet, you'll be the first to complain when its not there. You can't tar the majority with the same brush just to make life harder for the terminally lazy and useless. You may say that you have read a bad story, or have known someone who had a bad experience, and that this qualifies you to pass judgement on the system and say that private is better. This is so stupid, its like saying that you can be a fighter pilot because you're good at monopoly.
The system even stretches to the army, did you know that the UK is the ONLY armed force in the world that has a CH-47 Chinook helicopter, with a fully operational operating theatre onboard. Its essentially a mobile hospital and has saved so many lives that I'm left wondering why the other three big defence spenders [America, France & Russia] haven't found room in their VAST military budgest for a similar thing.
I'm not some bleeding heart, wishy-washy liberal. I know its a cruel world with no room for idealism and that people are utter, utter bastards. I just think we can take the best of the left and the best of the right and come up with a far better system than anyone right now is pitching. Republican or Democrat.. Labour or Conservative. You've become so bothered about proving the other one is utterly wrong that you've forgot that there is as much truth in their view as there is in yours.. and between us we could come up with some fantastic compromises.
Think on.
Showing posts with label Labour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Labour. Show all posts
Sunday, 8 February 2009
Sunday, 11 January 2009
Can't we all just get along?
Have you taken a look in the news lately? I mean really, really looked? Probably not is my guess.
If we aren't being swamped with celebrity bullshit, its all doom and gloom. Either way, it would seem to us that far too many of you take it all as gospel truth. Normally, this is where I'd waffle on for hours about how all the mainstream papers are owned by rich people, and they'll never be happy with a working man's party in power.. today is no different.
We already know that Gordon Brown is boring, and if you listen to the papers you'll probably believe he is incompetent too. This is wrong. Good old Gordy cleared our National Debt some years ago, the tories were up in arms about this because.. and you may not know this, they make a lot of money out of us all being in debt, its complicated and I won't bore you with the details but I assure if you know your stuff, you'll know this is true. Anywho, you may remember all the Conservatives waving their arms around declaring that the country was screwed by the upcoming recession because we hadn't saved our money.. like the frugal Australians. Maybe not, but with our debt cleared we're in a good position contrary to what you may think.
Allow us to explain.
Mathematics is an exact science, and mathematically speaking it is an almost total certainty that America is going to go spectacuarly bankrupt. There are two clear ways out at this stage;
1) Cut all federal spending to $0 for the foreseeable future
2) Raise taxes to 69%
There may be another way out devised by someone far more intelligent than me, I certainly hope there is but basically, Mr. Bush has put his empire past the point of no return and just like the Germans, the French, the Russians and us Brits, the American's are about to suffer that worst of all fates, the fall from grace.
George has pushed the capabilities of American spending power to the breaking point, fought 2 expensive wars that have yielded nearly no return and allowed everyone to wallpaper over the cracks with an impressive sense of national pride, that I'm somewhat envious of. Chris spent six months in the US last year so we know what we're talking about when we say that the Hurricane Katrina clear-up was useless, the roads are appalling and the national pride has only made things harder.
In the automotive industry for example, while European and Japanese firms pioneered new fangled suspension and found ways of getting a million horsepower from a tiny engine, the US big 3 [GM, Chrysler, Ford] have done what they have always done. Simple, poorly built behemoths.
Sure I love those cars, but theres no escaping the fact that they are, rubbish. Still, myself and many others like me love them for their character, its sold as the American way, but that isn't enough though and with a simply huge amount of the population employed directly and indirectly in a declining motor industry, it doesn't look good.
We've been here before though, and its understandable that just about every American we know cannot stand any criticism levelled at their country, but for once, we're doing it as friends. Harsh truths are just that, harsh. How can a self-styled world superpower have such lousy education, healthcare and infrastructure?
Its lucky we don't owe them any money.. see, this is going somewhere.
Remember how everyone got super pissed when we nationalised one of our banks, while the Conservatives said they should be allowed to go bust? Remember how angry you were that YOUR money was being spent on those greedy fatcats? Goddamn it Brown! How could you?
Yet, did you consider the alternative? When anyone or any institution goes bankrupt, they have to turn their assets into money to clear their debts. Northern Rocks' assets were mortgages. Can you imagine 750,000 people all getting letters saying they had a month to pay off the rest of the money they owed on their mortgages, or else they'd be homeless?
Worse still, with 750,000 extra homes on the market, yours will go down in value. Maybe badly enough to warrant your bank asking for their money back, after all, if you stopped paying and they had to sell your house, they would find it was now worth less than they lent you. The cost of renting would skyrocket and we'd all be stuck really.
Next up are the loans requested by Jaguar and Land Rover, two prestigious British firms. Sure, bad management had got them into money trouble, but what if we didn't bail them out? We aren't talking a few thousand of their employees without jobs, we're talking steel producers, windshield makers, suppliers, tyre manufacturers.. they'd all lose the big contracts that keep them afloat. This is the same as the problem for the US, just not quite as bad.
There is a positive though, Mr. Brown is borrowing and spending again. As long as dipshit Cameron stays out of the way and the papers stop slating him for the sake of a story, the country can recover. Mr. Brown is ploughing a load of money into a new super high-speed rail network and roads that will be the envy of the world.. upshot is that when this recession is all over we're geared up to start exporting goods again, and we'll be able to do it fast, cheaper and cleaner than the other guy.
Its good news for our American pals too, with Barack Obama they are in good hands and if anyone can solve thier mess, its him. He got into power on the statement "Yes, we can".. as long as he is brave and honest enough to admit "This time, for a while at least, we just can't" and America pulls together as it has always done, there is no reason there can't be a happy ending there too.
Wherever you happen to be in the world, we wish you well during these hard times, and we'll have some funny shit coming right up..
If we aren't being swamped with celebrity bullshit, its all doom and gloom. Either way, it would seem to us that far too many of you take it all as gospel truth. Normally, this is where I'd waffle on for hours about how all the mainstream papers are owned by rich people, and they'll never be happy with a working man's party in power.. today is no different.
We already know that Gordon Brown is boring, and if you listen to the papers you'll probably believe he is incompetent too. This is wrong. Good old Gordy cleared our National Debt some years ago, the tories were up in arms about this because.. and you may not know this, they make a lot of money out of us all being in debt, its complicated and I won't bore you with the details but I assure if you know your stuff, you'll know this is true. Anywho, you may remember all the Conservatives waving their arms around declaring that the country was screwed by the upcoming recession because we hadn't saved our money.. like the frugal Australians. Maybe not, but with our debt cleared we're in a good position contrary to what you may think.
Allow us to explain.
Mathematics is an exact science, and mathematically speaking it is an almost total certainty that America is going to go spectacuarly bankrupt. There are two clear ways out at this stage;
1) Cut all federal spending to $0 for the foreseeable future
2) Raise taxes to 69%
There may be another way out devised by someone far more intelligent than me, I certainly hope there is but basically, Mr. Bush has put his empire past the point of no return and just like the Germans, the French, the Russians and us Brits, the American's are about to suffer that worst of all fates, the fall from grace.
George has pushed the capabilities of American spending power to the breaking point, fought 2 expensive wars that have yielded nearly no return and allowed everyone to wallpaper over the cracks with an impressive sense of national pride, that I'm somewhat envious of. Chris spent six months in the US last year so we know what we're talking about when we say that the Hurricane Katrina clear-up was useless, the roads are appalling and the national pride has only made things harder.
In the automotive industry for example, while European and Japanese firms pioneered new fangled suspension and found ways of getting a million horsepower from a tiny engine, the US big 3 [GM, Chrysler, Ford] have done what they have always done. Simple, poorly built behemoths.
Sure I love those cars, but theres no escaping the fact that they are, rubbish. Still, myself and many others like me love them for their character, its sold as the American way, but that isn't enough though and with a simply huge amount of the population employed directly and indirectly in a declining motor industry, it doesn't look good.
We've been here before though, and its understandable that just about every American we know cannot stand any criticism levelled at their country, but for once, we're doing it as friends. Harsh truths are just that, harsh. How can a self-styled world superpower have such lousy education, healthcare and infrastructure?
Its lucky we don't owe them any money.. see, this is going somewhere.
Remember how everyone got super pissed when we nationalised one of our banks, while the Conservatives said they should be allowed to go bust? Remember how angry you were that YOUR money was being spent on those greedy fatcats? Goddamn it Brown! How could you?
Yet, did you consider the alternative? When anyone or any institution goes bankrupt, they have to turn their assets into money to clear their debts. Northern Rocks' assets were mortgages. Can you imagine 750,000 people all getting letters saying they had a month to pay off the rest of the money they owed on their mortgages, or else they'd be homeless?
Worse still, with 750,000 extra homes on the market, yours will go down in value. Maybe badly enough to warrant your bank asking for their money back, after all, if you stopped paying and they had to sell your house, they would find it was now worth less than they lent you. The cost of renting would skyrocket and we'd all be stuck really.
Next up are the loans requested by Jaguar and Land Rover, two prestigious British firms. Sure, bad management had got them into money trouble, but what if we didn't bail them out? We aren't talking a few thousand of their employees without jobs, we're talking steel producers, windshield makers, suppliers, tyre manufacturers.. they'd all lose the big contracts that keep them afloat. This is the same as the problem for the US, just not quite as bad.
There is a positive though, Mr. Brown is borrowing and spending again. As long as dipshit Cameron stays out of the way and the papers stop slating him for the sake of a story, the country can recover. Mr. Brown is ploughing a load of money into a new super high-speed rail network and roads that will be the envy of the world.. upshot is that when this recession is all over we're geared up to start exporting goods again, and we'll be able to do it fast, cheaper and cleaner than the other guy.
Its good news for our American pals too, with Barack Obama they are in good hands and if anyone can solve thier mess, its him. He got into power on the statement "Yes, we can".. as long as he is brave and honest enough to admit "This time, for a while at least, we just can't" and America pulls together as it has always done, there is no reason there can't be a happy ending there too.
Wherever you happen to be in the world, we wish you well during these hard times, and we'll have some funny shit coming right up..
Wednesday, 17 September 2008
David Cameron is a cock... and so are you.
I'm writing today about a very simple concept, but its one that is fast escaping the thoughts of many in the country.
If you earn less than thirty grand a year, you have to accept that the Conservative party don't want your vote.. in fact they don't even like you very much.
You are below them, a grasping, work shy, lowlife. They despise you in the same way I despise coleslaw. Most of our readers will be too young or absent minded to remember what the last tory government did, so lets have a little recap.
Firstly, all their mates are wealthy enough to afford private healthcare, so, they decide that because the people who vote for them don't use the health service, they don't much want to pay for it. So, they deliver a lovely big tax break for the rich and take medical care away from the poor by starving the NHS are cash.. then.. they announce that the NHS doesn't work, and so can be scrapped.
Next, they take the police out of poor areas, to police the rich areas, showing the upper classes that their vote counts, while leaving the rest of us in a whole pile of shit. They announced that the introduction of a minimum wage would result in 30 million unemployed, becasue their rich mates who employ us all couldn't afford the wage bill.. evidently this is bollocks because here we are more than ten years later, and unemployment isn't ranked in the top ten things ruining the country today.
During the rule of Maggie T. unemployment was massive and employers could shit onto their employees from a vast height, and get away with it. The Tories responded by saying that the epic number of unemployed people could be attributed to an epic number of people who just didn't want to work.
They truly believe they ahve risen from a life of poverty, improved themselves and become successful. Theya lso believe that ANYONE can do this if they work hard enough. Clearly this is stupid, and their views on education prove it.
Most working class, and many middle class, families didn't have access to university. I would say that out of all my friends who are university educated, there isn't one I could say with complete conviction, would have received that education, at the same quality, under the conservatives.
The real issue is that you are all listening to the papers about everything bad thats going on, who blame it all on poor old Mr. Brown. Lets strip away the bullshit a moment and remember that this guy is the best chancellor we've had in living memory, the economy was in rude health under his guidance and the current recession is just an inevitable trough after a massive peak. he also takes the blame for many things that the Tories or Tony Blair decided, remember, it takes a fucking long time for things to be done in politics.
Tory councils don't spend their cash, [or waste it as here in Garstang on stupid floral displays] then claim that labour is obviously not working. Tory ruled areas starve Labour councils of cash, and claim the same thing again.
Its time to be big enough to admit you are a bit of a simpleton and you've formed an opinion purely to say you have one, and for the love of god don't vote Lib Dem.. did you hear the stuff they came out with the last few days? I thought not. Its a near certainty that if you are reading this, the only party that gives a stuff about you is Labour, and as imperfect as it is, and stupid as it sometimes seems, its far better than any of the alternatives.
Theres a simple reason for this, many in Labour are from working class families and have strong ties to worker's unions that were screwed over reguarly by Mrs. T. I don't blame the tories for being the way they are, they were brought into a life of privilege, and that can't be changed any more than my upbringing can, but working class upbringing allows you the see and experience the greatest suffering there can be in a first world country, you gain a sense of social responsibility far greater than any middle class white kid could. You know the consequences of political actions, you've seen and felt and suffered under them. We outnumber the privileged, and its not yet the end of our time. The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few.
If you earn less than thirty grand a year, you have to accept that the Conservative party don't want your vote.. in fact they don't even like you very much.
You are below them, a grasping, work shy, lowlife. They despise you in the same way I despise coleslaw. Most of our readers will be too young or absent minded to remember what the last tory government did, so lets have a little recap.
Firstly, all their mates are wealthy enough to afford private healthcare, so, they decide that because the people who vote for them don't use the health service, they don't much want to pay for it. So, they deliver a lovely big tax break for the rich and take medical care away from the poor by starving the NHS are cash.. then.. they announce that the NHS doesn't work, and so can be scrapped.
Next, they take the police out of poor areas, to police the rich areas, showing the upper classes that their vote counts, while leaving the rest of us in a whole pile of shit. They announced that the introduction of a minimum wage would result in 30 million unemployed, becasue their rich mates who employ us all couldn't afford the wage bill.. evidently this is bollocks because here we are more than ten years later, and unemployment isn't ranked in the top ten things ruining the country today.
During the rule of Maggie T. unemployment was massive and employers could shit onto their employees from a vast height, and get away with it. The Tories responded by saying that the epic number of unemployed people could be attributed to an epic number of people who just didn't want to work.
They truly believe they ahve risen from a life of poverty, improved themselves and become successful. Theya lso believe that ANYONE can do this if they work hard enough. Clearly this is stupid, and their views on education prove it.
Most working class, and many middle class, families didn't have access to university. I would say that out of all my friends who are university educated, there isn't one I could say with complete conviction, would have received that education, at the same quality, under the conservatives.
The real issue is that you are all listening to the papers about everything bad thats going on, who blame it all on poor old Mr. Brown. Lets strip away the bullshit a moment and remember that this guy is the best chancellor we've had in living memory, the economy was in rude health under his guidance and the current recession is just an inevitable trough after a massive peak. he also takes the blame for many things that the Tories or Tony Blair decided, remember, it takes a fucking long time for things to be done in politics.
Tory councils don't spend their cash, [or waste it as here in Garstang on stupid floral displays] then claim that labour is obviously not working. Tory ruled areas starve Labour councils of cash, and claim the same thing again.
Its time to be big enough to admit you are a bit of a simpleton and you've formed an opinion purely to say you have one, and for the love of god don't vote Lib Dem.. did you hear the stuff they came out with the last few days? I thought not. Its a near certainty that if you are reading this, the only party that gives a stuff about you is Labour, and as imperfect as it is, and stupid as it sometimes seems, its far better than any of the alternatives.
Theres a simple reason for this, many in Labour are from working class families and have strong ties to worker's unions that were screwed over reguarly by Mrs. T. I don't blame the tories for being the way they are, they were brought into a life of privilege, and that can't be changed any more than my upbringing can, but working class upbringing allows you the see and experience the greatest suffering there can be in a first world country, you gain a sense of social responsibility far greater than any middle class white kid could. You know the consequences of political actions, you've seen and felt and suffered under them. We outnumber the privileged, and its not yet the end of our time. The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few.
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