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Brexit: give me a positive effect... XIV

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I agree, mostly, but sometimes it's not that simple. What if the major shareholder happens to be your pension fund? In one sense the answer is simple, you bail out and accept a lower return, but would we all do that? I can afford to be smug about these things because the taxpayer pays my bloated index linked pension, gratis Deo, but many can't
Fair point.

It’s definitely not simple, it would need a huge about turn in how the country operates so I know it won’t happen. However, like others here who like to dream about the Greens and other protest groups running the country, I can have my own dreams.
 
Doesn't most of Western Europe have a mixture of NHS type provision backed up by private insurance? My French friends, who are all self-confessed hypochondriacs like most French people so they tell me, seem happy with the service they get. No delays, no waiting lists, and you can see the equivalent of a consultant without GP referral. They pay more, but seem to get a better service.
In short I would say they don't know what they don't know. Let me relate a story. I went with a friend to a horticultural park here in NL on his birthday and met his mother and a couple of his friends. The conversation turned to health insurance and I passingly said it was alien talk in the UK. The asked why and I said 'no one gets bills'. And they looked at me dismissively like I was making it up. Saying 'you must pay something, you pay it in the insurance!'

Basically they just thought it was either a much cheaper sort of monthly insurance, like there was here before 2005. Most people in the Netherlands are clueless about the concept of universal healthcare free at the point of use because they have never known it. The medical personnel are the same and notorious for zero bedside manner skills. The way the funding works is an insurance racket portrayed as 'non-profit' and propped up by them sucking up government spending. There is a huge difference here between primary care at a GP and high level treatment. Seeing a GP is a waste of time because they do little and send you away with Ibuprofen or diclofenac. Research medicine however is second to none. Financially though I think it's among the most neoliberal in Europe.

They all change somewhat over time, but when I lived in France (not Paris) I found it no better than any other semi-insurance model. Plenty of additional costs and there are waiting lists no matter what anyone says. Spain's is touted as an analogue of the NHS, but it isn't. It isn't totally centrally funded (in fact it is delegated to regions now) and there are also additional private costs. Still, it's far better than many. Portugal's is better though and actually universal. I snapped my thumb backwards crashing on a bike and they treated me as if I was a citizen, even though I was only on holiday! Unlike Brexit Britain fewer people in Portugal cry about 'health tourism'.

I'm a great defender of the NHS because a huge number of lies and representations are spread about it, to the point where my own GP here spoke about it like it was Somalia. Despite never having experienced it. There isn't a single place in Europe where you aren't billed in some way - UNLESS you're able to afford a higher insurance premium.
 
Wouldn't have happened if Truss was pm! What we do know is that, whatever promises tories make it is solely to enable the current crop of trough dwellers to enrich themselves at our expense. We've had endless experience of this yet 40ish % of voters seem incapable of joining the dots. Embezzlement on such scale can only be paid for by long-term decline and increasing poverty.
 
"We were promised the frictionless deal, that trade would continue exactly as it had before, and it was all complete and utter lies because what we’re seeing is the total and utter opposite of that," says Abigail's father, Hartington's director Simon Spurrell. The company's European business, he adds, has been "completely and utterly wiped out". https://www.euronews.com/2021/09/17...s-wipe-out-uk-cheesemaker-s-european-business
We’re a banana republic now -without the bananas or the republic but with all the other bits.
 
"We were promised the frictionless deal, that trade would continue exactly as it had before, and it was all complete and utter lies because what we’re seeing is the total and utter opposite of that," says Abigail's father, Hartington's director Simon Spurrell. The company's European business, he adds, has been "completely and utterly wiped out". https://www.euronews.com/2021/09/17...s-wipe-out-uk-cheesemaker-s-european-business

Before watching, I recommend taking off your shoes to allow for your toes curling.

 
“Fuel bills will be lower for everyone” were the words of the Vote Leave campaign leaders, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, writing for the Sun in May 2016, a month before the EU Referendum vote.
 
Boris Johnson during the referendum "Post Brexit utility bills will be cheaper". Post actual Brexit, Dorres and Sunak visit British Gas wearing BG hi vis vests, three days later my utility company goes under and everyone who has commented so far, has been swapped to British Gas and their bills have gone up by over 10%. British electricity is now between 3 and 4 times more expensive to the consumer than Scandinavian, German and French electricity.
 
Boris Johnson during the referendum "Post Brexit utility bills will be cheaper". Post actual Brexit, Dorres and Sunak visit British Gas wearing BG hi vis vests, three days later my utility company goes under and everyone who has commented so far, has been swapped to British Gas and their bills have gone up by over 10%. British electricity is now between 3 and 4 times more expensive to the consumer than Scandinavian, German and French electricity.
That was the prospectus. It’s now time for “take back control”.
Oh, and “you can always vote them out”.
 
Hi peeps, this is going back a bit but it just popped up on my Twitter feed:

https://twitter.com/marcusjdl/status/1119940289110712321

I assume this was broadcast soon after the 2016 referendum result. I missed it at the time but it's shocking to hear Marr effectively regurgitating far-right talking points with, seemingly, no critical reflection.

Does anyone remember this edition of the Andrew Marr Show? Was it really as bad as this makes it sound?
 
Hi peeps, this is going back a bit but it just popped up on my Twitter feed:

https://twitter.com/marcusjdl/status/1119940289110712321

I assume this was broadcast soon after the 2016 referendum result. I missed it at the time but it's shocking to hear Marr effectively regurgitating far-right talking points with, seemingly, no critical reflection.

Does anyone remember this edition of the Andrew Marr Show? Was it really as bad as this makes it sound?
It does sound like a monologue comprised of the main, narrow cultural analysis for Brexit, rather than Marr's personal opinion, though who can tell what that wolf in sheep's clothing really thinks since he goalpost shifts so much? He's definitely a mouthpiece for the right-wing apologists.
 
How many people here have a magical 'blue passport'? I had to renew mine a couple of months back (first time I did it by international post and surprisingly it was very rapid - two weeks!). And it just looks the same, but blue. Woohoo. Oh, and that it's now only valid for shuttling back and forth between two countries.
 
How many people here have a magical 'blue passport'? I had to renew mine a couple of months back (first time I did it by international post and surprisingly it was very rapid - two weeks!). And it just looks the same, but blue. Woohoo. Oh, and that it's now only valid for shuttling back and forth between two countries.
Me. Except it’s black to my eyes and so was my first many years ago.

There isn’t anything magical about it.
 
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