General Election: Who the hell am I going to vote for???

I got to an age and decided no more weed, coke, 'shrooms etc. I decided to stop habitual drinking and now probably have a drink two or three times a year. Fags - bloody impossible!

 

I feel I should explain my loathing of the way the government treats our sick and disabled.
3 years ago I lost my bestest mate a bloke I knew since a life. His name was mark but universally known as Noddy.

Nod really was the nicest bloke anyone could ever wish to meet. He was extremely hard working and a bloke whom I admired greatly for his approach and ethics. A true utter gent .
He was struck down with cancer from working with asbestos when we we young. He was quite simply unable to work and despite being terminally ill the department of work refused to help him . A lot of the refusal was down to him having been self employed and of course us not knowing how to fill in the frankly bloody awful forms.
My mate was refused the help he should have had. Every turn was met with utter disdain by the employment office . Shameful does not describe it.
I can't see any other area where they will save this mad amount of money from. So there you have it. Why I cannot and never will vote for the people who care so little about the working man , his health care and anything that should be provided to a man with months to live.
The help never came. No help or even one iota of human care was ever shown or given. I can never forgive for that .

 

Never taken drugs except prescribed ones, I have a drink in the evening but it wouldn't bother me unduly if I didn't have it, but I cannot give up smoking!!!!!

So sorry about your friend! I don't see this situation changing, how can it? if anything it will get worse.

 

What a coincidence @longk I was just having a very similar conversation with my daughter (27 yo) who has just heard a school friend that she had lost touch with has died from a drug overdose/bad drugs...are there any other kind? I too think you should be able to get your drugs from the likes of Boots where at least you'd get "what it said on the tin" at a non Mafia price and maybe take the perceived glamour out of them. I think this a good way forward. Daughter on the other hand wasn't so sure.

 

@silu - Ecstasy in particular needs some sort of quality control. That, Crack and heroin are the only ones that I've asked ours to steer clear of at all cost. There's no point saying don't do drugs, period, as it just made us want to find out what the fuss was about.
Stepson in particular was always happy to be open about things. T'other half and I breathed a bit easier when he tried coke and it gave him a "hangover" - cocaine comedowns can be nasty for some people.
So the way that I see it is that like it or not drugs are a part of our culture. There is probably more coke on my street (largely middle class) than there is on the local council estate so it is society wide. So maybe it is time for acceptance of that fact. Eradication is impossible as the rewards for the big players whilst it is illegal are huge. Despite the protestations of the Daily Wail et al hardly any drug user (in percentage terms) dies as a result of recent use. A few people (percentage wise) suffer long term health and psychological damage. Most people just grow out of it.

 

Shiney your right the forms were unfathomable for even fully functioning people and we were not functioning.
Nod had been ill for a long time but the diagnosis came quite late. My mates time was short so we .. When I say we that is his family and I did our best to make it as best we could.
See me I'm a pretty robust character. I'm a very big built bloke built like the proverbial $$$$ house and unputdownable. The experience over that time took me to my knees and Im not afraid to admit it. And I was not the poor fella about to die. Blimey I'm getting upset writing this.

Yet still the dole come sickness come whatever they were called refused to help. But sod em we managed.

You know if I'm honest I fear getting old (Nod was just 58 by the way) and ending up requiring care in this country. My experiences at that time have set an in depth loathing towards organisations like the employment office or whatever they call themselves. But it runs deeper. These employment people take their cues from government. It makes no odds to me who initiated the rules as someone could change them if they chose to do so.

Now we have the present government telling us we have to endure (If they get in ) 5 years of not only more austerity but 5 years of increased austerity. They also steadfastly refuse to tell us where the cuts are to come from only those areas they wont touch.

Now I may not be bright but it aint exactly hard to work it out ..

To those that are ill and disabled. You have my deepest support and my thoughts are with you.

To those who decide the level of support given please wake up and smell the flaming coffee beans !!

 

If they started dealing out drugs on the NHS, think how many more people there would be in the chemists queueing up for free prescriptions, not to mention the long wait at the doctors.

No, if you want to take illegal substances, then its done at your risk.

There are loads of illegal cigarettes coming into the country every day, god knows what is in them.
And tobacco is still, just about legal, I think.

 

If things are ever going to improve then surely we must decrease the amount of people in/still coming in, to this Country. What on earth does the future hold if we don't???

 

I'm sorry Val but I do not see how you can decrease the amount of people who are already in the UK.

What would you be saying if you lived in Italy with all the immigrants they have arriving there on a daily basis.

I think our immigration levels are microscopic compared to theirs and to be honest I think we should be doing more to help them.

 

I'm not even getting involved in that one Val.

This time.

 

@Charlie996 I do sympathise with you and your friend. I also had a friend who managed 3 years of terminal illness without a penny because when you're dealing with something as big as that you cope in the best way you can. In my friends case no-one told them they were eligible for any financial help and they lived on their savings and borrowing. Afterwards, it turned out that there would have been help but the rules said that nothing could be backdated.

That case went to the local MP who was astounded and fought hard but sadly in vain. Since then I've heard of many other people who haven't had the help they should have, be it financial, social or medical just because they didn't know the system. There is something seriously wrong with the way our services are administered and I think that a preoccupation with targets clouds what really happens on the ground.

All of our representatives, MPs, Councillors etc should be really asking the hard questions and not just accepting what the administrators say and they should be asking us, the service users, what the measures should be. I don't even believe it's all about cuts, I've had first hand experience of waste in the NHS as recently as this year, it seems that no-one is looking properly at the big picture and asking what and why.

 

Just because they're illegal substances it doesn't make them any more risky than tobacco or excessive alcohol both of which are legal. It costs this country billions of pounds because they are illegal. By making them legal we can;

• control the quality of opiate drugs and chemical "home brews" such as ecstasy
• tax them
• reduce associated criminality that occurs to feed the habit

The Daily Wail and similar reactionary press would have us believe that society would break down. That is ballcocks.

Nice attention to detail Maybe something modelled on the old Victorian opium dens then?

Note to all - Please don't think that I'm being provocative, I just feel that it's time that we moved on as a society. They are my own thoughts based on experience (both in life and the "seedier" side of life).

Retirement at 75 years of age probably. The tightrope any administration is walking is the national pensions shortfall.

 

If you have 2 minutes to spare this link gives food for thought. Sometimes we need to see what happens in other parts of the world
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02cxmt0

 

Must admit, I have thought about why drugs are illegal, and if things should be relaxed slightly.

As I say, I have no problem with people using them, but how do you actually legalise them,make them safe etc. without a large bill for the NHS.

The NHS is for sick people, for crying out loud, you can even get patches to stop smoking on prescription.
So we should go down the road of creating legal addicts, while at the same time trying to get others off the stuff.
It would be crazy.

Oh, and if you decide to tax them and sell them over the counter like cigarettes, then a cheaper black market would continue.