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

I think we all need to pay taxes through wages and a reasonable community charge too. The poll tax in the 80's was ridiculous we had really high charges for no services.

 

A few thoughts.
Quite a few years ago I had to visit A&E. It was very quiet, so much so that there was only one person in front of me. Soon, it was just me. I waited, and waited. During this time I could hear the nurses in the treatment area chatting way about various things, including what holidays they had been on. I had to wait for over an hour until I was even looked at. Of course, these were nurses and I guess the wait was caused by the lack of a doctor, but I don't know for sure.
On the other hand, when my dearly departed M-I-L was terminally ill, there were only two nurses to look after at least 20 elderly patients. These nurses seemed to be rushed off their feet, and not really able to keep up with demands. From this I conclude that the NHS is very badly run and hugely inefficient/expensive/ineffective. Of course, these were just my experiences, but I imagine that I'm not the only one that has experienced this.
So, I can only think that there's a lot of this going on in all national/local institutions. I see it most days when my wife tells me of some of the blunders made by various agencies connected with local government.
Will any party really address this issue? No, of course not. Cuts will be made to services that need more money/staff by those that can't organise a drinks party in a brewery.

 

I would keep family allowance but limit it to 3 children only exception unless a natural multiple birth. They must live in this country 48 weeks a year

We waited until we where old parents, owned our house had good jobs, saved, we now have two kids our daughter is 14 years and our son is 12 years problem is now we are old ourselves I am 52 and hubby is 59, The kids tell us they have plans for my husbands lump son when he retires he can pay for university. My daughter tells us as soon as she is old enough she is emigrating to New Zealand. She is a dual national because her dad is a kiwi. I know what your thinking immigrant, but his dad was a scouser who married a kiwi, so they basically did an exchange lol. He is a qualified engineer working in admin now because of the travel he paid a huge rate of tax because he earned the money. I think fair tax is needed and we are happy to pay within reason.
My son says he is going to live in our house forever and if we want to move we can rent a sheltered bungalow because after all we will not live that long, nice.

All our friends and family are grandparents by the time ours have any we will more than likely be to old to enjoy them.

I am glad I do pay tax one cannot moan if you are not paying in to the system. Over the years I paid loads of tax I had my normal job and my second job I had a BR code, plus my TA stint another BR code although I did enjoy the TAX free bounty every year. After I got back from the TA I used to run a youth group for teenagers on a Sunday night I wish I had some of that energy now.

It is unlikely I will get my state pension due to illness like my 3 grandparents who died age 60 years, my dad and his brother only got 2 years before the died and my life expectancy is around 60 years so when they changed the date you can have your state pension they put it out of reach for us northerners in poor areas so we can pay nice long pensions to the better off and fitter pensioners in the well to do areas.

New Zealand is lovely they have nice ice cream / milkshake cafes mmmmmmmmmmmm too many calories. They also have positive discrimination the work and colleges places are interviewed for but if you are a maori or can show maori roots you will always get that place unless it can be proved they had better qualifications even if that person is pure white, blonde hair and blue eyes. my sister in law was telling me she is a maori but her husband is not. This means sometimes he has to go to Australia for work.

One other thing he divorced his first maori wife for if you have food the community have the right to share it. so my brother in law filled his fridge with lamb beef and rabbit he would go to work. In the daytime the community would walk in the house and help themselves and leave no food for him or his kids. He even chained the fridge door so they took the fridge too sent him nuts. The 2nd maori he married he knew the rules so lived on their settlement and bought food on a daily basis. She was a wealthy individual and her father was a respected elder so no one would interfere with their food.

He is from the south island gorgeous but few people six weeks on a beach with no one is lonely when you are used to crowds.

I suppose if the daughter ever emigrates we will have to go to including our son. My house is paid for in 2 years, property is still fairly cheep in that part. I can have my pension anywhere and my government one when I am old enough for state pension will be paid there. At the moment reciprocal agreement on health care so I have the luxury of a plan B if it gets too bad here I already get my work pension and hubby qualifies for his next year.
Lets hope its going to improve a little 58% cuts in my area is enough jobs will go services will go people will not stand for it.

 

As you will be aware of from my earlier posts I have no faith in Worcestershire Health Trust and Worcester Royal Hospital.
Last year my dad was in said hospital and my mom got a phone call at 7:30 pm to say that we should get there straight away as he had passed away.
When we got there the reception desk was closed and there were no staff anywhere. We eventually made our way to the ward to find it locked. We banged on the doors and were told by acleaner that visiting time was over and we should return the following day. After explaining to her what had happened she told us to wait in the corridor ( no seating was available and I was trying to hold onto my 80 yr old mother) and once again locked us out. After a period of almost 20 minutes we were admitted into the wards waiting area where we had to wait another 15 mins before someone came to speak to us . When we eventually got through there were 6 nurses just sat drinking cofee/tea and talking. Surely when you make a call such as that and you are expecting people to arrive a little planning and dignity is not too much too ask for.
I have already mentioned that the hospital is not accessible from my area by public transport and costs over £30 to get to by taxi.

On a slightly different tangent we have found out that our local GPs have reduced their working days from 5 a wk to 3 one week and 4 the next, whilst their salarys are staying exactly the same. This is effectively giving themselves around a 40% pay rise.

I do not see how any of this can be laid to blame on the government. This is down to local idiocy, bad training, a no-care attitude and greed.

 

A&E vary greatly, skill mix can be poor or great in other hospitals. It will depend on services available outside a hospital and where else the doctors are covering. The may also be covering wards for urgent assistance especially night time. They may cover the whole hospital with the crash cart for cardiac arrest. They now make the nurses and maybe the doctors too work 12 hour shifts over many days without a day off swapping times of the shifts so they may get little sleep and not the breaks needed. The one time too not be ill in any hospital in the country is 1st August this is the day med students become F1 mistakes are common They do not have a clue on doing bloods, injections my local hospitals are very good and efficient just the huge numbers.

The problem in our hospitals is the abolition of primary care walk-in centres and NHS Direct with qualified staff. No GP s do on call so these where vital but destroyed both so no choice but to go A&E and wait for days till GP opens again. the 111 was ran by unqualified staff and the public don't trust them. Cuts to nursing homes mental health services and rest bite places, end up with emergency admissions and then bed blocking, operations cancelled targets missed, Extra staff hired from bank at 4 times the price to meet target's but trusts have no choice because they face even bigger fines for not meeting targets. staff get sick due to hours of work and pressure more bank staff. more money is wasted.

 

I don't get it. It should be means tested not a blanket gift to all. Easily paid out if needed by adjusting the tax code of the low paid or benefit of those who are genuinely needy.

I would be there tomorrow if it weren't for my other half - she says it is too far.

I loved that. You could go for days on end without seeing anyone else if you chose.

The NHS should be centrally run to a national standard not locally. The cost of this admin is ridiculous. Central government inspects NHS trusts anyway so the argument of local knowledge being better is redundant. The existing facility management would simply be answerable to a Whitehall dept. rather than a more local trust - their workload would not increase just who they talked to.

 

Agree completely. After all an older couple whose children have fled the nest are not using services like Schools and so on. They would earlier in life so would have paid them or if no children then why should they pay.
They present less rubbish are less likely to require services so why pay So much.
Its unfair to bill people on the assumption of what they will use.

 

I wanted to go to NZ when we got married 35 years ago when Thatchular started destroying this country of ours but Mr K wasn't keen so we stayed here and suffered,but in a way I am glad we did stay because we have visited many beautiful places in Blighty and met some wonderful people,plus even NZ has had its share of economic pitfalls over the last 35 years and they also have large earthquakes etc. We we're talking to a Kiwi a few weeks ago and she said she would love to go back to NZ to live but was told by someone that she needed an awful lot of money to be able to retire to that country,but don't know if someone was winding her up or if it was the truth

We have paid into the system all our lives and have never got anything out of it as we couldn't have children so our £1,000 poll tax that we were paying didn't do us much good.Mind you the Council Tax band we are in for our three bed is well over £1200+ a year and we have not needed the police,fire ambulance,schools etc in all the time we have lived here and when we were the victims of crime where we used to live the police wasn't really interested

We did a postal vote and there is no way on this earth would I vote for the Tory party ever and I bet when they get back into power the first thing they will do is to change the date of the retirement age again.I think that any politician who promises the earth to the voters and then goes back on their promises should be thrown in jail and the key thrown away.

 

Turns out E4 is only off till 7pm so i still get my programme

Tbh i still dnt think it will make much difference anyway