Britain - The Official Thread

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How will you vote in the 2024 UK General Election?

  • Conservative Party

    Votes: 2 6.9%
  • Green Party

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Labour Party

    Votes: 14 48.3%
  • Liberal Democrats

    Votes: 2 6.9%
  • Other (Wales/Scotland/Northern Ireland)

    Votes: 1 3.4%
  • Other Independents

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other Parties

    Votes: 2 6.9%
  • Spoiled Ballot

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Will Not/Cannot Vote

    Votes: 8 27.6%

  • Total voters
    29
  • Poll closed .
I heard once of a nuisance family who lived on a big estate in London, dogs all over the garden, big fence round the place with loads of old cars. Kids were all in broken marriages and living back at home.

Turned out it was those two.

Never done a day's work in their lives and live off the taxpayer.

Incidentally, Bill and Kat confirm this baby could be the last if Tories limit child benefit and other state handouts to two kids.
 
Incidentally, Bill and Kat confirm this baby could be the last if Tories limit child benefit and other state handouts to two kids.
They could rent the places out on airbnb if they needed to make a quick buck.

Actually, no, I have a better idea: we turn that into a sitcom, where there's a different set of guests each week, and wacky hijinks to match. Just imagine Floyd Mayweather Jr., Vladimir Putin and Dame Judi Dench having to deal with a constitutional crisis after Jeremy Clarkson head-butts the Archbishop of Canterbury.

We'd be jillionaires!
 
They could rent the places out on airbnb if they needed to make a quick buck.

Actually, no, I have a better idea: we turn that into a sitcom, where there's a different set of guests each week, and wacky hijinks to match. Just imagine Floyd Mayweather Jr., Vladimir Putin and Dame Judi Dench having to deal with a constitutional crisis after Jeremy Clarkson head-butts the Archbishop of Canterbury.

We'd be jillionaires!

The way things are going the BBC would commission this right now. Could we call it "Windsor Change"?

EDIT: I've got a great episode, one of the princesses could have a number of affairs and an illegitimate baby before settling on the son of a celebrity Egyptian supermarket owner (who has a statue of Michael Jackson outside a football ground), her and the new boyfriend could airbnb in Paris where she dies in a... oh, hang on, this might be a film I've already seen.
 
Interesting Guardian article here saying that senior figures within both the Tories and Lib Dems will want to seriously protract out coalition negotiations if they're required, to further their own respective interests. So not only is it likely the politicians will be doing backroom deals that no one gets to vote for, they'll take a bloody age over it too. Democracy!

Wanted to ask here though, how much could they draw out negotiations? The article says that a governemnt should be formed by the Queens' speech on May 27th, but must this be adhered to? How long before lack of governemnt would start disrupting the country?
 
Wanted to ask here though, how much could they draw out negotiations? The article says that a governemnt should be formed by the Queens' speech on May 27th, but must this be adhered to? How long before lack of governemnt would start disrupting the country?

The Civil Service remains in place so there isn't any likely disruption. Departments continue to run, revenues continue to be collected and so on. There will just be no elected representatives reviewing or renewing policy.

As for adherence to the constitution... because Britain's constitution is uncodified there is always room for change. What the Queen enacts in Parliament is law. The Queen has the power to go to Parliament with her own minister (not the Prime Minister, Black Rod would fill that role I think) and give the parties longer to present her with a solution for government. That would then form a new part of the constitution and so on. Documents like the 1689 Bill of Rights are fixed, the constitution itself is formed in parliamentary record and statute and therefore isn't.

Will the parties go that far before forming a coalition? I doubt it very very much, I'd be surprised if 7 days elapsed, let alone 20.
 
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This might be true in Birmingham, put around here (40 miles east of Birmingham), there is zero issue with showing your pride in being English, providing that's what you are actually doing (i.e. not wrapping a flag around a brick and throwing it through the local cornershop's window). I also can't think of any instance where I, or someone I know as been shamed for treating someone in uniform with the respect they deserve?

I think it might have been the way that I worded or structured my response. The way in which the UK shows patriotism is different from the US. In the majority of cases, it is very reserved; limited to a few bits of bunting and the occasional giant St George's Cross hanging off the side of a house. When there is a relatively big event, a great sense of civil pride swells up, and we go mad and go into a flag waving bonanza. Then we have something in the middle, which is newsworthy (like the royal baby), but not worthy of a massive celebration, and the eccentrics come out with their Union Flag suits. I don't know why we look so odd, like I said, maybe because t's relatively unusual for the UK.

When I'm saying that we don't show our armed forces enough respect or pride, I'm talking about the general public as a whole or an entity, not as individuals. If you look at the States, the amount of support they get, whether it's from the public, businesses, eateries, cinemas, etc., it's a lot more than they show here. I think part of it is shame (pushed on to us by the media), but also a typically British reservedness that we possess.

The Knob-a-thon sounds fun!
 
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In the UK, we treat anyone in uniform (not just armed forces) with utter contempt, we are shamed (not ashamed) to show any kind of pride in our country, its flag or its ideals, under the jackboot of multiculturalism.
You don't speak for the country, nor do you speak for whatever the claimed jackboot of multiculturalism is. My family on my mothers side is a military one, my wife's family is also, we live in a county in which the MoD is the single biggest landowner and my family is multicultural.

Quite frankly you are talking nonsense.

I have the utmost respect for anyone who has or is serving, always have done and always will, and you don't get to label my multicultural family and its views as a jackboot to try and score points in the most ludicrously general terms.


So when we do have something that the Left decide we can take pride in (a royal birth/wedding, a Brit in Wimbledon, etc.), we lose our heads.
What exactly is the 'left' doing to decide what you can or can't take pride in?

I'm unsure of exactly how the 'left' have managed to control your mind in this way?
 
Well **** me sideways - Moses has arrived. The country is saved.

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"7. Thou shalt not commit deleted scenes from The Thick of It......"
 
Someone might want to tell the patient who I left screaming at me to call for an ambulance because the doctors were ignoring him that Ed Miliband is his saviour.

I think it might have been the way that I worded or structured my response. The way in which the UK shows patriotism is different from the US. In the majority of cases, it is very reserved; limited to a few bits of bunting and the occasional giant St George's Cross hanging off the side of a house. When there is a relatively big event, a great sense of civil pride swells up, and we go mad and go into a flag waving bonanza. Then we have something in the middle, which is newsworthy (like the royal baby), but not worthy of a massive celebration, and the eccentrics come out with their Union Flag suits. I don't know why we look so odd, like I said, maybe because t's relatively unusual for the UK.

When I'm saying that we don't show our armed forces enough respect or pride, I'm talking about the general public as a whole or an entity, not as individuals. If you look at the States, the amount of support they get, whether it's from the public, businesses, eateries, cinemas, etc., it's a lot more than they show here. I think part of it is shame (pushed on to us by the media), but also a typically British reservedness that we possess.

The Knob-a-thon sounds fun!
My family has a military streak on my mother's Asian side and sounds about right here.
 
I think it might have been the way that I worded or structured my response. The way in which the UK shows patriotism is different from the US. In the majority of cases, it is very reserved; limited to a few bits of bunting and the occasional giant St George's Cross hanging off the side of a house. When there is a relatively big event, a great sense of civil pride swells up, and we go mad and go into a flag waving bonanza. Then we have something in the middle, which is newsworthy (like the royal baby), but not worthy of a massive celebration, and the eccentrics come out with their Union Flag suits. I don't know why we look so odd, like I said, maybe because t's relatively unusual for the UK.

When I'm saying that we don't show our armed forces enough respect or pride, I'm talking about the general public as a whole or an entity, not as individuals. If you look at the States, the amount of support they get, whether it's from the public, businesses, eateries, cinemas, etc., it's a lot more than they show here. I think part of it is shame (pushed on to us by the media), but also a typically British reservedness that we possess.

Sorry but I still don't see it. To me it sounds like you are painting the majority as the victim, which I don't think is the case. We're free to show as much support for these groups as we want, sorry if that is not the case where you are.
 
Sorry but I still don't see it. To me it sounds like you are painting the majority as the victim, which I don't think is the case. We're free to show as much support for these groups as we want, sorry if that is not the case where you are.

I agree. Maybe it's because I was brought up in/around an army town but whatever the origin or nationality there's never been any shyness about supporting the military.

Someone might want to tell the patient who I left screaming at me to call for an ambulance because the doctors were ignoring him that Ed Miliband is his saviour.

Nice to see you back.

Your comment... perhaps you could equally tell him that Cameron clearly isn't? And then get off GTPlanet and do some work? :D
 
Could be worse. You could be filming a greenscreen heavy action movie while wearing a suit in the colour's of the flag of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.
 
Instinctive punch and a good shot :)

Here's Prescott doing surprisingly well at despatches against Little Billy Hague, worth a watch.

 
TenEightyOne
Nice to see you back

I think GTP needed a break from the doom-mongering.

Now onto your point (which is the right response). This is an outline of the pledges in the latest Student BMJ:

20150504_093738.jpg


Here's my thoughts as a medic in a London uni and HCA in one of the worst hospitals in Britain (officially!)

Conservatives:
- 8bn a year? Above inflation? Where from?! When I originally saw the 8bn figure I assumed it was 8bn by 2020, not per year. Doesn't really matter anyway since you could give us 80 billion and the NHS would find a way to lose it all before it trickled to the services that need it.
- 5000 GPs? Trained in British medical schools? This would require a massive recruiting drive by RCGP (Royal College of GPs) and increasing capacity or creating new medical schools. Not possible. You will instead get an influx of crappy FMGs (Foreign Medical Graduates) to plug the gaps to fulfill this promise. You know the kind who sent my dad home the other day with a month long history of a productive cough with an "It'll get better by itself". (Ironically I got my dad treatment by sending him to a clinic RUN by FMGs where they suspected bronchitis and gave a course of antibiotics. The difference? This clinic is run by smart Polish doctors who have seen a gap in the market and provide private care to patients in West London. Consultation was 70 quid.)
- See a GP from 8am to 8pm 7 days a week by 2020 and provide same day GP appointments for patients aged over 75...

jQmVFypWInKCc.gif

- Health and social care integration is the future, so well done for showing relevant examples. Public health ideas are very good - diabetes is set to be a scourge in Britain over the coming decade, but not as much as dementia, so "leading the world" in search of a cure are the fighting words I want to hear.
Labour:
- £2 billion, with an explanation of where it will come from is admirable, but it's a raid on the rich and ultimately pointless (treating patients alone takes up 2 billion a week http://www.channel4.com/programmes/nhs-2-billion-a-week-counting)
- Mental health budget increase on children + more integration are great ideas too. This is looking good...
- Recruit 20000 nurses, 8000 GPs, 3000 more midwives. Keyword here? Recruit. We all know where they will come from, and no-one will know if they are up to the job. Any whistleblowing could be dismissed as racism or whistleblowers could be too scared to even speak because of threats to their career (I'm in the middle of something similar now). This is seriously dangerous. Now would also be a good time to bring up Labour's track record in Wales, and who can forget Mid-Staffs

In short, you could easily be living with a very dangerous health service full of cover ups in an NHS England controlled by Labour.
Lib Dems:
More money again, more talk of investing in doctors (6000 now). Still not tackling the real issues....
Scots Nats:
Reducing the number of managers by a percentage is an excellent idea. Protecting from privatisation....not so much. I love the minimum alcohol unit pricing.
Plaid Cymru:
Errrrm best so far surprisingly except for the complete aversion to the private sector. That and they're Welsh....
Greens:
Michael-Scott-Closes-The-Door-Awkwardly-On-The-Office.gif

UKIP:

- £3 billion from where? Good they've identified THE PROBLEM (middle management)
- Good idea for stopping health tourism. In fact so good the "non-racists" are getting tough Boo on Mr Farage for using bogus figures to scare people about HIV + individuals. What is this the eighties??
- Amend working time rules to give trainee doctors, surgeons, and medics the proper environment in which to train and practise.
Oh My God. Politicians actually listening to what medical professionals want. This little nugget is ridiculously important.
- Ensure that foreign health service professionals coming to work in the NHS are properly qualified and can speak English to an acceptable standard.
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Someone is telling it like it is! Just wish it wasn't a party that doesn't contain members who would want to deport everyone in the gif
- Access pledges, and the privatisation measures are sensible and leave scope for clever private intervention in the future

NHA Party:
post-27260-R-Kelly-WTF-Gif-trapped-in-clo-brc0.gif


My thoughts then would be:

1. UKIP
2. Scots Nats
3. Plaid Cymru
4. Conservatives
5. Lib Dems
6. NHA
7. Labour
8. Greens

But UKIP could quite easily turn nasty, and that is my concern. Consider this response to the original BMJ article by a retired professional:

Not a pledge but a proposal being considered by the Conservatives is the withdrawal of welfare benefits from people unable to work because of addiction problems and/or being overweight - if they do not agree to 'treatment' from, amongst others, therapists (and some will be willing to participate in this as the scandal of the way incapacity benefit was handled shows).


Surely the practitioners would be obliged to hold professional qualifications and to be registered with organisations with a Code of Practice and a Code of Ethics. As a relationship of the kind recommended by Carol Black and her team would be in breach of Codes of Ethics - what steps could the UKCP, the Psychological Society and others take to prevent coercive and inappropriate behaviour by their members.and what would be the complaints procedure if the 'relationship' was perceived by the recipient as being coercive and harmful?


As all people who are overweight/addicted are not welfare recipients but still use the NHS - what is being proposed to make them feel even more stigmatised. Maybe this is one lesson to bear in mind, there can be unintended consequences when any group becomes the target of too harsh scrutiny by others.


Not hard to imagine a hardening of attitudes towards foreign born patients and those less able in a UKIP led health service. All speculation at this stage of course.
 
Has the scaremongering and controversy around health tourism extended to Irish women who come over for abortions, then go back home, as well?
 
Meanwhile, with three days to go until the election, UKIP have launched their Scottish manifesto in Falkirk - except without their Scottish manifesto, which is still "in the post". :ouch:
 
Apparently our newest lizard overlord is called Charlotte Elizabeth Diana.

Presumably she'll team up with her brother to form a pelagic private detective duo.
 
Mail on Sunday had 35 pages in total dedicated to the new baby yesterday, just 35 pages full of pictures of a baby.....
 
Richard Littlebigot shows Katie Hopkins how it is done.

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Of course, this has only led to a spew of photos and anecdotes about how the Conservatives were enablers for Jimmy Savile.

Note: Not a single click went towards Daily Mail traffic numbers in creating this post. Safe, for now.
 
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