Oh Dear - he's gone and trumped them all!

[Cheshirechappie]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_o ... e_(England)

There can be no doubt whatever that whichever political party had won the 1945 General Election would have implemented the National Health Service, funded from general taxation, and available to all when they needed it. The parliamentary spadework had been done, on a cross-party basis, over the previous three or four years. Beveridge; Willink; Bevan - all with the same aim.

Jacob - just because you enjoy rewriting history to fit your narrative, it doesn't alter the facts. In an earlier post, you wrote that labour founded the NHS, and that without them, it would not have existed. That is categorically not true.

 

[RogerS]

..... In fact it's easier learning to use a Bridgeport Mill properly than it is to fill in the b****y folder.

The same can be said for that utter load of codswallop - ISO9001. AKA how to fill in the right piece of paper with irrelevant twaddle.

 

[RogerS]

Here we go again.

Jacob says that it is all the Tories fault.

He gets corrected, quite rightly, but rather than accept it and agree that his initial (and rather stuck-in-a-rut) statement was just his usual hot air, why he ignores it and introduces another red herring. Honestly, Jacob, anyone entering into a 'discussion' (and I use the term extremely loosely) with you would be better off trying to nail jelly to a tree.

Or a blunt pencil. Pointless.

 

[RogerS]

.... A hard break and take it from there. ...

What do you mean by a 'hard break'?

 

[RossJarvis]

..... In fact it's easier learning to use a Bridgeport Mill properly than it is to fill in the b****y folder.

The same can be said for that utter load of codswallop - ISO9001. AKA how to fill in the right piece of paper with irrelevant twaddle.

Not one we did, I remember going for the "Investors in People Standard", everyone who hated working in the place (which was just about everybody) lined up and taught how to smile and say the right things so we could get the standard.......and don't get me going about Ofsted, our place actually wrote a book on how to pass Ofsted, note not a book about teaching or motivating students, just about how to pass Ofsted. You couldn't make it up, you really couldn't.

 

[Jacob]

Here we go again.

Jacob says that it is all the Tories fault.

He gets corrected, quite rightly, but rather than accept it and agree that his initial (and rather stuck-in-a-rut) statement was just his usual hot air, why he ignores it and introduces another red herring. Honestly, Jacob, anyone entering into a 'discussion' (and I use the term extremely loosely) with you would be better off trying to nail jelly to a tree.

Or a blunt pencil. Pointless.

But it is all the tories fault nevertheless.

 

[Jacob]

... In an earlier post, you wrote that labour founded the NHS, and that without them, it would not have existed. That is categorically not true.

Labour founded the NHS in July 1948. This is absolutely true.
It's in all the history books you don't have to take my word for it.
Without Aneurin Bevan and the Labour party it most likely would not have happened - it was strongly opposed by the medical establishment itself and the tories.

Henry Willink

 

[YorkshireMartin]

One of Trump's most polarizing issues is immigration. I think he's got it wrong, as have all the western governments, but I also believe they are purely self serving as individuals.

Allow me to pose a question, with a background scenario based on facts:

Let's say we continue to allow immigration from poor countries to the UK and the US. Also let us assume the other G8 nations do the same at a rate of 1m a year, per country, which is close to current estimates for the USA, likely to be similar for other G8 nations.

The criteria for immigration in our scenario are as they are in reality. Skilled workers, qualified professionals, those with significant capital to invest, or those with substantial family ties. So pretty much how it's always been, minus illegal immigrants for the purposes of this discussion. The number of asylum seekers are insignificant in relative terms so I have removed those figures for clarity.

There are something like 3-4 billion people living in extreme poverty across the world. The yearly population growth of these countries is something like 100m per year combined.

Out of all those people we, as wealthy countries, take perhaps 10-20m immigrants. We take so few of their population, that their net population continues to increase by upwards of 60 million year on year (including deaths), placing yet further strain on their very limited economies. It is a downward spiral of poverty that is not being addressed by any government or any political party, anywhere, as far as I know. Mostly I believe this because there is no solution that would ever be enacted over even 10 terms of a western government, so the real problem may be pushed aside constantly in favour of merely being seen to "do the right thing".

We, as "advanced" nations, take only the most intelligent, entrepreneurial, brightest, most motivated, healthiest and determined immigrants from these poor countries. Why? Because they will benefit us the most, as rich nations, and make "good" immigrants. With current immigration policy, do we not strip the poor countries of these people, who are, most certainly, the ONLY group of home grown citizens that actually has the potential, in the long term, to lift their home country out of poverty through innovation and sheer hard work?

My question is, who exactly is all this immigration helping? If we drain a poverty stricken country of its finance and intelligent, motivated citizens, surely it is left without any hope of progress at all?

Why does anyone particularly care that Trump is anti-immigration, should we not all be, under the circumstances?

Are they not better served by staying in their home country and receiving grass roots investment? I'm not talking about such monstrosities as the Clinton Foundation or Oxfam, I'm talking about directly supporting the best and brightest in their social endeavours, whilst addressing the corruption that is so often endemic to these nations.

 

[Jacob]

...........
My question is, who exactly is all this immigration helping? If we drain a poverty stricken country of its finance and intelligent, motivated citizens, surely it is left without any hope of progress at all?........

Immigration helps the recipient country (us) enormously.
It's dead simple - people migrate to get a better livelihood so they move to where there is peace, prosperity and most of all; work. More work being done generates wealth for all of us, one way or another. Our economy and the yanks would collapse without them.
Yes it may weaken the places left - but if they haven't a viable livelihood their original country is not making use of them and presumably they won't be missed. Some money gets sent home which saves on foreign aid and also carries on driving the global economic machine - what goes around comes around.
Gross oversimplification I admit!

Why does anyone particularly care that Trump is anti-immigration, should we not all be, under the circumstances?

Because it is a gross example of the blame culture - whereby people are encouraged to blame their neighbours, immigrants, unemployed, students, single mothers, foreigners, gays, agitators, do-gooders, trade unionists (the endless Daily Mail hate list) rather than blaming the wealthy elites who actually have the power and responsibility for the way things are. Add to this the delusion that the economy is in some sort of emergency/crisis and you have a massive propaganda success for the right wing media which is keeping us divided and easy to rule.

PS or to put it another way - Mexicans weren't responsible for neo-liberal economics, collapse of American motor industry, sub prime mortgages fiasco, widening inequality, etc. It was Trump and the Trumpalikes - who must find it entertaining to have got away with it and passed the buck.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

... In an earlier post, you wrote that labour founded the NHS, and that without them, it would not have existed. That is categorically not true.

Labour founded the NHS in July 1948. This is absolutely true.
It's in all the history books you don't have to take my word for it.
Without Aneurin Bevan and the Labour party it most likely would not have happened - it was strongly opposed by the medical establishment itself and the tories.

Henry Willink

I'll try to set it out a little more clearly.

During the second world war, the UK had a government of national unity. One thing it recognised was that the general population would expect a better social settlement after the war than it had enjoyed before it. With that in mind, the Beveridge Report was prepared, and agreed by all parties. Subsequent to that, a white paper was prepared by Willink in 1944 setting out proposals for a National Health Service. Following the General Election of 1945, the Labour administration enacted the intent set out by the government of national unity during the previous years. There was no dissent that a National Health Service was needed, though no doubt there was debate about the manner of it's realisation. We know, for example, that Bevan departed from Willink's proposals by trying to bring all medical facilities into national ownership; he eventually compromised by nationalising hospitals but leaving GP practices as private businesses contracting to the NHS, the situation we still have.

Whichever party (or coalition of parties) had been elected in 1945, some form of National Health Service would have come to pass, so it is not true to say that without the Labour Party, it would not have happened. It flowed from the Beveridge Report (Liberal) via the Willink white paper (Conservative) to final realisation under Bevan (Labour).

 

[Jacob]

...

Whichever party (or coalition of parties) had been elected in 1945, some form of National Health Service would have come to pass, ....

Pure guess. You can't rewrite history - it had been opposed by the tories at every stage and it looks unlikely that they would have supported - at least not without trimming it to the minimum they could get away with. See Willink comments.
It was actually founded by Labour and wouldn't have got through if they did not have a large majority.
Though of course the topic had been kicked about previously by many - it didn't arrive fully formed out of the blue.

Read this and a lot of other stuff on the net if you want to get up to speed.

Hope that helps.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

One of Trump's most polarizing issues is immigration. I think he's got it wrong, as have all the western governments, but I also believe they are purely self serving as individuals.

Allow me to pose a question, with a background scenario based on facts:

Let's say we continue to allow immigration from poor countries to the UK and the US. Also let us assume the other G8 nations do the same at a rate of 1m a year, per country, which is close to current estimates for the USA, likely to be similar for other G8 nations.

The criteria for immigration in our scenario are as they are in reality. Skilled workers, qualified professionals, those with significant capital to invest, or those with substantial family ties. So pretty much how it's always been, minus illegal immigrants for the purposes of this discussion. The number of asylum seekers are insignificant in relative terms so I have removed those figures for clarity.

There are something like 3-4 billion people living in extreme poverty across the world. The yearly population growth of these countries is something like 100m per year combined.

Out of all those people we, as wealthy countries, take perhaps 10-20m immigrants. We take so few of their population, that their net population continues to increase by upwards of 60 million year on year (including deaths), placing yet further strain on their very limited economies. It is a downward spiral of poverty that is not being addressed by any government or any political party, anywhere, as far as I know. Mostly I believe this because there is no solution that would ever be enacted over even 10 terms of a western government, so the real problem may be pushed aside constantly in favour of merely being seen to "do the right thing".

We, as "advanced" nations, take only the most intelligent, entrepreneurial, brightest, most motivated, healthiest and determined immigrants from these poor countries. Why? Because they will benefit us the most, as rich nations, and make "good" immigrants. With current immigration policy, do we not strip the poor countries of these people, who are, most certainly, the ONLY group of home grown citizens that actually has the potential, in the long term, to lift their home country out of poverty through innovation and sheer hard work?

My question is, who exactly is all this immigration helping? If we drain a poverty stricken country of its finance and intelligent, motivated citizens, surely it is left without any hope of progress at all?

Why does anyone particularly care that Trump is anti-immigration, should we not all be, under the circumstances?

Are they not better served by staying in their home country and receiving grass roots investment? I'm not talking about such monstrosities as the Clinton Foundation or Oxfam, I'm talking about directly supporting the best and brightest in their social endeavours, whilst addressing the corruption that is so often endemic to these nations.

Thanks for a thoughtful post, YM.

Something not much reported is that the governments of Eastern European countries are quite concerned about the outflow of their brightest and most energetic. Their economies are not the richest, and they need those people to bring about the economic growth that would help.

It also worries me a bit when people make the claim that the NHS depends on immigrants to ensure it has enough staff; I wonder why we can't train enough of our own people, and I wonder how nations far less prosperous than ours manage when the medical staff they have (expensively) trained emigrate, leaving them with a far lower ratio of medics to population than we would regard as acceptable in the UK. I can't blame the individual immigrants for wanting to economically better themselves, but do wonder whether it's morally justified to take so many people with essential skills away from nations that need them.

Back on page 6, I posted a link to a short YouTube clip of political economist Mark Blyth giving a short talk. He showed a graph of world income growth over the last thirty years, which showed that a good part of the world had enjoyed substantial income gains - he mentioned "400 million people lifted out of poverty in China" as an example of that. This came about through trade.

When politicians talk about trade, I do feel they're on to something. It does seem to be a far more effective way of bringing less-developed nations nearer to the wealth levels of developed Western countries than all the Foreign Aid dispensed over many decades. However, it does need to be genuinely 'free' trade, and we do have to consider those disadvantaged by it in the developed world. I'm not sure whether existing 'Free Trade Deals' are really all that free, or whether they are nearer to stitch-ups by the large corporations that lobby Brussels and Washington so effectively. Maybe some degree of protectionism might be justifiable in the short to medium term to help the 'left behind' in the developed West.

(Edited to correct the spelling mistakes I've spotted. The ones I didn't spot are still there....)

 

[Cheshirechappie]

...

Whichever party (or coalition of parties) had been elected in 1945, some form of National Health Service would have come to pass, ....

Though of course the topic had been kicked about previously by many - it didn't arrive fully formed out of the blue.

Thank you for acknowledging my point to be correct.

 

[Jacob]

...

Whichever party (or coalition of parties) had been elected in 1945, some form of National Health Service would have come to pass, ....

Though of course the topic had been kicked about previously by many - it didn't arrive fully formed out of the blue.

Thank you for acknowledging my point to be correct.

I didn't.

 

[Jacob]

..... I'm not sure whether existing 'Free Trade Deals' are really all that free, or whether they are nearer to stitch-ups by the large corporations that lobby Brussels and Washington so effectively. ...

The whole point of a free trade deal is to give the partners an advantage over the others. They disadvantage non partners more or less by definition - thats the whole idea, it's not for the benefit of anybody outside the deal, least of all poorly paid workers in the 3rd world.
The main plank of the brexit argument is to try to retain trade deals but prevent free movement of people - in other words it's to the advantage of everybody except working people who only have their work skills to offer, which is probably most of us on here.

 

[Inoffthered]

..... I'm not sure whether existing 'Free Trade Deals' are really all that free, or whether they are nearer to stitch-ups by the large corporations that lobby Brussels and Washington so effectively. ...

The whole point of a free trade deal is to give the partners an advantage over the others. They disadvantage non partners more or less by definition - thats the whole idea, it's not for the benefit of anybody outside the deal, least of all poorly paid workers in the 3rd world.
The main plank of the brexit argument is to try to retain trade deals but prevent free movement of people - in other words it's to the advantage of everybody except working people who only have their work skills to offer, which is probably most of us on here.

I disagree with your assertions here and again, I think you are looking at things the wrong way down a telescope.
It is open for any country to remove barriers to trade if they wish, it is their prerogative. If a country imposes tariffs and non tariff barriers they cannot then complain about being disadvantaged because others choose a free trade arrangement.
You appear to show a concern for the third world but seem oblivious to the damage that the EU causes to the third world because of its protectionist policies. The EU may be a free trade association for its members but those outside suffer. As an example, the price of sugar imports is fixed to protect the EU sugar beet growers. As a consequence sugar prices in the EU are artificially high and sugar growers in Africa cannot realise the full value of their crops.
The multinationals and global interests that lobby the EU are not interested in free trade but are seeking to impose barriers that restrict access to markets, the exact opposite of what you appear to be suggesting.

Your views on the free movement of people are somewhat naive. I could argue that the restriction of free movement of unskilled labour to the UK would improve the lot of working people here by reducing the downward pressure on wages and also easing pressure on public services. And to preempt your next comment, no one on the Brexit side has ever said that there would be no immigration, the argument is for controlled immigration.

 

[Jacob]

.... I could argue that the restriction of free movement of unskilled labour to the UK would improve the lot of working people here by reducing the downward pressure on wages and also easing pressure on public services. ....

It'd be better to ensure that employers pay all the same then there would be no issue about wages.
The point is - these people generate wealth - that's why their employers employ them and that's why we want them here. There are issues of course but the economic one is complete nonsense - it's not the workers fault if he is being underpaid.
Public services would collapse without the large number of immigrant workers employed.

If free movement is restricted it's very likely that Brit workers will suffer the same fate - the EU don't owe us any favours. Big shot in the foot!

 

[Inoffthered]

Public services would collapse without the large number of immigrant workers employed.

This is the rather tired straw man argument put up by Remainers to imply that the NHS will collapse because of Brexit.
Who, exactly, has ever said "immigrant workers" would be expelled ?
Who exactly, has ever said that immigrants would not be allowed to enter the country to accept employment?

Still at least you have not yet sunk to the depths of this *****

http://order-order.com/2016/11/20/andre ... ain-video/

It'd be better to ensure that employers pay all the same then there would be no issue about wages.
The point is - these people generate wealth - that's why their employers employ them and that's why we want them here. There are issues of course but the economic one is complete nonsense - it's not the workers fault if he is being underpaid.

Pay all workers the same? How very USSR!
I agree that employers employ people to create wealth, but wages are a function of supply and demand. An entrepreneur running a business will pay his staff what he needs to pay them in order to maintain the business. So if the supply of labour exceeds demand then the price of labour will go down. Talk to anyone in the construction industry about the impact of Eastern European joiners/plumbers/electricians. Employers are delighted because they work hard for less money. Others working in those trades are not so happy because pay rates are depressed.
An excess of unskilled labour is the real curse for those operating at that level. A worker has the right to leave employment for a better job if they are not happy. With surplus labour, that option that gives the employee power is effectively removed.

Attempts to rig the market and fix wage rates reduces employment and create inefficiencies. A system that pays everyone the same destroys productivity because there is no incentive to excel.

The other issue that your analysis fails to address is the effect of unrestricted immigration on the wider economy and social services. The argument that the mass immigration of recent years has added value has been de-bunked. The majority of immigrant labour is unskilled work, often on zero hours contracts. The contribution to the treasury through taxation is modest because unskilled work tends to be poorly paid.
The analysis supporting free movement of labour takes no account (deliberately imho) of the social costs. For a population increase of 1 million there is a substantial cost to social services which need to be provided or health and education will suffer. (increased waiting times/shortage of school places etc). The problem with natural population growth is generally manageable because the authorities can monitor birth rates and have a few years to sort out school places. When population growth comprises family units then the social demands are instantaneous. The problem is compounded if incomers are low wage earners and are therefore making no real contribution to tax revenues.

The other issue that the Remainers seem to ignore is the fundamental change that is taking place in the economy. Having gone through the agricultural and industrial revolutions in the 18th and 19th centuries we are now entering the technological age. The days when industry needed thousands of workers to work in factories have long gone. The future of the economy now needs highly educated and motivated people. There will still be a role for a number of unskilled workers to work in leisure and care sectors but having an open door policy is madness and grossly unfair on the existing population. The continuing absence of any coherent justification for the current free movement policy (other than the sound bite "the economy benefits" nonsense) suggests that our EU lords and masters really are engaged in the Coudehove-Kalergi plan.

 

[MIGNAL]

It's very tempting to think that all we need are educated highly motivated people. It is complete nonsense of course.
I'm well aware of dozens of people who work in the . . . cardboard box factory, the crisp factory, the greetings card factory, the plastics factory. . . I could go on. They are all small companies employing immigrant workers. I once asked one of the Polish workers how many English people worked at the factory that he worked in. Very few, was his answer. They come, they last a week, they go. This guy had done 5 years in the exact same very boring, monotonous job.

 

[DennisCA]

Pretty sure most of us just want a steady job and stability and aren't highly motivated or interested in jumping from job to job while building some kinda career and always on the move from city to city, those people are few and far between. Yet it seems like everyone has to be like that in todays world. Most people trying that burn out and die from heart attacks and stress.

There seems to be a disconnect between what people want and what society wants them to be.