The UK Politics and EU Referendum thread - merged

[MANTIS01]

Just saying lads, might be time to stop the petty squabbling and start taking this canned peaches idea seriously.

[kukushkin88]

Just saying lads, might be time to stop the petty squabbling and start taking this canned peaches idea seriously.

I agree but for some reason I’m particularly amused by the idiocy of it all today. Maybe we could try and work out how many poor and vulnerable people will be killed by Austerity 2.0 (not that Austerity 1.0 ever stopped) to get back on track?

[RickBFA]

Just saying lads, might be time to stop the petty squabbling and start taking this canned peaches idea seriously.

I agree but for some reason I’m particularly amused by the idiocy of it all today. Maybe we could try and work out how many poor and vulnerable people will be killed by Austerity 2.0 (not that Austerity 1.0 ever stopped) to get back on track?

Back to this nonsense of Tories deliberately  killing our population eh?

Bit early for Stella.

[kukushkin88]

Just saying lads, might be time to stop the petty squabbling and start taking this canned peaches idea seriously.

I agree but for some reason I’m particularly amused by the idiocy of it all today. Maybe we could try and work out how many poor and vulnerable people will be killed by Austerity 2.0 (not that Austerity 1.0 ever stopped) to get back on track?

Back to this nonsense of Tories deliberately  killing our population eh?

Bit early for Stella.

It feels like both a strength and a weakness of the right wing argument, that it has nothing to do with reality any more. It wins elections (with some help bought in), that’s all that matters right?

[Doobs]

Just saying lads, might be time to stop the petty squabbling and start taking this canned peaches idea seriously.

I agree but for some reason I’m particularly amused by the idiocy of it all today. Maybe we could try and work out how many poor and vulnerable people will be killed by Austerity 2.0 (not that Austerity 1.0 ever stopped) to get back on track?

Back to this nonsense of Tories deliberately  killing our population eh?

Bit early for Stella.

There have been cuts in spending to protect the vulnerable and NHS spending needs to increase above inflation to deal with an ageing population.  You can add in the staffing issues deliberately caused by choosing to leave the EU (I am sure in Patrick Minford's model the Land Rover workers of Solihull will be getting on their bikes to instantaneously get jobs in the care homes of London).

The stats show that the ongoing life expectancy improvement that was previously a feature of all our lifetimes has stalled over the last few years.

Real people have been dying at much higher rates than expected, and it may just be a blip, but it seems pretty likely it is a result of Government policies.   If it doesn't make a difference, why don't we just chop NHS spending in half?

I accept a lot of people are going to die regardless, and maybe you can't pin all these hundreds of thousands of extra deaths on the current Government, but to just dismiss it as nonsense seems a stretch in the circumstances.  The Government are certainly fucking things up a few things quite royally right now.  I accept a lot of it is mere incompetence and not deliberate, though that doesn't really excuse it. 

Cheers

[nirvana]

Just saying lads, might be time to stop the petty squabbling and start taking this canned peaches idea seriously.

I agree but for some reason I’m particularly amused by the idiocy of it all today. Maybe we could try and work out how many poor and vulnerable people will be killed by Austerity 2.0 (not that Austerity 1.0 ever stopped) to get back on track?

Back to this nonsense of Tories deliberately  killing our population eh?

Bit early for Stella.

There have been cuts in spending to protect the vulnerable and NHS spending needs to increase above inflation to deal with an ageing population.  You can add in the staffing issues deliberately caused by choosing to leave the EU (I am sure in Patrick Minford's model the Land Rover workers of Solihull will be getting on their bikes to instantaneously get jobs in the care homes of London).

The stats show that the ongoing life expectancy improvement that was previously a feature of all our lifetimes has stalled over the last few years.

Real people have been dying at much higher rates than expected, and it may just be a blip, but it seems pretty likely it is a result of Government policies.   If it doesn't make a difference, why don't we just chop NHS spending in half?

I accept a lot of people are going to die regardless, and maybe you can't pin all these hundreds of thousands of extra deaths on the current Government, but to just dismiss it as nonsense seems a stretch in the circumstances.  The Government are certainly fucking things up a few things quite royally right now.  I accept a lot of it is mere incompetence and not deliberate, though that doesn't really excuse it. 

Cheers

i find this whole subject quite fascinating in two areas really:

a) I don't know enough about the human body to know how realistic it is to expect the trend to continue or whether it is reasonable to expect that rates of improvement in life expectancy would flatten somewhat
b) i am very uncertain over whether actively working to increase the average age when people die has any tangible benefit to society.

[kukushkin88]

Just saying lads, might be time to stop the petty squabbling and start taking this canned peaches idea seriously.

I agree but for some reason I’m particularly amused by the idiocy of it all today. Maybe we could try and work out how many poor and vulnerable people will be killed by Austerity 2.0 (not that Austerity 1.0 ever stopped) to get back on track?

Back to this nonsense of Tories deliberately  killing our population eh?

Bit early for Stella.

There have been cuts in spending to protect the vulnerable and NHS spending needs to increase above inflation to deal with an ageing population.  You can add in the staffing issues deliberately caused by choosing to leave the EU (I am sure in Patrick Minford's model the Land Rover workers of Solihull will be getting on their bikes to instantaneously get jobs in the care homes of London).

The stats show that the ongoing life expectancy improvement that was previously a feature of all our lifetimes has stalled over the last few years.

Real people have been dying at much higher rates than expected, and it may just be a blip, but it seems pretty likely it is a result of Government policies.   If it doesn't make a difference, why don't we just chop NHS spending in half?

I accept a lot of people are going to die regardless, and maybe you can't pin all these hundreds of thousands of extra deaths on the current Government, but to just dismiss it as nonsense seems a stretch in the circumstances.  The Government are certainly fucking things up a few things quite royally right now.  I accept a lot of it is mere incompetence and not deliberate, though that doesn't really excuse it. 

Cheers

i find this whole subject quite fascinating in two areas really:

a) I don't know enough about the human body to know how realistic it is to expect the trend to continue or whether it is reasonable to expect that rates of improvement in life expectancy would flatten somewhat
b) i am very uncertain over whether actively working to increase the average age when people die has any tangible benefit to society.

a) I don’t know that anyone does. I agree it has to flatten but I know very little about the detail.
b) It should be all about quality of life and almost not at all about length of life.

It’s an interesting metric for trying to work out whether austerity is a good idea though. People who live well don’t die prematurely (other than too much high end booze/syphilis maybe?:-) 6th richest nation on 🌏 should be able to do better.

[kukushkin88]

Edit: I guess I mean, it seems logical LE can’t go up in a linear way. We can measure against other countries though and we’re not good at it since 2010.

[Jon MW]

The flattening off in LE in the UK wasn't the only place it happened; the same effect was observed across most of Europe.

It was to different degrees, but it more indicates a wider trend rather than specifically a result of UK policies (I would have thought)

[doubleup]

An indicator of how big the jump in expectancy has been in recent years is in the diagram below.  There really hadn't been a vast change in the most common date of death for nearly 100 years until recently (although the % of the population reaching that age was less).  (The modal date of death is an important indicator as it ignores infant mortality and catastrophes like epidemics and war).

Source of diagram: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthinequalities/articles/mostcommonageatdeathbysocioeconomicpositionsinenglandandwales/a30yearscomparison

[Doobs]

The flattening off in LE in the UK wasn't the only place it happened; the same effect was observed across most of Europe.

It was to different degrees, but it more indicates a wider trend rather than specifically a result of UK policies (I would have thought)

There has been some reduction in Europe, but we were already laggards in the 5 years to 2016 and now we are pretty much flat.  We didn't start from a higher than average life expectancy either, so, if anything most of Europe should flatten first.

https://www.ft.com/content/94adbcfc-7b85-11e8-8e67-1e1a0846c475.

Suspect Iceland is much more likely to be a blip, as they will have much less data than us, as they are a much smaller country (<1% our size) and we pretty much lead the World on investgating this kind of stuff. 

To give more flesh to the idea that austerity really is the kost likely cause, the tail off is pretty much all amongst the lower classes and poor.  The richer people's life expectenancy has carried on improving over the last 5 years.   Guess Nirvana wil be hapoy those with a good quality of life are the ones who get to enjoy it longer.

FWIW The rich/poor divide was already absolutely enormous.

[nirvana]

The flattening off in LE in the UK wasn't the only place it happened; the same effect was observed across most of Europe.

It was to different degrees, but it more indicates a wider trend rather than specifically a result of UK policies (I would have thought)

There has been some reduction in Europe, but we were already laggards in the 5 years to 2016 and now we are pretty much flat.  We didn't start from a higher than average life expectancy either, so, if anything most of Europe should flatten first.

https://www.ft.com/content/94adbcfc-7b85-11e8-8e67-1e1a0846c475.

Suspect Iceland is much more likely to be a blip, as they will have much less data than us, as they are a much smaller country (<1% our size) and we pretty much lead the World on investgating this kind of stuff. 

To give more flesh to the idea that austerity really is the kost likely cause, the tail off is pretty much all amongst the lower classes and poor.  The richer people's life expectenancy has carried on improving over the last 5 years.   Guess Nirvana wil be hapoy those with a good quality of life are the ones who get to enjoy it longer.

FWIW The rich/poor divide was already absolutely enormous.

Watching people in my family with dementia and Parkinsonian conditions and contributing to their care certainly does make me care a great deal about quality of life.

[RickBFA]

Just saying lads, might be time to stop the petty squabbling and start taking this canned peaches idea seriously.

I agree but for some reason I’m particularly amused by the idiocy of it all today. Maybe we could try and work out how many poor and vulnerable people will be killed by Austerity 2.0 (not that Austerity 1.0 ever stopped) to get back on track?

Back to this nonsense of Tories deliberately  killing our population eh?

Bit early for Stella.

There have been cuts in spending to protect the vulnerable and NHS spending needs to increase above inflation to deal with an ageing population.  You can add in the staffing issues deliberately caused by choosing to leave the EU (I am sure in Patrick Minford's model the Land Rover workers of Solihull will be getting on their bikes to instantaneously get jobs in the care homes of London).

The stats show that the ongoing life expectancy improvement that was previously a feature of all our lifetimes has stalled over the last few years.

Real people have been dying at much higher rates than expected, and it may just be a blip, but it seems pretty likely it is a result of Government policies.   If it doesn't make a difference, why don't we just chop NHS spending in half?

I accept a lot of people are going to die regardless, and maybe you can't pin all these hundreds of thousands of extra deaths on the current Government, but to just dismiss it as nonsense seems a stretch in the circumstances.  The Government are certainly fucking things up a few things quite royally right now.  I accept a lot of it is mere incompetence and not deliberate, though that doesn't really excuse it. 

Cheers

Trouble is Doobs, Kush has form in this area of using these stats as an aggressive and confrontational attack, inferring that a legitimate fiscal policy from a main stream UK party is a deliberate attempt to kill our population.

It was bang out of order before and it still is.

[Sheriff Fatman]

Wow, that was truly embarrassing to watch.  Theresa May tries to go all "school headmistress" on the naughty children in the EU.

Unfortunately, the whole 'staying in the EEA won't respect the referendum' line is complete bollocks.  She's chosen to make that interpretation from the outset, but the referendum said nothing about the terms of exit.

Using that argument, then she won't be respecting the referendum result unless she gives the NHS £350m a week from March 2019.

I can't believe how much that statement reeked of utter desperation.  Utterly pathetic.

I think that is an extremely harsh assessment Sheriff.

It would have been ten times worse if she had said nothing. They have took the piss all week, the nonsense on social media was outrageous, even EU insiders thought it was bang out of order.

Seems to have had a sensible effect....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45610768

May is toast whatever happens anyway. She knows it, everyone knows it, so in many ways she has nothing to lose by taking a more aggressive approach when needed.

That was my initial reaction, written seconds after watching it.

With the benefit of further reflection, and a chance to rewatch it, I’ve concluded that I was being too kind.  It was a truly abysmal bit of stage management.

The bit at the end, where she gives her final “don’t mess with me stare”, then turns and walks off is pretty much unwatchable without laughing.  I’m surprised no-one suggested she did a mic-drop first.

She has never been a great orator, and she’s proven that she can be easily rattled when unprepared (as in the press conference the previous day).  Given such, this type of carefully crafted, pre-rehearsed statement comes across as doubly unconvincing, in my eyes.

[kukushkin88]

Just saying lads, might be time to stop the petty squabbling and start taking this canned peaches idea seriously.

I agree but for some reason I’m particularly amused by the idiocy of it all today. Maybe we could try and work out how many poor and vulnerable people will be killed by Austerity 2.0 (not that Austerity 1.0 ever stopped) to get back on track?

Back to this nonsense of Tories deliberately  killing our population eh?

Bit early for Stella.

There have been cuts in spending to protect the vulnerable and NHS spending needs to increase above inflation to deal with an ageing population.  You can add in the staffing issues deliberately caused by choosing to leave the EU (I am sure in Patrick Minford's model the Land Rover workers of Solihull will be getting on their bikes to instantaneously get jobs in the care homes of London).

The stats show that the ongoing life expectancy improvement that was previously a feature of all our lifetimes has stalled over the last few years.

Real people have been dying at much higher rates than expected, and it may just be a blip, but it seems pretty likely it is a result of Government policies.   If it doesn't make a difference, why don't we just chop NHS spending in half?

I accept a lot of people are going to die regardless, and maybe you can't pin all these hundreds of thousands of extra deaths on the current Government, but to just dismiss it as nonsense seems a stretch in the circumstances.  The Government are certainly fucking things up a few things quite royally right now.  I accept a lot of it is mere incompetence and not deliberate, though that doesn't really excuse it.  

Cheers

Trouble is Doobs, Kush has form in this area of using these stats as an aggressive and confrontational attack, inferring that a legitimate fiscal policy from a main stream UK party is a deliberate attempt to kill our population.

It was bang out of order before and it still is.

It’s not a confrontational attack, it’s just an observation of reality, it might be that fiscal policy that kills the poor and vulnerable is the best way to run the 6th richest country in the world. We should all be ashamed of ourselves if it is though. People who vote Conservative should be more ashamed and people who troll the internet to support it should be even more ashamed.