The UK Politics and EU Referendum thread - merged

[kukushkin88]

Bercow in great form having announced he’s stepping down, really enjoy watching the HoC.

Lots of great tributes:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-parliaments-49636684

[BigAdz]

Just the constant insults about my, and others, level of intellect get very waring, especially from someone believed by the boss, to be such a nice guy.......

You have been missing for ages searching for another source(no doubt you will claim you haven't)

I fully understand many arguments you put up on here, but when given an answer rather than prove your point, you just slag people off with put downs, maintaining they don't understand your point. Not the case, its called discussion, and you need to be pulled up on it.


In terms of the report you have directed us too, it still doesn't prove the previous report was as factual as you made out, in fact it has f all to do with it, citing prevention as the cure for better health care, very little to do with austerity and nothing that proves your point.

In fact it was hard to take a report serious that within the first few lines of content has such appalling mistakes on a Public Health document

 Prevention leads to longer and health lives

 For too long policymakers have failed to health
 and health services as a risk to be managed rather.

Please don't post a link to a long document you(probably haven't read yourself) think will validate your point, when it totally doesn't, in the hope the shear length of it will give folk the impression you are reading all this guff, and therefore a level above some of us.

You have been, and will be, exposed, so you best up your game old lad.

All that I’m evidencing is that austerity causes unnecessary deaths (loads of them). No one has credibly claimed that it doesn’t, you seemed happy enough with Doobs post on the subject

You can’t seriously think I spent the whole weekend looking for that report? It’s like the 6th returned google result, I found it in approx 8 seconds during a time out in Pats/Pitts game and read it this morning. You really think it isn’t a causative factor in deaths, it is what the report is about, clearly.

I think neither dear chap.

Just clarifying that you don't bother to read in any depth links you then suggest people read, as they don't validate your narrative, which is that austerity DID cause a great many deaths. Now your narrative has changed to it hasn't been proven that it didn't, a massive difference.

Also getting to the bottom of the lofty opinion you have of yourself over those also on here.

My view (not a narrative) on the vast number of deaths caused by austerity, evidenced comprehensively in those two studies as well as in loads of other places, absolutely has not changed.

How can you get that so wrong? Acting like you’ve some how exposed me or caught me out is just strange and further supports the idea that you don’t understand.

My opinion of myself is of no consequence in this context and I doubt of any interest to anyone else, it would probably be helpful for you to try and recover some perspective on it as well.

It was kind of Tony to say nice things about me but it’s surely time for you to stop making a fuss about that as well.

What don't I understand? I have repeatedly challenged you to prove that austerity killed so many people as you initially claimed. Having read them all, I questioned those articles proved nothing of the kind. For the umpteenth time, you are very keen to try and put me down by saying, I don't understand, but what is it I don't understand?

Is it that you are keen to hoodwink the rest of Blonde into thinking you are an authority on the subject, yet you don't even read, digest, or dare I say, understand the links you post up? None of those links has proven anything.

All I want you to do is find any evidence in any of those those that proves conclusively austerity definately claimed the hundreds of thousands of lives you said it did.

Don't claim I don't understand, don't slope off, just find the paragraph or line or anything in them that says austerity conclusively caused an increase of deaths and I will happily shut up(cue the rest of the thread searching too! )

[TightEnd]

A majority of both Conservative (55%) and Leave (60%) voters think a no-deal Brexit would result in a clean break from the EU, meaning the country could then focus on something else

Er, they are in for a surprise! Years and years of negotiations follow (under every course)

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=daily_questions&utm_campaign=question_1#/survey/b1a68b4b-d2eb-11e9-bf2d-9d563d3c69ca/question/e0b9c8c2-d2eb-11e9-b08f-4385719ccbc1/politics

[kukushkin88]

It will be another one he walks away from pops, we all know it.

I’ve never walked away from discussing the issues raised in this thread. As I’ve said before, the only reason why I’m here is because I believe there’s merit in discussing these things.

This isn’t a bad analysis, for sure it’s highly possible/likely that not all 120,000 are attributed directly to what the government, lots of them are though.

https://fullfact.org/health/austerity-120000-unnecessary-deaths/

Apologies to Rick for the approach I took in that sequence of posts.

Sometimes, I am sure you just find a nice juicy headline and don't read the article at all.

Extracts from this document that"proves your point"

 Restrictions on health and social care spending is one of a number of possible explanations for this, and the findings need to be treated with a bit of caution.


 “There was a report this week, we are getting 120,000 unnecessary deaths every year in this country as a direct result of the austerity.”

Val McDermid, 16 November 2017 (isn't Val a fiction writer???)


While lower growth in health and social care spending since 2010 may be behind the increase in deaths, these findings should be treated with caution as the research doesn’t prove this is the case. Reduced spending is one of a number of possible explanations for the results.


Older people accounted for more of these additional deaths, with deaths at care homes and at home contributing most to the estimated additional deaths. Deaths in hospital were lower than expected. The authors put this down to greater pressures on social care spending, but also a drive to move more patients reaching the end of possible health treatments out of hospital.
Lets think about this one a bit. Deaths were actually LOWER in hospitals. People sent off to care home, where they are looked after by Care Assistants, not Nurses. Hmm, what do we think the outcome is likely to be?


I struggle to see your headline 120,000 additional deaths due to austerity being in any way substantiated by this article..even the article questions its own numbers!

NEXT!

It goes without saying that I don’t think you understand. I am happy to try and do a better job of explaining if you’d like?

Carry on Rover, so far you haven't convinced anyone.

Oh, please keep up with the condescending put downs, it highlights your nice guy attributes.

So while I have been golfing today, more insults chucked, but as expected, still no reply to prove your point. You are right, it is insulting to be compared to you and your poor attempts at building yourself up, with F all to back it up, unless you have read it somewhere.

That study is out of date and we no longer need to use projections.  

There has been a marked fall in mortality improvements over the last 5 years, and the 40 year trend in mortality improvements may well have gone as far as reversing.  You can't know the real trend for sure because of variance; for instance a harsh winter can cause a spike in deaths etc.

I think it is a safe assumption to state that austerity has caused some of these excess deaths, but it certainly isn't all of them.  There has been excess deaths from flu in, from memory, 3 of the last 5 years, which was put down to a fairly ineffective flu vaccine for those years, and this has certainly caused some of the excess deaths.  You can see that austerity is a good candidate for a significant number of these deaths, by looking in more detail at the split of mortality improvements.  Those at the lower end of the social scale have suffered much more from the change in the trend in mortality improvements with those in higher social classes happily bowling along and experiencing improved mortality rates as if austerity never happened (the Jacob Rees Mogg, Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and Nigel Farage types have less reason to give a shit about the downside*).  

So I think it is safe to say that austerity has caused a significant number of excess deaths, but it isn't safe to say it caused 120,000 (or 90,000 or 75,000 or whatever today's number of the day is).

* As an aside a life insurer has to be careful reflecting the change in trend, as richer people tend to have bigger insurances, so their mortality is way more important to an insurer than the increased mortality suffered by the poor downtrodden Brexit party voters.

No doubt Kush will lay claim to this, so thanks for spoiling my fun Doobs.

He will then say it was so obvious, that's why he never bothered to reply to such a simpleton.

We know the truth though.

I thought Doobs summed it up well.

[kukushkin88]

A majority of both Conservative (55%) and Leave (60%) voters think a no-deal Brexit would result in a clean break from the EU, meaning the country could then focus on something else

Er, they are in for a surprise! Years and years of negotiations follow (under every course)

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=daily_questions&utm_campaign=question_1#/survey/b1a68b4b-d2eb-11e9-bf2d-9d563d3c69ca/question/e0b9c8c2-d2eb-11e9-b08f-4385719ccbc1/politics

There was a good article by Simon Kuper (FT) on Saturday morning, having spoken to EU diplomats at length. Cliffs: There’ll still be a backstop in what’s strangely still being called ‘no deal’.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/110207f2-cea2-11e9-b018-ca4456540ea6
(Sorry for anyone who can’t get past the paywall, worth posting for those who can though)

[BigAdz]

It will be another one he walks away from pops, we all know it.

I’ve never walked away from discussing the issues raised in this thread. As I’ve said before, the only reason why I’m here is because I believe there’s merit in discussing these things.

This isn’t a bad analysis, for sure it’s highly possible/likely that not all 120,000 are attributed directly to what the government, lots of them are though.

https://fullfact.org/health/austerity-120000-unnecessary-deaths/

Apologies to Rick for the approach I took in that sequence of posts.

Sometimes, I am sure you just find a nice juicy headline and don't read the article at all.

Extracts from this document that"proves your point"

 Restrictions on health and social care spending is one of a number of possible explanations for this, and the findings need to be treated with a bit of caution.


 “There was a report this week, we are getting 120,000 unnecessary deaths every year in this country as a direct result of the austerity.”

Val McDermid, 16 November 2017 (isn't Val a fiction writer???)


While lower growth in health and social care spending since 2010 may be behind the increase in deaths, these findings should be treated with caution as the research doesn’t prove this is the case. Reduced spending is one of a number of possible explanations for the results.


Older people accounted for more of these additional deaths, with deaths at care homes and at home contributing most to the estimated additional deaths. Deaths in hospital were lower than expected. The authors put this down to greater pressures on social care spending, but also a drive to move more patients reaching the end of possible health treatments out of hospital.
Lets think about this one a bit. Deaths were actually LOWER in hospitals. People sent off to care home, where they are looked after by Care Assistants, not Nurses. Hmm, what do we think the outcome is likely to be?


I struggle to see your headline 120,000 additional deaths due to austerity being in any way substantiated by this article..even the article questions its own numbers!

NEXT!

It goes without saying that I don’t think you understand. I am happy to try and do a better job of explaining if you’d like?

Carry on Rover, so far you haven't convinced anyone.

Oh, please keep up with the condescending put downs, it highlights your nice guy attributes.

So while I have been golfing today, more insults chucked, but as expected, still no reply to prove your point. You are right, it is insulting to be compared to you and your poor attempts at building yourself up, with F all to back it up, unless you have read it somewhere.

That study is out of date and we no longer need to use projections.  

There has been a marked fall in mortality improvements over the last 5 years, and the 40 year trend in mortality improvements may well have gone as far as reversing.  You can't know the real trend for sure because of variance; for instance a harsh winter can cause a spike in deaths etc.

I think it is a safe assumption to state that austerity has caused some of these excess deaths, but it certainly isn't all of them.  There has been excess deaths from flu in, from memory, 3 of the last 5 years, which was put down to a fairly ineffective flu vaccine for those years, and this has certainly caused some of the excess deaths.  You can see that austerity is a good candidate for a significant number of these deaths, by looking in more detail at the split of mortality improvements.  Those at the lower end of the social scale have suffered much more from the change in the trend in mortality improvements with those in higher social classes happily bowling along and experiencing improved mortality rates as if austerity never happened (the Jacob Rees Mogg, Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and Nigel Farage types have less reason to give a shit about the downside*).  

So I think it is safe to say that austerity has caused a significant number of excess deaths, but it isn't safe to say it caused 120,000 (or 90,000 or 75,000 or whatever today's number of the day is).

* As an aside a life insurer has to be careful reflecting the change in trend, as richer people tend to have bigger insurances, so their mortality is way more important to an insurer than the increased mortality suffered by the poor downtrodden Brexit party voters.

No doubt Kush will lay claim to this, so thanks for spoiling my fun Doobs.

He will then say it was so obvious, that's why he never bothered to reply to such a simpleton.

We know the truth though.

I thought Doobs summed it up well.

And the case for the prosecution rests.

BOOOOM!


Good night.

[kukushkin88]

It will be another one he walks away from pops, we all know it.

I’ve never walked away from discussing the issues raised in this thread. As I’ve said before, the only reason why I’m here is because I believe there’s merit in discussing these things.

This isn’t a bad analysis, for sure it’s highly possible/likely that not all 120,000 are attributed directly to what the government, lots of them are though.

https://fullfact.org/health/austerity-120000-unnecessary-deaths/

Apologies to Rick for the approach I took in that sequence of posts.

Sometimes, I am sure you just find a nice juicy headline and don't read the article at all.

Extracts from this document that"proves your point"

 Restrictions on health and social care spending is one of a number of possible explanations for this, and the findings need to be treated with a bit of caution.


 “There was a report this week, we are getting 120,000 unnecessary deaths every year in this country as a direct result of the austerity.”

Val McDermid, 16 November 2017 (isn't Val a fiction writer???)


While lower growth in health and social care spending since 2010 may be behind the increase in deaths, these findings should be treated with caution as the research doesn’t prove this is the case. Reduced spending is one of a number of possible explanations for the results.


Older people accounted for more of these additional deaths, with deaths at care homes and at home contributing most to the estimated additional deaths. Deaths in hospital were lower than expected. The authors put this down to greater pressures on social care spending, but also a drive to move more patients reaching the end of possible health treatments out of hospital.
Lets think about this one a bit. Deaths were actually LOWER in hospitals. People sent off to care home, where they are looked after by Care Assistants, not Nurses. Hmm, what do we think the outcome is likely to be?


I struggle to see your headline 120,000 additional deaths due to austerity being in any way substantiated by this article..even the article questions its own numbers!

NEXT!

It goes without saying that I don’t think you understand. I am happy to try and do a better job of explaining if you’d like?

Carry on Rover, so far you haven't convinced anyone.

Oh, please keep up with the condescending put downs, it highlights your nice guy attributes.

So while I have been golfing today, more insults chucked, but as expected, still no reply to prove your point. You are right, it is insulting to be compared to you and your poor attempts at building yourself up, with F all to back it up, unless you have read it somewhere.

That study is out of date and we no longer need to use projections.  

There has been a marked fall in mortality improvements over the last 5 years, and the 40 year trend in mortality improvements may well have gone as far as reversing.  You can't know the real trend for sure because of variance; for instance a harsh winter can cause a spike in deaths etc.

I think it is a safe assumption to state that austerity has caused some of these excess deaths, but it certainly isn't all of them.  There has been excess deaths from flu in, from memory, 3 of the last 5 years, which was put down to a fairly ineffective flu vaccine for those years, and this has certainly caused some of the excess deaths.  You can see that austerity is a good candidate for a significant number of these deaths, by looking in more detail at the split of mortality improvements.  Those at the lower end of the social scale have suffered much more from the change in the trend in mortality improvements with those in higher social classes happily bowling along and experiencing improved mortality rates as if austerity never happened (the Jacob Rees Mogg, Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and Nigel Farage types have less reason to give a shit about the downside*).  

So I think it is safe to say that austerity has caused a significant number of excess deaths, but it isn't safe to say it caused 120,000 (or 90,000 or 75,000 or whatever today's number of the day is).

* As an aside a life insurer has to be careful reflecting the change in trend, as richer people tend to have bigger insurances, so their mortality is way more important to an insurer than the increased mortality suffered by the poor downtrodden Brexit party voters.

No doubt Kush will lay claim to this, so thanks for spoiling my fun Doobs.

He will then say it was so obvious, that's why he never bothered to reply to such a simpleton.

We know the truth though.

I thought Doobs summed it up well.

And the case for the prosecution rests.

BOOOOM!

Good night.

It would be fun to see you in action as a lawyer 😂. Good night.

[nirvana]

A majority of both Conservative (55%) and Leave (60%) voters think a no-deal Brexit would result in a clean break from the EU, meaning the country could then focus on something else

Er, they are in for a surprise! Years and years of negotiations follow (under every course)

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=daily_questions&utm_campaign=question_1#/survey/b1a68b4b-d2eb-11e9-bf2d-9d563d3c69ca/question/e0b9c8c2-d2eb-11e9-b08f-4385719ccbc1/politics

I think this is somewhat irrelevant to most people because a) only nerds like us lot follow a lot of the twists and turns and b) If the news media had any sense they would just ignore the years of negotiations like they would normally ignore a trade negotiation that was going on as a background issue. The fact of a trade negotiation being underway shouldn't be a good reason for the country not to focus on other things.

[BigAdz]

Off tangent slightly, but whilst in Norway yesterday, it was all over the Norwegian press that their Government had signed a £6billion deal with the UK over fishing rights for the future, regardless of Brexit.

Another not so glum bit of news going on behind the scenes.

I wonder how many other deals have been negotiated and signed that we are unaware of already?

It doesnt help to sell newspapers to tell us the ducks are actually paddling like mad below the surface whilst the journos would rather suggest that the stillness above the water means they have made no prep.

[Karabiner]

Off tangent slightly, but whilst in Norway yesterday, it was all over the Norwegian press that their Government had signed a £6billion deal with the UK over fishing rights for the future, regardless of Brexit.

Another not so glum bit of news going on behind the scenes.

I wonder how many other deals have been negotiated and signed that we are unaware of already?

It doesnt help to sell newspapers to tell us the ducks are actually paddling like mad below the surface whilst the journos would rather suggest that the stillness above the water means they have made no prep.

I'm sure Liz Truss has got all bases covered when it come to negotiating favourable new deals.

[MANTIS01]

Tory critics say austerity was poor policy because it killed people. But wasn’t it good economic policy?

Now Tory critics say increased spending is poor economic policy. But won’t it save lives?

[Doobs]

Off tangent slightly, but whilst in Norway yesterday, it was all over the Norwegian press that their Government had signed a £6billion deal with the UK over fishing rights for the future, regardless of Brexit.

Another not so glum bit of news going on behind the scenes.

I wonder how many other deals have been negotiated and signed that we are unaware of already?

It doesnt help to sell newspapers to tell us the ducks are actually paddling like mad below the surface whilst the journos would rather suggest that the stillness above the water means they have made no prep.

This was published last month, so must be reasonably up to date


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47213842

I think the biggest so far is with Switzerland, which is only 2.5% of trade.    

[BigAdz]

Off tangent slightly, but whilst in Norway yesterday, it was all over the Norwegian press that their Government had signed a £6billion deal with the UK over fishing rights for the future, regardless of Brexit.

Another not so glum bit of news going on behind the scenes.

I wonder how many other deals have been negotiated and signed that we are unaware of already?

It doesnt help to sell newspapers to tell us the ducks are actually paddling like mad below the surface whilst the journos would rather suggest that the stillness above the water means they have made no prep.

This was published last month, so must be reasonably up to date


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47213842

I think the biggest so far is with Switzerland, which is only 2.5% of trade.    

Seems like a complete disaster.

Wasn't it Frazer in Dads Army who used to say...

We're doomed!!!

[Doobs]

It will be another one he walks away from pops, we all know it.

I’ve never walked away from discussing the issues raised in this thread. As I’ve said before, the only reason why I’m here is because I believe there’s merit in discussing these things.

This isn’t a bad analysis, for sure it’s highly possible/likely that not all 120,000 are attributed directly to what the government, lots of them are though.

https://fullfact.org/health/austerity-120000-unnecessary-deaths/

Apologies to Rick for the approach I took in that sequence of posts.

Sometimes, I am sure you just find a nice juicy headline and don't read the article at all.

Extracts from this document that"proves your point"

 Restrictions on health and social care spending is one of a number of possible explanations for this, and the findings need to be treated with a bit of caution.


 “There was a report this week, we are getting 120,000 unnecessary deaths every year in this country as a direct result of the austerity.”

Val McDermid, 16 November 2017 (isn't Val a fiction writer???)


While lower growth in health and social care spending since 2010 may be behind the increase in deaths, these findings should be treated with caution as the research doesn’t prove this is the case. Reduced spending is one of a number of possible explanations for the results.


Older people accounted for more of these additional deaths, with deaths at care homes and at home contributing most to the estimated additional deaths. Deaths in hospital were lower than expected. The authors put this down to greater pressures on social care spending, but also a drive to move more patients reaching the end of possible health treatments out of hospital.
Lets think about this one a bit. Deaths were actually LOWER in hospitals. People sent off to care home, where they are looked after by Care Assistants, not Nurses. Hmm, what do we think the outcome is likely to be?


I struggle to see your headline 120,000 additional deaths due to austerity being in any way substantiated by this article..even the article questions its own numbers!

NEXT!

It goes without saying that I don’t think you understand. I am happy to try and do a better job of explaining if you’d like?

Carry on Rover, so far you haven't convinced anyone.

Oh, please keep up with the condescending put downs, it highlights your nice guy attributes.

So while I have been golfing today, more insults chucked, but as expected, still no reply to prove your point. You are right, it is insulting to be compared to you and your poor attempts at building yourself up, with F all to back it up, unless you have read it somewhere.

That study is out of date and we no longer need to use projections.  

There has been a marked fall in mortality improvements over the last 5 years, and the 40 year trend in mortality improvements may well have gone as far as reversing.  You can't know the real trend for sure because of variance; for instance a harsh winter can cause a spike in deaths etc.

I think it is a safe assumption to state that austerity has caused some of these excess deaths, but it certainly isn't all of them.  There has been excess deaths from flu in, from memory, 3 of the last 5 years, which was put down to a fairly ineffective flu vaccine for those years, and this has certainly caused some of the excess deaths.  You can see that austerity is a good candidate for a significant number of these deaths, by looking in more detail at the split of mortality improvements.  Those at the lower end of the social scale have suffered much more from the change in the trend in mortality improvements with those in higher social classes happily bowling along and experiencing improved mortality rates as if austerity never happened (the Jacob Rees Mogg, Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and Nigel Farage types have less reason to give a shit about the downside*).  

So I think it is safe to say that austerity has caused a significant number of excess deaths, but it isn't safe to say it caused 120,000 (or 90,000 or 75,000 or whatever today's number of the day is).

* As an aside a life insurer has to be careful reflecting the change in trend, as richer people tend to have bigger insurances, so their mortality is way more important to an insurer than the increased mortality suffered by the poor downtrodden Brexit party voters.

No doubt Kush will lay claim to this, so thanks for spoiling my fun Doobs.

He will then say it was so obvious, that's why he never bothered to reply to such a simpleton.

We know the truth though.

I thought Doobs summed it up well.

And the case for the prosecution rests.

BOOOOM!

Good night.

It would be fun to see you in action as a lawyer 😂. Good night.

I have a few issues with that "study", and don't think it as unbiassed as you think (and lol at unbiassed economists and nobel prize winners).   

Here is an unbiassed mortality study.  Note that it doesn't really assign blame, just details a bit of what is happening.   

https://www.actuaries.org.uk/system/files/field/document/CMI%20WP105%20v01%202018-03-01%20-%20CMI%20Mortality%20Projections%20Model%20CMI_2017%20Briefing%20Note.pdf

But having spoken to people who follow mortality closer than I do, there are a few hypotheses floating round.   

Smoking rates dropped markedly for a long time, but a lot of the benefit from that has happened already, and there is some talk that the female rates of improvement are lower as that population took up smoking later in the last century (there used to be much more significant differences in smoking rates between the sexes).

There have been other advances that were improving medical treatments, and maybe the recent advances are having smaller effects.  This isn't saying that it isn't possible something else cannot come along and cause big improvements in life expectancy.

Austerity (as I posted above, the change in mortality improvements is hittting the poor disproportionately).

Volatility and one offs (eg flu and bad winters: if you look in the study above, you can see the hump caused by flu in 2015. FWIW I think there is going to be a noticeable fall in mortality in 2018 when it comes through as the winter wasn't bad and the flu vacine worked fine).

There is a limit to human life at about 115 years of age, so you see a lot more people over 100 these days, but very very few over 115).  This is bound to seep through into mortality improvements in the end.

There are some diseases where things are getting worse, eg sepsis and infections (as antiboitic resistence is getting worse for us.

So there is a significant tailing off in mortality improvements, but it is incorrect to assume it is all down to austerity.  Note that this has happened in other countries too, but we are at the extreme end of developed economies.

Maybe in another 10 years when we see a Government with different priorities, we can get a better understanding of the "austerity" effect, but it is all a bit early to try and put exact numbers on it.

[RED-DOG]

But having spoken to people who follow mortality closer than I do, there are a few hypotheses floating round.   

Smoking rates dropped markedly for a long time, but a lot of the benefit from that has happened already, and there is some talk that the female rates of improvement are lower as that population took up smoking later in the last century (there used to be much more significant differences in smoking rates between the sexes).

There have been other advances that were improving medical treatments, and maybe the recent advances are having smaller effects.  This isn't saying that it isn't possible something else cannot come along and cause big improvements in life expectancy.

Austerity (as I posted above, the change in mortality improvements is hittting the poor disproportionately).

Volatility and one offs (eg flu and bad winters: if you look in the study above, you can see the hump caused by flu in 2015. FWIW I think there is going to be a noticeable fall in mortality in 2018 when it comes through as the winter wasn't bad and the flu vacine worked fine).

There is a limit to human life at about 115 years of age, so you see a lot more people over 100 these days, but very very few over 115).  This is bound to seep through into mortality improvements in the end.

There are some diseases where things are getting worse, eg sepsis and infections (as antiboitic resistence is getting worse for us.

So there is a significant tailing off in mortality improvements, but it is incorrect to assume it is all down to austerity.  Note that this has happened in other countries too, but we are at the extreme end of developed economies.

Maybe in another 10 years when we see a Government with different priorities, we can get a better understanding of the "austerity" effect, but it is all a bit early to try and put exact numbers on it.

Good post.