User avatar
By Tubby Isaacs
#113311
McSweeney shouldn’t be blamed for everything, but it’s a bit rich to see him there stroking his chin about preparation for governing. What they were most unprepared for was the reaction, not least from their side to everything they did. Theresa May seriously considered reining in pensioner benefits. Had she done so, it wouldn’t have been very popular but the narrative would have been “brave PM shows the markets she’s serious”.
User avatar
By Tubby Isaacs
#113317
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ling-model

More advice for the Government, apparently confident that the majority of the public supports the Guardian position on asylum. I didn't notice their pal Andy Burnham running on the Guardian's position in Makerfield, or indeed Jez running on it in 2017.

Agree or don't agree with the Government's policy, think it's good or bad politics, but the idea that it's within the Government's gift to stop the other parties talking about asylum and immigration all the time just isn't true. Powell (who the Guardian absurdly have tried to compare Starmer to) was stopped because Ted Heath put him back in his box. If you've got a Tory Party led by Kemi Badenoch instead of Ted Heath, then it's all a lot harder.
User avatar
By Tubby Isaacs
#113328
One of the rate good CIF posters here, on the supposed NHS deaths caused by "Starmer".
donalbain
5 hours ago

The NHS spends about £200Bn a year in England. And £20Bn on drugs.

So even if the drugs bill doubled, it's still less than the extra £30Bn Starmer has given the NHS. So assuming NICE are allocating resources properly, you should count 400,000 lives saved against that 250,000. Which means Starmer's parting gift is 150,000 net lives saved.
The drug bill isn't being doubled, more like 20% extra. So "Starmer's parting gift" is actually over 300,000 lives saved. But the rules are anything good that happens because of government action doesn't count, and anything bad that happens because of events, dear boy is definitely the government's fault.
User avatar
By kreuzberger
#113347
She has all the presence of someone who slipped out of the room, even if she has the hammers and levers of government at her disposal. We can live in hope that she intends to nail these cunts to the wall.
mattomac liked this
User avatar
By The Weeping Angel
#113348
Tubby Isaacs wrote: Thu Jul 02, 2026 4:39 pm McSweeney shouldn’t be blamed for everything, but it’s a bit rich to see him there stroking his chin about preparation for governing. What they were most unprepared for was the reaction, not least from their side to everything they did. Theresa May seriously considered reining in pensioner benefits. Had she done so, it wouldn’t have been very popular but the narrative would have been “brave PM shows the markets she’s serious”.
Have you read the FT interview? I have

https://www.ft.com/content/3d0a7027-39f ... 25a6b1a6=1
User avatar
By Tubby Isaacs
#113377
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ysis-shows
Infrastructure cuts to pay for defence will cost UK 10,000 jobs, analysis shows
Exclusive: Findings cast doubt on Keir Starmer’s claims that reallocation of funds to MoD will boost British jobs
Depends. surely, doesn't it? If we develop great kit that lots of places want to buy, then defence spending will boost jobs.

Can you recall "Starmer creates zillions of jobs with investment plans" headlines in this paper? I can't. But apparently if you reallocate some of that increase to Defence, you're throwing 10,000 on the dole.
mattomac liked this
User avatar
By The Weeping Angel
#113423
Tubby Isaacs wrote: Thu Jul 02, 2026 6:54 pm One of the rate good CIF posters here, on the supposed NHS deaths caused by "Starmer".
donalbain
5 hours ago

The NHS spends about £200Bn a year in England. And £20Bn on drugs.

So even if the drugs bill doubled, it's still less than the extra £30Bn Starmer has given the NHS. So assuming NICE are allocating resources properly, you should count 400,000 lives saved against that 250,000. Which means Starmer's parting gift is 150,000 net lives saved.
The drug bill isn't being doubled, more like 20% extra. So "Starmer's parting gift" is actually over 300,000 lives saved. But the rules are anything good that happens because of government action doesn't count, and anything bad that happens because of events, dear boy is definitely the government's fault.
I assume it's referring to this article?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... deal-covid
In the face of Trump’s bullying, the government will double how much it spends on drugs as a share of national income, going from 0.3% now to 0.6% in a decade. It also accepts that the money will come from the NHS budget. The BMJ analysis suggests that over the next couple of years the NHS will have to find almost three times the amount pledged by Streeting. By the end of the decade, the authors believe, the cost will be a total £44.7bn. For perspective, this week’s headlines have been dominated by a plan that will require the government to find an extra £15bn for defence. The NHS may have to find triple that just to pay for drugs, thanks to a deal fronted by its own health secretary.

That extra money will go from British taxpayers to shareholders in multinational drug companies. And working on the basis that it will come from the NHS budget, the study shows it will cause a massive loss of life. More money for branded pharmaceuticals means less for cancer scans or doctors and nurses, statins and diabetes drugs. Using many years of data on the links between NHS spending and patient health, the authors’ model forecasts that this will cause an extra 229,000 deaths by 2036. The academics describe this as a “conservative” estimate, but it is getting on for double the avoidable deaths Britain suffered during the Covid pandemic. You might call this a massacre made in Whitehall, at the behest of Trump’s White House, in order to buff up shareholder returns.
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