It's a very useful comparison to use when people suggest we're overspending on health, with the implication that we shouldn't use a public system.
Politics at Westminster | BREAKING: UKIP
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
It's a very useful comparison to use when people suggest we're overspending on health, with the implication that we shouldn't use a public system.
It was in response to being asked about the 'relocating Jews to America' suggestion by a Jewish writer that Naz Shah retweeted Israel. He said the suggestion was 'over the top' but used the Zionist example of collaboration with Hitler as historic equivilinant and suggesting it wasn't the necessarily the best for the Jewish people. Insensitive maybe and no you don't work in the media, you just read the narrative the media want without bothering to source the quotes and context. This is the whole interview, listen to it and come back and tell me Livingstone is anti-semitic and unreasonable in his positions in this interview as a whole.
The claim of 'anti-semitism' is glossing over all the real issues in this interview the interviewer Felts claims any criticism of Israel is a cloak of 'Jew hating'. Livingstone is talking about the rights of Palestinians and the wrongs of war crimes and disparity between Palestinian/Isreali death toll and all that the media take from that interview is 'he said something about Hitler and Jews'.
Support might be a stretch and Hitler was obviously doing it for anti-semitic and cash grabbing motives but there was the Haavara Agreement signed where Jews in German territories would emigrate to Palestine and Zionists would buy German produce with monies taken from the Jewish immigrants. The obvious comparison between nationalist/fascist states that Feltz was deliberately ignoring in her critique of Naz Shah wasn't lost on Livingston and maybe that's partly why he put his foot in his mouth there.
So fierce you'very moved to another country
Those were goods purchased using the confiscated assets and frozen funds of Jews who had been forced to flee Germany. It was a way they could recover a small part of their stolen assets, while simultaneously allowing Germany to increase its exports.
If you go for the US-style healthcare system, you're definitely going downhill and quickly. These health insurance companies are cancer in the way they have hold over people in government and doing everything they can to further that purely to capitalize on these markets. Think about it, billion dollar companies who are scraping for every penny in order to profit off of people's health.
I really don't like the guy i think he's a fool but i think he's been partly used to get at Corbyn here. Banned from the Labour party would be a bit much, especially when John Mann got away with nothing for his behaviour.
Politically even mentioning Israel or Zionism is a no go area. It shouldn't be.
Fair, I guess I think the US is a bit of an outlier in terms of how incredibly obtuse, wasteful and in many senses blatantly corrupt it is. I'm a firm supporter of public health care, but even I'd acknowledge you could probably do private better than the US does.
Yeah sorry, think I've given the wrong impression. I'm Canadian (studying in the UK this year as it happens), Tommy Douglas (father of single payer in North America) is one of my biggest inspirational figures, making healthcare private to me is not only a bad idea practically but also morally. I just wanted to make the point that the American system is an absolute shitshow and probably not the only possible outcome of a private health care regime.
Its an enduring weakness of the left to imagine that anyone who disagrees with them must be having the wool pulled over their eyes. Probably stems from marx. Well, believe it or not, its possible for two well read, intelligent, independent thinking people to disagree with one another.
As for Ken, well, I'll post this, about his initial point, and this, about many of his specific claims he's made since. You'll then come back to me and say they're sponsored by the Israeli site, I'll say no they're not, you'll say yes they are and then we'll be at an impasse.
Having saved us the effort of actually doing that back and forth, you can then choose to read them, or not, and believe them, or not, with no need to continue discussing this particular point.
What we can say for certain is that Ken's now been referred back to the NEC by Corbyn. My guess is that they'll expel him, but find a way of it not being for anti-semisim, but for being insensitive, something like that.
It's not about agreeing or disagreeing, I challenged you to point out an actual incident of anti-semitism which you haven't been able to once. You've managed to find people who make the claim of anti-semitism, but haven't found one example of it.
I don't think you've bothered to listen to the whole interview and made an independent judgement on whether you believe that Livingstone had an anti-semitic tone or not. In which case you're following the narrative of whoever covers it, so yes you would be ignorant if that's the case and yes anyone who doesn't do enough research is easily fooled.
Slightly amusing that you go on a rant about how you'd deny any Israeli bias while posting an article from a pro-Israeli nationalist publication 'The Jewish Chronicle'. But in fact all the JC article does is debate the semantics of what was said while loudly yelling 'anti-semitism'. It doesn't deny The Haavara Agreement, because it's historic fact. If Livingstone made unsubstanciated claims regarding The Haavara agreement, point out he's not well sourced, not that he's 'anti-semite'. Now I'm doubting you've bothered to read any of that.
Now given you can't be bothered to read anything, here's a picture for you curtesy of The Jewish Chronicle, which actually vindicates some of Livingstones claims:
I have, I doubt you have as they didn't back up your points and you still haven't managed to point out one instance of anti-semitism. Unless ofcourse you believe as Feltz claimed in said interview that 'anyone who criticises the actions of Israel does so because they're hateful of Jews'.
It's not about agreeing or disagreeing, I challenged you to point out an actual incident of anti-semitism which you haven't been able to once. You've managed to find people who make the claim of anti-semitism, but haven't found one example of it.
I don't think you've bothered to listen to the whole interview and made an independent judgement on whether you believe that Livingstone had an anti-semitic tone or not. In which case you're following the narrative of whoever covers it, so yes you would be ignorant if that's the case and yes anyone who doesn't do enough research is easily fooled.
Slightly amusing that you go on a rant about how you'd deny any Israeli bias while posting an article from a pro-Israeli nationalist publication 'The Jewish Chronicle'. But in fact all the JC article does is debate the semantics of what was said while loudly yelling 'anti-semitism'. It doesn't deny The Haavara Agreement, because it's historic fact. If Livingstone made unsubstanciated claims regarding The Haavara agreement, point out he's not well sourced, not that he's 'anti-semite'. Now I'm doubting you've bothered to read any of that.
Now given you can't be bothered to read anything, here's a picture for you curtesy of The Jewish Chronicle, which actually vindicates some of Livingstones claims:
I have, I doubt you have as they didn't back up your points and you still haven't managed to point out one instance of anti-semitism. Unless ofcourse you believe as Feltz claimed in said interview that 'anyone who criticises the actions of Israel does so because they're hateful of Jews'.
The quotes.
Verbatim quotes, factually wrong or grossly out of context, offensive to Jews. If you don't understand what's wrong with them, you don't understand anti semitism, simple as that.
Last time was a polite way of saying don't bother replying. This time i won't bother being polite. Don't bother replying.
It wasn't offensive within the context it was discussed and facts and history are not anti-semitism.
You have no right to tell people not to reply to you on a public forum just because you aren't intelligent enough to debate
Offensive = Anti-semitism?
He shouldn't be so stupid to raise this out of nowhere as its inappropriate but i fail to see any anti-semitism here. Its like claiming that someone is racist for mentioning that Africans were involved in profiting from the slave trade. Both happened under a very particular context that should be considered but they're historical fact. At least in his initial interview he did provide the context.
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people don't and wont realise what they have with the NHS until its gone. Yes it badly needs better management, more funding and more resources but its better than the alternative.
"Facts" exist only within context. If you change the context you can distort the truth, even if you retain some technical correctness. If a man rapes a women one could describe that as two people having sex, but such a description would not just be grotesquely offensive to the woman, it would be factually wrong, even if there is some way in which you could argue it's a fact. What happened with the nazis has the same features. Suggesting Hitler supported Zionism, suggesting the jews collaborated with the Nazis, these are just downright offensive interpretations of the truth that are only supportable when stripped from their proper context.
But what is also true is that for any other group that has faced discrimination, the left historically allows that group to make its own interpretations of what it should and shouldn't be offended by and goes with that. We allow women to define feminism and what constitutes sexist behaviour. We let disabled people lead on what constitutes reasonable and unreasonable language and terminology. We allow Muslims to lead on what they perceive as Islamophobia. We don’t tell them what they should and should not be offended by. And where we probe those boundaries, we do so carefully and in the right spirit.
But too often the left treats jewish people differently. Both mainstream academia and the bulk of the jewish community roundly reject the interpretation that Ken is pushing here. This isn’t like letting flat earthers get away with chatting obvious shit, this is both the more common view on the events back then, and the version of event that most jews subscribe to.
Telling them they’re factually wrong and wrong to consider it anti-semitic is akin to telling a women that a playful slap on the rear in the office isn’t sexist and she shouldn’t be offended by it. Both the slap on the rear and the claim she should be offended are sexist. Just as the claims that Ken is making are anti-semitic, and his assertion that jews shouldn't be offended by them is anti-semitic.
I know that it is the fashion these days for people to have faux arguments in one's padded echo chamber (see the parody of a Brexit thread on this forum), but has anyone actually called for the NHS to 'go'?
No one who can be taken seriously. Right about the Brexit thread too, it's been veering wildly from childish to stupid for a long time.
I agree with very little of that, there's some rather large leaps and strawmans, so i dont think we'll reach any agreement.
I agree that historical events tied to a religious/ethnic group can lead to attacks being hidden as debate i.e. Holocaust deniers. However there's a line and what Ken raised is within the realms of existing academic debate, its inappropriate because it may cause offense but anti-semetic is a step too far as there's factual debate to be had. No group has a right to censor any mention of historical events so your point on them defining what they want as offensive seems a bit of a stretch.
Im fine with expelling him tbh and he certainly shouldn't have a role in the party but are we going to expel any Labour member who discusses heated historical events?
As for the left treating the jewish community differently most of that is because of Israel and the insistence of cross over. I find many actions of both Israel and Saudi Arabia offensive and in neither case am i being Islamaphobic or anti-semetic but those criticisms in the public sphere are treated very differently.
Then if you don't consider him anti-semitic, why would you be fine with expelling him? He's one of the few genuine politicians, whether you agree with his politics or not and this has all blown up due to him coming to the defense of Naz Shah who he believes was wrongly called anti-semitic.
For me discrimination and bigotry is always unethical. The issue is when a people from a group who have suffered from bigotry create a counter bigotry or use it as a defense to commit crimes. So for example an ethnic minority claiming that it's racism when they're commiting a crime. So for instance police didn't investigate girls being abused in Rotherham because they didn't want to be labeled racist.
That's no different to Israeli war crimes been condemned. The argument presented by Feltz was that people use Israeli's actions as a mask for hating Jewish people, which is patently untrue for the most part. Feltz was dishonest in her portral of Naz Shah, removing all context from Shah's statements (they weren't actual statements they were retweets) and I doubt it's any coincidence this has blown up off the back of her interview with Livingstone.
If Livingstone was using the holocaust/Nazis to deliberately upset Jewish people it would be anti-semitic. I don't believe he did that if you listen to the context of the above interview I posted in the above youtube link.
Wouldn't that be political suicide? I'd imagine the NHS funding will see some services collapse slowly over time and more hospitals will slowly close. People who don't use it won't notice. More people will start to buy health insurance. It'll be a gradual movement but austerity, 'we're still spending none inflation adjusted record levels on the NHS' and 'unsustainable' will be the reasoning for the decline.
Then Labour may try to make the 2023 about the NHS if they're united as a party by then. Burnham was trying to make it about that in 2015 and it's a unifying cause.
Jeremy Hunt co authored a book about replacing the NHS with an insurance based system.
Its called Direct Democracy: An Agenda for a New Model Party and you can buy it on amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Direct-Democracy-Agenda-Model-Party/dp/0955059801
Although I suspect that teh health secretary currently falls into someone no one would take seriously, so perhaps you are correct.
My statement might have been a bit too sweeping though, I admit.
As for Hunt's book, what the hell are Labour doing tactically? They should have been highlighting this at PMQs and every opportunity. Such a shambles from the days of Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell, when however right, wrong, likeable or not they were, they were winners.
Well, we dont need an agreement to have a decent debate.
Co-authored is a bit misleading. He was one of 22 contributors. Its a collection of essays really. Douglas Carswell compiled it. Hunt claims he didn't write the NHS section, there's no way of knowing one way or the other.
And the book being "about replacing the NHS..." is also a bit strong, the NHS bit is one sub-chapter, of which the health insurance bit is about two pages. Even then they advocate that we follow the German or Swiss models, not the American system.
You can read it on Carswell's website.
The NHS is not a winning issue, it's expected that Labour is the more trusted party on it by a distance. Yet, May has been ahead of Corbyn on it with the public.
That said, they seem to have had a decent rollout of the school meals policy so far.
That said, they seem to have had a decent rollout of the school meals policy so far.
How about the time Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Health, co-authored a book about replacing the NHS with a private insurance model? Maybe that's a bit too obvious. It's just a coincidence that the NHS is slowly being chipped away at.
That's what coauthored means. If he's not checking what he's putting his name to, then why do it in the first place?
I think her strong economy for a strong NHS line works. Not that Corbyn has any particular NHS policies, fund it basically.
I've seen mixed reporting on the schools meal so far but perhaps it polls well. I'm all for universal benefits such as this, as long as they're not used to sneak through cuts.
Pamphlets, books and manifestos by multiple politicians are standard fare. It doesn't mean everyone who contributes agrees with everything written in it. He should have checked to avoid controversy, its on him for not doing so, but given the Tories were in opposition and he'd been an MP less than a year, I suspect he just didnt see the point.
That makes it even worse IMO. A newer opposition MP, unless they find themselves in Corbyns cabinet, usually has a lot more time than most for these things.
The school meals policy seems misguided to a degree. I'm not against the addition of VAT on private schooling, although I feel for those who aren't rich and are struggling to get their child a good education.
The thing is why do middle class kids need free school meals? The only benefit is impoverished kids who's parents aren't savy enough to claim free school meals or are simply negligent will get a meal. I've known teachers and there are neglected kids who go hungry. There are poor working class parents struggling too.
Generally though they need more 'tax the rich, feed the poor/middle classes' policies
The thing is why do middle class kids need free school meals? The only benefit is impoverished kids who's parents aren't savy enough to claim free school meals or are simply negligent will get a meal. I've known teachers and there are neglected kids who go hungry. There are poor working class parents struggling too.
Generally though they need more 'tax the rich, feed the poor/middle classes' policies
When they were first announced i was opposed to most of Osborne's plans for child/family credit, the financial thresholds and taper in particular. However...this cut-off at two children is more of a debate IMO. Maybe you argue that the limit ought to be three, or that multiple births should be exempt, yet the general principle is not an extreme one.
Very likely, many Tory MPs would be open to increased private expenditure, but then most of our contemporaries in Western countries are already higher than us in that regard. Having had local healthcare provision damaged by both red and blue, what we need i some protection from central government (be it local referenda or guarantees on where our taxes go).
Very likely, many Tory MPs would be open to increased private expenditure, but then most of our contemporaries in Western countries are already higher than us in that regard. Having had local healthcare provision damaged by both red and blue, what we need i some protection from central government (be it local referenda or guarantees on where our taxes go).
The amount of money being suggested is enough to force kids out of their present schools, were Corbyn to be elected as PM. Where do they go in this scenario, into a system which is already under strain? While it might damage the lot of small private schools, the benefits for all children are questionable. Either the cash could be better spent, or the positives are tenuous.
Worth mentioning that i went to a private primary; also that my secondary school allowed us to to go into town to purchase lunch. Admittedly, the latter wasn't always the most healthy option. lol
Do you have the paper? Seems to be behind a paywall for me. Its hard to draw anything from the abstract.
I'd sometimes lean more to means tested but with school meals I'd say universal provision works. In some cases, the home lives of a kid who's from a higher income background may not always be as exemplary as it seems on the surface if parents don't have the correct spending priorities, and aren't feeding their kids properly nutritious meals etc. Free school meals can be a sort of guaranteed decent food source for those who want/need it, if that makes sense.
Decent odds the Tories nick it.
Universal has better reach, less stigma and it's simpler. The issue is the cost:benefit ratio though, particularly compared to what it could otherwise be spent on. If you accept there's a finite budget, the question is whether the money spent on free school meals for the genuinely comfortable middle classes is more effectively spent on something else, like increasing the pupil premium. I'd be interested to see Labours modelling on this.
All knowledge is now free
http://sci-hub.cc/10.1068/c0457
(in general, search on https://sci-hub.cc/)
All knowledge is now free
http://sci-hub.cc/10.1068/c0457
(in general, search on https://sci-hub.cc/)
Awesome, thanks
That's his excuse. No one buys it
While I'm aware there are many struggling to send their children private I doubt the price elasticity is that tight and if private schools lost 10% of pupils would they reduce their fees or offer part paid burseries to some children? Or extend multi children discounts. I think they probably would.
I heard today on a radio call in that private schools can claim payment from the LEA for each child they take, so if that's true they are strain on the system to an extent.
I do agree that I don't think funding middle class famalies meals isn't as benefiscial as spending on the school itself. But some of the poorest children will suffer currently as spending more schools generally and they do need it.
Schools definitely need more money currently there are schools who are employing unqualified teachers to teach, which should be unacceptable. There is also a post code lottery of whether you can get into a good school or an inadequate school. Part of that is richer districts having far more money than poorer districts and part of it is just whether a head is good or poor. But I digress....
But I digress, this does play to Labour voters past and present, it will win them many more votes than they will lose.