the EU & the UK

[MyNameIsTerry]

Something to keep an eye on is the US & NHS issue. In recent days we had Dispatches reporting on this and whilst I didn't see it the media have picked it up:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...de-deal-report

So, it seems Trump is trying to push countries to commit to overpaying on meds so he can subsidise his own country. Who will buy from the US then when they can get it far cheaper elsewhere?

The Labour party are latching onto this and there is much floating around about this being a Tory sell off of the NHS. But the drug trade is already private and we export & import meds.

It also cited new research from

Dr Andrew Hill

, a leading expert on the drugs industry and adviser to the World Health Organisation, that a transatlantic trade treaty could send the NHS’s drugs bill ballooning from £18bn to £45bn a year.

I can't se how that could be achieved without pumping a lot more cash into the NHS.

Just looking at NHS England alone is around £18.2b.

Budgets:

NHS England = £139.3b (2019/2020)
NHS Scotland = £13.1b (2018/2019)
NHS Wales = £9b (2019/2020 I think)
NHS NI = £5.3b (2018/2019)

So, what Trump appears to want would wreck the NHS budget big time. It could be a starting place in a negotiation though hence could drop.

For this to ever work I can only see two possibilities:

a) we pump shedloads more into the NHS and sacrifice other areas to offset.
b) The US trade deal brings in more than this additional cost to allow an offset for the NHS.

Currently we are hysteria mode with people saying this is a NHS sell off when all that is happening is Trump trying to take trade away from other countries we import from. NHS sell off would be more about the hospitals and bringing in US style insurance companies so we lose free at the point of access care. The NHS already has to buy it's drugs from someone anyway.

Hopefully we tell Trump to forget it unless his trade deal brings in more profit for us so we can offset that increase but even then I'm not keen on propping up US citizens for their drugs when those companies need sorting out to lower prices anyway.

[lebonvin]

Hi Terry

Yous know a lot on this subject. It's an education for me and other non Brits here. Keep it coming!

Telling Trump to forget it is too polite lol

The US don't believe in the word service only profit.

[MyNameIsTerry]

No wonder some people call them the FibDems. Fancy conducting a poll on the basis the 2nd highest candidate (by far over your own party) at the last election neither exists nor does their party. Why not just go the whole hog and ask them to vote on the basis on your party exists? The Remain campaigners do seem to have a shared strategy of pretending Labour aren't there. First Miller's website and now LibDem GE material https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ind...-9183126%3famp

[MyNameIsTerry]

Interesting piece by US media about how money paid into the EU is being siphoned off into the hands of a few rich people:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...cid=spartanntp

How many of our own rich are receiving pay outs? Is it any wonder they don't want to leave when rather than run a profitable business they can claim benefits for their huge farms?

[MyNameIsTerry]

Maybe they're just leaving to avoid being blown up on the 5th.

One stick might do it now what with the place crumbling as it is. Perhaps Del Boy has nicked the lead off the roof again?

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hi Terry

Yous know a lot on this subject. It's an education for me and other non Brits here. Keep it coming!

Telling Trump to forget it is too polite lol

The US don't believe in the word service only profit.

Thanks Charlie. It's the same for me reading what US commentators say as we see so little of what it really means to be in he US. The US media can be very naïve about our politics/society and I bet we are the same about yours.

US firms are notorious for hard bargaining. Doesn't matter which president they will still want for profit but to me that's what businessmen are anyway. Workers like us come very far down the chain and many firms only do stuff because regulation tells them too or we would all be working in the conditions of some of the countries they ship off to when saying a few bucks (certainly the case for last employer who started outsourcing to India, where health & safety doesn't seem to exist).

[MyNameIsTerry]

No wonder some people call them the FibDems. Fancy conducting a poll on the basis the 2nd highest candidate (by far over your own party) at the last election neither exists nor does their party. Why not just go the whole hog and ask them to vote on the basis on your party exists? The Remain campaigners do seem to have a shared strategy of pretending Labour aren't there. First Miller's website and now LibDem GE material https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ind...-9183126%3famp

It looks like there is a lot of lying (common speak for the posh "misleading" term) going on around these polls. I have no doubt it is going on at every level in every party but the media are reporting some at the moment that can be seen:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/newsl...cid=spartanntp

I find it interesting that the LibDems are rigging their polls to try to push Labour out:

Labour critics of Best for Britain say its staff include Lib Dem supporters, including the group’s CEO Naomi Smith, who is a former candidate.

Felicity Buchan, the Conservative candidate at Kensington, accused the Lib Dems of “shockingly misleading” polling. She knew one local voter who had been called by pollsters and asked how they would vote “if this came down to a race between Labour and the Lib Dems”.

She said: “They then brief the results to the media as this is a two-horse race.” Questioned about a similar tactic in Somerset, Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson claimed it was transparent.

This one makes me laugh:

In Hendon, the Lib Dems scored just 1,985 votes in 2017, compared with 24,006 for Labour and 25,078 for Conservative winner Matthew Offord. Best for Britain claims the Lib Dems have overtaken Labour in the seat, based on its own analysis.

They believe they are going to take a massive number of votes off an established Labour seat? I really can't see that. I think there are going to be a lot of voters who will be happy to stick with Labour because they suit their opinions more AND they are offering a 2nd referendum anyway giving them a Remain chance if they want it. The only advantage the LibDems bring is a Revoke immediately option...if they will stick to it since they keep going on about 2nd referendums too.

Is it any wonder there is so much talk about misleading the public? They are all at it. Stop blaming Russian agents, they can sit with their feet up watching our "interest groups" squabbling.

Anyway, it's GE season so we can expect to be offered tons of free goodies and maybe even a unicorn for every garden!

[lebonvin]

I saw a foto of that Swinson woman, jeez she only just less awful than Miller. I gotta be careful how I say this but she manage to obscure her rough face with a lot up front. Is that deliberate to get pervy ole guys to vote for her?

[Noivous]

Hey Noivy

Ain't that Thatcher woman dead already?

Im kinda saddened to read that PR (professional rat) tycoons like that awful Miller witch and Witch Bliar's ex cronies hijacked the Remain gig for theirs personal gain. Enough to make me wanna vote Leave.

I still see it from across the ocean that you got to choose between Europe or the US. The US is ****ed up in a way what I don't see in France, Germany, Holland, Sweden etc. the last thing you good folk want is our system

Alas yes...The Iron Lady has gone to the great parliament in the sky. But her wisdom and supreme common sense lives on... we just need to adhere to it.

I respectfully disagree in regard to Britain being better off allying with the EU over the US. Don't forget the two biggest and bloodiest military conflicts in history began in Europe (the continent) and it took the combined effort of the US/UK to end it both times - with respect to the Ruskies of course. I believe in time the continent will once again turn on GB as they always have...all the way back to Rome.

Conversely our two nation's in concert could do phenomenal things to benefit the entire planet. Only time will tell. But you're right Lebo...you and I are mere spectators in the peanut gallery on this one. Enjoy the show.

In the last year I've become very good friends with an 82 year old German woman. Born in 1937 she was 7 in 1944 - the very height of the Allied Forces absolutely pummeling Germany 24/7 with bombings. She's fascinating and brilliant full of love and sharp as a tack. She still has relatives in Germany and tells me that they tell her that Muslim immigrants are getting loans from their home countries to buy homes with the stipulation that if they ever sell it has to be to another Muslim. Germany is now doing to itself what Versailles did to them at the end of WWI. And we all know what followed that eventually.

N.

[Hollow]

Conversely our two nation's in concert could do phenomenal things to benefit the entire planet.