Well, two reasons: 1:The tory press are talking up teh crisis in order to try and re-privatise teh health system.Some of these stories are in very left wing newspapers, even the Sun who appealed to Britain to vote Labor.
2:The ongoing economic decline and crisis in Britain means that we are less able to afford teh NHS- at teh hieght of economic prosperity (the 60's) it was functioning fine.
The NHS processes more people for more reasons now than it did in the 60s (govt stats). operate the NHS now as it existed (ie at the cost levels in real terms) of the 1960s and it would be really 'fine'. Introduce increasingly complex treatments for diseases now considered treatable, and the staff that need to go with it and the burden goes up and up.
In the 1998-9 tax year Britain spent £22billion on defense and £100 billion on social security. Other bottomless pits included health & personal social services (£56bn), education (£33bn). Even debt interest was more than defence!! (£30bn).
: Everyone, I have no objection to a little luxury, I enjoy it myself, however teh resoures from Rolls Royce could go into providing many more trips to teh seaside, etc. The difference being, that instead of one pound one vote, I want one person one vote.
Vote over what other people wanted to do? 2 votes against your one means were going to margate and your not going to Spain? Is this 'fair'? Saying a 'little' luxury is a relative term. We can indeed all decide on what is appropriate for ourselves but not for other people. The man who insists on throwing his money away on a RR is not stopping the shopgirl from going to Margate for the weekend. The 'vote' of the dollar does not have the same dynamic as the vote of a person. The bottomline is that if you decided you'd like to pursue one luxury and a greater amount of poeple want to use those resources for their purpose then you are subject to their despotism, simply because the exist and have this 'vote' over you.
: In which case, if we took a world median, poverty would be horrendous.
Which would really put pressure on those governments to back off from their collectivistic programmes (or even, like Somalia, to go stateless). Strange how the same set of data would make arguments that would oppose one another!
: If we abolish poverty, ensure that no one is starving, or dispossed, or truly disdvantaged, then tehr ich have nothing to reflect against, and say 'I am better than that' We abolish poverty in part by redistribution, but alsdo by production, making more wealth, but spreading that new wealth.
So now poverty is an absolute condition featuring stavation/disposession and wealth, at last, is not to be compared endlessly to whomever is poorer. The focus on poverty should indeed be limited to deaths door impoverishment, rather than he is richer therefore I am poor.
