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[Politics] Brexit

If there was a second Brexit referendum how would you vote?

  • Total voters
    1,081






Two Professors

Two Professors

Two Mad Professors
Jul 13, 2009
7,617
Multicultural Brum
Lincoln Imp said:
The cost of maternity services notwithstanding, people only really start to cost a national health service money when they get old.

The Times reports today on a hearing of the Public Accounts Committee last week. There are apparently 109 thousand British pensioners living in Spain. The chap from the Department of Health was asked how many Spanish pensioners were living in the UK. "62," he said.

"What, 62 thousand?" "No, 62. Sixty two." That could be an under-estimate, but even so, it makes British fury seem a bit trivial.
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Oh dear-so only old people get HIV/AIDS do they.You do talk some utter drivel, without supporting it with any facts.
 










Two Professors

Two Professors

Two Mad Professors
Jul 13, 2009
7,617
Multicultural Brum
Neville's Breakfast said:
A little indelicately expressed but I agree with the sentiment. There is a need for NHS services at all ages. GP waiting rooms are not representative of those using the service at specialist level.
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Apologies if anybody offended by the indelicacy,but to suggest geriatric health care provided by the NHS costs more than retroviral drugs shows an extremely poor grasp of facts,quite common on the Remain side.
 












L

Lincoln Imp

Well-known member
Feb 2, 2009
5,964
Two Professors said:
Oh dear-so only old people get HIV/AIDS do they.You do talk some utter drivel, without supporting it with any facts.
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... to which you add: "to suggest geriatric health care provided by the NHS costs more than retroviral drugs shows an extremely poor grasp of facts,quite common on the Remain side".

I am bound to ask you who is talking drivel.

More than two-fifths of national health spending in the UK is devoted to people over 65, according to the Nuffield Trust. An 85-year-old man costs the NHS about seven times more on average than a man in his late 30s. Health spending per person steeply increases after the age of 50.

I don't see how this is the slightest bit controversial. Of course large amounts of money are spent on younger people's healthcare. I mentioned maternity services, you mentioned HIV/Aids, neither of us mentioned early-onset cancers. But clearly older people's healthcare is going to cost more per head than younger ones'. But taken across the board it's only when people get older that healthcare expenditure really gets going. Please explain to me why I am displaying an extremely poor grasp of facts.
 




ManOfSussex

ManOfSussex

We wunt be druv
Apr 11, 2016
14,743
Rape of Hastings, Sussex
Neville's Breakfast said:
A little indelicately expressed but I agree with the sentiment. There is a need for NHS services at all ages. GP waiting rooms are not representative of those using the service at specialist level.
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Two Professors said:
Apologies if anybody offended by the indelicacy,but to suggest geriatric health care provided by the NHS costs more than retroviral drugs shows an extremely poor grasp of facts,quite common on the Remain side.
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I didn't read it that [MENTION=12947]Lincoln Imp[/MENTION] was suggesting that. He was merely quoting this column article in which figures stated at last weeks public accounts committee were mentioned:

Our threat to expel EU citizens is a disgrace

Hugo Rifkind

Britain’s economy and reputation for fair play will suffer if we use our EU residents as bargaining chips in Brexit talks

There’s an old farming joke about a Scottish shepherd who moves across the world and sets up a smallholding amid the vast sheep stations of New Zealand. Come the first spring, he calls the nearest shearing firm and asks them to come by. “How many sheep?” says the shearer. “Twenty-five,” says the shepherd, and the shearer asks him if that’s thousands or only hundreds. “No, no,” says the shepherd, “actually 25.” After a short silence, and audibly suppressing giggles, the shearer says, “could I have their names?”.

I thought of this last week, while watching (because I’m fun that way) Chris Wormald, the permanent secretary of the Department of Health, give evidence before the public accounts committee. Still online, if you missed it. About half an hour in, he starts explaining about the NHS obligation to pay healthcare costs for 70,000 of the 109,000 British pensioners in Spain.

“And that’s reciprocal?” asks Meg Hillier, the committee chairwoman. “If I was a Spanish pensioner living in the UK ...”

“Of whom,” says Wormald, “there are 62.”

“... 62?” says somebody.

“As of our last count,” says Wormald, “there are 62.”

“Not 62,000?” says somebody else.

“No,” says Wormald. “62.”

“62 Spanish pensioners?” says Hillier. “You’re kidding me.”

“We are not,” says Wormald, “the retirement place of choice.”

I do not have their names, either. Still, next time you hear of the 3.5 million (ish) European Union citizens resident in the UK, and the 1.2 million (ish) UK citizens resident in the EU, give these 62 a thought. Here, in this country, with its insubstantial omelettes and people waking you up after lunch. What strange choices they have made.

Last week, a group of British parliamentarians wrote to Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, to ask him to safeguard the rights of Brits on the Continent. He said no. Simultaneously, almost, Theresa May was being asked at prime minister’s questions to safeguard the rights of Europeans in Britain. She said no, too. Or, as she put it, without a reciprocal agreement from the other side, doing so “would have left UK citizens in Europe high and dry”.

Now. There are various objections one could mount to the use of actual people, with actual jobs and actual families, as bargaining chips in our forthcoming negotiations with the EU. There are moral objections, and they are strong, and there are objections to do with the simple tactless look of the thing, and they are strong, too. Yet the strongest objection, it seems to me, is that as bargaining chips go, at least from a British perspective, this is frankly a rubbish one.

At least a third of Brits elsewhere in the EU are retirees. Probably there are slightly more than 62 Spanish retirees here, but not many more. For the most part, ONS figures show, EU immigrants to Britain are significantly younger than the national average, and more likely to be in work. Which means, should we choose to send them all back, we would not, actually, be hurting the rest of the EU half as much as we would be hurting ourselves.

Certainly, our Riviera retirees spend a lot of gold in their various Eldorados. Certainly, also, there are hundreds of thousands of younger Brits gainfully employed in other European nations. They, though, are spread around. Their sudden departure would not devastate any particular country’s hospitality industry, or construction industry, or nursing workforce. Whereas here? This is why the threat simply doesn’t work. It’s like Dirty Harry saying, “do you feel lucky, punk?” with the gun pointed firmly at his own forehead.

The 3 Million, a lobbying group set up on behalf of EU nationals in the UK, claims a backlog of 100,000 cases has already built up in the Home Office as people apply for permanent residence. You need to have been here for five years for that, though. You also need to be working. People who have been here for half that time could have already built a life, and put a child into school. What’s more, they came here with assurances, and suddenly they have none.

This is a shabby way to treat people, and it will still have been shabby when all the uncertainty ends. For, even if our borders do clang shut, by means of some magic treaty nobody can yet imagine, it strikes me as pretty unlikely that we’ll actually end up deporting any Europeans anyway. Or that the Europeans will deport any of us. For both sides, this fight is about other things. Tusk’s position, and Merkel’s, is that a deal can only come once Article 50 is triggered. They could be more tactful, but you can see where they are coming from. From their perspective, Brexit has not yet begun. They didn’t ask for it. They only have our word that we even mean it. Maybe they think we don’t.

For Theresa May, this really ought to be easy. Be unilateral. Why not? We aren’t really going to expel millions of perfectly contributory EU workers, and there is nothing stopping us from saying so. Except for 62 of them (give or take) they are not really the equivalents of our silver-haired expats in Spain, who ultimately are bound to be fine, too. The pretence that either of these groups is at risk will not strengthen our hand in Europe. Instead, it sounds an awful lot like a dog whistle intended to be heard mainly at home, by the sorts of people who thought Brexit was a vote against people talking funny on buses. It wasn’t. Or, at least, it doesn’t have to be. So, let’s just not do this. It’s easy. It’s free. Tell them they can stay.
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http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/our-threat-to-expel-eu-citizens-is-a-disgrace-mnmctphwh
 


Two Professors

Two Professors

Two Mad Professors
Jul 13, 2009
7,617
Multicultural Brum
Quite frankly,if you can't read his first line then you need a swift visit to Specsavers! impbolox.jpg

Plain enough for you?
 






Two Professors

Two Professors

Two Mad Professors
Jul 13, 2009
7,617
Multicultural Brum
Read all about it.Brexit plan disclosed,but in pictures to make it easier for Remainers:lolol:brexit.jpg
 




N

Neville's Breakfast

Well-known member
May 1, 2016
13,423
Oxton, Birkenhead
ManOfSussex said:
I didn't read it that [MENTION=12947]Lincoln Imp[/MENTION] was suggesting that. He was merely quoting this column article in which figures stated at last weeks public accounts committee were mentioned:

Our threat to expel EU citizens is a disgrace

Hugo Rifkind

Britain’s economy and reputation for fair play will suffer if we use our EU residents as bargaining chips in Brexit talks



http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/our-threat-to-expel-eu-citizens-is-a-disgrace-mnmctphwh
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Didn't the Government say immediately after the referendum that provided the EU guarantee the residency rights of British people in the EU then EU nationals over here will get the same rights ? This isn't using them as bargaining chips as there is nothing to bargain i.e. It is not linked to any other part of the negotiation. Maybe Mr Rifkind would be better advised asking the EU why they have not as yet given the necessary undertaking ?
 






L

Lincoln Imp

Well-known member
Feb 2, 2009
5,964
Two Professors said:
Quite frankly,if you can't read his first line then you need a swift visit to Specsavers!View attachment 79948

Plain enough for you?
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I imagine that almost everyone will understand the meaning of the expression 'really start to cost money' but if you and one other poster are trying to suggest I was claiming that no money at all is spent by the NHS on people who aren't old then I will quietly give up on this conversation and let you carry on wittering among yourselves.
 


Green Cross Code Man

Green Cross Code Man

Wunt be druv
Mar 30, 2006
19,704
Eastbourne
LlcoolJ said:
You're not actually following what's happening at all are you. Maybe watch some news. Or go to bed.
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Neither you nor I have any idea what I'd going on behind the scenes. Yes they may mess things up. Perhaps they won't. You don't know though and no amount of watching the news will alter that. We will have to wait and see.
 


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