[vjvj]

This will only get worse if Theresa May actually wins the vote / public approval to be PM. As Home Secretary she came up with fantastic ideas such as:

* Let us monitor every single call, email, text and website to catch terrorists and peadophiles (1)

* Let us ban apps like Whatsapp and iMessage because terrorists might use them (2)

* Let us use tax payer money for a fleet of vans to drive around areas with a high % of non Brits telling them to "go home". Which to be fair did result in 11 people leaving the country. (3)

(1)http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/04/03/theresa-may-inter... (2) http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new... (3) https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/31/go-home-vans...

[petercooper]

It's scary. People will vote for her in their millions, despite current Tory policy being much to the right of, and even less pleasant than, UKIP's 2015 manifesto. Right wing nationalism has arrived.

[_benedict]

I wouldn't rush to call right-wing nationalism "has arrived". The reason she will win a landslide is because she's the only credible-seeming candidate. As such, it's hard to equate her winning with an extreme shift in public attitudes. She would likely win without many of the stances we consider extreme, given the current political landscape.

While I won't vote for her, I have to concede that the alternatives do not instil any greater confidence despite being vastly more ethically aligned with my views.

i.e., she just happens to be a horrible person; she isn't winning because of it

This is an important distinction, as we are (in my opinion) still a far cry from the abyss of divisiveness currently entrenched in American politics, and the best way to keep out of that abyss is not to demonise a majority of the country for this coming election's outcome.

[petercooper]

"still a far cry from the abyss of divisiveness currently entrenched in American politics"

I think we're in a worse position. Trump will, all being well, go away in 4 years. The results of Brexit will last for decades.

Corbyn is dreadful in many ways, but ultimately I wonder who I could defend voting for to my future grandchildren. An inept and eccentric beardy socialist or a sly operator stoking up right wing nationalism? That choice is easier.

May's "credibility" is hard to pin down. She changes her opinion often and shows herself to be a sly and shrewd political chameleon than someone with real convictions (other than for damaging civil liberties). Even where Corbyn's convictions get kooky, at least he seems to stick with and believe in them.

[_benedict]

Note, I did not say that this government will cause less long-term harm than Trump. Only that our political landscape is not as divisive (although it may during Brexit be nearly as divided).

However I think we are on the same road to irreconcilable divisions, just a little less far along. But we should be doing all we can to not get there, and any such efforts are probably harmed by attributing "right-wing nationalism" as the motivation to half the voting populace.

While it may be that there are "right-wing" and "nationalist" tendencies in certain segments of society right now, the composite phrase "right-wing nationalism" is pejorative and evokes Nazism, or neo-Nazism, which clearly isn't going to encourage a rapprochement between voters for Theresa May and those who may otherwise convince them of the problems with some of her policies and politics.

When the public consider all of the competition a joke - however reasonably or not - it's probably good to remember that (especially since most people are not policy wonks, or even readers of much news, let alone unbiased news) this does not mean they strongly endorse any of Theresa May's policies, only that they prefer her over the alternatives.

So it may be better to prepare to convince them to join you in a few years time than label them the enemy today.

[Ntrails]

> Even where Corbyn's convictions get kooky, at least he seems to stick with and believe in them.

You mean except where he (poorly) pretends to follow Labour policy and claims he will support things against his own beliefs... :p

Brexit is a God Damned mess, but it won't get any better by allowing negotiations to be managed by a weak Government. I can see two likely scenarios right now:

- Non-Tory coalition government, high levels of capitulation and a deal that is worse in every way that our pre brexit relationship.

- Strong Tory government leads to a game of brinksmanship with the EU and eventual no deal hard crash out.

It doesn't look great either way imho >_<

[shawabawa3]

I can't believe it.

The strategy of repeating "Strong and stable" at every single opportunity actually works.

Theresa may constantly u-turns and contradicts herself, but hey, she's strong and stable so we'll have a strong and stable brexit and become the greatest britain there ever was.

If we somehow manage to get a non-tory coalition, we will very likely negotiation for remaining in the EEA (aka soft brexit) which will be much better than any kind of hard brexit, not to mention much cheaper

[Ntrails]

Strong refers to strength of majority, I'm making no comment on her quality as a leader (but arguably I'm happy to posit that she's got better credentials at it than the opposition).

>If we somehow manage to get a non-tory coalition, we will very likely negotiation for remaining in the EEA (aka soft brexit) which will be much better than any kind of hard brexit, not to mention much cheaper

Right, I'm not arguing against that - just that it's far far worse than no brexit at all would have been. We will be paying more and getting less on every useful metric. It would also ignore basically all of the core rationales for those who voted Brexit (which Labour has asserted it wishes to respect).

It sounds like you agree with me on the likely outcome of the election results though, so cool?

[teh_klev]

Possibly worse than you think:

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2017/04/can-anybody-...

[harryf]

Funny to think this the nation that once produced the Magna Carta ( https://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/why-magna-carta-still... )

[hacker_9]

It's not scary, just look at the opposition. Corbyn is making up numbers to try and get a win with his completely false 'take from the rich, give to the poor' strategy, and then there's the Lib Dems who had their shot at power, and immediately went back on their promises and raised student loans through the roof.

[corney91]

> then there's the Lib Dems who had their shot at power, and immediately went back on their promises and raised student loans through the roof.

Does anybody (who can critically think) actually care about this? All political parties have made u-turns (for example, the current government changed their mind pretty damn quickly about the NI increase) and, at the end of the day, the Conservatives won a majority so it's their call.

I swear the whole "Lib Dem" == "Tuition fee liers" is just a meme created by journalists to sell papers and distract people from real issues.

Oh God, writing that out made me realise I sound like a bit of a conspiracy theorist...

[noir_lord]

Also the tuition thing was if they won outright not formed a coalition, so they literally didn't go back on their word.

They also blunted a lot of what the conservatives wanted to do and fell on their own sword doing it.

Country before Party and I'm not traditionally a Liberal Democrat fan, frankly they deserve some admiration.

People forget too easily what the world was like back then, a massive financial crash and the banks looking very shaky.

[corney91]

> Also the tuition thing was if they won outright not formed a coalition, so they literally didn't go back on their word.

Hate to disagree here, but it wasn't the manifesto plan of free tuition (which is what they'd do in power) that was the problem, they also signed a pledge to vote against any increase in fees which half of them didn't follow through with (being part of government): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_for_Students_pledge

Agree with the rest of your comment though.

[lmm]

> Does anybody (who can critically think) actually care about this? All political parties have made u-turns (for example, the current government changed their mind pretty damn quickly about the NI increase) and, at the end of the day, the Conservatives won a majority so it's their call.

I care about it (and I barely read any newspapers, FWIW). Lib Dems MPs went above and beyond their manifesto and made direct, personal pledges not to vote to raise tuition fees. The coalition agreement did not require them to vote to raise tuition fees. Nevertheless, many did. This was an egregious deceit even by the standards of politicians. It absolutely deserved a massive electoral punishment, which thankfully seems to have been delivered.

(FWIW the NI U-turn was precisely because increasing it would have violated a manifesto promise, so not really comparable)

[corney91]

>The coalition agreement did not require them to vote to raise tuition fees.

Except the ones in government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_collective_responsibil...

Apparently being part of the cabinet means you're no longer representing your constituency but the government instead...

[phpnode]

The left has an unfortunate willingness to expend more energy on fighting each other than the people that they truly oppose.

[corney91]

That might be changing (although I'm still not getting my hopes up about this year's GE...): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39693277 https://www.tactical2017.com/

[mattmanser]

How else do you explain the massive collapse in support last election?

They lost so much. 86% of their seats (57 to 8), 66% of their popular vote (23% to 15.2%).

[ZeroGravitas]

Both of these, and the strange discrepancy between them, can in some part be explained by the archaic first-past-the-post election system.

Apparently many of their loses to the conservative party were caused by a last minute rush of voters to labour. In a three-way contest that had the perverse effect of sending things in the opposite political direction.

[mattmanser]

As far as I can tell it's their lowest vote share for decades and all the last few elections have been close.

What you're saying just doesn't ring true. People genuinely felt betrayed by the uni fees.

[corney91]

Because people thought they were "Tory enablers" and the tuition fee thing was the perfect example of that. But comparing the coalition with the current Conservative government, I think it's clear they were actually beneficial to the country. Will be interesting to see how that attitude changes with time...

[tu7001]

You wrote that, as the nationalism being bad thing. Why is so?

[chippy]

Theresa May has been Prime Minister since June last year.

She hasn't got the symbolic mandate of winning a general election (Cameron stepped down), but she's been in charge for almost a year.

[deadbunny]

Sure but she's still bound by Cameron's manifesto pledges, by triggering this election she can get her own mandate on her own terms.

[libeclipse]

She isn't bound legally by it.

[deadbunny]

Sure but look at the kickback over the self employed NIC increases from the budget.

[robjan]

Yet. She's called a General Election while the only other party with a genuine chance of gaining seats are on its knees. Her party will win by a landslide this June.

[richrichardsson]

> Her party will win by a landslide this June.

RIP NHS.

[Fifer82]

I would rather be slaughtered than vote for Conservative, but I have to say, the NHS is already dead.

1. My nephew is 15 months old, sick and has to take tablet form which is almost impossible. The liquid one is beyond the budget.

2. My mum is having big problems with her knee due to arthritis, it has been going on for 4 years, and all they do is treat the pain. So now she is on boxes of Tramadol, and this is creating all kinds of new problems.

3. My father in law has a poor heart and he has medication but what they have given him creates a list of side effects so long that he visits the GP atleast once a week. If he cuts himself, he is in Hospital. However, there are alternatives, but beyond the budget to be prescribed to him.

This is my only experiences with the NHS and I don't think it is fit for purpose.

The desire of the common person to scream "PROTECT OUR NHS" is feeding into the problems. Now they are even paying Recruitment Agencies huge sums of money to find people remotely qualified, and they are absolutely raking in the cash (I know someone off to Miami with work in August as a perk holiday for working the NHS account).

[sangnoir]

> Now they are even paying Recruitment Agencies huge sums of money to find people remotely qualified, and they are absolutely raking in the cash

Now you know why the elite invested their own money into Brexit - Brexit is not just a pet ideology, it is an opportunity to make boatloads of money through privatization. While promoting a nationalist agenda, these well-heeled globalist gentleman will relocate to Monaco, Bahamas or some other sunny island at the first signs of Brexit failing. They will probably do so anyway even if it is a success.

May things go well for you and your family.

[lmm]

This is the "starve the beast" strategy of the right. Defund a service until it's bad, then use the fact that it's bad to justify reductions in funding. Rinse and repeat.

[grey-area]

This is my only experiences with the NHS and I don't think it is fit for purpose.

The answer to all your gripes above is to stop starving the NHS of funds in a climate where it has to take care of more and more elderly people, and simply increase funding - we spend significantly less on healthcare than other developed nations.

The gameplan is this:

1. Starve the NHS of funds for years

2. Create false crises by continually setting unrealistic budgets, putting hospitals in 'special measures', cutting GP funding etc.

3. Enforce longer waiting times, poorer service, and low morale by funding management and private partnerships but cutting front line pay.

4. Ditch the NHS, since it clearly isn't fit for purpose (nice sound-byte)

5. Make people pay for insurance to pay the private providers - and we get Trumpcare

Astoundingly, this seems to work, as evidenced by your post.

[s_kilk]

> I don't think it is fit for purpose.

Precisely because it has been fucking eviscerated by the Tories.

[cmahler7]

Wealthy Canadians get medical care in the US for a reason.

Here's some stats on NHS

1. 3x higher death rate after major surgeries compared to US

2. 48% of Brits haven't seen a dentist in over 2 years

3. Average surgery wait time of 18 weeks, 100 days for major surgeries.

4. 1 in 28 die due to subpar care

Universal health care = universally terrible

Source: http://www.dailywire.com/news/14470/7-things-you-need-know-a...

[corney91]

Most of these are due to lack of funding, just look at the examples given in the article -- "lack of beds and nurses" sums up a lot of them.

This makes sense when you see that the UK spends 9.78% GDP on healthcare when the US spends 16.91% (http://www.nhsconfed.org/resources/key-statistics-on-the-nhs) and you can also see we actually get great value for money when the Commonwealth Fund has rated the NHS above most other healthcare systems: http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/20...

The NHS wasn't in this state in 2010 before Andrew Lansley got his hands on it. Maybe the problem lies with those who are managing it (somehow currently the imbecile fall-guy Jeremy Hunt...)

On top of that, stats like your first one are easily skewed because people in the US don't even get necessary surgeries because they can't afford it, so of course the NHS is going to have a higher rate of death afterwards!

[gmac]

I'll bite: across the population as a whole, the UK has much better health outcomes than the US despite spending a lot less money on healthcare. Of course, we should be spending more money, and then I expect we'd equal or even beat the US at the top too, because too much healthcare is also a bad thing, and with private healthcare that's what rich people get.

[nicky0]

Nice to see a good unbiased source referenced there.

[barrkel]

I don't know about that. May is socially conservative, not economically conservative. She believes in society - specifically, something resembling the society of the 50s.

The country is in a strange place, and getting stranger by the day.

[vjvj]

Oops - of course! Corrected, thanks.

[hacker_9]

The thing is we have a bigger problem: Brexit. Despite the fatigue of it, we now need strong leadership to exit the EU. If the vote is split, that'll weaken our country in a much more substantial way than any internet monitoring.

[matt4077]

The UK's weakness isn't rooted in a belief that May's majority in parliament is too narrow. It's pretty clear that, given the referendum, even Labour would have a hard time voting against Brexit.

The weakness is that Brexit is simply 5x worse for the UK than it is for the EU, at least economically. The UK does around 50% of its foreign trade with the EU, while for the EU, which is much larger, this represents only around 10% of trade.

The result of failed negotiations is, for the UK, widespread economic depression. For EU countries, it's a slight economic road bump. It's the same mechanism that makes it a much bigger deal for you to get hired by Google than it does for Google.

There's no amount of nationalism, tough talk, bluffing, or posturing Britain can do to change the fact that, at the end of the day, Europe can walk away from these negotiations at any time. Indeed, given the wish to clearly show, once and for all, the benefits of EU membership, failure may already be close to break-even. And even bureaucratic monsters have feelings–the Daily Mail may end up creating true European unity as a parting gift.

All this was obviously known before the referendum, which is why it's baffling to still not even see it being addressed in conservative circles, which instead continue to be rewarded for lying and riling up a nationalistic furore.

> The thing is we have a bigger problem

Indeed

[hacker_9]

Have you seen the economic state of some of the countries currently in the EU? The UK props the EU up in a big way, we are a massive contributor to it (hence why the EU is currently getting so defensive about us leaving). Also trade deals are something that will be sorted out, and both sides will want to keep costs low for import/export. At least, once the EU is done with it's posturing that is.

[matt4077]

The UK's net contribution is less than 4 Billion Euro, which is like 5 or 6 Euro per citizen/yr. I think they'll manage.

But you're not addressing my point, which wasn't that Brexit isn't going to cost Europe anything. It will. The point is that, because of the size difference, it will cost Britain much more, and that such facts have an effect on negotiations.

[matthewmacleod]

we now need strong leadership to exit the EU

That's come up a lot, but in my opinion it's a meaningless soundbite. Domestic unity has essentially no impact on Brexit.

[hacker_9]

It does, because it means once the conservatives agree on something they have more sway to vote it in. And at this point in time I am tired of listening to Westminster fighting with itself, and making us as a whole look like a joke to the rest of the EU.

[kogepathic]

> and making us as a whole look like a joke to the rest of the EU.

Have you read the leaked details of the meeting between May and Juncker? [0] [1]

A lot of people on the continent already think May is a joke. What good does taking a "tough" stance do in negotiating with the EU? Sure, it looks good for the local electorate (especially as she's just called an election), but negotiations aren't about being "tough" they're about getting a good outcome for UK/EU citizens living in the respective countries (and a trade deal, if they ever get around to that).

Comments like "bloody difficult" [2] also don't help things. To those of us on the continent, it seems that the UK has decided to go with the "bull in a china shop" strategy with May.

The amount of animosity toward the EU coming from the UK is just stunning. We get it, you dislike the EU, hence why you voted to leave. But it seems like the UK government is intent to burn every last bridge with the EU through their rhetoric...

[0] https://twitter.com/jeremycliffe/status/858810953353367552?l...

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/theresa-may-j...

[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-39784170

[hacker_9]

Admittedly I was unsure about Brexit to begin with, but ever since we said we are going to leave, the EU has been up in arms telling us we will be punished, and we have to pay €100 billion to even be allowed. Despite us being in the top 3 biggest contributors to the EU budget to begin with. I can firmly say since that this is not a group I want to be associated with.

[kogepathic]

> Despite us being in the biggest top 3 contributors to the EU budget

I've heard this argument given a lot in discussions about Brexit.

I don't agree with it, and here's why:

Yes, the UK is a top contributor to the EU budget. But view the EU as a marriage. When the UK joined, they agreed to pay their share of the living expenses (so to say).

When a human couple get a divorce, you don't get to go back and say "well I paid more than half of the living expenses, therefore they owe me X for all the excess contributions I made while we were married."

Nope, sorry. That's not how marriage works, and you can't go and say "well now that we're on worse terms, actually you owe me all that money back"

So, on to your next point:

> the EU has been up in arms telling us we will be punished, and we have to pay €100 billion to even be allowed.

Yeah, because the UK has made commitments before Brexit to fund EU programs. This is like a married couple buying a house together. When you split up, you either sell the house and split the proceeds, or someone buys the other one out. Since the EU isn't for sale, this is the UK buying out their portion of the commitment.

I just read today that the EMA faces $400 million in rent till 2039 on a London building they will be moving out of. [0]

So, please make up your mind. Either the UK has no responsibility to pay for its previous agreements, or the EU should also be allowed to break their previous agreements with the UK.

You can't eat your cake and have it too.

[0] http://www.politico.eu/article/report-ema-faces-e400m-decade...

[cryptarch]

It has a meaning:

Vote for candidate A whose compaign is centered around looking "strong".

[petre]

What would you expect from a former Home Secretary?