October 2018 Politics Thread

Would rather have 50 UKIP MPs and Labour as the official opposition than no UKIP MPs and the Greens as the official opposition, thanks.

The more likely scenario, I’d wager,

I spent about eight years in the International Development/emergency response sector as a fundraiser and I generally recommend the Red Cross for major crises like this on the basis that:

They’re a federal structure so in this case the Yemen Red Crescent will be taking the lead on the ground, being advised by the IFRC and ICRC (so local knowledge with international expert advice and resources to lean on)

They’re totally neutral and help anyone in need whatever their religion, politics, gender, sexuality or whatever side of a conflict they’re on

They’re in a lot places other aid organisations can’t go due to the Red Cross/Red Crescent being specifically protected under international humanitarian law.

In practice that still means the people doing the work on the ground still run the risk of being attacked and killed but in a conflict situation they’re often more likely than other agencies to get in and be allowed or able to help.

MSF are incredible too, but have a narrower remit and when it comes to something of this scale my view is to go for the bigger guys with the widest reach and resources.

Though ultimately all of those agencies are likely to be working together on the ground anyway.

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thanks

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:+1:

Genuinely heard more in 24 hours about Prince Salman wanting to buy Man United than i’ve saw about the Yemen famine all year.

Sky’s coverage of the ‘story’ has basically been their reporters literally shouting about how it could really shake up the transfer market…

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100% this.

The biggest impact will come from both campaigning to change long term policy as well donating so as to try to alleviate as much immediate suffering as possible.

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Yeah, I quoted this “by mistake” (i.e. when drunk) the other day and found it very hard to back up. Won’t be using it in a political debate again

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other hideous behaviour from mps, depressing that it’s pretty much the same from labour as tories by percentage…

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The study can be found here: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/11/e017722 where it is not behind a paywall.

It is a statistical analysis comparing the spending on healthcare in England between 2001 and 2014 and changes in how many people die each year in the same period.

I’m not a statistician so I can’t validate their calculation methods, but the report is a very interesting read nonetheless.

120,000?

Where does this number come from? The researchers found that between 2001 and 2010 the number of annual deaths in England decreased. Between 2011 and 2014 it went up on average (but in 2011 it still went down). The difference between the two trends for the years 2012 to 2014 is calculated as 45,000 additional deaths. The researchers then stretched this number over 7 years, taking into account the upward trend of increased deaths, and projected 120,000 additional deaths for the period between 2010 and 2017.

Austerity cuts?

The researchers found that the annual increase in spending on healthcare per capita in the period 2001 to 2010 was 3.82%. In the period 2011 to 2015 the annual increase was 0.41%. There is no denying that less money has been pumped into the NHS since 2010.

Are the two linked?

This is the big question. The researchers did not look at other factors that may have had an impact on the death rates between 2012 and 2014. What is the impact of an ageing population on death rates? Where there extremely cold winters? Or very hot summers? Was there a flu epidemic? Is three years enough to make such sweeping conclusions or is it just a statistical anomaly?

Conclusion

The study provides a compelling argument that spending more on heathcare will decrease the number of people that die every year. But it probably won’t wash in a court of law to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Tory government killed 120,000 people since they came back in power.

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Yeah death rates in general have, for the last 5 years or so, been significantly higher per year than all previous ONS forecasts. No-one quite knows why yet, but it’s clear that both The Golden Generation and Baby Boomers have started to die sooner than anticipated. This is likely to be multi-causal, with government cuts being one cause (perhaps the most significant one but I’m not sure any data bears this out currently). Another is that, especially in the case of Baby Boomers, that increased wealth has led to an increase in unhealthy lifestyles and the resultant health issues. Also a succession of unusually cold winters across the last 5 years or so, I think.

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Bercow’s got to go, hasn’t he?

You’d have thought. Although

https://twitter.com/PolhomeEditor/status/1052128930927443968

am i right in guessing these winters have probably hit poorer GG and boomers, ones living in fuel poverty? i’m not suggesting the tories have organized a purge of the poor elderly, just this is probably a byproduct of so many cuts.

thinking of cancelling my labour membership tbh

I have no idea but it certainly sounds plausible. Don’t know if any analysis has been done on death rates in cold winters from, say, 2000-2009 and 2010-2017 and noticed any differences. But of course the state of the public realm has many consequences - this might directly be one of them.

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The Conservative ‘party of business’ mantra and Labour’s ‘party of the worker’ shtick have really gone down the fucking toilet over the last couple of years, haven’t they. Not even pretending to stand for anything in particular anymore.

https://twitter.com/jessicaelgot/status/1052149131337232384

Not really true IMO. And ‘playing politics’ or whatever has always existed in all stripes.