The Starmer Years - Can The New Broom Sweep Clean?

[Gloucester Saint]

1 hour ago, LuckyNumber7 said:

I absolutely agree we need immigrants for the health/care sector. No problem with that. That's a bit different to waving all and sundry through, despite now having the ability to fully control who comes in, to the point that English people are becoming a minority in our own cities.

As for the NHS, it's an expensive joke, and at the very least needs a complete rethink.

Birmingham and Leicester are already categorised as superdiverse and part of W Yorks and E Lancs probably aren’t off. That’s with probably 99% UK born as well.

I agree on asylum cases being too high, but culturally it’s better to spend time in what we enjoy which reflects our heritage - say cask ale, industrial heritage, or enjoying the countryside around our cities with others. The world has changed far more than just migration, Clinton allowing China to join the WTO probably did more harm to our traditional manufacturing industries than the trade unions, management, non doms and the EU combined. But we have to find new ways to innovate as we’ve always done, and we don’t want to choke off demand when there’s a promising pipeline as Trump just recklessly did to big tech in the States with their HB-1 visa huge cost hike.

Re the NHS, it has been a mess but remember how many lives it saved 5 years ago. Compare it to the differential in survival rates between Blue and Red state health systems in America where the health systems and politicians in blue states saved hundreds of thousands more lives allied to more negative vaccine attitudes (something we are seeing with both GOP and Reform).  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10684792/

Streeting is doing the right thing by merging NHS England and DHSC even though there are very high job losses as a result, but there’s a long way to go. Happy to look at continental health models but Farage has made previous comments are a serious red flag although he does flip flop on the issue with devolved nations https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/11/13/ukp-nigel-farage-nhs_n_6150688.html and  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c39z71kmexdo

[tdmickey3]

1 minute ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

You get better outcomes in other countries, 

We don`t live in other countries.

Show some examples against individuals costs

[Sergei Gotsmanov]

On 21/09/2025 at 22:22, Farmer Saint said:

That's my garden, I have 450 acres of other land, and we have some sheep as you can see below...

But no, I have a farm manager who deals with all the day to day.

My farm is not for inheritance, we will sell it when we retire which at the moment is in about 10 years time, dependant on when the wife wants to call time on her career.

Good looking sheep farmer Saint. Out of interest how can you justify a Farm Manager on 450acres?