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The NHS promise is a funny one to latch onto. We've not left the EU yet so how can the promise be broken? Now you might think it's likely to be broken in a co

by PJDK 10y ago

The NHS promise is a funny one to latch onto. We've not left the EU yet so how can the promise be broken? Now you might think it's likely to be broken in a couple of years (and you're probably right) but still. Not that anyone making the "promise" had any authority to do so.

DanBC 10y ago
> We've not left the EU yet so how can the promise be broken? Because all of the people making the claim backtracked the day after the result.
- PJDK 10y ago
  I think what they said was "we can't actually commit to this because we're not the government". Given the sum isn't actually massive and NHS spending is likely to increase anyhow it may very well turn out to have happened anyway a year or two after Brexit.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    NHS spending has decreased, and it's likely to keep decreasing. That's what sustainability and transformation plans are - cuts to provision of service. In recent years we've seen a reduction of 1 in 16 acute beds, and 1 in 5 MH beds. This would be ok if we'd seen an increase in funding for community services or for care services, but they've been cut too.
    - PJDK 10y ago
      Sorry but that's just not true. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-budget https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-... The specific cuts you mention may have happened, but money going in in real terms has increased. How much is the "right" amount to spend on health care is probably for a different thread.
      - DanBC 10y ago
        Your are spreading a lie. The money in "real terms" might have increased, (by, as your link say, "equivalent to an average annual increase of just 0.9 per cent") but you've failed to account for increased use -- larger population, older population, iller population.
      - DanBC 10y ago
        Here's an update, now even the government have accepted that they're cutting funding in real terms. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nhs-cuts-spending-policies-theresa-may-jeremy-hunt-tories-labour-lib-dems-a7549686.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nhs-cuts-spend...
- djmobley 10y ago
  > Because all of the people making the claim backtracked the day after the result. Much as remain advocates backtracked on their claims that a vote to leave would trigger the end of the world, economic catastrophe, would require an emergency 'Brexit budget', etc. Both of the official campaigns were criticized in the run-up to the referendum for presenting claims they knew to be false.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    The NHS money was a simple direct claim printed on the side of a bus and used as a backdrop in photocalls. It was a blatant lie; very manipulative, and people who knew it was a lie but who said nothing before the vote should be ashamed.
ZeroGravitas 10y ago
I personally assume logically incoherent promises are broken at the point it is made. If I promised to "stop sending PJDK $1 million pounds a week and to spend it on the NHS instead" when in fact I wasn't doing that in the first place, how do I keep that promise? How do I break it?
- philh 10y ago
  AFAIK the 300M figure or whatever was deliberately misleading, being gross and not net, but not literally false. Spending that money on the NHS instead would require cutting spending on some of the things that the money we got back from the EU was previously going to. But it wouldn't be logically incoherent, at least not for the reason you suggest.
  - ZeroGravitas 10y ago
    I've never understood this "gross not net" defence. "You'd save £100 pounds if you didn't buy those shoes, we could spend it on apples instead". "Actually they reduced the price, they're only £50". "Yes, but that's just net, I was talking about the gross figure" That's a logically incoherent excuse for another logically incoherent statement. If anything it makes it worse to admit you knew the figure was wrong and just used an accounting fiction instead because it was a higher number. There is no way to "instead" spend money on something else if part of that money was never spent in the first place. And as you yourself mention, a chunk of that money gets spent on stuff in Britain, (the equivalent of getting cashback on the shoe purchase that I could spend on shirts) so even if they were right about this gross stuff, they'd still be misleading even with their weasel-worded "send to" phrase. https://fullfact.org/europe/our-eu-membership-fee-55-million/ https://fullfact.org/europe/our-eu-membership-fee-55-million...
    - philh 10y ago
      Ah, I was not aware of the rebate (I probably had been at one point and had forgotten about it). I was under the impression that £350M was gross in the sense that it was the amount we actually send them, and the net figure was that minus what they send back.

by PJDK 10y ago

DanBC 10y ago

> We've not left the EU yet so how can the promise be broken? Because all of the people making the claim backtracked the day after the result.

PJDK 10y ago
I think what they said was "we can't actually commit to this because we're not the government". Given the sum isn't actually massive and NHS spending is likely to increase anyhow it may very well turn out to have happened anyway a year or two after Brexit.
- DanBC 10y ago
  NHS spending has decreased, and it's likely to keep decreasing. That's what sustainability and transformation plans are - cuts to provision of service. In recent years we've seen a reduction of 1 in 16 acute beds, and 1 in 5 MH beds. This would be ok if we'd seen an increase in funding for community services or for care services, but they've been cut too.
  - PJDK 10y ago
    Sorry but that's just not true. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-budget https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-... The specific cuts you mention may have happened, but money going in in real terms has increased. How much is the "right" amount to spend on health care is probably for a different thread.
    - DanBC 10y ago
      Your are spreading a lie. The money in "real terms" might have increased, (by, as your link say, "equivalent to an average annual increase of just 0.9 per cent") but you've failed to account for increased use -- larger population, older population, iller population.
    - DanBC 10y ago
      Here's an update, now even the government have accepted that they're cutting funding in real terms. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nhs-cuts-spending-policies-theresa-may-jeremy-hunt-tories-labour-lib-dems-a7549686.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nhs-cuts-spend...
djmobley 10y ago
> Because all of the people making the claim backtracked the day after the result. Much as remain advocates backtracked on their claims that a vote to leave would trigger the end of the world, economic catastrophe, would require an emergency 'Brexit budget', etc. Both of the official campaigns were criticized in the run-up to the referendum for presenting claims they knew to be false.
- DanBC 10y ago
  The NHS money was a simple direct claim printed on the side of a bus and used as a backdrop in photocalls. It was a blatant lie; very manipulative, and people who knew it was a lie but who said nothing before the vote should be ashamed.

ZeroGravitas 10y ago

I personally assume logically incoherent promises are broken at the point it is made. If I promised to "stop sending PJDK $1 million pounds a week and to spend it on the NHS instead" when in fact I wasn't doing that in the first place, how do I keep that promise? How do I break it?

philh 10y ago
AFAIK the 300M figure or whatever was deliberately misleading, being gross and not net, but not literally false. Spending that money on the NHS instead would require cutting spending on some of the things that the money we got back from the EU was previously going to. But it wouldn't be logically incoherent, at least not for the reason you suggest.
- ZeroGravitas 10y ago
  I've never understood this "gross not net" defence. "You'd save £100 pounds if you didn't buy those shoes, we could spend it on apples instead". "Actually they reduced the price, they're only £50". "Yes, but that's just net, I was talking about the gross figure" That's a logically incoherent excuse for another logically incoherent statement. If anything it makes it worse to admit you knew the figure was wrong and just used an accounting fiction instead because it was a higher number. There is no way to "instead" spend money on something else if part of that money was never spent in the first place. And as you yourself mention, a chunk of that money gets spent on stuff in Britain, (the equivalent of getting cashback on the shoe purchase that I could spend on shirts) so even if they were right about this gross stuff, they'd still be misleading even with their weasel-worded "send to" phrase. https://fullfact.org/europe/our-eu-membership-fee-55-million/ https://fullfact.org/europe/our-eu-membership-fee-55-million...
  - philh 10y ago
    Ah, I was not aware of the rebate (I probably had been at one point and had forgotten about it). I was under the impression that £350M was gross in the sense that it was the amount we actually send them, and the net figure was that minus what they send back.