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56% in favor. 15% actively against. Majority support even by members of the party that was most against it. When Cameron first called the referendum Remain was

56% in favor. 15% actively against. Majority support even by members of the party that was most against it. When Cameron first called the referendum Remain was in the lead. When topics are debated thoroughly in the public sphere and serious campaigns are run, people's opinions can shift pretty dramatically. That's why politicians campaign. Nobody has ever spent time campaigning to keep railways privatised in the UK because the Conservatives have always chosen to fight elections on other issues, whilst Labour have made nationalisation a priority for years. If people were asked to make a direct decision on this and there was competent campaigning involved, I am very sure nationalisation would lose. The arguments are weak. 87% of Britons polled said that they are very proud of [the NHS] The same poll showed even more people are "proud" of the fire brigade, although there's nothing special about the British fire service. They are also more "proud" of the post office than Oxford or Cambridge universities. All that poll says is that people tend to answer "proud" (whatever that's interpreted to mean) when asked about institutions which they frequently interact with and are rarely exposed to any criticism of. Just like with the railways, British people are not exposed to serious debate about the NHS. The Conservatives have, for now at least, given up trying to debate it because they prefer to be a centrist party and because Labour consistently exploit people's emotions by conflating the NHS with healthcare. For instance the left will happily imply that any criticism of the NHS (a bureaucracy) means hatred of nurses and loving of cancer, or other nonsense.

pydry 6y ago
>Just like with the railways, British people are not exposed to serious debate about the NHS. They're exposed to investor dogma like yours on a daily basis from most of the investor owned media (telegraph, the mail, etc.). It isn't quite as vehement as yours because they know the limits of what their audience would accept but their owners views are broadly in line with yours. It's a bit hard to attack an institution that cured your readerships' mother's cancer, for instance, and not lose their trust. They learned this lesson the hard way. >For instance the left will happily imply that any criticism of the NHS (a bureaucracy) means hatred of nurses They'll state that a below inflation pay rise does that because it does. They tried to supplant it with a weekly "clap a thon" instead. Cringeworthy. Although, it's not strictly nurses investors and the investor backed government hate it's nursing unions, among other impediments to parasitic US-style profit driven value extraction.
colourgarden 6y ago
> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
aasasd 6y ago
I don't even have any stakes in this argument, but: > All that poll says is that people tend to answer "proud" (whatever that's interpreted to mean) when asked about institutions which they frequently interact with and are rarely exposed to any criticism of. You just wrote above: > One day you'll talk to a Brit outside of that bubble and get a real shock to discover they aren't enamoured with the NHS at all. > plenty of people would love to move to a more standard social insurance model Probably should choose one: either people have an bad opinion of NHS, or they don't.
- thu2111 6y ago
  My statements aren't in contradiction: there are absolutely people in the UK who are not enamoured of the NHS and it's not that hard to find them. They are probably not in a majority at the moment, but a well run political campaign could change that, because there are plenty of strong anti-NHS arguments that the population is rarely exposed to.

pydry 6y ago

>Just like with the railways, British people are not exposed to serious debate about the NHS. They're exposed to investor dogma like yours on a daily basis from most of the investor owned media (telegraph, the mail, etc.). It isn't quite as vehement as yours because they know the limits of what their audience would accept but their owners views are broadly in line with yours. It's a bit hard to attack an institution that cured your readerships' mother's cancer, for instance, and not lose their trust. They learned this lesson the hard way. >For instance the left will happily imply that any criticism of the NHS (a bureaucracy) means hatred of nurses They'll state that a below inflation pay rise does that because it does. They tried to supplant it with a weekly "clap a thon" instead. Cringeworthy. Although, it's not strictly nurses investors and the investor backed government hate it's nursing unions, among other impediments to parasitic US-style profit driven value extraction.

colourgarden 6y ago

> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

aasasd 6y ago

I don't even have any stakes in this argument, but: > All that poll says is that people tend to answer "proud" (whatever that's interpreted to mean) when asked about institutions which they frequently interact with and are rarely exposed to any criticism of. You just wrote above: > One day you'll talk to a Brit outside of that bubble and get a real shock to discover they aren't enamoured with the NHS at all. > plenty of people would love to move to a more standard social insurance model Probably should choose one: either people have an bad opinion of NHS, or they don't.

thu2111 6y ago
My statements aren't in contradiction: there are absolutely people in the UK who are not enamoured of the NHS and it's not that hard to find them. They are probably not in a majority at the moment, but a well run political campaign could change that, because there are plenty of strong anti-NHS arguments that the population is rarely exposed to.