you might think differently if you lost that well-paid job or someone you cared about needed help.

I don't have a well paid job - I spent a lifetime in retail, which is relatively poorly paid, and then I decided that I valued my time more than my salary and became self employed. My dad is in the process of having his life savings eaten up by social care bills as he sits in a bed slowly dying of Alzheimers.

No state help for him, oh no, after a lifetime of hard work he gets to fund his own care so that some 18 year-old can claim benefits. Fantastic system we got there.

So the solution for him is less social care funding?

If you have over £20k of savings you're expected to pay for the cost of your own care, as my mother found.

I don't see why you think it's unreasonable, unless you expect something for nothing like those terrible layabout 18 year olds in your imagination.

No, perhaps the solution is to treat benefits as a loan - like a student loan.

One that you either start to pay back when you enter the 45% tax bracket, or is taken from your estate upon your death. Why you get to keep that money now that you're relatively well off seems odd.

I agree with you.

I was merely pointing out the ridiculousness of a group of Labour MPs suggesting that a new tax band should be introduced and after careful consideration they have decided that their £75k salaries should not be subject to it by a few thousand pounds. Who would have thought that?

It's also surprising that Jezza and crew have classified their £75k salary as being in the 'low to middle earners' group. Really Jeremy? We know Labour is the new millionaire islington elite but telling your core voters that MPs and their £75k salaries (and god knows how much pension contributions per year) are not high earners just shows how out of touch the party is.

Everybody needs services whether directly or indirectly, what about the training for the nurses who look after the elderly. It needs to be paid for and the only way is through a fair tax system where the wealthiest pay the most. Nobody deserves to be rich, nobody deserves to be poor, it's the luck of the dice. In any case, tax is a %, the more you earn you still get more in the back pocket.

You could have a US style system which is just taxation by the back door except only the richest live comfortably and everybody else lives in fear. In the US people have to fork out extortionate medical insurance which is more expensive than paying a set tax/NI as in the UK, and it's also inherently unfair as the burden falls on those unfortunate to become ill. And then you get the insurance firms refusing to pay out for certain care. Looking forward to watching the new Michael Moore film which goes into this - showing Americans that it's natural in some European countries to get quality healthcare 'free' for everybody, and they're also surprised to see that we get 'paid' holidays. Why on earth would anybody want a backward US style system over here.

It's called national insurance and it works much better than this.

If a centre left government is electable then where is the evidence of electorally successful centre left governments. It is a very simple point.

Most of Western Europe has had exactly this.

That is errant nonsense. Many people simply make appalling life choices that lead them to penury. Plus they can be lazy, indolent and criminal.

Not that I would in any way characterise all (or even a sizable minority) of poor people in those ways, but to assert that it's all the 'luck of the dice' is as erroneous as I would be were I to assert that all poor people are lazy.

The American healthcare system is dreadful, and any move to adopt this model should be vigorously opposed. But the NHS has many endemic flaws that seem hard to address. I think that the model where the NHS acts as a commissioner for services rather than providing them directly has merits and should be expanded.

And, no, that's not back-door privatisation.

I do favour increasing taxes on sugary foods and drinks, cigarettes, etc.

I also think that, as a diabetic, it's ludicrous that I get all my prescriptions for free - even those that are unrelated to diabetes.

What's lacking in healthcare is honest, open and rational debate, the issues are hard and emotive.

I hold my head in frustration when I hear stuff like this sometimes. Why do you want to take money from an unemployed 18-year old in this scenario? Do you not think maybe the bankers that crashed the economy and received billions in state aid might be a more deserving target?

You people always turn on each other rather than the truly undeserving, it is so sad.

Please can you explain why you believe Wilson was an eccentric?

You don't respect yourself enough to make sure your own personal thoughts, perhaps one of the key features of your being and identity are influenced by facts and not tabloid scare stories?

That is quite sad.

Fact: Most of the welfare budget is spent on pensions.

Welfare Budget 2014/15

Pensions 42%
Unemployment benefits 1%

That is right, 1%.

Cmon man have some self respect and at least try and form a modicum of an educated factual opinion instead of going full diebitter and just letting your world view be shaped from what amounts to shrill tabloid gossip. Cmon man.

FWIW Housing Benefit was 10% and Tax credits 17%.

http://visual.ons.gov.uk/welfare-spending/

What's lacking is massive amounts of cash to fund more facilities, pay increases for all staff, a ban on all private firms, compulsory purchase of all PFI built hospitals, re-instatement of nursing bursaries; replace the choice agenda with 'quality local health care for every citizen' or similar policy and much more. No reason it can't be done. How many billions to bail out the banks? All about political choices.

In other news France just elects a millionaire investment banker and ex-Rothschild employee as President. Yep, that'll shake up the elites around the world.

The didn't vote for him to shake up the elites. Clearly in this election there was a bigger fish to fry.

Holy goal post shift.

Decent article here:
http://www.economist.com/news/briefi...-thou-art-sick

Google European social democracy for more.

There are more choices than banking millionaires and extreme nationalists. Unfortunately you've been duped to believing that is not the case.

All these are good points. Taxing something is the surest way of lowering demand - taxing sugar (and fast food) seems a simple and effective way of both raising money and altering poor lifestyle decisions and illness that puts further strain on the NHS.

We do need to have a debate on the NHS. I think two things most voters seem to agree on is:

1, The NHS is untouchable.
2, The NHS is not working.

There is a clear dissonance between these views, and until that is addressed politically the NHS will continue to deteriorate.

I disagree, well yes tax bad food that's good of course. But such policies are ideologically driven - the idea that health is a personal responsibility, rather than a social one. Smoking ban is another one, less people smoking, are services better, no, they're worse because the real drain on the NHS is lack of investment and the private sector eg. agencies, PFI.
Health service is being deliberately run down to soften public opposition to privatisation which is happening right now. I know many people in the NHS and i'm telling you, I'm not trying to score points, the system is moving towards a US insurance system.
NHS is far from untouchable, remember when all nurses were Florence Nightingale, now even doctors are getting smashed.

Health is always primarily a personal responsibility - the social responsibility comes when there is a failure in primary responsibility. So, I eat well, exercise, do not smoke and rarely drink - these are just intelligent decisions designed to maximise my own utility.

With regard to the taxes leveraged against smoking and drinking, I don't think we can fully cost the impact of these decisions on people's health (and on the NHS) for at least a generation. You can't conflate the duty on smoking, the ban on smoking and the lack of improvement in the NHS into one argument or idea - we all know the NHS isn't working, but would it have been in deeper crisis if the government hadn't put interventions in place to reduce smoking and drinking? I think it probably would be.

With regard to the argument about what the NHS should/should not pay for. I think there are a lot of savings that could be made here - Incidents related to excessive drinking, IVF treatment, inoculations for exotic holidays, and so on. You can argue the toss against items on this list, but most people can agree there are some services we could/should forego to ensure better front line services.

Going to blow peoples minds here.

People stopping smoking actually puts more pressure on the NHS.

Have a f***ing cookie.