nun

Just saw V for Vendetta for the first time, great movie, love the ending. For those not familiar with it its set in a near future Britain with a facist government......yeah I know what you're saying. I just hope that by the time I get back to the UK, Blair, Reid and Beckett haven't pushed the country too far along that road and the NHS still exists and we don't all have ID cards.

Sally

You want everyone to have paid into the NHS for you to use...hmmm

Amazulu

Err, it's a science fiction movie. I think you need to distinguish between fact and fiction. Anyway, Comrade Brown is your next Prime Minister. If you thought Blair was bad.........
The NHS will still exist and still being abused by all and sundry and , as Sally says, will be available for all those who have not paid into it.

nun

Is irony and the parallels that an SF movie can have with real events completely lost on people?

PS All the time I've lived out of the UK I have paid Class II voluntary NI contributions also I pay US FICA and as the US and the UK have a reciprocal social security agreement and I won't be using Medicare and as I'm also a UK citizen I think I qualify to use the NHS. Finally, part of the foundation of the NHS is to provide healthcare for all people in the UK, whether they have paid intoit or not, seems like you forgot that.

Amazulu

Not completely true. The NHS is for UK residents. People who have left the UK and are no longer resident there are not entitled to use it.

nun

You are right in saying that the NHS is for UK residents,and I will be resident when
I return

Sally

So it's not all bad then?

THEGREATIDIOT

Some right whiners with no sense of humour on here.


AGAIN.

gruffbrown

The film wasn't that bad. Granted I saw it on a plane, so the screen was quite small and the sound was crap, what with sitting in 27G behind the engines. But all in all a good comic book yarn.

nun

Yes it was a good comic book tale, but did anyone feel, that coming on the heels of Iraq, ASBOS, ID cards and all the general fear of "others" that the Government and media promote today, the story had something to say about Britain today? Do you think that its harder to be a non-conformist in Britain today than say 30 years ago?

gruffbrown

Personally no, I feel far freer here than I did in the States. But then again I was born here.

nun

I've lived in the states for 20 years and I think I've become more libertarian and distrustful of government than when I lived in the UK. So when I see the restrictions on demonstrations and free speech in the UK I get worried. I see how New Labour has ballsed up the NHS, the prisons, national research labs, with all its push for choice, privatisations and the mantras of "management consultancy" rather than service to the tax payer. I think what I'm asking is would an old socialist who's turning into an anarchist feel comfortable in the UK today?

Lycanthrop

Those are troubling words to someone who has been here an equivalent time.
The US more closely resembles something out of 1984 with each passing year.........
Its at the point now where I personally don't give a toss about politics........don't vote or even care anymore. Its each for himself here in the US and pity those returning if this is the model the UK thinks is worth emulating.....
At least the UK has more common sense culturally than the US has.......might be their saving grace over there......

nun

I hope so. I've seen the US god from bad to worse as well, which is why I plan to move back to the UK, but it might be a case of "from the frying pan into the fire". I live in a "blue state" so things aren't all bad, but as far as the UK is concerned the concentration of power with the PM is what troubles me, particularly when someone as deluded and power loving as Blair gets the job.

Lycanthrop

You can always hop across to Europe.......where can you go from the US?
'kin Mexico? Yippee.......

The Canadians are embarrased to live next door what with all the drugs and night long orgies.......the cops keep showing up and its bringing the neighborhood down.

Seriously, you have the option to return at any time......assuming you are a dualie. So give it a go.......a generation passes in 20 years and things never stay the same anywhere do they? May see you on the plane.