The ailing NHS will need to be dealt with in the most cost effective way. Just as the medical fraternity are being forced through dubious political interference to deny help to those in need as too old, too bloated or suffering from self inflicted ailments through gross over-indulgence – will we also be forced to view the NHS the same way?

Is there ever going to be a politically viable solution to the NHS issues?

If we go down the insurance route suggested (which is what I thought NI was supposed to be – not just a pension plan) Will we really be able to find enough money to keep the NHS afloat for the poor, sick and needy?

Surely we need to?

Gaile

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First I am liable to pay tax on my UK earnings as a Company Director and am liable to be heavily fined if I don’t make valid returns, I also pay taxes in Spain where I now live and work.

It is not just the Human Rights issue of taxation without representation. It is not merely the successful suppression of overseas votes in the last two elections – as witnessed by the 32,000 service voters (and their families ) effectively disenfranchised* since Labour came into power… it is the grasping and encroaching way that they are now even seeking to claim our overseas bequests and inheritances but we are to have no voice and no say.

WE CAN AND DO VOTE LOCALLY IN OUR OVERSEAS CONSTITUENCIES… but we are NOT allowed to vote nationally where we live, as all other Governments consider us British Citizens and expect us to have a vote in our countries of birth, responsibility and (for most of us) allegiance in the event of war (which is a forceful argument for NOT allowing us to vote in their national Elections).

We have earned the right to speak along with our right to pensions – by contributing to your schools, your health service and your social security benefits, without any of the advantages adherent to living in the UK and using these services ourselves.

We have children, grandchildren and parents whose futures are close to our hearts and who still live in the UK.

We follow the UK news daily and are more politically aware than most of the 18 year olds voting, for the first time, in the next election (if they can be bothered).

Those of you who would deny us our right to have a say in the government, that taxes us to hilt until after we are dead, have possibly forgotten that we are still recognised by the rest of the world as UK citizens because we, who are abroad, are UK passport holders.

This happy document which used to cost a few pounds and now rips us off to the tune of £120 states:-

“Her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State” (Rt Hon David Miliband MP) “requests and requires in the name of Her Majesty all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary”
So all British Embassies have a duty of care to British Citizens – regardless of the length of our absence, for as long as we have the right to carry that passport (not withstanding whether it is expired, lost or stolen)…

…yet we have a Government that has arbitrarily decided that they don’t want to know what we think and have been allowed to cut us off from any decision making process…

Too right I am registering my right to vote in the UK whilst I still have it and my goodness I know what I am going to do with it!

*voting forms are not normally sent out until FIVE days before polling day and they have to be returned by the end of polling day – Service mail usually takes 7 days to reach its destination to overseas service families – often ARRIVING on the last date for RETURN a very clever way of making sure that the votes were invalid)