18 weeks' worth of insulin is stockpiled in the UK. They maintain a significant surplus, and will be doing so specifically because of contractual commitments. If the UK government implements a regulation, contractors must fulfil it in order to keep the contract, regardless of whether they're a UK-based company or an overseas one.
Without government regulation, what happens? Are we to believe overseas private drug companies would maintain a costly surplus in the UK out of the goodness of their hearts? They have zero public responsibility to the UK population.
It's amazing how you make "We bought extra" sound like some big coup of government oversight. You bought extra, that's not oversight, that's you buying extra. And if one of your insulin providers stops providing, or even slows down for an extended period, you'll be left in a lurch. You have no control over these people. If they can't fulfill their contract you could sue them, but that won't get you insulin if there's some issue. If the company goes under there's nobody to sue and a third of your insulin supply just poofed. You could go to the other two companies, but they're having to pick up the slack for more than just the UK and if the NHS hands them a contract to expand, they can just say they can't and there's not a damn thing the UK can do.
This is what I mean when I say the government doesn't maintain a supply chain. Unless a product, from gathering raw materials to putting the product in the end user's hands, is managed directly by government officials, the government can't say they maintain that supply chain.
"Explained intentionally poorly" =/= "explained with detail, rather than as a broad question of principle".
No it's invariably stupid ways to phrase policy, like asking people if they're okay with losing their private insurance and framing it as people against M4A.
Countries utilising FPTP, or in the thrall of two-party systems (such as the UK and US) tend to veer towards unrepresentative governments. But there are degrees. I would say that AV/ PR-based systems have returned generally pretty representative governments quite a few times.
If we stick to degrees, they are usually better than the UK/US. But if we're going by degrees, direct democracy would be even more representative. Which means, by definition, even those systems are unrepresentative on some level.
Reading them absolutely does not "do nothing". You read how representatives have voted, what they stand for, and vote in the election along those lines. It is complete nonsense to imagine that all politicians lie & renege on promises to the same degrees, unless you want to tell me that Sanders and Trump are exactly as worthy and reliable as one another. Or Corbyn and Johnson. These differences are night-and-day.
People have been given a choice with significant, real-world import, and most don't bother to properly look into it before they put their X next to a name. It's not healthy scepticism.
Voting records are not a reliable method of understanding a politician. The most recent (and admittedly forgivable) example was a recent vote in the US senate on a bipartisan voting rights bill. Chuck Schumber supported it from beginning to end, but then voted against it. Less forgivable examples are abound and it's very easy to look at the voting record of a given politician and come to a completely different opinion of their policies than they actually have.
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