Over here (UK) we don't see it as socialism, we just see it as good management. The consensus that we needed a national health service came after WW1 when it was found that a large section of the conscription age work force were not fit for service and were too sickly to work effectively in factories. Improving health provision became a national security issue. Also government services don't have to be costly and ineffectual. Just compare US health provision with pretty much any western European health system, inflated legal and insurance costs are crippling the US health system. I don't speak as a socialist. I'm a lifelong conservative voter. An efficient labour force that's fit for purpose needs to be healthy and well educated.

UK geezer again: and reading about various things in the US, I've realised what a drag on business health benefits are. In UK, you just don't need to think about that.

Corporate health benefits in the US are a racket. They are not subject to tax, while personal private health insurance is taxed. So it's basically a huge corporate subsidy, while small companies and private individuals get shafted.

It's really weird. Here in the UK I'm distinctly right of centre, but in US terms I'm a proper leftie. I don't see it as socialism though, it's just pragmatism. Certain ways of doing things, like centralising and consolidating some service provision, just provably and demonstrably from considerable practical experience in many countries over a long period of time works better that way. For other things, most things actually, markets, capitalism and private enterprise work best.

I don't see any change in the consensus view on education and health care in this country, as a result of immigration or even at all. The political divisions on how these services should be operated and funded have always been there, but there is no appetite to de-socialise either.

"The same thing happens over and over in every country that adopts socialism in any form" – do you have any basis for this statement at all? Globally this pretty obviously seems to not be the case.

Globally, pretty obviously seems to be absolutely the case. With few exceptions which you can count on the fingers of (let's give you the benefit of the doubt) two hands.

Even the exceptions are degrading rapidly, as I live in one of them.

Is that a "no"?

You made a clear, unambiguous statement. In reality, the healthcare, education, and transport systems of many European countries are fully or partially publicly controlled, and rank highly for many indicators. This seems to directly contradict your statement.

Do you know the meaning of the word "globally"? It seems like you don't. Globally means "the whole world". You take the countries of the whole world where the government provides "free education" (or more precisely - involuntary indoctrination), which is all of them. Count the countries where it's total shit, count the countries where it's "ok" and also count the countries where it's great. Then you'll see that 80-90% is shit and maybe 2-3 is great. My definition for great is to have obsoleted private schools. Yeah, that's probably Finland and maybe, just maybe Switzerland.

And yeah, you can still lay on your laurels of 5-10 European countries that actually do still provide "ok" education for free, but it's deteriorating so rapidly, that it'll be worse than what we had in Eastern Europe in the 80ies and 90ies in a few years.

Edit: And BTW, the same counts for the other pillars of "socialism" - healthcare, public transportation etc. Show me the countries where government services have obsoleted private healthcare, private cars etc. And no, don't show me countries where they have forbidden them (like Denmark basically forbids private cars) and you'll see that indeed, there is no place on Earth where socialism works.

Like I thought, you it does seem that you actually don't have have any interesting data to back up your statement so I guess we can draw a line under that discussion.