After doing some serious reflecting on the some of the causes of why Labour lost both 2010 and 2015 I feel that this youtube gives a brief idea some may feel differently. If you listen to it to some it will make sense and to others it may not:
Well folks it been reported in the Guardian, and other newspapers that Labour will face setbacks this coming May Local Elections. There is a saying if you keep on reading the negatives then you begin to be convinced if it continues to be reported. Our task should Labour activists and supporters take on this mission is to prove the press wrong this is a challenge to the Labour Party to get the votes out. See evidence enclosed:
There is some truth in that Labour Party took Blame and Chinese votes for granted which was published in the Guardian and other newspaper see articles below:
For Labour to regain the trust of Black and Ethnic minority votes it will have to show that Labour is a government in waiting to energize our core voters and beyond to reclaim victory this I kid you not.
Winning in Labour safe seats is one thing but to take seats in marginal areas off the Tory, Libdems, Greens, SNP and other nationalist parties is a bonus this includes London Mayoral, and Police Crime Commissioners elections this I kid you not.
Most of all the Tories relay on the press to be bias towards Labour to help them to win. Remember the Conservatives nationally only won a majority of 12 seats to form a government.
If you have been following my blog for some time I’ve always said that polls goes up and down and the pollsters are paid to do a job and they got it wrong. This example reminded me of the Labour years in government the pollsters predicted that labour will lose the elections only for Labour to prove them wrong. No doubt if pundits put a wager on the results they may end up watching their money growing wings all the way to the betting shop bank account.
This is not about having a go at any individual Member of Parliament or activist. It’s the way how our voters see the infighting amongst ourselves on social media and putting our dirty laundry outside the public domain which feeds into the press and the so called insider who may think that they are doing the party a service is actual fact is damaging the party over a few pieces of silver.
Whilst many in Labour Party are having internal debate inwards we must be able to show that Labour can debate outwards to win public support to vote Labour. Let’s not forget that Labour has lost general elections already in 2010 and 2015.
There is a strong argument if we are not careful the party will face another defeat in 2020 which will make it two terms in a row that is put forward from the press. Like it or lump it it’s been alleged that 13,000 members have left the party for one reason or another if the truth is to be known the reasoning is not all that clear. It is those that have left the party that we need to convince to return to the party and encourage them to use their influence to help shape our policies both with old and new to help win elections by encouraging young members involvement in the policy development.
Some in the party will argue that Corbyn is the ultimate professional politician having spent 8 years as a paid Trade Union employee and 33 years as a paid MP from the ingrown Islington set who were the foundation of the Looney Left who destroyed Labour in the 80’s.
It’s been alleged that Corbyn has not left this Party stronger but very much weaker than before he became leader. He is following the path that Foot trod as leader in 1980 and that will lead to the same results. In many ways he is living in the shadow of Foot, because he does not have the intellect or the formidable oratory of that wonderful man. The 1983 manifesto advocated unilateral nuclear disarmament, higher personal taxation, interventionist policies (nationalisation), Out of the EU, Nationalisation of banks, and a great deal more far left socialist policies leaving Labour isolated from the middle ground of politics and from what the British Electorate wanted. It was rightly dubbed “the longest suicide note in history.” The Labour Party lost in one of its heaviest defeats at the polls. We grow weaker every day at the polls, our defence of the realm seen as laughable, is just one example of how the general population regard Corbyn and the Labour party.
All members of the Labour Party and the PLP should get behind elected leader to fight the Tories and win the election in 2020.
I decided to include this on my blog as it has a serious message on it and I would all to watch the youtube:
If people thought that a Labour Government was bad then obviously the lessons have not been learned anything as the likes of Thatcher, Major, Conservatives and Libdem, and Cameron Government has been far worse than a Labour Government both in the past and present time.
History can be both kind and crude towards government(s) yet I like many will recall when Labour Government implemented the National Wage the argument from the Conservatives, Libdems, SNP and others were it will drive business down and their will take their businesses elsewhere to places like India, and China where there are cheap labor although some big multinational companies did leave UK only for them to return to UK still under a Labour Government.
No we all have learn to our surprise that David Scameron wants Muslim Women to learn to speak English and to top it off the likes of Theresa May trying to outdo her commandeering chief by claiming the upper hand by putting him in his place. Could it be that Hameron days are coming to an end and all his successors are doing their best to impress their leader to seek his nomination to be the next leader of the nasty party.
As a former corporate PR man, Cameron understands how to create a public image while pretending to take a different stance and his Leeds speech was a prime example.
The PM insists that his intention is to unify society by integrating Muslims into it, but his highlighting of radicalisation and extremism in the context of some Muslim women’s inability to speak English well serves only to divide communities.
The tendency for some women to concentrate on home life and to socialise only with family or people from the same geographical and linguistic background was not invented by Muslim communities.
It has existed within, for example, some Indian or Greek Cypriot families, but that did not prevent these families’ children from being educated and fully integrated into social lives with their school friends and workmates.
The same applies to the children of Muslim families, as is self-evident wherever they have settled and grown up across Britain.
Where there have been difficulties the least credible explanation for it is that some Muslim women’s English is not up to scratch.
Assisting new citizens to improve their English and thereby help their education and employment prospects ought to be uncontroversial, yet Cameron’s government slashed spending on this essential area of public provision.
Apparently saving a paltry sum was more important to the Tories than risking what he now affects to see as a consequent risk of rampant extremism.
Better communication in English is in the interests of us all and free lessons should be universally available to achieve this.
Cameron’s thirst for pretexts to blame Muslim communities and families for the disturbing but marginal problem of hundreds of young people leaving Britain to join Islamic State (Isis) in Syria or Iraq is also whetted by his obsession with excusing Western imperialist wars for any role in increasing alienation. While individuals bear full responsibility for their own actions, especially criminal deeds, politicians’ efforts to deny that murderous invasions of several Muslim states and support for Israel’s dispossession of the Palestinian people have been contributory factors cannot go unchallenged.
That belief is not confined to Muslims but to large sections of society as a whole and even arch-war criminal Tony Blair has accepted that a link exists.
Cameron’s readiness to visit mosques and discuss matters there is positive, but it will be viewed as another hollow PR gesture if he persists with his carrot-and-stick approach designed to placate his back-bench backwoodsmen.
What world is he living in if he believes that a veiled threat to deport people because of inadequate linguistic skills is a reasonable position?
Does he really imagine that breaking up a family on this flimsy pretext — a penalty imposed exclusively on Muslims is the way to encourage national unity and cohesion?
It’s a nonsense and he knows it, but he feels the need to portray himself as tough to appeal to Islamophobic elements in the media and in his own party.
Until he accepts that this approach contradicts his proclaimed goal of a society at ease with itself, he and his party will be part of the problem not the solution.
As if this was not bad enough now we have seen what Nicky Morgan Education Minister has given Sir Michael Wilshaw the support to say that Schools should be able to decide whether or not to ban Muslim girls from wearing veils, as they cause communication problems in the classroom, the education secretary and the head of Ofsted have said.
Sir Michael Wilshaw, chief of the education watchdog, said he wanted to see women treated fairly, and society “mustn’t go backwards”.
During an appearance on BBC2’s Newsnight, Wilshaw was asked if he would back the banning of veils in school.
“Yes I would,” he answered. “The Prime Minister’s view that we have got to make sure that our liberal values, our liberal West values are protected, people need to listen to that.
“The Muslim community needs to listen to it as well. We have come a long way in our society to ensure that we have equality for women and that they are treated fairly. We mustn’t go backwards.”
He added the veil also posed communication problems between teachers and students.
“My inspectors say on occasions they go into classrooms where they see there are problems about communications.”
Education secretary Nicky Morgan backed Wilshaw’s view, saying individual schools should have the freedom to decide they don’t want people to wear the “full-face veil”.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Morgan commented on David Cameron backing institutions that “needed to see someone’s face”.
“The Prime Minister was absolutely right to say, and we have a very clear view in this country, we are not going to tell people what they can and they can’t wear, that would cut across the values we are talking about that we want everybody to follow.
“But there are times, there are institutions and organisations where it is right – schools will be one of them – where the school leaders want to have a clear uniform policy they want everybody to observe and they may decide that point, that they don’t want people to wear the full-face veil.
“It very much is up to the schools, schools will have a uniform policy.”
Speaking on the same radio station on Monday, Cameron said: “I think in our country people should be free to wear what they like and, within limits, live how they like and all the rest of it.
“What does matter, if for instance a school has a particular uniform policy, sensitively put in place and all the rest of it, and people want to flout that uniform policy, often for reasons that aren’t really connected with religion, I think you should always come down on the side of the school.”
He added: “Going for the French approach of banning an item of clothing, I do not think that’s the way we do things in this country and I do not think that would help.”
Then there is the rumour that is going around that the rules obliging refugees to register in the first European country they enter look set to be abolished under a radical revision of the European Union’s asylum system. The move could be problematic for David Cameron ahead of Britain’s EU referendum.
The EU’s system, part of the so-called Dublin regulation, has been widely ignored during the migrant crisis in which more than a million refugees have streamed into Europe.
However officials say the rules were never properly applied anyway, as most refugees landed on deserted beaches in Greece and Italy, and made their way over land to other countries such as Germany and Sweden.
The move for reform, reported in today’s Financial Times, comes after Greece, in particular, came under criticism for failing to set up basic facilities for refugees.
However, it will mean that the richer countries of final destination, like Germany, will have to establish major registration and fingerprinting infrastructure to cope with the hundreds of thousands of expected refugees.
It could also mean that Britain may find it more difficult to send refugees back to neighbouring EU states. One of the main arguments of the British campaign to remain in the EU is that the Dublin regulations allow the UK to deport asylum-seekers if Britain is not the first European country that they arrived in.
If those regulations were to be changed the UK might be forced to accept refugees who have managed to enter the country from across the Channel, regardless of where they first arrived in Europe. This could further encourage migrants to head for Britain.
The Out campaign was quick to make capital over the planned change.
“This change would appear to provide an incentive for asylum-seekers to get across the Channel,” said a spokesman for Vote Leave.
“This is further evidence that as part of the EU the UK does not have control over migration or asylum policy.”
Much will depend on the detail about how the new rules will work. With no land border with any other country in the passport-free Schengen zone, Britain is not expected to see a strong surge in migration.
The Dublin system was already undermined last September when German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, lifted her country’s right to return Syrian refugees to the first country of entry. Ms Merkel has already called for the EU to revise the Dublin rules to cope with the refugee challenges.
The Dublin rules date back to a 1990 convention in the Irish capital, and came into force for the first 12 signatories in 1997. However, officials have long criticised them, suggesting they could not be applied in countries like Greece and Italy with long, unprotected coastlines. “It looks like Dublin will have to be sacrificed if we want to save the Schengen system,” an EU official said.
The EU Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos told MEPs last week that a revision of the Dublin system would be unveiled in March. “Dublin should not just be a mechanism to allocate responsibility, but also a solidarity instrument among member states. It must be revised deeply; it was adopted in a totally different landscape,” he said.
Six Europeans countries have already reimposed border controls and suspended their Schengen membership in an effort to contain the large influx of refugees.
In his state of the union address to the European Parliament last September, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker promised a reform of the Dublin system. “It is time we prepare a more fundamental change in the way we deal with asylum applications – and notably the Dublin system that requires that asylum applications be dealt with by the first country of entry,” he said.
The European Council President Donald Tusk said that the EU had “no more than two months to get things under control” or face “grave consequences”.
For this reason this is why David Cameron is not a very happy bunny and he is taking a hard-line on Muslim Women who can’t speak English.
well folks it’s like myself going to a Shoaling temple seeking some lessons from a monk to show me how to do shoaling Kung Fu without thinking through the process just to get one over my enemies. It’s no wonder why the shoaling grand master will laugh out a loud and the monk says “No Speaky English, speak Chinese, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, and the list goes on.
The point I’m making is which generation of Muslim women his David Cameron is addressing secondly Muslim women comes in all races and creed. This why many Bame, and Chinese communities will take issue with the establishment as most of them are happy to eat our native food, marry our women, and men as a form of tokenism.
It’s a sad day when it’s been alleged that more than a million benefits claimants may be facing destitution after disappearing from the welfare system.
The scales of people are being sanctioned are being applied unevenly and the scale is unknown since the World War and the fate of at least a third of those is anybody’s guess.
The question for me and I’m sure for others is:
Why has the establishment not kept records
What age groups are being sanctioned and what are the reasons
What percentage has been referred to foodbanks since the sanctions came into force
I understand that the Universal Credit will be rolled out in 2016 onwards and I’m wondering how many more people who are on benefits will be sanctioned and what the reasons that DWP will give for implementing it as we already know that staff who are employed by the DWP are being forced to meet their targets to enforce sanctions or face disciplinary action from their immediate Line Manager which is being implemented by Iain Duncan Smith.
Checkout this to give you an idea how the sanctions have taken place since 2013:
It’s intriguing to read from Anita Bellows is a member of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC). who said:
For more information see dpac.uk.net.
Sanctions have been a feature of the welfare system since 1913, but in the past were applied in a narrow set of circumstances (such as dismissal for misconduct or voluntarily leaving a job).
They certainly did not extend to certain groups of people, particularly those one would expect to be protected against deliberate hardship and deprivation inflicted by one of the world’s richest nations.
Benefits sanctions have been the subject of many studies, although always viewed through the same prism: do they “help” jobless people move into work? Few studies have focused purely on the negative impact of sanctions, which is always fleetingly mentioned, although a 2002 one into the impact of welfare sanctions on the health of infants and toddlers in the US clearly shows a link between sanctions and a 30 per cent rise in hospitalisation of infants and toddlers. It also shows a 30 per cent higher risk of malnutrition at a critical age.
A 2013 Manchester Citizens Advice Bureau Service study called Punishing Poverty? reviews benefits sanctions and their effects on British clients and claimants. It details the severe impact of sanctions on the mental and physical health of many claimants, whose existing health conditions were exacerbated because of poor diet and stress. Some said they had attempted suicide or that they felt suicidal.
So it is unsurprising to learn, from information released following my freedom of information request, that of the 49 benefit claimants’ deaths (40 of which were suicides) peer reviewed by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), 10 claimants were at the time of their deaths sanctioned or had been sanctioned during the duration of their benefits claim.
And a freedom of information request made by Natalie Leal has just revealed that of those 49 peer reviewed benefit claimant deaths, 22 were claiming a disability related benefit.
One of the groups specifically targeted by sanctions since the Welfare Act 2007 is disabled people, and sanctions for this group have tripled over the past year, reaching 3,000 sanctions per month. Because of the DWP’s reluctance to release information (in spite of repeated freedom of information requests), it is not possible to ascertain whether the claimants who committed suicide belonged to this group, but what we do know from the DWP’s own statistics is that people with mental health conditions or learning difficulties are disproportionally sanctioned.
They are seen as soft targets, having the greatest difficulty navigating a system geared to trip them up. They are also the claimants least likely to cope with stress and pressure.
But the number of sanctions applied does not reflect the real scale of hardship and deprivation caused to claimants through sanctions. Because of DWP targets or implicit expectations and indiscriminate sanctioning, the number of claimants referred for sanctions has rocketed, and around half of them manage to successfully challenge a sanction decision and have their benefits reinstated. But they have to wait for up to one-and-a-half years for this to happen and survive in the meantime without any income, regardless of whether they are disabled, lone parents or unemployed.
And while claimants might be entitled to hardship payments — particularly if they can show that they are, or have, a family member who is vulnerable — these payments are only 60 per cent of the benefit usually payable and anedoctal evidence suggests that they are awarded sparingly.
This was confirmed by the Scottish Parliament’s welfare reform committee in a letter addressed to then employment minister Esther McVey in October 2014: “We believe that a weakness in the current system is a failure to make those who are sanctioned aware of the availability of hardship payments, resulting in few claimants receiving payments.”
This fits in with the only set of hardship payment figures available, published in 2012, which show that only 64,000 awards were made between April 2011 and March 2012, representing about 10 per cent of the number of sanctions applied during this period.
During the last work and pensions committee inquiry on sanctions in February 2015, the government made a commitment to publish these figures in May 2015, but has failed to do so.
It is also interesting to try to understand why the DWP started monitoring benefit claimant suicides in 2012. One particular internal DWP memo throws some light on this. It was sent to all DWP staff in operations by head of contact centres Paul Archer, head of benefit centres Mike Baker and work service director Paul Williams on April 25 2012, during the first month of delivery of employment and support allowance (ESA). This was the phase when decisions were made on revised benefits entitlement (a coded expression for cutting benefits).
The memo stated: “The complex nature of our business, however, means that sometimes, while procedures are followed correctly, something goes wrong. The consequences of getting this wrong can have profound results. Very sadly, only last week a customer of DWP attempted suicide, said to be the result of receiving a letter informing him that due to the introduction of time-limiting contribution-based ESA for people not in the support group, his contribution-based ESA was going to stop.”
So within the first month of implementing changes leading to benefit loss for people claiming contributory-based ESA and who had already been assessed as disabled and entitled to ESA, the DWP encountered its first suicide attempt. The main recommendation of the memo is to improve communications. And of course, nobody knows the number of benefit claimants, sanctioned or not, who have attempted to commit suicide.
Likewise nobody knows how many benefit claimants like diabetic former soldier David Clapson died because of sanctions, although he did not commit suicide but instead perished from a lack of insulin. Some cases capture the public imagination and make headlines, while many others are lucky to get one line in a local paper, and DWP does not appear to monitor the consequences of its policies.
What is clear is that the social security system which used to exist and which was based on social redistributive justice, to which each contributed according to their means and abilities and which was supposed to support everybody according to their needs, has turned into a monster.
Food deprivation and health decline, deaths and ultimately suicides are not aberrations but an intrinsic part of a punitive regime, which uses sanctions as a weapon in order to force compliance on some groups of people who have come to be seen as a financial burden on society.
The fact that there is so little evidence of the effectiveness of sanctions and that their use against claimants and deaths and suicides are so widely accepted by the British public should be a warning sign.
While the state’s intention was always to reduce the support hitherto awarded to people who needed it, in trying to make these cuts acceptable, the state has unleashed an unstoppable evil force looking for scapegoats. And by institutionalising violence against people in need of support, the state has knowingly driven them to their deaths.
It is further alleged that on 2014/15 financial year alone, half a million people were hit by penalties introduced by the Tories under new, punitive welfare rulings.
The report will be officially published on 11 Jan 2016 by think tank Civitas, calling for the government to immediately carry out a survey on the expelled claimants.
It also advises the Department for Work and Pensions to test out grace periods for vulnerable claimants facing acute difficulties or transition from welfare conditions.
However, it also backs a trial yellow card early warning system for claimants facing sanctions, which disabled campaigners believe will put unfair pressure on civil servants and applicants.
Here is very good reason why we all should support our junior doctors:
According to Jeremy Hunt bible of those naughty junior doctors who went on the strike actions are unnecessary. This is what NHS England alleged that 10,000 junior doctors reported for work out of 26,000. I say that I beg to believe the figure of BMA instead of NHS England. BMA council chairman Dr Mark Porter said neither side wanted the dispute to go on “indefinitely” and urged the Government to “recognise the strength of feeling” among medics.
Oh dear me. A majority of the public support junior doctors strike action. The establishment are now officially in panic mode which goes to show David Cameron tries to use his influence to call on our junior doctors to call off the strikes. Well both Jeremy Hunt and David Cameron, I’m a patent of the NHS and proud of being born in NHS. I have to say both Scameron and Hunt stop scaremongering face facts doctors, nurses, and Careworkers works long hours and our National Health Services (NHS) are underfunded and with added pressures pile on to the work force means accidents will happen. The NHS is always open 24/7 and there is cover over the weekend. If you say can more be done to #SaveOurNHS the answer is yes by investing more into the service and offer a better term and conditions with the pay and increments.
In the West Midlands region Sandwell Hospital tried to order the Junior Doctors back to work alleging a level 4 incident after a very high number of admissions which was far from the truth as it turned out the local NHS did not follow protocol by liaising with the national BMA. Great to see so much support for our young doctors strike on 12 Jan 2016. It’s about time they stood their ground and decided to fight for what they believe in. this is the reality of what is happening Junior Doctors work long hours without a break is asking for a problem to arise. Consultants and senior doctors should take heed of this, and also work longer hours rather than doing Private Consultations. Money doesn’t make the world go around.
It is further alleged that there are 70 names on this list of MPs (over 60 are Tories) who have links to the private healthcare industry – received donations , have shares in, worked for, on board of etc. The list is a year old, before the huge LibDem electoral debacle. So LibDem MPs are on it : they also had their noses in the trough.
I would call on all in concern who cares about our NHS and supports our Nurses, and Doctors to join them on their day of strikes on 26 Jan 2016 to show solidarity and hand out leaflets in order to raise public awareness on what it is all about. Unfortunately the establishment will say it is just about pay, which is only a very small part of it. It is about the government removing safety measures that stop junior doctors from working excessive hours, which will add to their stress levels, threaten the quality of care patients receive and undermine the future of our NHS.
Doctors are frustrated about being undervalued, like the nurses, many already at breaking point, looking to work overseas, where countries like Australia are offering them much better pay and conditions or leaving the profession all together. This will not only impact on how timely patients are treated and looked after but on the next generation of doctors and the future of our NHS itself.
This sum it from Arun Takhar who I follow on facebook is a junior doctor who i follow who said this:
“So I couldn’t strike today because I am providing on call emergency cover. I’m 15 hours in and waiting to take a patient to theatre who has life threatening bleeding. I am waiting because my junior doctor colleagues along with the theatre team have just saved the life of a young lady with internal bleeding and they’re still finishing off.
If anyone really needs us during this strike everyone is here for you. Don’t believe the crap the Murdoch rags will be touting about unsafe care and lives lost during the strike. It’s utter crap. No one moaned when we provided emergency only care (any bank holiday) for a bloody royal wedding.
And from August I’ll be getting £2.35 an hour for providing this service so I better stock up on the möet whilst I can”.
If anyone really needs us during this strike everyone is here for you. Don’t believe the crap the Murdoch rags will be touting about unsafe care and lives lost during the strike. It’s utter crap. No one moaned when we provided emergency only care (any bank holiday) for a bloody royal wedding.
And from August I’ll be getting £2.35 an hour for providing this service so I better stock up on the möet whilst I can…
It’s rich to think that our doctors are militant or irresponsible, anything but from my experience and the conversations I have with friends and relatives. They are hardworking dedicated professionals who are very concerned because Mr Hunt, bad decisions cost live.
If this was a private business (which no doubt it soon will be if the public do not do more to stop it) then as its CEO Hunt should immediately get the sack for creating chaos, mistrust, demoralising the workforce and imposing conditions that are dangerous and will adversely affect the wellbeing of the employees and the service users. This is the general idea that the Tories want to do for the long term. I’m proud to be born in the NHS at the point of need and not the few.
I would urge all do not delay going to hospital if you or your loved one is sick. During the strike action, hospitals will be safe. Junior doctors across the country have the support of their consultants, who will provide a safe emergency service for patients. In fact, evidence suggests that mortality rates usually fall when doctors go on strike. This is because many elective procedures, with small but real risks, are cancelled.
The government are proposing to remove the safeguards protecting how many hours a doctor can work each week, taking them back out of the European Working Time Directive . This means that hospitals will be able to ask their junior doctors to work more, and will potentially lead to tired over-worked staff. Ultimately a tired doctor is not good for patient safety. Adequately protecting the workforce that protect the public should be paramount.
Compare this to the aviation industry or long distance truck drivers. These industries rightly recognise the need to protect their workforce in order to protect the public from harm. Nobody wants an over-worked, tired pilot. Why are the doctors that care for peoples’ lives any different?
This fundamental issue of patient safety is why 54,000 junior doctors are so angry.
Doctors are being asked to work more antisocial hours for less overall pay. Although there will be an 11% rise in basic rate pay, this is off-set by a 25-50% reduction in antisocial hours pay, which will occur due to the reclassification of normal working hours. These “normal” working hours will be from 7am-10pm Monday to Friday, and 7am-7pm Saturday. This means that working at 9pm on a Friday night is normal working hours, and is paid at basic rate pay.
The net effect is a pay cut. Most doctors estimate they will lose out on 15-30% of their current earnings. At the same time, they will be expected to work more antisocial hours, and lose safeguards to prevent excess rostered hours.
The government’s tactic is to smear doctors as caring only about money, as evidenced by some recent media editorials. They are repeatedly misrepresenting facts in order to support their own political agenda. For example, Jeremy Hunt misquoted the Freemantle Paper which showed that a patient is more likely to die within 30 days after admission on a Sunday than a Wednesday. He used the paper to try to support his claim that consultants should not be allowed to opt out of weekend working. In fact, it is not surprising that more people would die after admission on a Sunday, as few elective procedures take place at the weekend, and no causal effect was drawn from the findings. But the headlines ran nonetheless, causing a worrying number of people to wait till after the weekend before presenting to hospital.
Only this week, did it become apparent that Sir Bruce Keogh’s statement about junior doctors strikes was amended by the DoH. The angle they wanted to emphasise was that if doctors went on strike, they would not be there to help in the event of a major incident. This is a low blow, and it is fair to say that all striking doctors would drop their placards to help in such a situation.
Healthcare should be a basic human right. If the government has its way, the NHS is going to be slowly dismantled by privatisation, and healthcare will be for the privileged and those that can afford it. Publicly, the government are saying this disagreement is about junior doctors pay. But most medics feel their hidden agenda is to privatise the NHS. Last year alone, nearly £3.45billion (or 40%) of NHS deals went to private firms. Private providers are able to pick the most lucrative deals to boost their profits, leaving the NHS with less money to provide comprehensive care.
Support amongst other healthcare professionals and other public services are high. They recognise that if the government wins the battle with junior doctors, they will be next. Nurses, consultants, GPs, hospital porters, radiographers etc are all in the line of fire. Nurses training bursaries have already been cut, leading to a protest march last weekend.
Recent reports show a worrying number of potential students have been put off pursuing a career in medicine. The Student Room conducted a survey of 1,550 students and found that 37% who had wanted to study medicine had changed their minds as a result of Hunt’s proposed contract changes. Likewise, the cessation of nurses training bursaries will discourage people joining the nursing profession. Large numbers of doctors have or are considering moving abroad, taking their skills and expertise with them. In a time when recruitment is already a huge problem across the country in many specialities (especially A&E, Paediatrics, General Practice), things are going to get even worse. We need to support and value our healthcare professionals to help recruitment and retention of staff. Without them there is no health service.
Many government ministers have a vested interest in the privatisation of the NHS, with links or shares in private healthcare companies. This is a clear conflict of interest. It is hard to imagine another business model where those deciding the fate of a company could have such a potential bias. They stand to make a lot of money if the private healthcare companies do well. Even more shocking, Jeremy Hunt co-authored a book on how to privatise the NHS before he took up his position in the Department of Health. Surely this gives huge cause for concern given he is now in charge of the NHS?
This so called establishment have pledged to implement a 24/7 NHS. But we already have one! While there are some elements that we all agree could be improved, there needs to be a clear distinction between providing seven day emergency care and five day elective care. We need to properly fund the existing services to improve them, before trying to create a 24/7 elective service.
The principles of the NHS stand as true today, as they did in 1948. Free healthcare for all society, from cradle to grave, regardless of wealth or status.
The public should know that strike action is a last resort. The BMA have tried to work with the government, but they will not compromise on the issue of safety of patients or doctors. This is the main sticking point in the negotiations process, and one on which the profession is standing its ground.
It is with a heavy heart but a clear head that doctors will stand at the picket line on 26 Jan 2016 . Please support them.
I would like to make very clear I have have some family and friends who are junior doctors this what they say that they are standing up for:
It is about genuine lifesaving doctors versus spin doctors.
It’s about the future of NHS and about not pay
Refusing a contract that does not ensure the safety of patients.
Caring for those who care for us
Motivating and rewarding dedicated doctors so there is not a mass exodus to other countries
It is about one man’s extreme ideology Jeremy Hunt the Tory, Secretary of State for health, along with a government who want to privatise our NHS and make huge profits for their rich friends.
It is about decent public health not private wealth
It is about making people aware that our NHS is being destroyed and if you think privatisation is better than I hope you have lots of money stashed away, because a simple procedure will cost you thousands. A complicated one will cost you your home or your life.
It is about our duty to save our NHS the greatest social achievement for ordinary people, fought for with our own blood, sweat and tears, happening right here, right now, before it is too late.
Here is dreaded reminder why we should not trust the establishment they give in one hand and suck out the blood out of the other hand.
7 Jan 2016 saw the opposition day motion being voted against in the house the results were as follows:
Ayes: 273
Noes: 308
Motion on universal credit allowance:
Calls on the government to reverse its decision to cut the allowance.
The work allowance is the amount that can be earned before the universal credit benefit is reduced.
Whilst it’s disappointing news that the Conservatives and others voted against the motion there is a sense of urgency to continue our fight to highlight that this Victorian establishment is hell bent on carrying out their agenda to make the poor to suffer unless you are lucky to have a rich relative(s) that you can turn to in your hour of need to help subsidise your lifestyle when they encourage the Department of Works and Pensions (DWP) to sanction you whilst you are on benefits.
Us plebs who depend on benefits to survive comes in two folds it’s either that a person who earn a living but have to depend on some benefits to top up your income. Or you lost your job and have to depend on benefits because of unscrupulous companies pays below the national minimum wage or living wage and they refuse to provide payslips so you can make a claim for tax credits and because you complain to the management of the company they decided to let you go. Then there is an untold stories that DWP, and press will not discuss the subject of Mental Health, disability or at worst domestic abuse when the service user(s) who depend on benefits which they seem to brush under the carpet so that they can meet their targets enforced by the Secretary Of DWP (Iain Duncan Smith) which forces service users hands to go to the Foodbanks until their benefits has been sorted out.
However there is a catch by heading to the foodbank you can only claim a food parcel three times. You will have to go to a money adviser, citizens’ advice bureau or your job centre to claim a voucher. After using the foodbank then you are left to fend for yourself to make ends meets this does not take into account that you have to top up your gas, and electric meters and look after your own personal hygiene or take your medication, pay your rent, and Council Tax.
This what Margret Hodge had to say about Universal Credit:
There is no doubt that Labour has campaigned against the establishment which forced them to postpone the unfair tax credits which help low paid workers make ends meet. The u-turn only offers low paid workers a temporary relief. Be aware of the Greeks bearing gifts they give in the one hand and taking in the other hand by way of this government odious planning to introduce universal credit over this Parliament. This will mean that 2.6 million families are set to lose an average of £1,600 per year under the proposal of the new universal credit.
Be under no illusions this threat is real and low incomes of low paid working people has not disappeared with the hugely proposed cuts from this Tory Government.
Under this so-called proposal it’s alleged that six benefits will be rolled into one benefit. On the face of it, it sounds great but there are loopholes which need to be clampdown preventing fraud for the future for it can be fully implemented.
I don’t think the baby project of Iain Duncan Smith is going very smoothly in the guise of Universal Credit there have been wide criticism from all sections of parliament and I concur with Owen Smith when he said:
Owen Smith MP, Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, commenting on today’s OBR report showing the impact of cuts to Universal Credit,said:
“Labour warned last week that George Osborne’s u-turn on tax credits might not be all it seemed and today’s report from the OBR shows it was a total con job.
“It’s no wonder the government didn’t want to publish these figures last week and decided instead to sneak them out this morning.
“It shows clearly that the Tories are still taking £3 billion out of the pockets of working people, they’re just using Universal Credit instead of tax credits to pick those pockets.
“I’d urge those Conservative MPs who opposed tax credit cuts to look closely at this report and to reach the same conclusion that Labour has already reached – that cuts to Universal Credit are merely a re-branding of tax credit cuts. These cuts will drastically reduce support to working families and they should be opposed outright.”
It is said that Disability benefit assessment have doubled in cost to £579m a year but targets are still being missed the National Audit Office has said.
The spending watchdog found the quality of the tests was also not improving despite significant changes.
Meg Hilliler MP said the cost was “staggering” and sick disabled people needed “a better deal”.
One has to ask yourself this question is whether the changes to our welfare system especially to keep out EU citizens from claiming benefits when they arrive to the UK so it will make it difficult for them and us to claim benefits when we lose our jobs.
Currently wide speculation are coming from various so called sources stipulating that the establishment is trying to introduce the reforms so it is in line with the economy which George Osborne is claiming our country faces a cocktail of serious threats from a slowing global economy as 2016.
This what the Conservatives don’t want you to know, the deputy leader of the Labour party, Tom Watson, has accused the government of hiding essential information before the planned EU referendum by failing to disclose official figures on the number of migrant benefit claimants in Britain.
As the Guardian revealed last October, HMRC defines “non-UK families” as those where at least one adult in the claimant family is a migrant, meaning that mixed families where one partner is a British national are classed as immigrants.
Following that story, a freedom of information request was submitted to HMRCasking how many claimants classed as part of migrant families were British nationals.
Under FoI terms, a response was due by mid-November but the figures have yet to be released.
Although it claims it is dealing with the FoI request, HMRC has refused to say when it intends to respond. The tax office has also failed to explain why it missed the statutory deadline of 13 November or indicate any exemptions it may be considering, which should be communicated in delayed cases.
Watson said: “The fact the government has failed to respond to repeated freedom of information requests to explain how it defines an ‘immigrant family’ suggests it has something to hide. We can’t debate the UK’s place in Europe ahead of an historic EU referendum without accurate statistics on this and other issues.”
“The Freedom of Information Act was introduced by a Labour government because the public has a right to know about the decisions taken in its name.Labour would strengthen the act, but the Tories want to weaken it.”
HMRC’s definition of migrant families not only inflates the figure of 740,000 non-UK families claiming tax credits but also means that any policy aimed at restricting the benefits of migrants could also hit Britons. More than 7% of the UK’s 15.6m couples comprise one UK national and one non-UK national, according to analysis compiled by the Office for National Statistics for the Guardian. But when any such couples claim tax credits, they could be considered migrant families by the British government.
Of the 738,900 non-UK families, 431,500 are couples while the other 307,400 are single claimants.
However, only 401,700 of all the 2.6 million singles (UK and non-UK) claiming tax credits have no children and receive working tax credit only. HMRC has also refused to say if it knows the number of cases where non-UK single claimants are claiming child tax credit and the other parent is a British national.
The vast majority of tax credit expenditure relates to families with children.
HMRC estimates that annual entitlements of families containing a non-UK national were £5.2bn in 2013-14 (17.4% of the total £29.7bn spend for that period). Of the £5.2bn, £1.2bn was paid to out-of-work families on child tax credits, £3.8bn to in-work families with children, and £200m to in-work claimants without children.
An HMRC spokesperson said: “We take our responsibilities under the FoI Act very seriously, and we make every effort to meet the statutory deadline for all FoI requests. Unfortunately, we are sometimes unable to provide a response by the deadline.”
Don’t believe the hype about the rollout of universal credit and how the Tories are finally “making work pay” – Iain Duncan Smith has presided over perhaps the failure of this parliament. Whenever I talk about the need for better representation of women and minorities in politics, there is a stock response. “Surely we want ministers appointed on merit?” people ask, making a serious face. And I always think, “So how do you explain Iain Duncan Smith, then?”
IDS is one of the great enigmas of modern politics. In person, he appears quiet, self-contained, borderline pious: stick him in a robe and sandals and he’d make a very good abbot. He has devoted allies who believe in him with quasi-religious zeal.
Yet welfare reform is perhaps the failure of this parliament, which has been allowed to go unnoticed because: a) it doesn’t really affect People Like Us and b) it is protected by a tedium shield three miles thick.
These past weeks, the spin doctors tell us, were devoted to trumpeting the Conservatives’ alleged success in saving the taxpayer sackloads of cash by chastising scroungers and layabouts into honest employment. Tory commentators are in ecstasies. “Like an unstoppable cyborg programmed with bourgeois decency – the Suburbinator – IDS has simply refused to give in,” swooned Matthew d’Ancona in the Guardianon 15 February. “His welfare revolution is potentially the most important achievement of the government,” wrote Peter Oborne in the same day’s Telegraph. (If only we could get all jobseekers to work as hard as the word “potentially” does in that sentence. I am potentially the most acclaimed supermodel of the 21st century. Tony Blair is potentially the man who will bring peace to the Middle East. Don’t all rush to Ladbrokes at once.)
Let’s start with Universal Credit, since that has apparently now been recast as a success. It is actually a failure: a good idea in theory that was horrifically bungled in practice. In 2010 the government quite reasonably acknowledged that navigating a maze of more than 30 benefits was causing huge problems for claimants. But ministers seemed less aware that the complexity would not go away under Universal Credit; it would merely be dealt with by a computer system instead.
There is a reason why “government IT project” rivals “rail replacement bus” as the most chilling three-word phrase in our language. This didn’t bother Duncan Smith and his circle at the Department for Work and Pensions, who were infused with a sense of divine purpose. Throughout the process, the department has made avoidable errors by insisting that all naysayers must be enemies rather than critical friends. In September 2013, a National Audit Office report raised alarms about “a ‘fortress’ mentality within the programme team and a ‘good news’ reporting culture”. The public accounts committee, led by the indomitable Margaret Hodge, reported in November that year that the team was “isolated and defensive” and “gave misleading interviews to the press” indicating that all was well. There were also some sharp questions about how well the £425m invested up to that point had been spent.
The problems are not confined to the distant past. In December, the Office for Budget Responsibility delivered an exquisitely crafted blow, saying, in effect, that it didn’t believe the department’s figures any longer. It cited “the recent history of optimism bias in Universal Credit plans and other projects of this sort”.
That optimism bias was still on show on 15 February as IDS announced the roll-out of Universal Credit. It might happen, although Labour says it will “pause” the programme if elected and George Osborne (who seems never to have rated his colleague’s intelligence or ability) may well find a way to kibosh it out of the spotlight of an election campaign. The Treasury has still not approved the business case for Universal Credit and the rollout has a host of exemptions. You cannot claim it if you own your home or are homeless, for example.
Even if it does finally emerge, Universal Credit seems unlikely to deliver the huge savings needed to slash the welfare bill to the levels demanded by Osborne. It might also have unintended consequences that haven’t been sufficiently offset. For instance, the vaunted ambition of “making work pay” – by stopping the steep reduction in benefits for those working just over 16 hours a week – might encourage claimants to take insecure, irregular part-time work and allow employers to get away with offering it.
Universal Credit is not the government’s only troubled welfare reform. The expanded work capability assessment backfired so badly that the outsourced provider ditched the contract. The Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) system has become incredibly punitive. Declan Gaffney in theNational Institute Economic Review records that JSA sanctions are running at 6 per cent, the highest on record; among Employment and Support Allowance claimants (who are currently not fit for work), sanctions rose from 2,200 in the first quarter of 2012 to 15,900 in the first quarter of 2014. To gain public support for these measures, the government has relied on myths such as “families where no one has worked for three generations” (of which the Joseph Rowntree Foundation failed to find a single example).
The unpalatable truth is that a high benefits bill stems not from a badly structured welfare system but from a badly structured society. Take housing benefit: accounting for inflation, it has risen 150 per cent in the past 21 years. The answer is not to cut housing benefit but to build more homes.
Welfare reform in this parliament has been about running to stand still, huffing and puffing and achieving very little. As Gaffney notes, “Labour’s spending plans for 2014/15 were for £216.8bn, compared with the current forecast of £215bn.” I bet the Quiet Man won’t have much to say about that.
Now this rich coming from George Osborne to allege this year is likely to be one of the toughest since the financial crisis. This smells like the god of fear being branded around to maximum effect to show that the Tories are in charge which is more inline of the thinking of UKIP and their supporters just in case of a referendum is on the horizon.
To all my followers I hope you all had a wonderful Xmas and Happy New Year please checkout this youtube as it has a message that we all cant afford to ignore:
I don’t normally mention the following Member of Parliaments John Speller MP, Jack Dromey MP, or Richard Burden MP or Kwasi Kwarteng MP .
On this occasion I have to concur with John Speller MP statement when he said “Modern day Scrooge Iain Duncan Smith new rules mean jobless and disabled could mean they will have their benefits stop during Christmas Eve”. He is correct to point this out I’m sure many would concur with his sentiments.
Jack Dromey MP quotes:
Since the new reforms started that has been no doubt an increase in deaths and sanctions of benefits from cross sections of society all in the name to reduce welfare spending. Here is an example of what Jack Dromey said when he was housing minister in 2012:
“The truly tragic story of Paul Turner shows all too clearly the human consequences of the Government’s welfare reforms.
Under government reforms, incapacity benefit claimants are forced to undergo assessments to see if they are deemed capable of working. If they cannot work, or need support to help them work, they receive Employment and Support Allowance. However, if they are deemed fit for work they are placed on Jobseekers Allowance – which means they have to prove they are looking for a job.
Mr Turner received a letter in February stating that officials believed he was fit for work. On April 2 he flew to France for a short family holiday with his wife and teenage son. Later that evening he suffered heart failure and died.
Richard Burden eloquently written in the Huff Post:
Last week, I called in to say hello at Northfield’s local Trussell Trust foodbank. Back in the Commons I always hear Government ministers talk about Britain’s strong economy and how the number of people without a job is falling. And, yes, for a lot of people, things are feeling a better than they were a couple of years ago. But there is another side of the story, and you see it for yourself at the B30 Foodbank.
The sheer scale of the operation these days is both astonishing and impressive.
The fact that it has to be so big, though, underlines that something is fundamentally wrong with the way Britain operates at the moment. My office is one of the local advice centres that is authorised to refer people to B30 foodbank for support. In the last month we have referred about the same number of people to the foodbank for assistance as we did in the ten months before that.
It’s not that we have suddenly started throwing foodbank vouchers about. It’s that the need continues to grow and the local MP’s office is one of the places to which people turn for help when they don’t know where else to turn. There is a wide spectrum of people who are running out of the money they need to buy food, toilet rolls and other family essentials these days.
Quite a few different reasons too. However, a common factor in so many cases is the way the tax benefits and tax credits systems operate. People facing sanctions; people moving from one benefit to another with delays in the meantime; people falling between one part of the benefit or tax credit system and another. And please don’t think I am simply talking about people without jobs. A lot of people who turn for help to B30 and other foodbanks across the country are in work. It’s just that they are on poverty pay.
It is a similar picture across the rest of the country too. Between April and September 2015 Trussell Trust foodbanks across the UK gave 506,369 three day emergency food supplies to people compared to 492,641 in the same period last year. And in December 2014 referrals to foodbanks were 53 per cent higher than the average across other months, with more than 130,000 three day food supplies being given to people in just one month. The charity fears this winter could be their busiest ever. There was a time when the term “social security” meant just that. However bad things got, the state would not leave you trying live on thin air. Those days have gone.
When I help with collections for local foodbanks, I am always touched by the generosity of local people around Northfield, often with those people who have least to give are those who proportionately giving the most. So I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to all those who give and to all those who volunteer in foodbanks across the UK. Maybe the best thanks we, as politicians, could give, however, would be to reduce the need for foodbanks to play such a key role in Britain today. That will take action across a number of fronts.
Right now, though, I just want to highlight two key ones: First, to get the benefits system operating in a way that focusses on people – not just systems or targets. A second, but equally important area for action is to tackle the scourge of low paid and insecure employment which blights the lives of so many. And part of that means by promoting the Living Wage – the real one that is, not the rebranded Minimum Wage which the Government invented this year.
Are you listening Mr Osborne?
What an insult from Author Kwasi Kwarteng who said who said in an interview with BBC on 11 June 2015:
Young unemployed people should be forced to repay their benefit money when they get a job, an influential group of Conservative MPs has said.
The proposal to pay benefits as a loan would give them “an additional incentive to find work rather than allow the debt to build up”.
The idea is included in a new book setting out a “radical” free market agenda for the Conservative government. The Conservative MP and junior ministerial aide argues that free enterprise – rather than government interference – is the answer to the problems facing Britain.
Chancellor George Osborne is understood to be considering reducing tax credits for millions of working families in his July Budget, as part of the government’s efforts to “make work pay”, although critics accuse him of making the poor pay for the mistakes of bankers.
Mr Kwarteng’s book argues for a more radical shrinking of the welfare state to return it to the contributory principle envisioned by its founder Sir William Beveridge – that you get benefits in return for contributions.
It says: “Strains on the welfare state are often blamed on benefits being too generous, but the truth is that welfare is so expensive – over £90bn for working-age benefits alone – because too many people are eligible.
“In fact, JSA – the main out-of-work benefit – is fairly stingy for those who have contributed to the tax system for years and find themselves out of work for the first time.”
The book says the government should “look at other ways to encourage work – while making sure that the system is not cruel to those who have simply been unlucky”.
“Young individuals who have not yet paid national insurance contributions for a certain period, five years say, could receive their unemployment benefit in the form of a repayable loan.
“An unemployed teenager would still receive the same amount of cash as now, for example, but they would be expected to repay the value once in work.
“Turning an entitlement into a loan would mean that people would still be supported while out of work, but would have an additional incentive to find work rather than allow the debt to build up.”
Even if someone was out of work for the entire seven years between 18 and 25, “the total sum repayable would be £20,475 – considerably less than the tuition fees loan repayable by many of his or her peers”.
At the same time, those who have paid into the system for many years should get a “fairer deal” if they unexpectedly lose their job later in life.
Other ideas in the book include scrapping maternity and paternity pay to ease the burden on business. Instead, new parents would get a flat rate “baby bonus” paid directly by central government.
It also calls for the scrapping of some government departments, tax raising powers for local authorities, a regional minimum wage, allowing free schools to generate a profit, encouraging banks to use a common IT system allowing “portable” bank accounts and scrapping the BBC licence fee.
The book pulls together policy ideas from the Free Enterprise Group of Conservative MPs, set up by Environment Secretary Liz Truss and other members of the 2010 intake of Conservative MPs to promote a leaner state and boost entrepreneurship. It is backed by the Institute for Economic Affairs think tank.
Writing in the foreword to a Time for Choosing: Free Enterprise in Twenty-First Century Britain, published by Palgrave Macmillan, Mr Kwarteng says: “The capacity of individuals, companies and other groups to generate prosperity and well-being, when left to their own devices, is too often overlooked.
“We should allow a competitive and free economic environment to flourish in Britain, to challenge monopolies and oligopolies, and to allow individuals to create, innovate and take risks.”
Then to out the icing on the cake no surprises that high rents and mortgages in England means families are skimping on heating and winter clothes to make ends meet.
It is alleged more than a quarter (2.7%) of 853 parents of under 18s they had to cut winter spending to meet housing costs.
It comes no surprise that some families are found living in sub-standard conditions in garages with no heating let alone a shower. To top if of housing projects helping more than 400,000 vulnerable adults face closure because of the establishment welfare cuts.
The Treasury’s decision to cap housing benefit at the level available for private rents makes many schemes unavailable. The housing cap is part of a £12billion package of cuts from welfare bill.
Local authorities have a key role in implementing the mental health strategy and improving mental health in their communities. We want to support and encourage local authorities to take a proactive approach to this crucial issue. So this will be the challenge for local government to take on. The Mental Health Challenge and have produced a template motion to enable councils to promote mental health across all of their business.
1 in 4 people will experience a mental health problem in any given year.
The World Health Organisation predicts that depression will be the second most common health condition worldwide by 2020.
Mental ill health costs some £105 billion each year in England alone.
People with a severe mental illness die up to 20 years younger than their peers in the UK.
There is often a circular relationship between mental health and issues such as housing, employment, family problems or debt.
On reflection in regards to Tax Credit forgive me for saying this but I think that this establishment should have force through the changes in parliament. It’s only then the voters would take noticed then take positive action to rid them out of power in 2020 to bring in a Labour Government.
This is why so many people are not least surprised Iain Duncan Smith by his Thatcherism attitude towards people who are disabled and people on lower incomes.
It’s no wonder why that the Local Government Association is up in arms over the flood defences are being abandoned or maintained at minimal levels because of the government spending cuts. It’s no surprise this can leave twice as much homes at risk within twenty years. It’s further alleged that employers have been awarded almost £300,000 in total causing outrage after the devastation over the Christmas as flood defences failed.
Labour lost the General Elections in 2015 for a second term and we’ve seen a new leader replacing Ed Miliband. For 2016 will see Local Government, Police Crime Commissioner, London Mayor Elections and our task is to win not just existing Labour safe seats but to gain some marginal seats too.
I know I keep harping on about its good to see that Labour win seats but remember that labour safe seats is one thing but to take marginal seats off from the Conservatives, Libdems, SNP, Plaid Cymru, Greens and UKIP will be ideal and will determine the outcome of the General Elections 2020.
I would urge where there is no Local Government elections in wards or regions that Labour activists can do is contact a neighbouring Regional Office to help out fellow Labour activists.
Our fight is with the SNP, Tory, and UKIP bashing resume on the 8 January 2016.
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