The NHS is deteriorating fast, faster and more seriously than many of the public yet realise. Nearly half a million patients waited more than 4 hours in A&E for treatment, referral or discharge in the last quarter of 2014, half as many again as in the previous quarter and the worst performance for over a decade. In December 2014 there were 113,000 patients waiting longer than 18 weeks for treatment, a 30% increase over the year before. The cancer care waiting time target – within 62 days of referral from a GP – has now been missed for 3 consecutive quarters. Delayed discharges from hospital rose sharply to more than 5,000 per day in November 2014, 20% more than the previous year. Cuts to local authority adult social care of £4.6bn are behind this bed-blocking as 400,000 fewer elderly people get home care than 5 years ago – a false economy if ever there was one. Continue reading
Posted in Public services
How Labour & Social Democrat MEPs are fighting for the millions who oppose ISDS
Jude Kirton-Darling, Labour MEP for the North East of England and European Labour Party spokesperson on TTIP writes in response to Professor Keith Ewing and John Hendy QC
In an article published last Friday by the Morning Star and Institute of Employment Rights, Professor Keith Ewing and John Hendy QC accused Labour and Social Democrat MEPs of backing a “shabby” compromise on TTIP: the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership currently being negotiated between the EU and the US. As a Labour MEP for North East England, and the European Labour’s spokesperson on TTIP, I have been closely involved in drafting the European Parliament’s resolution on TTIP. I am firmly opposed to ISDS, and have repeatedly stated that I will oppose TTIP if it threatens our public services, our standards or our democracy. I voted according to these principles last week, and will certainly be guided by them in the vote on the resolution in plenary this Wednesday. In this piece I will attempt to set the record straight in this response to Professor Ewing and John Hendy’s criticism. Continue reading
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What can we expect from renewed austerity?
The new Tory government will renew its austerity offensive shortly with the publication of an ‘emergency Budget’ on July 8. It is simple to demonstrate that the previous austerity programme caused the economy to grind to a halt (and with it the improvement in government finances).
Supporters of austerity like to claim that austerity led eventually to recovery. But this is logically impossible. A force applied from one direction, the downward pressure on the economy, cannot sequentially have the effect of lifting the economy. Most children learn these cause and effect relationships through play at the ages of 2 to 4, with marbles, wheels and water. Continue reading
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Housing is now financialised, like the rest of market capitalism
The enforced sell-off of housing association homes, at the same enormous discounts as under Right to Buy (£70,000+ for a flat and up to £102,000 for a house) is driven by the two Tory goals, not only to act as bribes for voters at election time, but also to bring homes as an asset into play in the private market.
Implicit in that goal are two other Tory presumptions. One is that rents should also be determined by the private market, and the euphemism of ‘affordable rents’ is simply a con to distract from the truth that such rents are a teeny-weeny bit below market rates on their way to reaching full market levels. The other is that while tenancies are in principle inferior to ownership, Council tenancies which charge a ‘social’ rent of around half of market rates are anathema. Council tenants, like scroungers in the Tory panoply of poisonous misrepresentation, are pampered, not taking responsibility for their housing, and needing to learn the benefits of individualism. Continue reading
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The coming tabloid assault on charities
A couple of straws in the wind, perhaps, but I have a feeling something’s a-brewing.
Exhibit one: Olive Cooke, a 92-year-old poppy seller and giver to charitable causes took her own life after, apparently, being repeatedly pestered by cold callers asking for more cash (she already gave to 27 charities every month) and receiving dozens of begging letters, week in, week out.
Exhibit two: Robert Newman, a 80-year-old pensioner received a begging letter from The Children’s Society asking him to cough up a cool £100k over three-year monthly installments. The charity explained this has been sent out in error and was intended for wealthy would-be patrons. Continue reading
