If all life was about was politics, I'd probably be drinking a bottle of whisky and blowing my brains out right now. Us Londoners will have two major elections this year. The choice? For Mayor, the choice seems to be between Sadiq Khan and Susan Hall. I wouldn't let either mind my goldfish, let alone run London. As for the PM, the choice is Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer. We all know that Sunak is useless. Even all of my Tory friends agree. They are in despair. I ask who else they could pick and they look at their feet (apart from the looneys, who either say Nigel Farage, who isn't even a Tory or Kemi Badenoch, who seems to be one of a long line of female Tories who seem determined to prove that they have no soul (in the religious rather hanthe musical sense)).
And then in America, we have Biden vs Trump. The worlds biggest nuclear power will be run by one of them. They have both shown they are completely incompetent over the last eight years. It really is impossible to find a compelling reason to vote for either, other than they are not the other one. How could you be anything less than depressed with all of this?
For us, the UK has massive problems. We need a very tough PM, who has gumption and backbone to sort them out. Does that sound like Keir Starmer? I have no idea what he really stands for, who he is or what he believes.
My top five priorities would be as follows
1. Sort out the NHS.
2. Sort Out Social care
3. Sort out the education
4. Sort out The Housing Crisis
5. Sort out our transport network
All of these will be difficult and expensive. Oddly though, I firmly believe that all could be addressed with bold policies in one term of Parliament. That doesn't mean that they will be perfect, but they could be infinitely better than where they are. Let me explain.
1. The NHS. As we all get ill, and rely on other people, who also get ill, this is the top priority. As someone who has seen too much of the NHS over the last few years, I've seen the problems up close. It is far to bureacratic and the administration is in chaos. The staff are demoralised and it is chronically understaffed. The difficult truth is that the staff need a decent payrise. That will mean taxes need to rise. This will stem the flow of people leaving. The more people the NHS retain, the less they spend on expensive agency staff. I believe that underpaying staff is a false economy. As far as I am concerned, if every job that is done by agency workers was done by an NHS employee, there would be huge savings. Of course, where people are on sick leave, etc, there will be some, but not at current levels. A Guardian report in January stated that £10 billion was being spent on Agency workers. If they are 30% more expensive, that would give around £3 billion to fund better pay.
2. Social Care. Again, this is chronically underfunded and overrun with expensive contractors and private services. This simply doesn't work. There needs to be a massive shift back to publicly provided services, unless it can be demonstrated that the private sector is providing value for money. Again, it needs proper funding, which costs money and politicians need to be honest here. I simply do not believe that elderly and vulnerable people should travel third class in society.
3. Education. Unless we properly educate our children, the UK is f**ked. That is the truth. I am the chair of an educational trust and family members work in education. There is a lack of respect in schools. There is a lack of funding. Teachers and assistants work in a stressful environment. The UK is obsessed with 'Standards' but have little time for making sure that pupils have the education that suits them. If they are bright and from stable families, they will probably do OK, but the concept of a decent education for all has fallen by the wayside and kids are getting abandonded. The UK needs a Royal Commission to properly reform schools and have a system designed for the 21st Century, that gives all the toolkit they need to bring the economy forward. This means more young people signposted to non university, practical education and big efforts to reclaim kids being lost to county lines. Sure, that is expensive, but the alternative is national failure.
4. Housing. We are going about this in the wrong way. We have nearly 700,000 empty properties in the UK. Bringing these back into service should be the no 1 priority. The easiest way is to apply a 400% rise in council tax to any property that has been empty for more than six months (unless going through probate). I'd stop council house sales and give cash incentives to council tenants to downsize, if there were more bedrooms than residents. I'd also add extra council tax bands for bigger houses, so the cost for living in a mansion is reflected in the council tax. I'd also give builders tax breaks for buillding social housing.
5. Transport. We need a big modal shift, from roads to rail, cycling and walking. We need more public transport. New lines like the West London Orbital railway and the Bakerloo Extension need to be developed as quickly as possible. It is crazy that our biggest train factory is closing, when we should be be building more. I'd like to see tax breaks for haulage companies using rail. This would shift lorrys off the roads and cut congestion. I'd also like to see cheaper travel for people under 25, who have yet to develop a lucrative career. We also need serious investment in cycling and better infrastructure for walking. None of this is cheap, but it is essential.
Sadly, I've seen none of this addressed by Keir Starmer. We know what Rishi and the Tories will do. We've had 14 years of it and we are in a mess.
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