The Fabian Society is apparently warning today that Labour faces the prospect of falling to having no more than 150 MPs in a future parliament. Now I know the Fabian's and Jeremy Corbyn have an uneasy relationship but the Fabians are also not on Labour's real right wing. And they have history on their side. The forecast is wrong, of course (all forecasts are in some way) but that is not the point. The warning message is the point.
That message seems to be saying three things. The first is that Labour has no idea how to recreate unity within the party. Second it says it is hapless when it comes to Europe. Third, the broader policy picture from Labour is little better. The result is it is gifting the next election, already, to the Tories.
That is bizarre. In summary, the Tories are doing well despite having no idea on how to create real unity within the party (as this year will prove), being totally hapless on Europe and having little broader policy offering to make. They are surviving behind the merest veneer of competence and the gross injustices of the first past the post system.
Let's be clear that I am not excusing either party for its haplessness: incompetence is unappealing from wherever it comes and right now it is being offered by the two major party leaderships in Westminster. But if that is the case and continues, as seems likely, what are the prospects?
First, I can't see the Labour leadership sorting itself out right now. I wish I could but I don't have that confidence. Nor do I see them saving themselves with a Progressive Alliance, although it is the only obvious route to take. There is too much tribalism for that.
Second, don't presume the Tories will have an easy ride to 2020. They will not, by a long way. Hard and soft Brexit factions are waiting to fight deals out. I am suspecting deep divisions to become apparent as a result. All third party factors are weighed against them too: the fact that the economy is going to have a really rough time will dent their credibility, as will rising debt and failing services . The Tories could still snatch defeat from Brexit.
But what if the Tory addiction to power does somehow drive their veneer of competence onwards? Who opposes then, because opposition is needed?
One source of opposition is in the Lords. The mounting criticism of university reform that is becoming apparent is important in this context. It is cross party. It opposes a Tory fundamental, which is market liberalisation. It says we can't afford the risk because of Brexit. And most Lords will realise that there is nothing in the slightest Conservative about this planned reform, which means they are on safe ground with the population at large in opposing it. I anticipate ongoing dogfights to grind the processes of government down over this issue, but it would help if Labour could get itself organised.
Then there are fights to be had outside parliament. I foresee two. One is on health, and in particular GP services about which I know something as my wife is still technically a GP although she has been unable to work because of ill health for some time. The junior doctors may have lost their fight, but there is a bigger one to come here. The demand that GPs provide a seven day a week service is one they simply cannot meet: there are not enough GPs to do it. And unlike the junior doctor dispute, no one will die if a GP is not open on a Sunday. Emergency health care of a very high quality is already available seven days a week in the UK. This demand from the government is simply about consumer choice, not medical need. So GPs need to say no. They do not need to resign from the NHS. Nor do they need to give up contracts. They just have to say they can't open because there are no doctors available to actually provide the service, and nor can they recruit any because there are none available to take the jobs. This is not about refusing to open because they don't want to. It would be about refusing to open on Sunday because the alternative is closing on Tuesday and that is not viable. If GPs refused to simply cooperate with dangerous practices on this issue the government could be beaten. And the government can't close all the GP surgeries in the country and say they will re-open them privately: there isn't an alternative pool of GPs to work privately. The NHS could be a frontline, and the GP service is at the forefront of it. But Labour has to make clear it supports their position to win from this and it is not clear they are.
Then there is local authorities and social care. As I have already noted, some councils now think they cannot set legal budgets next year. Those that are doing so are in some cases resorting to asset sales to make ends meet. A crisis is looming, and not just in Labour areas. What this requires is local authorities to work together. If leadership is not coming from Westminster and council leaderships are being put in impossible positions then it would seem obvious that they should work together to solve their problems, and the best way to do that would be by bringing a judicial review to ask the government which of their legal obligations they are allowed to ignore so that a priority in law breaking can be established. It sounds an absurd request, and yet this law breaking is going to happen so they must seek guidance on what to do. Such a case could be enormously significant and parties must come together to support it.
The point about these three suggestions is that they all shatter the veneer of competence. And that is critical now. Because it is that which will end the apparent credibility of this incompetent government.
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Veneer? That seems dangerously optimistic. Basically, they are a busted flush, but the cards are not yet down on the table. The NHS is in real trouble, and at my age I can recall past periods of stress. In the 40’s what we had was essentially local provision with a service ethos. Now we have a textbook management theory driven financial operation driven by big Pharma’s and commercial interests. It is not going to work and the bills of mortality will follow the financial bills to be paid.
The trouble is they don’t care about the mortality
The veneer they use is called BREXIT and is widely available in the country at the moment. It has a shelf life of up to 2020 but can be reapplied with the help of the right wing media and could last a 1000 years as long as competing product launches are delayed.
Why should they: poor people use the NHS.
People with a bit more money can use the NHS part that caters for paying patients (49% of hospitals funds can now be derived from paying patients)
They may find that IC and HD units have patients from private sources, since the staffing costs of both are unprofitably high.
In search of some optimism – or clutching at straws – one should remember that the current Tory administration represents just 24.3% of those eligible to vote (http://www.conservativehome.com/highlights/2015/05/lets-not-get-carried-away-the-conservatives-only-won-over-a-quarter-of-all-potential-voters.html). Assuming Labour losses in 2020 it’s possible the Tory % vote could go to 33% (I’ve not read the Fabian report). That still leaves 2/3rds of the nation as anti-Conservative. I simply wonder what they talk about at 105 Victoria Street and what conclusions / solutions they reach.
In view of the appalling track record of the Tories, which will surely get worse, one can only hope the majority say ‘enough is enough’, hold their noses and stategically vote Labour or LibDem. It’s not an impossibility, albeit FPTP will favour the Tories just as the Electoral College system favoured Trump in the big underpopulated states. Maybe there’s no hope of unseating the Tory hegemony until we adopt PR. However, there’s always the possibility of Macmillan’s famous ‘events, dear boy’, but they could of course favour either side.
“All of us might wish at times that we lived in a more tranquil world, but we don’t. And if our times are difficult and perplexing, so are they challenging and filled with opportunity.” – Robert Kennedy.
The social care crisis is the second Juggernaut thundering down the mountainside at our local authorities.
The first one is the benefit cap: every social housing provider with a client base containing single-parent families (or two-parent families with three or more children) is now effectively insolvent, and mass evictions will not save them.
That, in turn, places a burden on Local Authority housing offices to rehouse them, top up the rent ex gratia, or breach their legal duty to prevent them becoming homeless.
They don’t have the money for ex-gratia top-ups, although they may be legally permitted to do this: but that open-ended liability will bankrupt them all within two years. They definitely don’t have the budget for hundreds of thousands of extra hostel places – they don’t even have the hostel places – and they absolutely do not have the housing stock.
They have neither the resources nor the money to place those children in care – the most expenive liability of all – when all housing resources are exhausted and they are unable to prevent those families becoming street-dwelling homeless people.
This has been known for a year, and the Cap came into legal force a month ago: the affected families are already in arrears, even if they have access to a food bank.
I do not doubt that there is a third, and fourth, and fifth Juggernaut, rumbling in the distance or blotting out the sun already: Local Authorities do all the heavy lifting of the Welfare State, and we can plainly see that this has finally been broken up; and no court case can possibly prevent the human consequences.
I doubt that any judgement in the courts will leave us with a recognisable system of local government.
Equally, I doubt that Conservative local authorities will act against their own partisan interests; and, as it will play out first against the inner-city Labour councils – to a crescendo of media campaigns about socialist squandermania and the fecklessness and immorality and unhygeinic habits of the undeserving poor – I cannot imagine any Conservative politician doing anything other than cheering it on.
I would add that the breakup of the Welfare State has been a stated policy objective of this government from the very start: how is it possible that this success diminishes their credibility among their natural supporters?
The key political interest is with their unnatural supporters: Labour front-benchers who rush to join the hate campaigns against the undeserving poor, in pursuit of UKIP voters and approval in the Daily Mail.
If there is any concept of ‘opposition’ in our current form of government, in any time frame relevant to these events, it has to begin with them.
As for the rest of the Labour Party, I do not see them offering effective opposition in the media, the House of Commons, at the ballot box, or in extra-Parliamentary activism. It simply does not matter whether they have a hundred and fifty, two hundred and fifty, or fifty MPs left.
The Conservatives aren’t just getting an “easy ride”: they are the driver and the Juggernaut itself.
I agree with much of that
But if not a court action what would you do?
It is wholly wrong to view the Benefit Cap just in terms of existing tenants (social and private) who will blaze a trail to their respective local councils homeless figures and huge LA cost.
A large percentage of the 385,000 new social tenancies created each year will see these prospective tenants REFUSED social housing due to the same tenant affordability issue the Benefit Cap policy creates.
In very simple terms, the household of a couple and 3 children will get just £50 per week in Housing Benefit (£21 if on ESA) and as the average social housing 3 bed that they qualify for is £94 per week these prospective social tenants will be REFUSED allocation and go straight to the homeless section.
This double whammy also means that the pre Benefit Cap position of social housing being a safety net for those that were refused private rented accommodation is also gone and that the private landlord will make a general decision not to accommodate the benefit tenant at all even if not subject to the Benefit Cap.
In essence the Housing Associations and even the council landlords will refuse to accommodate and pass all such cases directly to the council homeless department.
Horrendous for LA finances as they cant escape providing temporary homeless provision yet orgasmic for private sector owners of larger properties who will charge LA homeless departments ever higher rents as this demand coupled with the LA inescapable need for such properties will see such PRS landlords charge what they like for such provision
Richard,
Clearly something needs to be done with regards to GP provision and the GP shortage, but could you explain this part a little more:
“And the government can’t close all the GP surgeries in the country and say they will re-open them privately: there isn’t an alternative pool of GPs to work privately”
The Government can’t close the GP surgeries and re-open them privately because it doesn’t own them in the first place, and they are already private. Nearly all GPs are independent contractors, or salaried employees of other GPs or non-NHS businesses. The NHS employs close to 0 GPs
GP provision in this country is nearly entirely private and always has been since the founding of the NHS. It’s all contracted out.
As nearly all GP surgeries are already opened privately, so I’m not entirely clear what distinction you are trying to draw.
You clearly have little real knowledge of how GP practice are organised.
It is true they are supposedly contractors but the contract is imposed. The vast majority of income comes from the government. In practice the practice is integrated into the NHS. It is not an independent contractor. It has relatively limited choice on what it can do. And to suggest therefore this is akin to the Virgin style contact GP practices is absurd. The contract rules: it just so happens its treated as self employment.
Presumably, then, you would argue that GPs ought to be subject to PAYE as quasi-employees?
The practice being integrated into the NHS with “limited choice on what it can do” suggests that the GPs are subject to supervision, direction or control by an NHS body, so if they are provided to the NHS by their practice (whether that is a partnership, company or LLP) the intermediaries rules would apply.
I agree
Perhaps if we all write to our local coucillor leaders to ask if they are confident they can fulfill all their legal obligations despite central government’s imminent cuts, that might concentrate their minds…
And as for UKIP, surely it has lost what credibility it had with Nuttall on record as wanting an insurance based NHS, and Farage, the day after the leave vote, as the BBC HASN’T told us, applying for German citizenship and now being prosecuted by the German authorities for incorrect info!
https://skwawkbox.org/2016/12/30/proof-farage-applied-for-german-citizenship-and-hes-under-police-investigation-for-it/
Couple of points here Richard:
– I don’t see the poster comparing GPs to Virgin GPs anywhare in his/her post
– GPs can(and do ) charge for various services outside of the NHS and
– they are not NHS employees, neither does the NHS own their surgeries.
And with respect, they guarantee rent reimbursement on surgeries, their contracts of self employment are complete anomalies and and the sacle of out of NHS charges is usually tiny
Or, to put it another way, you’re a boring and pedantic troll seeking to waste everyone’s time
GPs work for the NHS. They know it, as does everyone else
And why is this anomalous treatment tolerated? It’s because the BMA is an extremely powerful trade union and there is no way the BMA would allow their members to lose their tax perks of being self-employed. It is a grossly unfair situation made possible by the fact that the BMA is the last great unreformed powerful trade union in the land.
I agree that the perk should go
I think you over-estimate the power of the BMA. Did you notice the outcome of the junior doctors’ dispute?
An event that will shatter a government’s reputation for competence: power cuts.
This – our ageing power stations going off-stream – has been looming over us for a decade, and what little has been done has been a dash for cheap and cheerful gas generation.
That’s looking a bit expensive now, and the dependency on Russia is rather worrying; worse, this winter sees the French reactor fleet at less than 50% availability.
Better keep some candles and a propane cylinder or two.
Good point
I see no alternative to court action, and that worries me: courts are for clarifying and enforcing law, not for policy decisions, nor for resource allocation.
There are no winning outcomes.
The councils (or aggrieved service users) could lose their case and be ordered, in law, to ‘do without’ and bury the bodies. Or leave the bodies unburied to decay in public view: other service obligations may have legally-enforceable budgetary priority.
They could ‘win’ and be landed with a ‘clarification’ of their obligations which starves all other services outside the narrow remit of the case, leaving the way open for another case, and another, each one partially defunding the previous ‘victory’, defunding the next vital obligation, always worsening the underlying problem.
Or a clear and inescapable statement of what they are obliged by law to do, in one specific service, could bankrupt them immediately: many Local Authorities sail dangerously close to the wind in fulfilling (or failing) their duties in social care and housing already, and have done so with impunity for far too long.
The Councils could ‘win’, with an order for central funding for their obligations, only for Theresa May to disregard it and continue to act unlawfully: she and her ministers have form for this.
Se will, of course, appeal and appeal and appeal; and she will be vindictive to whatever councils were so desperate and so unwise as to bring these cases.
Finally, she will legislate and nullify the judgement by the sovereign power of Parliament; and the councils will be bankrupted, and all their services sold off, to be administered by Ian Duncan Smith, or Grayling.
The key to that is Parliamentary sovereignty, and the effective sovereignty of an executive unchecked by an effective Parliament; and there is nothing in English politics, in or outside Parliament, to change this state of affairs before 2020.
Or 2025, or later still, or never: the Overton Window could keep shifting even further right, so that a total absence of the Welfare State is normalised and any politician hinting at it is completely unelectable.
Those are the cards on the table today: non-partisan campaigning and extra-Parliamentary activism are the only game in town and, right now, they won’t prevent those doomed and pointless council funding cases coming to the courts.
And better thinking….
Thanks for your contributions
They are appreciated
On the subject of there being lots of decaying corpses around, an inevitable consequence of ending the welfare state, perhaps readers (and Tory politicians) should consider the following article from the Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_risks_from_dead_bodies from which we learn that bodies aren’t really a problem so long as they’re attended to. They won’t be though, will they? There’ll be lots of dead paupers littering up the place and no council-provided paupers burials for them. I’m wondering, how do the Tories think they’ll escape any subsequent plague? Do they imagine their high birth or their imaginary social value will make them immune?
On the GP point… You are of course correct there are not enough GPs. (Ed Miliband promise for twoday wait was similarly unrealistic)
But if it is a choice between being open on a Saturday and being ki open on a Tuesday… Shouldn’t GPs be open on the weekend?
I know it’s inconvenient for them… But it’s very convenient for patients who work/have school.
Just a thought anyway. Nice blog.
The evidence is very strong that people do not want to see GPs at the weekend
So why do it?
Interesting.
This survey suggested that 19% are not happy with GP opening times… And that the three quarters of those want them open on Saturdays. Far fewer wanted Sundays.
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34732926
To me that suggests that Saturday opening is worth going for. There’s a significant minority… c. 15% who would benefit.
Did the same survey ask if people wanted a free holiday in Barbados? I suspect they said yes to that too
Seems the gov can find money when needed. Not for doctors or nurses, but £15 million is available to train physician associates. So we may not have enough GPs’ ( and doctors are increasingly not going into general practice) but money to train people up to “not quite a doctor but near,not” status is available. AND they are not going to be required to work for the NHS!
Meanwhile, money is available to pay the legion of private managers that are attached to all the private contractors, but NHS managers are increasingly vilified by press and UKIP prats.
We can even pay another load of public cash to the Branson carpetbagging company….along with that well known group of public money leeches crapita, g4s and serco….not to mention bloods to China etc..
Anyone seen the TSSA video yet, the one where EU countries thank us for selling our rail system to them, because it allows them to have cheaper railways as a result?
It’s quite funny. Search Twitter for the link!
The “conservatives are better for business” motto is wearing a bit thin…
Juggernauts:NHS – There is no mention of the the catastrophe of the STPs (Sustainability and Transformation Plans) which is another cunning wheeze to save money by amalgamating the services into 44 “footprints” with the primary aim of saving up to 15%. It is stupid, unworkable, does not mention patient care, and is taking huge amounts of time from running an already collapsing Acute Care institution.
I used to think it was just bad incompetent leadership that caused the stuff up currently in full flow. Now, however, I realise it is deliberate malevolence: the equivalence of Assad
bombing his own people. We need a revolution – again- to stop our collapse into a failing state.
I agree on the need for revolution
But in thinking
Yes, and more. It is a revolution in consciousness that is most required. How that is achieved “post-debate” UK is another question. Sometimes it is just one person at a time, as in my conversations yesterday on Sheffield station as part of the National Day of Action on Rail. I wore a Bring Back BR t-shirt while handing out leaflets. The t-shirt BR logo made for some very empathetic discussions – more that the leaflets – including with fellow leaflet-ters, who included trade unionists, Greens and Marxists.
Have you looked at Mikes take on it over at http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2017/01/03/fabian-doomsayers-analysis-of-labour-is-twaddle-designed-to-demoralise-new-members/
Respectfully, I give the Fabians more credit than that
Except it was not the societies view, but one persons view who works for the society…