Labour Party

Morning Star: The Tories have wrecked the NHS – but that doesn’t mean Labour will rescue it

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/tories-have-wrecked-nhs-doesnt-mean-labour-will-rescue-it

The NHS overtook the economy as voters’ biggest concern in February, according to polling by Ipsos. Small wonder when waiting lists have hit 7.5 million: there can hardly be a person in the country who doesn’t have a friend or relative who has been affected.

And the Conservatives bear a heavy responsibility.

In the decade up to the pandemic, real-terms healthcare spending per head rose on average by just 0.4 per cent a year — in four years it actually fell, despite rising pressures on the service.

That compares very poorly to the record of the last Labour government, which raised spending by 5.7 per cent a year on average from 1997-2010. It even compares badly to that of the Thatcher and Major Conservative governments, which averaged a 2.1 per cent annual increase.

But we should be more cautious than Poulter about endorsing Keir Starmer’s solution.

Starmer and shadow health secretary Wes Streeting have pointedly refused to offer the increases in NHS budgets that the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown governments delivered. Streeting is emphatic that he will not “pour money into a 20th-century model,” instead demanding reforms which, in increasing reliance on the private sector, both mimic existing Conservative policy and are unlikely to make a difference to waiting lists (because private healthcare in Britain recruits from the NHS, so overall capacity will not grow).

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Britain’s public services are collapsing under the strain of decades of neoliberal policy. In the NHS, hospitals have been undermined through outsourcing services to the private sector as well as by the cost of PFI debt — both issues with their origins in the Blair years.

To restore our NHS to health, we need a reversal of privatisation and outsourcing and a forced end to all PFI contracts, as well as a significant increase in overall funding to bring us closer to healthcare spending levels in France or Germany.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/tories-have-wrecked-nhs-doesnt-mean-labour-will-rescue-it

Continue ReadingMorning Star: The Tories have wrecked the NHS – but that doesn’t mean Labour will rescue it

Tory-run Facebook groups contain ‘appalling racism’ investigation finds

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/tory-run-facebook-groups-contain-appalling-racism-investigation-finds/

Anti-Ulez groups managed by Conservative-linked individuals found to be ‘a cesspit of vile racism and hate speech’

Facebook groups run by Conservative Party operatives that oppose London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) are ‘a cesspit of vile racism and hate speech’, an investigation by Unearthed has found. 

A network of 36 private Facebook groups set up to oppose the expansion of Ulez and almost all run by people with close professional ties to the Conservative party including councillors, campaign managers and a borough mayor, have hosted nasty and violent content, the investigation has uncovered. 

Reporters found widespread racism and Islamophobia as well as conspiracy theories and celebrations of criminal damage on the pages, including sharing the white supremacist slogan and antisemitic videos. 

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan was targeted with much of the racist content, the investigation found, including a commenter describing the capital as “Londonistan” and claiming England is “overrun and being run by a load of foreigners” and subject to “third world people”. 

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Ami McCarthy, political campaigner for Greenpeace UK described the groups as “an absolute cesspit of vile racism and hate speech” and “a breeding ground for dangerous conspiracy theories”.

“That they’re being managed by Conservative operatives speaks volumes about the direction in which the party has gone, and just how toxic these anti-ULEZ campaigns have become,” said McCarthy.

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/tory-run-facebook-groups-contain-appalling-racism-investigation-finds/

Continue ReadingTory-run Facebook groups contain ‘appalling racism’ investigation finds

The truth behind Labour’s plans to ‘renationalise’ rail

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/truth-behind-labour’s-plans-‘renationalise’-rail

One thing about an incoming Labour government looks great: taking the railways into public ownership. But we won’t actually own the trains, warns SOLOMON HUGHES

LABOUR’S plans to renationalise the rail firms by taking over the train operating companies (TOCs) as their contracts come to an end is a big deal.

These are privately run but very heavily publicly subsidised companies that want to pump cash out of the government and passengers and then pump it into their investors’ hands. They are so keen to get the cash that they are rubbish at running the railways. Renationalising them is a good idea.

But if you want to know how some rail privatisation will continue even after Labour’s plans — and how it will continue to squeeze private cash out of public services, it’s worth having a look at the annual accounts of Eversholt UK Rails Ltd, which were published to zero media interest at the end of last month.

The newspapers weren’t interested in the company’s accounts, even though they showed the movement of millions of pounds from the taxpayer to a Hong Kong billionaire’s company. Passengers also won’t generally know Eversholt even exists, which is part of the trick of privatisation.

When the nationally owned British Rail was privatised in the 1990s, it was broken up into three main parts. The track was privatised and handed over to Railtrack, which had to be renationalised in 2002 after the firm did such poor maintenance that passengers started dying in crashes and train speeds were cut to a crawl.

Different regional TOCs were given contracts to run the services on this track. Labour will slowly renationalise these. But TOCs don’t own the trains: the “rolling stock,” the actual engines and carriages were sold off cheaply to three private rolling stock companies or “Roscos.”

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/truth-behind-labour’s-plans-‘renationalise’-rail

Continue ReadingThe truth behind Labour’s plans to ‘renationalise’ rail

Politicians are blaming disabled people for the inequalities they face

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/politicians-are-blaming-disabled-people-for-the-inequalities-they-face/

It’s time the Government gives disabled jobseekers and employees the support they need – rather than demonising people who can’t work.

On Friday, Rishi Sunak pledged to tackle Britain’s so-called ‘sick note culture’. Saying that the ‘spiralling’ benefits bill was unsustainable, he promised to ‘control welfare’ if re-elected.

This rhetoric is nothing new. Disabled people have faced an ongoing onslaught of negative headlines over the past few months.

The Prime Minister has previously spoken about ‘[squeezing] benefits to fund more tax cuts for workers’, pitting disabled people against the rest of society. Commentators, too, have taken to arguing that our benefits system ‘invites abuse’.

And this harmful attitude towards welfare is not partisan; Labour too have implied that there are too many people claiming disability benefits.

But disability benefits are not a problem that needs to be ‘controlled’. At its best, our welfare system enables disabled people to lead more independent and meaningful lives, offering them vital support to overcome the barriers they face. That is something people across the political spectrum should celebrate.

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/politicians-are-blaming-disabled-people-for-the-inequalities-they-face/

Continue ReadingPoliticians are blaming disabled people for the inequalities they face

Public ownership campaigners urge Labour to go further and commit to renationalising rolling stock companies

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/public-ownership-campaigners-urge-labour-to-go-further-and-commit-to-renationalising-rolling-stock-companies/

Image of an East Coast train
An East Coast train at King’s Cross station

Labour announced this week that it will renationalise the railways, if elected. The party referred to the move as the ‘biggest overhaul to our railways in a generation.’

Under Labour’s proposals, train companies would be brought back into public ownership and run by a new body, Great British Railways, as their privatised contracts expire.

While the announcement has been broadly welcomed, with RMT general secretary Mick Lynch saying a publicly owned rail network is in the “best interests of railway workers, passengers and the taxpayer,” public ownership campaigners We Own It warn it doesn’t go far enough.

Following Labour’s announcement, Johnbosco Nwogbo, lead campaigner at public ownership campaign group We Own It, said it was time to “decommission the gravy train.”

“With delays and cancellations rife and some of the most expensive fares in Europe, polls show that over two thirds of us want our railways to be brought into public hands. Labour have rightly identified that the ownership of our public services will be a key issue for voters at this election.

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/public-ownership-campaigners-urge-labour-to-go-further-and-commit-to-renationalising-rolling-stock-companies/

Continue ReadingPublic ownership campaigners urge Labour to go further and commit to renationalising rolling stock companies