THE BIG ISSUES
When the Tories and Labour admit that the economy is up the creek thanks to a hard Brexit, as well as pandemic and Putin, we might begin to limit the damage.
There were reasons why so many voted Leave. Austerity put paid to spending on infrastructure, communities were left behind, Boris Johnson did his spiel, Labour was absent and the papers blamed every ill on Brussels. Eight years later the dying embers of the Conservative party, of which I was once a member, still trade on these divisions in a shameless attempt to cling onto power.
Sunak has the bare-faced cheek to describe his Northern Ireland deal as “the best of both worlds," but he won’t contemplate closer ties to the world’s biggest trading bloc for rest of the UK. Starmer is too scared to utter the ‘B’ word for fear of causing upset. Yet the Office for Budget Responsibility say we will be 4% worse off outside the EU – equivalent to tens of billions on health, education, pensions, policing and the environment.
Post-Brexit Britain
We can’t turn the clock back to some imagined golden age but we can renew our vows to each other and rebuild the country for future generations. Experience tells us that the answer doesn’t lie in right or left wing ideology. It’s about competence, fairness, forward thinking, security and solid foundations for a dynamic economy. And it’s about being honest.
What you see when you click the button below is not a manifesto, it’s a range of ideas. As an Independent I can’t promise any of them will be adopted. I can only promise to listen to and speak up for you, to do everything possible to bring opposing sides together, and to support common sense solutions whoever proposes them.
The infamous bus
Culture Wars
We shouldn't judge our colonial past by today's standards, but nor should we airbrush aspects we now find shocking. The same goes for the workplace, where bosses can’t boss in the way they did just 30 years ago.
But woke extremists and keyboard warriors slug it out on social media, egged on by rabble-rousing politicians and national newspapers which tread the high ground when it suits and plumb the depths when it doesn't.
Instead of listening they goad each other to ever more ridiculous positions. Should we be so sensitive that we see almost everyone as a victim of something or other? No! Should we treat all immigrants as job stealers or benefits scroungers? No, of course not. It's time to accept change, apply common sense and reassert the tolerance for which we used to be justly proud. They are not mutually exclusive.
Health & Social Care
Most of us are proud to have an NHS, but the days are long gone when it was world class. Waiting lists are resulting in excess deaths. Staff are leaving in droves. Thousands of hospital appointments are missed because the letters (they still send letters) arrive too late!
However good our own doctor or dentist, it can be ridiculously difficult to see them. Tooth decay is now the biggest cause of hospitalisation for children over five. Even good ideas like Pharmacy First, allowing chemists to prescribe medication for regular ailments, have been botched.
We need to renegotiate with drug companies, end exploitation by agencies and avoid excessive risk management. More nurses should be trained outside university, like old-fashioned SENs. And after pushing it aside for 13 years, the Dilnot Report on funding social care must finally be implemented. That will need cross-party cooperation – it’s too important for political football.
The pressures on our health system will only increase. An ideological wrangle where the NHS is always good or always bad, underfunded or overfunded, will get us nowhere.
Education
Schooling is in better shape than the headlines suggest despite massive disruption in the pandemic. But there are budget shortfalls, disaffected teachers and worries about children’s prospects. Add to that difficulties with discipline, a bureaucracy bent on ticking boxes rather than taking risks, and the mixed blessings of AI and smart phones.
Meanwhile SEND is all too often out of sight, out of mind.
Most of these challenges can be resolved by policy makers and head teachers learning from the schools that get it right no matter how tough their circumstances. We also need to prioritise life skills like cooking, debating, online research and money management – and augment classroom teaching with onscreen 'super teachers.' FE ought to be championed as a vital means of skills training.
The Tories’ faith in the market, in which students act like consumers and demand better value, hasn’t worked with universities. Fees are at scandalous levels. Vocational courses should be scrutinised for the likelihood of employment, and many shortened to two years.
Policing & Criminal Justice
In parts of the country the police are struggling to respond to 'everyday' crime from shoplifting to burglary. Much of this is down to the lack of experienced officers, an outdated structure and having to take on a social services and mental health care role. Public trust won’t be restored until these problems are resolved.
Resources are also stretched by online ‘hate’ crime. The answer is surely to end anonymous posts on social media. Yes, that will take international agreement, and some forums would have to be exempt for safety reasons – but it’s time to rein in the digital Wild West.
As it stands prisons are little more than holding pens for 'the mad, the sad and the bad.' Instead of education and work, inmates are often locked up for 22 hours a day and given distraction packs with colouring books to keep them occupied! Drugs are in ready supply. new prison officers are barely out of school, and early release is the Government’s answer to lack of space. The system is badly broken. We need joined-up thinking and investment.
Defence
Putin’s invasion, China’s strategic ambitions and mayhem in the Middle East have shaken us out of complacency. The top brass have declared that we are in a ‘Pre-War’ state. All the main parties agree that our forces must be properly funded both for conventional conflicts and cyber attacks.
But the UK isn’t the world power it was: responsibility must be evenly shared with our partners. At the least it means standardising systems and equipment across NATO – which would save a fortune and increase efficiency. At most it raises questions about pooling our nuclear capability at the same time as renewing treaties that are about to expire. It doesn’t mean conscription or a European Army!
In the short term living conditions for service families must be improved and the scope of the Military Covenant extended to include training and more practical support on leaving. We can’t expect people to risk their lives for the nation only to end up sleeping on its streets or relying on charity.
Tax & Spend
Any Chancellor inheriting mountains of debt faces tough decisions, but that makes fairness more important. Sunak and Hunt have moved millions of middle earners into a high tax bracket by stealth, but still failed to tax the tech giants that run rings around them.
Ending the pretence that NI is a pension fund and simplifying the tax code, which is 8 times longer than the longest book ever written, would be a start. The biggest challenge is how to control public spending when so much goes on interest payments. Economists talk about a trade-off between taxes and services, but I’m yet to meet anyone who wants lower taxes and cuts to the services they use!
Yes, the welfare system is far from perfect. A very small number of claimants work the system, but many are caught up in it and parents of young children rely on it. Linking some benefits to retraining is a move in the right direction. Threatening to remove modest PIP payments from those enduring a 1.9 million queue for treatment is not.
Both big parties talk endlessly about cutting waste. That’s tinkering around the edges. Instead we need to rethink entire processes – like the surgeons at Guy’s who completed a week’s operations in one day by making basic changes.
Asylum
The Tories have tried to turn their failure to manage asylum seekers to their political advantage by demonising them. Instead of efficiently processing claims, the Government has squandered billions and handed gold dust to a press that likes nothing more than inflaming tensions. Instead of working with the EU and UN to set up safe routes from war-torn regions and building alliances to renegotiate refugee conventions, they claim that sending a token number of arrivals to Rwanda will deter the rest.
If you were fleeing for your life, betting the family savings on the promise of traffickers and crossing continents in unimaginable conditions, would you be deterred from coming to the UK where you have contacts by a 1/250 chance of ending up in Rwanda? Nonsense. The only thing it does is encourage those already here to vanish into the shadows. This fag packet policy dreamt up by Boris Johnson is a deeply flawed, inhumane and fantastically costly game of smoke and mirrors.
Housing
The Conservatives have a special kind of 20/20 vision with housing. 20% of party funding comes from the big housebuilders, while their flagship policy ending no-fault evictions was kiboshed by the 20% of Tory MPs who own rental properties!
We all know there's a housing shortage. Prices and rents make it difficult for young people to stay in their community, and millions have suffered from Liz Truss’ interest rates legacy. Both parties promise to do something about the planning system, but what should they do?
The principle of Neighbourhood Plans is sound. New housing must be based on local needs and sensitivities, but the process is mired in bureaucracy. Small developments should be fast-tracked but sprawling estates have to come with proper infrastructure. That means school places, doctors and dentists, shops, community and youth centres, green spaces and transport links.
We need a net increase in social housing (after accounting for properties sold under Right to Buy), land banks should be regulated and standards imposed for design as well as construction.
Transport
We rely on it to work, study, shop, receive treatment and enjoy leisure time – yet transport repeatedly loses out when governments tussle between ‘the urgent’ and ‘the important.’ Projects are announced (and often re-announced), but rarely get going. Meanwhile roadworks never seem to end! Potholes can be repaired in a fraction of the time, critical rural bus services increased, and stations staffed to make passengers feel safe. It isn’t rocket science.
Some problems stem from transport being at the back of the queue when Ministers fight for funding, or from central government expecting councils to deliver 100% service levels with 70% of the budget. Others are the result of a grindingly slow planning system in dire need of reform.
Energy & The Environment
The Government is falling out of step with manufacturers, investors and the world’s major economies on the environment. To appease the far right they’ve tried to turn Net Zero into the new Brexit.
After decades of scientific study and diplomacy, much of it led by Britain, we have moved on from ideological posturing and arguments about the West paying while developing countries pollute. It’s now a question of the pace of transition, and seizing the vast economic opportunity.
We might soon be charging our homes from our cars, and replacing tractors with robots, but in the meantime we cannot tolerate ever-increasing energy bills. Subsidies should be brought back for insulation, solar panels installed in new domestic and industrial building, and well-sited wind turbines put up in return for discounts to willing local communities. There’s no sense sacrificing food security with huge solar farms on agricultural land.
Government needs to press ahead with fast-build small nuclear power stations, and ensure faster connection of renewables to the National Grid (current delays are nothing short of a scandal). We need responsible leadership for the long term, not short term politicking.
Public or Private
For decades we've been subject to a rigid ideology that says services are better delivered by the private sector. Whether due to poor regulation, corporate greed or inept leadership, it hasn’t always worked. The investment hasn’t happened. The fact is that sewage is polluting our rivers, and 40% of mainline passengers now travel on trains controlled directly by the state.
Centrist politicians must work together on long term solutions – with input from business managers, unions and users. And they need to look at how other countries are solving the problems. Subsidies and price rises need to be balanced with shareholder risk and the public interest. Above all if the taxpayer has to foot the bill when a privatised monopoly like Thames Water fails, that service should be in public ownership. That isn’t anti-enterprise, it’s plain common sense.
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