Selling out on social care
JVL Introduction
There is a lot of critical material about these days on Sir Keir Starmer.
But then, there is a lot to be critical about.
We offer this take on him by Phil Burton-Cartledge – it does seem emblematic of a wider failure.
Free adult social care was after all one of Keir Starmer’s pledges during the leaderhip campaign. Abandoning it smacks of more than carelessness.
As Burton-Cartledge puts it, “The party is now without a policy on a crucial, strategic issue, making Keir and the shadow cabinet look like they’re running scared in case the Tories say something nasty about them, and dumping a policy that helped the leader get elected. It’s a challenge to find the words to describe abject cowardice of this kind.”
This article was originally published by All That Is Solid ... on Thu 24 Jun 2021. Read the original here.
Keir Starmer's Cowardice: Another Exhibit
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Keith is a vacuous patsy for the right. He has allowed Progress and Labour First to control his every move because he is weak and no original thought or political nous. His whole leadership has been about attacking the left in the party and hoping tory incompetence gets so bad he might win the next election. 130k people dead, systemic corruption, repeated lies and still the tories are ahead in the polls. Keith lost Hartlepool and is about to lose Batley and blames Corbyn or vaccine bounce. I’m glad I left the party.
Having played a small part in helping to draft the motion on social care which provoked such fierce and unprincipled opposition from Thangam Debbonaire in the compositing process, I was interested to read her reason: that it would “give the Tories a stick to beat Labour with.”
This, I think, is the core problem facing Labour Party members today. Since most Labour MPs clearly don’t believe in anything except maintaining their own comfortable, highly-paid jobs, they will naturally regard socialist values and commitments as threatening. Presumably Ms Debbonaire also believes that policies on workers’ rights, the NHS, and nuclear disarmament will also provide sticks with which the Tories can beat Labour candidates.
Given that Ms Debbonaire, the MP for Bristol West, was very quick to call for the sacking of Professor David Miller from his job at Bristol University, she clearly supports the Labour Party’s present hostility to freedom of speech, but fails to realise that this could – conceivably – provide the Tories with an even bigger stick.
I wonder if people in the Batley and Spen constituency care about social care and free speech?
Keir is way out of his depth because he is not politically astute. His training comes from law books, and he does not have a background of Trade Unionism or Local Government struggle and intrigue to fall back on. He totally lacks conviction to the cause and looks for a way out and stay silent instead of leading from the front. I worked at his Chambers for 6 years so are well aware of his lack of political nous.
Social care should be publicly funded and integrated into NHS Reginal bases.
Further I would propose That a new centrally funded social department is created. This would include all care children elderly disability. Take Private providers out of the care system. Also Local Gov has been a Major failure in providing any form of social care and would have been even if Gov had not cut the funding.
Social workers Care staff would all be highly trained and managed on a professional bases with proper professional support .
The social care department would be relegalised and integrated into NHS.
There would be some bureaucracy but it would be part of of THe social care department. Any form of director would be a qualified Social worker. Not paid much more than a Senior social worker or team leader. Also to keep license to practise would have to practise at least 3 weeks a year as social worker carer.
Over all it would be expensive to set up but once up and running it would be more integrated and professional and be much cheaper and effective the splintered under funded local authority services. Which are over bureaucratic very expensive and often inhumane/
Those who desire a moderate ,centrist government can now see exactly what that means – no change. Merely a slightly ameliorated version of Thatcherism. New Labour tried that and failed in the long run. When the Labour Party adopted policies of real change the whole political establishment rallied to ensure the status quo would endure. The mainstream media owned by a few billionaires with extreme right wing views became in effect state broadcasters pumping out viscous propaganda ,most of it lies. The right wing of the Labour Party were horrified and spent most of their time attacking their own party . Those people are bereft of policy ideas which is why voters have no idea what the Labour Party stands for. There is nothing new here. In 1935 when 150 people died evry day from the effects of malnutrition and unemployment stood at 10% the Tories won by a much bigger landslide. Nye Bevan wrote that the unemployed voted for their own unemployment. George Orwell described the Labour Party then as having no desire for change . It was when the Attlee Labour party put forward real progressive policies that change came . Corbyn offered the electorate a return to those policies which ushered in the Golden Age. The problem of social care will not be solved until politicians face up to the fact that the only way to fund it is through taxation. There is no alternative.