Unfit To Govern

The Coalition continues to bulldoze ahead cutting here and there without considering the consequences of their actions.  I came across this interesting blog by George Monbiot of the Guardian.  It’s worth a read as he explains how scrapping the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) to save £3m is the definitive case of false economy.

George explains that the Commission’s latest (and last report) shows that even the modest measures that the previous government introduced to save energy and water and reduce waste have cut the state’s annual bills by £60m to £70m.  Furthermore that the Commission could have saved the public purse considerably more had it been allowed to continue.

He sums it up by writing “Scrapping the commission is stupid, irrational and counter-productive. It suggests that, for all its talk of listening and engaging, the new government can’t handle criticism and fears effective scrutiny”.

This looks like another blunder and once again causes me to ask ; “is our Government fit to govern?”.

Read George Monbiot’s whole blog post here.

David Cameron once again tried to explain his "Big Society" concept in a speech in Liverpool.  He describes the idea of empowering communities, as his "great passion".

OK, so what's behind this concept that no one but himself pretends to understand.  The way I read it is that he is hoping that people will give their time free to take over from services currently provided by charities and local councils, both of which are going have their budgets so severely cut that they can no longer provide these services.  Fundamentally if people are doing these things free you don't need to pay people to do them.

To take just one example; the idea that you form a committe to run a local post office is preposperous.  People just want the basics; a job which brings in sufficient money to pay the bills, a roof over their head a stable family life. Whilst there are a few who want to get involved in local politics most expect the Government to provide adequate local services so that they can get on with their lives.

I also understand that funding will be found to send in civil servants to 'guide' and 'train' local representatives? This funding will come from dormant bank accounts  At a time when we are being told that decreasing the deficit is the first priority why, oh why are we embarking on yet another costly wacky idea? (We've already learned that about £2 billion is going to be found to fund the restructuring of the NHS as posted here.).

You can read more in this BBC News article.

Ex Conservative minister, Michael Portillo, said “I do think it’s all a leap in the dark” when asked about the NHS restucturing by Andrew Neil on Thursday night’s This Week politics show (BBC1).  He further went on to say that he thought the Government would have left health alone because there’s been enough restructuring over recent years and doesn’t know why GP commissioning should be better than the current system?

Andrew Neil pointed out that there was no mention of this in the Tory election manifesto.  Since then we have found out that the Government have set aside £1.7 billion for restucturing costs. Some estimates put these costs at between £2 & £3 billion without any real benefit to the patient. There is an interesting article from the Press Association here.

Many Tory voters must be wondering just what is going on.  Please also see my other post on this subject here where I suggest that the motive is privatisation by the back door.

After the Tories campaigned that crime figures were  well up, once again it has been proved that Britain was not ‘broken’ under a Labour Government.

Official figures released today showed that crime fell by 9 per cent last year, reducing fears of a “recession crime wave”.  In fact it has been reported that crime in England and Wales is at a 29 year low. Because the figures were good, not what the Tories wanted, Theresa May, the Home Secretary,  claimed that “these statistics offer a partial picture about the true level of crime”.  Oh I guess the figures must be wrong then!!

No, these figures indicate that the massive investment in policing by the Labour government is continuing to pay off.  Unfortunately these excellent crime figures have been released on the same day that Tim Brain, the former spokesman on finance for police chiefs, raised the “worst-case scenario” amid fears the policing budget could be cut by as much as 40 per cent, the equivalent of 60,000 police officers.   Although a worst case analyses it would be a brave person that claims that front line services will not be affected by the drastic cuts ahead.

This leads me to fear that the improvements in crime figures are going to go into reverse.  I therefore predict that crime figures will rise from the later half of 2011 onwards as the police cuts begin to bite, further  fuelled by a ‘double dip’ recession crime wave which is likely to occur as a result of the ConLib spending cuts.

It’s too early for the actions of the ConLib Coalition to have any effect on the Unemployment figures.   The figures released today are the biggest drop since August 2006 (only tempered by the fact that there is a large rise in part-time working). Thus the continued fall in unemployment must be due to the actions of the previous Government. But, we won’t hear any such utterances from the Coalition.  Instead they will continue to blame Labour for ‘everything’.

Unfortunately, I fear that the fragile recovery is about to end.  We may see a continued fall over the next few months but after that the Unemployment figures are likely to rise as the unnecessary extreme ‘austerity’ measures start to kick in when winter approaches.

Does anyone seriously believe that the private sector will be able to absorb the ensuing public sector redundancies plus associated ‘knock-on effect’ redundancies in the private sector?

From time to time in these Blog Posts I will make a  prediction which will appear in a static Predictions page.  The first is that unemployment will start to rise as we head into the winter of 2010 and will continue to rise throught most, if not all the expected term of this Coalition Government (assuming it remains intact that is).  By Autumn 2011 the jobless total will be heading toward 3 million which will continue to rise and peak at about 3.5 million.   However, just maybe, the Coalition will be forced to do some form of a U-turn and stimulate growth by decreasing the rate at which it intends to reduce the defecit.  Egg will and truly be on their faces if that happens.  Although I suspect the Coalition may have disintegrated before we get as far as that.

Click here for the full BBC News item on the Unemployent Figures.

As Health Secretary Andrew Lansley announces his plans for the NHS as “one of the biggest shake-ups in its history” under the guise of cost reduction and patient care is it simply privatisation by the back door?

 Some of the relevant parts taken from speech in the House of Commons are;

•  we will allow any willing provider to deliver services to NHS patients
• we will phase out the top-down management hierarchy, including both Strategic Health Authorities and Primary Care Trusts (by 2014).
• all NHS trusts will become Foundation Trusts – freed from the constraints of top-down control, with power increasingly placed in the hands of their employees
• …by giving local authorities the power to agree local strategies to bring the NHS, public health and social care together. Local authorities will also be given control over local health improvement budgets.
• We will give General Practices, working together in local consortia, the responsibility for commissioning NHS services, so that they are able to respond to the wishes and needs of their patients…….. With commissioning support, GPs collectively will lead a bottom-up design of services.

The full transcript of the speech can be found at http://bit.ly/bvsUq8

So what does this mean in practice;

• Foundation Trusts can raise capitol from both the public and private sector.  It is understood that the cap on the amount of revenue which can be obtained from the private sector is being removed.    So this means that an ‘NHS’ hospital can devote more of its resources to private healthcare especially if the budgets are squeezed to ‘save costs’. As the physical resources are finite this must reduce the overall resources available to NHS patients. (More info on what a Foundation Trust is can be found at http://bit.ly/bRiTPY )
• The idea of putting  GPs in charge of a large proportion of the existing NHS Trust budget is somewhat bizarre. It is stretching the meaning  ‘General’ to the extreme.  As if GPs haven’t got enough on their plate.  In practice they will sub-contract to private companies.  It’s been suggested that there is a hidden agenda – to allow private companies to buy out GP Practices.

So, is this not actuality part of the overall hidden agenda to privatise the NHS thus ensuring our taxes help to bolster the profits of private companies?  

Michael Gove will admit the list he put out was full of errors.

Hundreds of schools checked a list, published by the Department for Education on Monday, to see whether their rebuiling plans were going ahead. It has now emerged that the list had 25 errors.

Michael Gove, is to “apologise unreservedly” for dashing the hopes of scores of schools across the country after mistakenly promising them new buildings.

John Yate, Britain’s most senior anti-terror officer warns that the Government’s spending cuts increases the risk of a terror attack. This has sparked a political row with Minister Francis Maude reacting angrily.

Lets hope that the Government doesn’t react with their usual arrogance but the reaction of Francis Maude doesn’t give me much hope.