What a week, culminating in lots of pointless speculation about the forthcoming Budget when the main player, Jeremy (Pinocchio) Hunt, ‘can’t’ say in advance what will be in it but still colludes with the media by taking up plenty of air time. Needless to say, especially given all the big talk of recent months about tax cuts, these looking less likely given the state of the economy (‘technical recession’ etc), this hasn’t stopped numerous commentators having their say about what should be done (or not) and they’re interesting to read whether you agree with them or not. Whereas the main economic organisations like the Institute of Fiscal Studies and the Resolution Foundation have warned Hunt of the unsuitability of tax cuts, which would mean already threadbare public services being cut even more, you might know that the right-wing think tank Institute of Economic Affairs (regularly platformed by the media) predictably said Hunt ‘should exercise some meaningful spending constraint to pave the way for the tax cuts he yearns for but appears incapable of delivering. Instead of highlighting one or two tiny tax cuts which are trumped by less transparent tax rises, he should commit to an overall reduction in the tax burden’. Here we see the ideological narrative in plain sight, that funding for vital public services is a ‘burden’.
Several economists like the RF’s James Smith cite Hunt’s ‘fiscal fictions’: ‘The chancellor should show he’s not all about short-term giveaways by addressing the “fiscal fictions” in his post-election spending plans. He should announce a one-year spending review before the summer so government departments don’t go through an election without knowing the budgets for public services just a few months ahead’. Jargon like ‘fiscal rules’ and ‘headroom’ has done a lot of heavy lifting for the Tories recently, one purveyor, Treasury Minister Laura Trott, being embarrassingly called out on Radio 4’s PM programme effectively for substituting jargon for economic understanding. An X user tweeted: ‘Scrabbling around for a tax cut in the wasteland of Tory austerity, fiscal idiocy and wild corruption is not the life-saver Sunak and Hunt hope. People see it for what it is. Another blow to public services. A salting of the earth. A cynical bribe. Ugly politics from ugly people’. Another indicator of Hunt’s desperation was the possibility of pinching Labour’s policy on non-doms, 68,800 of them including Sunak’s wife. Whatever emerges on Wednesday, you can bet that the Budget will be presented with the usual aplomb and spin, however damaging it is to some sections of the electorate.
You would have thought that any government would be keen to properly resource HMRC so that there’s less tax remaining unpaid, but no. The cuts started under David Cameron but what a false economy: now people are talking of waiting more than 45 minutes to talk to HMRC customer services according to data from the cross party Public Accounts Committee. A significant aspect of the problem is ‘fiscal drag’ drawing many more into paying tax. ‘The tax office is trying to cope by weaning service users off speaking to a real person on the phone in favour of having them make do with YouTube videos and chatbots, the report found. Since the PAC’s last report in January 2023, HMRC’s performance “has continued to deteriorate”, and it has now resorted to closing customer support channels to prevent people from contacting it to sort out their tax affairs’. This is so unfair, especially to first time taxpayers who won’t normally fit into the category of those able to pay clever accountants to effect tax avoidance. Of course there’s the usual evasive response from HMRC officialdom: ‘We’re making strong progress improving our customer services, with a focus on encouraging people to deal with us online where they can by providing quicker, easier and always available digital services’. How often do you find yourself helped by an organisation’s FAQ or a chatbot?
But what of course has taken centre stage is George Galloway’s spectacular win in Rochdale and its aftermath, a response to public frustration at the main parties’ continued support for Israel and refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Galloway overturned a Labour majority of more than 9,600 (Labour had held the seat for 14 years) and will now become the Greater Manchester constituency’s MP for the Workers Party of Britain. Galloway seems a bit of a ‘Marmite’ operator, some saying he cynically attaches himself to whatever cause is going to benefit him personally, others commending his courage in refusing to be cowed by authority. I look forward to seeing how he performs in the Commons and whether he will remove his signature hat in that hallowed setting. Whatever we think about him, there’s no doubt that his election has interrupted the predictable two party system at least temporarily, and it’s this wakeup call which prompted the Prime Minister’s embarrassingly bad ‘democracy’ speech on Friday evening. The PM tried to whip up the election of Galloway into a massive crisis – such was his desperate response to his party coming third. You could almost see him still reeling.
Of all the projections Sunak’s government has been guilty of, the most outrageous is this ramping up of fear and hatred about non-existent ‘mob rule’ when he and his colleagues have done the most to undermine democracy in recent times. Of course it’s a false rationale in order to reinforce even more his draconian ‘public order’ legislation. It’s worth reading John Crace’s splendid evisceration of Sunak’s speech: There was no real argument to Sunak’s speech. Nor was there any real rhetorical power. He is a prime minister unfortunately blessed with levitas. It’s almost impossible to take what he is saying seriously. What shone through his words was the absence. There was a hollow, a vacuum at the core of his message. Because what he was really crying out for was for someone – something – to come and take control… as a Prime Minister he’s a fraud…Weirdly, it never seemed to have occurred to Sunak to ask himself why this all might be happening on his watch. Such a lack of intellectual curiosity in a man who prides himself on being clever is breathtaking’. A real own goal for the Tory PR machine.
Yet he doesn’t seem to get that his government’s increasingly repressive policies have led to so many of the protest marches and demos taken to extremes: whereas no MP or anyone else should face threats to their safety, the removal of legitimate avenues of protest has seriously contributed to the febrile political environment. Although Sunak belatedly removed the whip from Lee Anderson following the latter’s incendiary comments (to what effect we don’t know as he took his usual place for PMQs on Wednesday amid much backslapping from colleagues), others guilty of whipping up the ‘mob rule’ frenzy like Suella Braverman, Robert Jenrick and Liz Truss are left in post. And now we have the irony of Home Secretary James Cleverly allocating £31m for MPs’ police protection – something which would have been unnecessary had this government listened to the electorate’s concerns instead of endlessly placating its right wing. And the whole pantomime serves to distract us, the Tories imagine, from their appalling record in office.
‘Something fundamental has changed’, intoned an increasingly theatrical Nick Robinson on the Today programme last week: absolutely and a key aspect is George Galloway’s challenge to the status quo. I’m not sure how much water the argument holds that this win was only facilitated by Labour not fielding a candidate. That could be too simplistic. The Today podcast discussed the effects of this change and speculated as to how Galloway would operate in the social media age. Apart from that rare moment of insight in the last podcast, though (about journalists’ contribution to MPs being placed in danger) Nick and others don’t see how their own client journalism has contributed to the prioritisation of the Tory narrative. Observed an X user: ‘Whether you agree with George Galloway or not, you must be able to see the state of journalism in this country, embarrassing lickspittle government operatives pretending to be journalists are a big threat to our democracy’.
The ‘mob rule’ narrative drivers have been shown as factually wrong in any case: although there are some firebrands present at the marches, they’re a minority, protests have been mostly peaceful, attended by people from all walks of life, also including Jewish groups, and it’s been shown that crowd violence is actually very rare and that any violence tends to be committed by authorities including the police. It’s a cynical strategy in plain sight: ‘The spectre of ‘the mob’ has long been summoned to limit freedom… the language (and the idea) of the mob paints a false picture of crowds, of crowd violence and of violence in society more generally. The gathering of people in protest does not indicate the imminent outbreak of violence and excess. It cannot, in and of itself, be taken as evidence of intimidation. It is not a threat to our democracy. On the contrary, crowds and protests are an essential dimension of our democracy. The mark of a healthy society is when everyone feels safe to participate in protest’.
Further to previous discussion of Physician Associates in the NHS, Monday evening saw the passing by the Lords (under the radar, no proper parliamentary scrutiny) of ‘orders’ which will lead (in the face of doctors’ opposition) to the GMC regulating thousands of PAs despite their training being only of two years duration. Numerous clinical errors committed by PAs have been identified, they’ve been recruited in response to this government’s failure to train sufficient doctors and so far there’s been no plan either for clinical supervision or for how patients are to be informed. Many will already be seeing a PA without knowing it and although services are supposed to make clear that the clinician is not a doctor, there are plenty of examples of when this practice has not been followed. In my view even the nomenclature is unhelpful: ‘physician’ is an American term, not in common use here, yet the PA title could sound impressive to some.
The BMA and many of its members are up in arms about this development, seeing it as a risk to patient safety. It also undermines their own status, which they trained for years to achieve. I listened to the debate, which lasted several hours, and was struck by the friendly and polite atmosphere of this chamber – very unlike the Commons. Several baronesses argued impressively and strongly against the passing of these measures but they did not prevail: one of those speaking for the government was the discredited former health minister Jim Bethell (yes, he of PPE VIP lane fraud and one of those who ‘lost’ his phone containing incriminating WhatsApp messages), who transparently conveyed the government’s desire to get patients seen and clear waiting lists, but at what cost? So here we see another measure passing into law which hasn’t been properly discussed and publicised but which constitutes another plank of the government’s policy of deprofessionalising the NHS, one which could seriously affect our healthcare. You can find out more about this on the BMA website – below is a link to their press release which preceded the Lords debate. To be continued: we need to know what plans will be put in place to inform patients, to monitor this new system, to roll out the regulatory framework and to supervise PAs.
In recent times we’ve heard much about work, worklessness and the ‘economically inactive’, often held to blame by this government for the poor state of the economy. The ‘economically inactive’ label was initially applied to those in their 50s and 60s but now a large number are under 35 and the bill for incapacity benefits, already up in one decade to £25.9bn, is expected to rise to £29.3bn by 2030. While, understandably, poor mental health is cited as a major factor, back and neck pain another (1m sufferers),the government consistently fails to acknowledge how many of those not working are on the 8m long NHS waiting list and how many have had to give up paid work in order to care for sick children or elderly or disabled relatives. Ministers fail to join the dots, two major ones being the lack of social care policy and of mental health service provision and their impact on the working population. Instead they just put in place short-term gimmicks like the mid-life ‘MOT’ – it would be interesting to hear people’s experiences of this.
The morality of work was the subject of last week’s Radio 4 Moral Maze, one ‘witness’ opining that it’s a moral failure if you’re taking more than you’re putting in. One panel member was hugely at pains to get the ‘witnesses’ to demonise those not working, as he does himself. A Telegraph article recently tackled Working from Home – originally held up as a means of boosting productivity but more recently found to have question marks hanging over it. It seems numerous employees are reluctant to comply with their organisations’ requirement for them to return to the office at least three days a week, if not full time. Workers need to remember that trying to insist on WFH could lead to their redundancy although some public sector organisations seem to find it difficult, if not impossible, to sanction or sack persistent avoidants.
At the opposite end of the scale there are encouraging examples of those continuing to work into their eighties and even nineties – partly seeing this as helping to keep ‘old age at bay’. ‘Our experience is that people in their 70s and 80s who are still working are usually doing so through choice rather than necessity,” said Stuart Lewis, the chief executive of Rest Less, an online community for older people. “They are fit, driven and highly capable and have a strong sense of purpose and good reason’. One of these workers said: ‘People resign inwardly in their older age because it’s what they’re expected to do – to shut down and focus on their hobbies – but working on is entirely natural…We need to readdress what older age is and what many of us are still capable of. We need to move expectations of older people from being passive spectators to active participants’. Another said: ‘My view on retirement is that you need to stay active for as long as possible…That’s how you keep the horrors of extreme old age at bay. You need to be curious and keep learning’. Absolutely – commitment to remaining curious and to lifelong learning are crucial in maintaining a healthy lifestyle but these people had choice in the matter: we also have to bear in mind the mental health effects of working in an uncaring environment, possibly for a bullying boss and/or in tasks which are repetitive with no opportunity for autonomy of decision making.
There’s no doubt that work and worklessness are complex issues which the government tries to reduce to stigmatizing platitudes, issues which need complex, not short term solutions. But hey – MPs don’t need to worry because special taxpayer funded help not granted to the hoi polloi has been set up for those leaving Parliament at the next election – those not returning to hedge fund management, of course. It’s interesting that the BBC only obtained some details of the proposal via a Freedom of Information request. MPs could be offered “on-demand” career coaching and access to “networking opportunities”, access to a career coach to help them identify their transferable skills and write a CV “that stands out in the crowd”. This could be helpful to those who’ve never had a proper job in the past. The amount allocated per MP was blanked out by Commons authorities. It will certainly be interesting to see how these people fare after the election.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67629470
A syndrome particularly noticeable in recent weeks is the volume of speculation over the whereabouts and welfare of the Princess of Wales, with the Royal Family, Catherine and so on trending on social media. We were told that following her abdominal surgery, it was expected that she wouldn’t be back to public duties before Easter, but this has done nothing, it seems, to dampen down the speculation about her absence. Seriously, have these people got nothing better to do than focus obsessively on this? What’s surely more serious is the way complicit media keep going with the speculative articles and interviews with ‘royal correspondents’ and other hangers on about how hard people like Camilla (who’s recently jetted off on holiday) have had to work during the health issues of the King and the Princess. There’s been no shortage of risible language in these sources, alluding to William, Camilla and others (even Andrew and the Duchess of York) ‘shouldering’ the burden, ‘holding the fort, ‘stepping up’ and so forth when in fact they are largely irrelevant to the running of the country. I hope the speculators can contain themselves till Easter, because it looks like they’ll hear nothing more till then.
Finally, we’ve heard a lot lately about food price inflation, shrinkflation and so on, so it’s good to hear that Pret A Manger, which had been accused of profiteering, has now reduced the price of its egg mayo sandwich from £3.40 to £2.99. I wish the National Trust would do the same – its own version has long been £3.50, containing far less egg and clearly not freshly made!
Politics and mental health - the missing link? 