Political Viewpoint - Leigh-on-Sea

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Leigh On Sea News: Political Viewpoint – By David Bodimeade Rayleigh & Wickford Labour Party LABOUR are fixing Britain. Public services in Britain are broken. Nothing works.

Political Viewpoint – By David Bodimeade Rayleigh & Wickford Labour Party LABOUR are fixing Britain. Public services in Britain are broken. Nothing works.

By David Bodimeade Rayleigh and Wickford Labour Party

LABOUR are fixing Britain. Public services in Britain are broken. Nothing works.

The Tories left us record NHS waiting times, overflowing prisons, strikes, high energy prices, crumbling schools, polluted rivers, high interest rates, not enough police officers/NHS dentists/homes/childcare and more food banks than McDonalds.

Labour are fixing Broken Britain, as we did after 1997.

Better public services do not come for free. You can’t have Scandanavian levels of public services (high) with American levels of tax (low).

Labour are keeping our promise to not raise taxes on working people. Taxes on income from your Labour (Income Tax & National Insurance) will not go up. Nor will VAT. Labour must raise some other taxes, eg employers National Insurance.

Money raised from the Budget will fund a desperately needed extra –

£22.6 billion for the NHS
£6.7 billion for education
£500 million for affordable homes
£3.1 billion for investment

It also allocates £13.6 billion for two groups the Tories kept ignoring – people infected by infected blood and wrongly prosecuted post masters.

NHS – The Tories left us record waiting times to see a GP, and at A & E. Labour are creating an extra 40,000 GP appointments every week. This means fewer people going to A & E. Every visit to your GP costs the NHS £40 (compared to £400 for A & E). So that’s sensible financially.

Prevention is better than cure. Keeping people well and out of hospitals saves money and lives. That’s not a nanny state.

Labour are creating more NHS dental appointments again (as we did after 1997). My sister-in-law moved to Cornwall and discovered there was an 11 year waiting list for an NHS dentist. Shocking.

When Labour left office in 2010 satisfaction with the NHS was at its highest. Now it’s at its lowest. Labour will reverse that again.

HOUSING – Too many people can’t buy or rent. Many get on the property ladder when in their 30s.

Average earnings have not kept pace with average property prices. Affordable properties used to be 3 or 4 times your earnings. Now many are 7 or 8 times your earnings, and out of reach. We don’t want a crash. We need house prices to plateau so earnings can catch up.

Deputy PM Angela Rayner, who grew up in a council house, is well placed to ensure Labour builds 1.5 million new homes, and two new towns. That will include genuinely affordable homes and social housing.

Labour will make planning work better, and encourage developers to build on brownfield sites. But we have to sacrifice some green belt, or millions may never own their home.

WORKERS RIGHTS – Labour introduced new rights for workers after 1997. This included the Minimum Wage, 28 days paid leave, and improved maternity/paternity leave. Now the balance has swung back in the wrong direction.

In 2022, P & O Ferries sacked 800 workers without consultation, and were condemned by all parties. That won’t happen under Labour.

New rights for workers are very popular, even with Tory voters. But Tory MPs oppose them, as do Reform MPs. Only Labour will deliver them, whilst balancing the needs of business.

COST OF LIVING – Labour are setting up Great British Energy. This will provide cheaper green energy, reduce energy bills and create thousands of new jobs.

Labour are implementing our windfall tax (which the Tories opposed). This will remind fat cat energy bosses their gas and electricity prices (and profits) are still too high.

THE TORY INHERITANCE – Labour’s inheritance is bad and the £22 billion black hole is real.

Tories did not fund the doctors and rail workers pay settlement properly. They assumed a 2% settlement, which meant an overspend of £10 billion. The black hole also included £6 billion for asylum system and illegal migration also not budgeted for.

The Tories knew they would lose the election, so they decided not to fund things properly, knowing Labour would have to do that (or cut them).

WINTER FUEL ALLOWANCE – Means testing winter fuel payments makes sense. But, using receipt of Pensioner Credit as the means test, results in many poorer pensioners just above that threshold lose out.

Now more pensioners are claiming Pension Credit. So Labour used up lots of goodwill and political capital for a minimal saving. It might have been easier to leave as it.

CONCLUSION – Grown up government is back. Watching PM Keir Starmer deal with the summer riots was reassuring. Starmer created prison places (out of nothing), ensured people were punished speedily, and deterred others from rioting.

After 14 chaotic Tory years Britain is very broken. Labour will fix our public services, but it will need new money. It won’t be done overnight either, so expect a decade of renewal.

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