Tag Archives: expansion

Another Tory promise ditched: Plan to expand mental health services lasted less than two months

Labour MP Luciana Berger said Theresa May’s ‘cuts are harming mental health services’ [Image: PA].


Jeremy Hunt promised to expand mental healthcare, creating 21,000 new posts by 2021, on July 30. It is now September 20 and that plan is in tatters after Clinical Commissioning Groups said they couldn’t afford it and will reduce their provision.

It’s not a record in terms of the brevity of Tory promises – consider some of their mayfly manifesto pledges from this year’s general election campaign – but it is yet another demonstration of the minority government’s inability to achieve anything positive at all.

Before anybody points out that Theresa May promised to improve mental healthcare in January, just remember that she never offered to put any money into her plan and it was essentially meaningless.

And how much are these CCGs giving to private health companies, who will pass much of the money on to their shareholders as profit – meaning it will not be used to provide any health care at all?

Finally, can everybody see what’s missing from the Department of Health statement? Well, it could have mentioned the amount of investment in mental health in 2010, so we could work out the exact amount by which it has risen. Then we could calculate it as a percentage increase, which we could compare with rates of inflation over the last seven years to work out whether there has been only a money-terms (and therefore meaningless) increase or an actual rise in spending.

As it is, the comment is meaningless and casts suspicion on the validity of NHS England’s Five Year Forward View.

The Government has been accused of “empty promises” over boosting mental health provision as new figures reveal that half of local NHS bodies plan to slash spending on vital services.

Cash-strapped Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) in England said they will reduce the proportion of their budgets spent on offering mental health support in 2017/18, despite previous commitments from Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt that spending would increase.

New figures show that 50 per cent of CCGs would see their mental health budgets squeezed next year, compared to 57 per cent in 2016/17 and 38 per cent the year before.

A Department of Health spokesperson said: “This government has increased, not decreased, investment in mental health services. Since 2010, spending on mental health has risen to a record £11.6bn this year, with a further investment of £1bn every year by 2020/21 and we expect CCGs to increase their spending as set out in NHS England’s Five Year Forward View.”

Read more: Government accused of ’empty promises’ on mental health as NHS plans to slash funding


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Goldsmith quits as MP after May approves third runway at Heathrow

Activists from Reclaim the Power and Plane Stupid block a mock runway on College Green outside the Houses of Parliament [Image: PA].

Activists from Reclaim the Power and Plane Stupid block a mock runway on College Green outside the Houses of Parliament [Image: PA].

This was a decision that could have been taken by David Cameron last year – but he delayed it in order to allow Zac Goldsmith to run as a London mayoral candidate earlier this year.

Mr Goldsmith had said he would not  campaign to be London’s mayor – and would quit as an MP – if a new runway at Heathrow was approved.

Now he has acted on that promise – there will be a by-election for his Richmond Park constituency. Some might say it should have happened last year, considering the Islamophobia that marred his mayoral campaign.

Meanwhile, the pundits and social media chatterboxes have been having a field day. it seems everyone has something to say. Here’s Marcus Chown:

Labour’s Rosena Allin-Khan:

Martha Gill of the Huffington Post put up the letter from Richmond Park Conservative Association, as good as admitting Mr Goldsmith was resigning:

Con_Dem Nation had the response:

No doubt it is continuing as I write this. Let it.

Here’s a note of caution from the Daily Mirror:

Even if MPs vote to give the go-ahead next year, work is unlikely to start before 2020, which realistically means the runway not opening until 2025.

That is before we take into account the expected opposition from environmentalists, possible legal challenges and lengthy delays in the planning process as residents under the flight path and local councils fight the expansion.

Four local councils have indicated that they are ready to fight Heathrow expansion, and others will join them. Also London’s Gatwick and Stansted airports could mount legal challenges to the decision.

With only two runways, air pollution around Heathrow already exceeds European Union limits. A third runway would add 300,000 extra flights and around 25m extra road journeys per year.

Source: Analysis: Will Heathrow’s third runway ever be built? London’s 70-year wait is far from over – Mark Ellis – Mirror Online

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Troubled Universal Credit expansion continues

130905universalcredit

The worst-performing and least adaptable benefit in the history of welfare is expanding to new areas as Iain Duncan Smith steps up his bid to hobble the welfare state permanently, before another government can take office and fix it.

Universal Credit will be available to families for the first time in Ashton-Under-Lyne, Wigan, Oldham, Hyde, Stalybridge, Stretford, Altrincham, Southport, Crosby, Bootle, Preston, Leyland, Prestwich, Bury, Eccles, Worsley, Huyton, Kirkby, St Helen’s, Newton-le-Willows, Hammersmith, Bath, Rugby, Shotton, Harrogate and Inverness.

Vox Political sends out particular sympathies to benefit claimants in Ashton-Under-Lyne, whose Job Centre causes particular problems as chronicled in the blog The poor side of life.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

If you have enjoyed this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
warning you of the latest government shenanigans.

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

‘Budget responsibility’ debate makes even Taxpayers’ Alliance look cleverer than Tories and Greens

George Osborne's plan to put you into debt: He wants you to be spending nearly two times more than you earn, so he can balance his books. What a (insert your own expletive here)!

George Osborne’s plan to put you into debt: He wants you to be spending nearly two times more than you earn, so he can balance his books. What a (insert your own expletive here)! [Image: Huffington Post.]

They were lining up to make fools of themselves after last night’s debate on the ‘Charter for Budget Responsibility’.

The Tories, of course, didn’t have to wait until after the debate – the fact that it took place at all made George Osborne look like an idiot. He had dismissed plans for a Labour-sponsored fiscal responsibility act as a “completely feeble stunt” back in 2010, but last night laid himself wide open to accusations that he was doing exactly the same thing.

In fact, it seems, he was trying to lay a “deficit trap” for Labour, in trying to get the Opposition party to explain how quickly it intends to balance the books.

No dice. Labour was quite comfortable with the charter, pointing out that it sets no date for the elimination of the national deficit but merely puts it in the third year of an undefined ‘five-year cycle’. The strongest words on the subject in the charter are that the books should be balanced “as soon as possible” which, Labour pointed out, is entirely consistent with the party’s own strategy.

In addition, as the Institute for Economic Affairs thinktank pointed out in the Huffington Post, no government can bind its successor (force it to continue a policy run by the previous administration). This means that Labour has supported a bill that conforms with Labour plans, and remains free to carry out those plans in whatever way it chooses, post-May 7, if it wins the election.

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls was so sure of his ground, he quoted an assessment of Osborne’s debate by the right-wing, reactionary Taxpayers’ Alliance, whose chief executive Jonathan Isaby labelled it a “meaningless political gimmick of the most transparent kind…that serves only to remind taxpayers how dramatically the Chancellor has missed his own original target”.

It isn’t often the Taxpayers’ Alliance turns out to be more intelligent than the rest, so let’s give it its due in this instance.

Claims are already circulating that Labour’s plans, which allow for borrowing to continue on infrastructure projects – investing in the economy, could add an extra £170 billion (in today’s terms) to the deficit during the 2020s. This assumes that such investment will yield no positive benefits to the economy, and there is no evidence that this would be the case. In fact, experience suggests the exact opposite.

An extra £170 billion of spending won’t matter one jot if tax receipts increase by more than that amount.

Ed Balls knows this – and said as much in the debate: “Three factors can bring the deficit down: spending cuts, decisions to raise taxes, and what happens to the underlying growth of the economy and the tax revenues which flow from that. The Chancellor did not talk about the third factor, for understandable reasons.

“Ultimately, the only way of reversing the problem is yes, to cut spending, and yes, to raise taxes… but also to get the economy growing in a stronger way which will bring in tax revenues.”

You see, while the economy is (technically) growing again, the jobs that have been created are in low-paid, often insecure work and there is lower productivity. As a result, income tax receipts are a cumulative £68 billion lower than Osborne’s 2010 forecast, and national insurance contributions are a cumulative £27 billion lower than he planned. But this was always going to happen with a Tory chancellor.

Tories always try to depress wages, in order to maximise profits for business owners and shareholders who vote for them. This means that income tax must fall, yet – bizarrely – they always seem surprised when it happens.

The fact that Osborne’s low-wage economy means more working people receive benefits is another cost burden for the Treasury. Labour, of course, plans to eliminate this by getting workers onto a living wage.

Osborne’s own plans would cut government spending – mostly on the kind of wealth redistribution that allows the poorest and the working-class to enjoy a reasonable standard of living – by around 26 per cent, totalling a massive 41 per cent since 2010, if a Conservative government is returned in May.

In addition, he is relying on a £360 billion borrowing spree by UK citizens, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility – which will leave households with an amount of debt 180 per cent larger than their income (see the image at the top of this article).

Just think about that. Back in 2010, he was comparing the national debt to households having ‘maxed out’ all their credit cards. That was when the debt totalled 78.4 per cent of GDP (the amount of income the nation generates every year). Why is he now saying that households should take on a burden that is proportionally more than twice as large?

Of course the comparison between national and household budgets is pointless because they do not correspond with each other, as Green MP Caroline Lucas pointed out in yesterday’s debate. Unfortunately she then went on to make a fool of herself by claiming, on Twitter, that the 18 MPs (including herself) who voted against the charter are the only MPs who are against austerity. If she knows enough to point out the difference between national and household budgets, she should know that this is inaccurate – therefore this was a direct lie to the electorate.

The effect of all this bluster – especially on Twitter last night – must be similar to the proverbial turkeys queuing up for Christmas. If anybody still wishes to tell us all that Labour’s plan for economic growth means the party avidly supports austerity, let us look forward to their detailed and clear explanation.

Based on current experience, we may be waiting a long time.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
clarifying why some political critics just don’t understand their subject!

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Anti-Labour campaigners, get real; supporting the OBR charter isn’t supporting austerity

150113milibandalternative

It’s amazing, the lengths to which some people will go in order to discredit someone else.

As this is being written, Twitter seems abuzz with claims that Labour has finally admitted its full support for austerity because it has supported the latest updates to the Charter for Budget Responsibility.

The charter commits the government to a goal of balancing the structural deficit by 2017-18, and to ensuring that debt is falling as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2016-17.

According to the BBC, “The Treasury says that to meet these targets a new government would have to make additional tax rises or spending cuts of around £30bn – more than Labour plans.”

But Labour has supported the targets, saying they match its plans to eradicate the current deficit “as soon as possible” in the next parliament.

That’s why, at the vote, only 18 MPs opposed the changes. Anti-Labour campaigners on Twitter hastened to flag these people up as the only anti-austerity MPs in the House – possibly because they included Green MP Caroline Lucas, and the Green campaign seems to hinge on painting Labour as a party of right-wing neoliberals.

Silly, silly people.

You see, tax rises or spending cuts are not the only options available. They never were.

What about economic expansion? Ed Balls has been trying to tell the world that Labour intends to create an expanding economy in which the UK can pay its way. Martha Kearney might have cut him off on November 10, but that didn’t stop him saying it.

Remember, this is how Labour set the UK on the road to recovery – real recovery – after World War II. We had 30 years of expansion before Margaret Thatcher and her stupid, selfish neoliberals messed it up for 30 pieces of silver.

It cannot be by chance that Ed Miliband referred to that success in his New Year message.

Link this expansionary economic strategy with other plans, such as those for progressive taxation – ensuring that those who can pay, do pay – and suddenly we’re not looking at austerity at all.

Labour will stick to spending plans for 2015-16 because it would take a while to release the UK government from existing contracts. But that isn’t proof of a commitment to austerity either.

The difference is huge. In the BBC article, Institute for Fiscal Studies director Paul Johnson said “Under the Autumn Statement plans, Conservatives could be cutting unprotected budgets by 26% after 2015-16 – or an extraordinary 41% over the period from 2010.

“Labour would need to implement cuts of just three per cent.” And that’s without the benefit of an expanding economy.

The cynics and manipulators have their own agenda – and it’s not about helping you.

So let’s not rush, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, to believe them.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
bringing you the best political analysis.

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Badger cull expansion is abandoned

The government has abandoned its planned expansion of badger culling to reduce TB in cattle, according to a BBC report. Let us hope Brian May is delighted.

“The environment department’s original plan was to announce up to 10 new cull areas in South West England each year,” the report states.

“Defra’s own independent assessment shows that culls in two pilot areas were not effective, and raised questions about their humaneness.”

But it wasn’t all good news: “These pilot culls will continue, though there will be no independent oversight to assess their future performance.

“In a Commons statement, the Environment Secretary Owen Paterson proposed a programme of vaccination around the edges of the most badly affected parts of the country.

“This, he said, would create a buffer zone of immunity that would stop the disease from spreading.”

Wasn’t that what the experts wanted in the first place?

The rest of the report is here.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political supports kindness to animals
… but we need YOUR help.
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook