|
Have you ever been to a party conference?
They’re a fan-fest for the faithful.
Earnest lobbyists, anonymous back-benchers. Ministers dodging the press… and the press… looking for embers of gossip, to fan into the wildfire of scandal and division.
Fringe events, leaflets, loonies…
… and the big set pieces that you can watch on the telly. So,why bother to go?
Last week, I watched the Lib-Dem's Ed Davies prowling a yellow stage with black stripes. At first I thought it was a hazard warning or a health and safety conference.
What did he say? Dunno… can’t remember.
This week, the Tories.
I am by no means certain Bully-Boy will take centre stage… he's turned the NHS into a political Albatros.
Junior doctors have mailed out a billet-doux inviting BMA members to jump on one of the free coaches they’ve organised. Head for Manchester, protest… cause a bit of havoc.
Apart from the fact that good people are still doing great things to keep the NHS going, there’s not much for the blue-rinse brigade to applaud.
Better he's kept quiet.
Next week, the Labour Party.
Members will be asked to believe Silly-Boy can run the billion pound business and the nation’s biggest employer, we call the NHS...
... having previously never run a whelk-stall.
Expect a ten year plan of needless reorganisation and upheaval, to distract everyone.
It’s the ‘French Drop’ of politics. Disappeared out of one hand… into the other.
They never work. If they had, we wouldn’t have had nearly a dozen reorganisations.
We know the NHS needs the ‘simple seven’;
- a period of calm, no reorganisation,
- sensible funding,
- fix the strikes,
- become a better employer,
- a common-sense approach to the management and delivery of care with the help of technologies,
- a minimum-wage guarantee for care-workers and
- ring-fenced funding for a proper social-care policy…
… then, stand back and watch; waiting lists come down, recruitment go up, approval ratings get back to where they belong.
Conferences seldom deal with tuff-stuff.
Better to set hares running… but no faster than 20mph.
Expect something on ‘red-tape’… always a crowd pleaser. Oh, yes, cutting taxes and better public services…
… I know, it can’t be done. It doesn’t matter, party conferences are fantasy land.
Tuff-stuff; how to end the war in Ukraine, the root-cause of inflation, will get wrapped in the flag. The mental health crisis will be parcelled up and passed over.
And… there’s poverty. Patrick Butler, writing in the Guardian says;
... the poorest UK families are enduring a ‘frightening’ collapse in living standards...'
The UK’s initial child poverty rate, before taking into account the effect of social security transfers is, apart from Ireland, the highest in Europe.
UK poverty levels are shameful… 13 million people, half of whom are in a working family, supported by benefits.
They can’t heat their home, pay the rent or buy essentials for the kids.
Every day, families wake up to insecurity, uncertainty, and impossible decisions about money… leading to marginalisation, discrimination, stress, overwhelming emotions… living on the edge.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation asked; where’s the political ambition to end poverty?
- Commit to less than one in ten of the population in poverty at any one time;
- and nobody lives in poverty for more than two years.
How difficult is that? They were right to ask.
Solutions:
- boost incomes and reduce costs;
- deliver an effective benefit system;
- improve education standards and raise skills;
- strengthen families and communities;
- promote long-term economic growth.
Politicians will say, ‘they are doing that’. And, in one way or another they are… but we still have poverty.
Why?
The same reason QWERTY typewriter keyboards are used on laptop computers… path dependency… the past has a strong influence on the future.
We have QWERTY politics.
Benefits are paid past the point where we if we had invested in people earlier, the benefit would be huge.
Education prepares us for more education, when so many actually need skills for life and a job.
Economic growth without the income equality that comes from access to education, skills, assets, opportunity, work and geography, just creates a circle of decline.
Families are like communities and nations, they can’t survive without a shared identity and a sense of belonging… so many don’t feel they belong.
Much of this is about authentic political leadership…
... someone who demonstrates a genuine and true expression of themselves in their leadership role.
Don’t expect much that's authentic in the next fortnight!
| 
