NHS, Council Workers and Teachers to shoulder the blame for Tory Mismanagement of the economy.

 

The Government announced that Public-sector pay rises are set to remain below inflation until price rises come under control, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warning against easing off in the fight against inflation and Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey suggesting policymakers will continue to keep interest rates high.

The IMF said the UK is likely to have a larger increase in public debt than some other large economies because it is "contemplating further increases in public wages and other social spending". It added that the impact of government wage hikes on private wages and consumer price inflation "are significantly larger and longer-lasting when labour markets are tighter".

Meanwhile, Treasury officials have warned Chancellor Jeremy Hunt that there is a danger of a wage-price spiral, with high public-sector pay sparking wage inflation in the private sector.

Trade Union, Labour and Co-operative Party members have spoken out about the damaging effect of families and businesses outside of the capital suffering when so many people are having to shoulder the blame for the Conservative Governments mismanagement of the economy.

The mess is currently being highlighted with headlines outlining the waste by Matt Hancock’s department who couldn’t specify the PPE the nation required correctly topping £3.7Bn with over £1Bn of plastic goods burned with the residue damaging the environment, the PM being ferried around the country in planes and helicopters when the same Government are preaching that people need to get rid of their private cars and buy bikes shows just how distant the Conservatives at all levels are from the reality on the ground which affects public sector workers badly.

Without the support of public sector workers the Conservatives will fare badly at the forthcoming local government elections next month even with their democratically damaging ID scheme in place.

The BIG ISSUE cutting ministers off from spending on their portfolios is wrecking Britain?

 The centralisation of public spend in the UK has been in the hands of very few people for the last 14 years, Ministers and powerful secretaries of state right through the Austerity years had control of the cuts they doled out onto local government bodies and society in general until Boris Johnson PM was replaced in office by Rishi Sunak and his sidekick Jeremy Hunt.

Hunt immediately began to ensure his sweaty palms touched every bit of the Nation's lifestyle and spending ability, cutting off ministries from spending unless  ministers and secretaries of state crawled towards his feet to seek the info on how much they can spend. Total control exists and some ministries have organised pen and pencil amnesties to help their dire situations.

Michael Gove MP found himself in charge of Housing along with other issues of great importance as the state is dragged into a doldrum situation with an estimated 96% of people touched by the current economic disaster we find ourselves in as well as the abysmal handling of a not free for most, free market economy from the Government.

Housing, having a safe and secure shelter over the heads of you and your family is the biggest issue in everyone's life. But the economic disaster this Government presides over has increased the rent Landlords charge, forced up construction costs and forced many developers who may deliver ‘affordable homes’ to bring their building sites to a grinding halt as mortgages are forced up in an attempt to slow runaway inflation.

Michael Gove is fully aware of the need to develop ever more Council and Social Housing and has said so publicly on a number of occasions. But Free-Marketeer Chancellor Hunt had knocked back his requests in favour of a stagnant housing market that will halt the dive in property values caused through his Governments Members of Parliament being unable to control the actions of the money markets once Liz Truss the person the current prime minister Rishi Sunak came second to in a vote of Conservative party members.

Currently (31 March 2023)* 307 Local Authorities in England have a responsibility towards Housing. Some have tried to palm off that responsibility to Housing Associations and arms length management companies but the ultimate responsibility lies with those Councils.

In an attempt to steal the news before the 2023 local government elections Michael Gove has persuaded Chancellor Hunt to allow Councils to retain ‘right to buy’ receipts for the next two years allowing them to build new social housing with the cash.

His estimate is that Councils should be able to build 4000 homes using that cash within the specified time period.gifting each Council with the responsibility for housing the opportunity to develop 13 new homes each for the communities which cover the whole of England.

Michael Gove's own think tank, Bright Blue for which he writes regularly issued a major report last week:

The Rt Hon Michael Gove, Secretary of State, commented:

“Every single person in this country, no matter where they are from, what they do or how much money they earn, deserves to live in a home that is decent, safe, secure and affordable. Along with the campaigners and political colleagues who have contributed to this thoughtful collection of essays, I am more committed than ever to building a modern, radical and successful conservative housing policy that works for everyone, whether they rent or own.”

It's an element of Bright Blue's long term plan to develop social housing in high enough numbers to resolve many problems that society faces today suggests that the Government needs Councils and their partners to build 90,000 social houses each year. Its thought 1,000,000 new social homes could actually help society enormously.

The problem that we have is that those who control top politicians are blind to the needs of the majority of their constituents and sit in the belief that people will be happy to serve the 1% of top earners and it doesn’t matter how badly they are treated by society but liberal conservatives like Michael Gove have come to realise that an out of kilter free market economy run to make the rich richer is not what most Conservatives want but unfortunately with people like Hunt and Sunak holding the reins nothing is ever going to change unless people get interested and vote against them in high enough numbers.

It's up to Labour to shout about photo ID and postal voting, as polls show Tory ideas to cut off those they’ve damaged and broken through national mismanagement are now cut off from democracy.

 

The electoral reform society has been commenting on the Government plans to cut millions of voters out of their right to vote by introducing voter ID at polling stations from May 2023 they have labelled this change to how people vote as an expensive distraction.

Its estimated that this abysmal attack on people who don’t keep a weather eye on background politics will cost the nation £18,000,000 to administer annually with Council tax payers having to pick up the bill

It's also expected that the chaos that this will cause at polling stations will deter those who do have ID to turn away when they see the size of the queues leaving only those with a postal ballot to have the real ability to affect the national political scene.

Labour canvassers who are out and about in Conservative run Council areas have noted that the Conservatives canvassers when door knocking have kept this change secret from those who say they are voting for other parties or the don’t know/won’t say residents they come across and in many conservative led councils only national advertising is appearing on their websites and social media and is being hidden among all of the other garbage.

It's reported that People have difficulty knowing whether the information they read online is reliable or not. There is a great deal of suspicion regarding both political content online and political campaigning material. But it's known that over one third of people do not yet know that voter ID is required at polling stations.

Labour’s Angela Rayner said the statistics indicated the voter ID scheme would “lock people out of democracy”. The deputy Labour leader said: “This shocking data lifts the lid on the damaging impact the policy could have for marginalised voters.”

She is quite right but the scheme is designed to keep the Tories in office for as long as possible and even though descriptions of tactical voting in Labour’s favour in Scotland have been run out recently on the BBC following the result of the SNP leadership ballot unless Labour candidates and Councillors nationally stop limiting their use of social media then its up to the Labour leadership tp begin to hit the ground running and promote postal voting from the highest level otherwise the majority will be disenfranchised from democracy in future and Labour will still sit top of the public polls with no power where it matters.

Just dump more costs onto Council Taxpayers as Government Grants Slashed.

At the codgers park bench soiree this weekend we were in Astley Park at Seaton Delaval and over our flasks of tea and coffee the chat got around to the environment: and why wouldn’t it in such a lovely and pristine place?. We discussed many different topics eventually leading to the very worrying tale from one of our angling colleagues.

The charity set to look after the surroundings of our waterways, the Canal and Rivers Trust have revealed that it plans to remove most of the bins from towpaths of canals and riversides under their control across Yorkshire and the Northeast. 

The charity said it faces "soaring costs" and the move will save the trust money to pay for waterway repairs. The trust wants other agencies such as councils to become responsible for providing or maintaining bins. The charity says it spent £1.4m nationally emptying bins and clearing fly-tipping from canals in 2022.

Waste management authorities and Unitary Councils are incensed with this latest pressure on their budgets as Austerity 2 kicks in for them and a number of those Councils along with elected Mayors are demanding high level meetings with the Trust, Keep Britain Tidy, Angling organisations and Michael Gove the minister responsible for Council activity, to stop what many believe will become and environmental disaster, not only damaging banksides locally but its thought will also lead to loss of both wildlife and fish stocks.

Angling is one of the highest income earners of revenue for the Canals and Rivers Trust and this 'threatened abuse' to the waterways many people enjoy and love has been critcised heavily by their trade and organising bodies.

It’s time for Councils to move onto your high street?

With the news from the trade body Revo that at least 40% of commercial properties on the High Street will need to be ‘repurposed’ over the next few years.

Huge and costly business rates, the national trend to change to online trading from physically looking at products or seeking commercial advice face to face with shopkeepers, deepening poverty, slashing customer opportunities and higher interest rates for those with mortgages are just some of the reasons people are ignoring their local commercial and market centres.

Revo’s report; published by the Guardian newspaper includes pointers towards what some of this repurposing could be, with leisure and civic purposes being prime on their list.

Civic use of high street sites began to disappear at a quite rapid rate from 1974 with the abolition of urban and rural districts into Borough and District Councils with the sale of prime sites becoming part of many new authorities business plans. Further changes to Councils with the abandonment of tiers and the formatting of Unitary all purpose, Mets, Districts and god forbid Unitary County’s began to force Councils into taking low cost backstreet accommodation into their portfolios as affordability became more important than what's best for our community? and how do we engage with people?

With the growth and in some areas amalgamation of Parish Councils into larger units almost resembling pre 1974 rural and urban districts its time Unitary Council’s, the Police and parish & Town Councils moved back onto the high street to bring life onto the streets once more.

In Northumberland, Labour 2013-2017 set out a market towns strategy they welded into the Councils’ then core strategy to move from centralised workplaces into the communities they serve.

The Market Towns strategy was managed by the then Business Chairperson and Deputy Business Chairperson of the Council Scott Dickinson and Liz Simpson who are now the Leader and Deputy Leader of Northumberland Labour Group.

Councillor Simpson told us “ We were well aware, even before this current crisis that gaps were appearing in our high street that would not be filled by commerce and the Labour Group tried to respond early and move into or create new high street space that would house our staff across the high number of Market Towns we have in Northumberland.” “We always thought it would be good for people to be able to make constant contact with the council as close to where they live as practicably possible”.

Councillor Dickinson followed on with “ It's such a shame that the Council withdrew the Core Strategy in 2017 to support centralisation of services and replaced it with a ‘Local Plan’ that reads like a developers charter and the centralised workplace, County Hall in Morpeth has had a six year modernisation, is almost empty and is difficult for people to find. “ Northumberland Labour Party hope we can revive our Market Towns strategy in future in order to help our staff meet the people we represent on a face to face basis and it would be nice if our larger Parish Councils were able to do the same”.

Hope it happens sooner rather than later     Ed.

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