Opinion: The NHS Reforms, How Do We Get Young People To Care?

by
Duncan Bruce (@duncanqbruce) and Gaby Davies (@binarysolo)

"The NHS will last as long as there are folks left with the faith to fight for it", so said Nye Bevan, but from a young person's point of view, why should we care about the NHS reforms? It's a serious question, and one that we encounter almost every time we canvass a student household or talk to a young person about the bill.  We begin talking the NHS from the prepared briefing sheet, and watch as their eyes begin to glaze over, clearly thinking "I don't care" or "When will this person leave?"

So why do we fail to connect? Partially it's to do with terminology; let's face it, when you talk about PCTs, Strategic Health Authorities and GP Consortiums you may as well be speaking Klingon for all most people care.  Another reason why the NHS tends not to be a key topic for young people is that most of them haven't yet had the need to use it seriously. They haven't started families yet, or have frail parents that need medical care, so the NHS seems like a distant service that many take for granted and presume will just be there waiting when they need to use it.

Of course the irony is that the proposed changes to the NHS may impact on young people more than others. It will be young people who have to deal with the new competition in the NHS, and it will be young people who discover that while the coalition government is claiming that "choice" is the main aim of the new system, in the end, the decisions made by hospitals under the new privatisation plans will simply boil down to which provider is cheaper.

Young people may find it hard to care if they haven't relied on the NHS before, but the majority of them will discover just how important it is in the future. If the reforms happen, it will lead to the NHS becoming a free market with profit prioritised over patient care. The bill is dangerous; the start of a slippery slope to total privatisation, and it is also, at a time when every penny of public funds is precious, a waste of money.

So how can we make young people more aware of the changes to the NHS? And more importantly, how can we inspire them to get involved with the campaigns and to take a stand against these changes? Take a look at this:

Can you imagine anything more confusing? It looks like a technical readout from the Death Star rather than a workflow. If we are going to get students and young people engaged with these issues then we need to break the NHS reforms down to a much more simple level. This is not because young people can't understand them but because they will more often than not want clear and concise facts and none of the traditional party political rhetoric.

So here are three tips for canvassers to follow when talking to young people or students"

1) No talk about the "reforms". The word might also be used to refer to welcome efficiency improvements rather than these destructive proposals, so the term 'privatisation' might better represent the NHS bill. Also, don't use a confusing graphic like the one above.

2) Break it down for them simply - most will what to know core facts; what the bill does and why people are against it - but don't be condescending.

3) Play down Labour - when you say 'Labour are against it' most will simply think Labour are against it because the Tories and the Liberal Democrats are for it, instead be clear about the reasons for the Labour Party's opposition and mention that respected NHS organisations are also against it, such as The British Medical Association (BMA), The Royal College of Nurses, The Royal College of Paediatrics, The Royal College of Practitioners, and so on.

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Opinion: The Labour Difference In Reading

by Cllr Rachel Eden (@racheleden)

Last night we took more than 10% - 12.6 MILLION out of the council's budget. That followed on from the previous year's cuts of £19 million (according to last year's Conservative press release), so decisions were always going to be painful - We might have expected so unpalatable decisions and the opposition groups lining up to attack our budget, that's what happened last year with a budget which was described as 'cutting everything but the grass'.

Instead I woke up this morning to hear that according to BBC Berkshire, we and Labour-controlled Slough had frozen council tax, protected frontline services through back office savings and made 'the usual' increases in other fees. What a contrast to the Conservative-run councils that surround us.

In fact I was shocked that the most contentious issue of the debate appeared to be a disagreement between the two smallest parties about whether or not an extra dog warden would solve the issue of dog fouling.

So what is the Labour difference?

The Conservatives believe that 'Conservative polices are working' - tell that to the library users in Tory-run Oxfordshire, elderly people in West Berkshire, or young people in Bracknell (and don't get me started on Wokingham). The whole group spent their speeches talking about what dull accountants like me think of as the 'top half' of the budget - the income, how pleased they were that council tax was being frozen and that purely based on that they would support our budget. Well yes, your income matters but it also matters what you do with that money, last year's Conservative budget and the Conservative budgets from around the 'Royal County' and elsewhere showed what happens if you just look at the top half and the kind of decisions you end up with. Labour in contrast has agonised about each and every cost and saving - working together as a cabinet to protect services.

The LibDems showed what they like to think of as 'flexibility' and voted with 'any party' that would give them a small item off their wish list, in this case oddly enough a key request was a reversal of their own previous year's cut in the graffiti team! I think it's clear that the LibDems are increasingly an irrelevance in Reading and hardly work the effort of voting for, if you want a champion for your local area or a real say in how decision are taken it's got to be Labour.

The Greens proposed we increase council tax by approximately £45 for the average household only to hand over about £30 of it the government for no benefit. They had no particular proposal of what to do with the remaining cash, which would be less that £700,000 when we were saving £12,600,000.  This is gesture politics at its most pointless made more problematic by comments made before the meeting so misleading that the non-partisan Director of Education and Children's services took the unusual step of writing an open letter to him correcting his factual accuracy. The residents of Park ward deserve better than this.

Only Labour is standing up for Reading, keeping our promises (remember the Green bin tax?) and put the needs of our whole community before politics.

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Cllr Rachel Eden is Lead Councillor for Housing and Neighbourhoods on Reading Borough Council. This blog post was re-produced in an edited form with her permission, if you'd like to read the full blog post please visit http://www.racheleden.blogspot.com

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Press Release: Working Tax Credits cuts this April will cost 450 Reading families £4000 a year

Labour Women's Officer, Park candidate and Reading Young Labour executive member, Rachael Chrisp says that 450 families with children in part-time work in the two Reading constituencies are set to lose around £4,000 a year from April 2012.

They are among more 212,000 families nationally, earning less that £17,700 a year who will lose all of their Working Tax Credits unless they can increase their working hours for a minimum of 16 hours a week to 24 hours a week. Between them those families have almost half-a-million children.

Rachael Chrisp says: 'The Tory-led Government has been raising taxes and cutting spending too far and too fast. Unemployment is rising and the economy is going in reverse: nineteen out of every twenty employers are cutting people's hours, not increasing them.  And from April, 450 Reading households, with 900 children, will be losing almost £4,000 a year, or £75 a week".

"It tells you everything you need to know about David Cameron and George Osbourne that, while the banks are getting a tax cut this year, and the bankers are getting bonuses, their Government is making life harder for parents in the squeezed middle who are working and trying to do the right thing. As we've been saying, this financial crisis was created by the bankers, and is being paid for by women and children".

ENDS.

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Opinion: LGBT History Month, Same-Sex Marriage and the Conservatives

by Duncan Bruce (@duncanqbruce)

As many may know its LGBT history month, a chance to reflect on the often too difficult journey equality has taken in Britain but also celebrate the achievements made in the last 15 years.  I don't think many would argue that  LGBT rights took a leap forward in Labour's 13 years of power with the introduction of adoption for LGBT couples and civil partnerships; but Labour left power in 2010 with still much to do and recent press seems to suggest that the Conservatives are not as keen to push forward LGBT rights as Labour were.

Plans by the coalition to bring forward legislation to allow same-sex marriage were first put in doubt when, in an article in The Independent, Conservative MP David Burrowes indicated that he was 'cautiously optimistic' of a defeat for the government and insisted that there was a 'Strong opposition to gay marriage across the Conservative Party spectrum'.  Since then its been reported that several Conservative MPs have written to David Cameron asking him to drop the bill as it will damage the 'sanctity of marriage'.

How Reading's two Conservative MPs will vote when the time comes is hard to say, certainly in the past Reading East MP, Rob Wilson has not been particularly pro-LGBT rights, voting against the 2007 Equalities Act.  Maybe its because I am young, but I really can't understand why the Conservative's can't support the issue of same-sex marriage, we live in a world where the marriage rate is on a decline and the number of divorces are on the rise, if two people, no matter what sex what to spend the rest of there lives together and are willing to make a commitment in terms of marriage we should be celebrating it, not suggesting that it would be damaging.

The coalition's position on LGBT rights has been further muddied today (19th February 2012) by the announcement by Michael Gove that it is okay for faith-based schools to use text books which contain homophobic discrimination. Personally I was raised Catholic, and still consider myself to be one, but I want my government to take a firm position that discrimination is not acceptable in any form in any school in this country; it can never be acceptable for young people who may be gay to feel that they are abnormal or deficient because they happen to attend a faith-based school.

Both Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg have indicated that they support same-sex marriage but neither have made comments on the issue of homophobic textbooks largely due to the story only breaking this weekend, David Cameron has indicated he will put legislation forward to allow same-sex marriage but hasn't yet indicated whether he will make it a 3-line whip or whether it will be a free vote allowing Conservative MPs to vote how they choose.  For me this could be a decisive moment for the Conservative Party, they are burdened by the past and seen as out of touch, Cameron throughout the 2010 election desperately tried to distance himself from the party of Thatcher and insularism, if he cannot move his party forward into the twenty-first century and accept that half the country supports both same-sex marriage and LGBT rights then the Conservatives will crumble into parody of themselves.

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Opinion: What exactly is the Minister for Women and Equalities doing?

by Gaby Davies (@BinarySolo)

With unemployment at a 17 year record of 2.67 million, it's clear that the coalition government is failing in its plan to create more jobs, especially for the thousands of young people who are unable to find employment after leaving school or university. The fact that the government is trying to fund these problems with empty apprenticeships instead of taxing bankers' bonuses shows just how out of touch they really are. Long term youth unemployment doubled in the last year, and it's abundantly clear that unless the coalition government gives up on its Welfare to Work programme and starts to create real solutions, this generation will be scarred by joblessness.

However, it's the women of Britain who are being hit hardest by unemployment; they represent two-thirds of the increase and eighty per cent of the 710,000 public sector workers about to be made redundant. It was announced on Wednesday (15th February 2012) that female unemployment is at a 25 year high. Cuts are also having a huge impact on women, and the soaring price of childcare is often making it impossible for women to work.

Of course, with youth unemployment currently standing at 1.04 million, it's the young women who are really under pressure. Women who leave university with a reputable degree and the hope of entering the job market are finding that perhaps because of their lack of experience, employment is being offered to older women or men. In fact, women of a certain age can sometimes be sneakily passed up, as employers are concerned that they will soon require maternity leave, even though this is illegal.

The government must have realised that their cuts are affecting young women so badly, as David Cameron has urged departments to follow women-friendly policies. So why then is everything still so awful for women? The pay-gap looks set to widen, many women have to accept working part-time simply to stay in the employment market, and although, obviously, unemployment and cuts are affecting everyone, women are already the most vulnerable in terms of employment, and the government is doing nothing to ensure that they are not hit disproportionately hard. There are people in this government whose job it is to ensure equality. What's happening? Where (and I never thought I'd ask this) is Theresa May when you need her? Is she sitting at her desk munching Ferrero Roche and admiring her thousand pound shoes? She's certainly not doing her job as Minister for Women and Equalities.

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