A year of Starmer What do you think?

Who?

MaizieD please tell us where your pledges came from.
When I started work in social care 43 years ago, the border dispute between Health and social care was a sticking point. It remains so. The row about whether it’s social or nursing care is frankly shocking.
No Tory government will either care or understand the issues, we need a Labour govt.
My dad had six weekly, the monthly, respite of two weeks. He was 81, mum 83 and registered partially sighted. Respite essential to maintain both of them at home (with two, three times daily visits from daughters). Dad paid considerably more than residents whose fees were covered by social services. Exactly the same excellent care but dad who’d worked from age 14-65 paid for his care, at a considerably higher fee than those whose care was state funded.

labourlist.org/2021/04/watch-starmer-pays-tribute-to-nhs-in-labour-party-election-broadcast/

Come on Keir, we are all in favour of the NHS. It does not give us a reason to vote for your party.

Here is a much better party political broadcast.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000t27p/party-political-broadcasts-liberal-democrats-10032021

Oh I agree.

But it should have been seen as essential for children to do homework, for the lonely to be able to make contact, for everyone to be able to do all the things that everyone on GN presumably takes for granted - which is what Corbyn wanted. Johnson hijacking the idea mid-pandemic seems cynical to me.

Doodledog I suspect that the people working from home already have broadband - the majority of those would be unable to work without it. Where it is needed are the poorer families who can't afford. Those who need "levelling up" as the PM calls it.

Johnson has talked about getting broadband out to everyone, though. Presumably he is more motivated by the fact that people working from home are not going to be productive without it, whereas JC's motivation was equalising opportunity, but all the same, it is another policy that was ridiculed when Labour wanted it, but is now being hijacked by the Tories.

Before the last GE several of Labour's policies were put to some focus groups who were not informed which party's policies they were. In general they received high approval, until the groups were told they were LP at which point there was a lot of backtracking.

I thought that the LP's policies were good, until JC started talking about free broadband for everyone and one or two others of the policies announced just before the GE.

Johnson has highjacked some of the policies from the other parties, such as green renewal but of course Joe/Jane Public doesn't realise this.

The Benefits system has never been very coherent. Even when the great reforms happened after WWII it was a hotchpotch of free rights (education), allowances (Family) and insurances (NI and the Health Act). Since then it has been added to, partly changed and constantly attacked - most noticably under Thatcher.

Sorry growstuff, it wasn't - we cross-posted.

What are "universal basic services"?

I suspect most people don't actually realise how low income has to be to qualify for benefits.

Doodledog I think it probably isn't, but if that's an answer to my query about integrated care systems, it doesn't really help me understand.

I agree with you about the JAMs, by the way.

An example is when I had a heart attack. I was in a hospital about 40 miles from where I live. I don't have close family and hadn't discussed it with any friends at the time and had nobody to take me home when I was discharged. The hospital refused to provide me with any transport, which it would have done if I'd been on any benefits. A 40 mile taxi ride is not cheap!

I suspect the "self-employment" scheme is related to Covid lockdowns, during which over 3 million self-employed have received either no or very little help, which contrasts to the help given to the employed.

I think people are probably less concerned about who provides the care than about who is expected to pay for it.

A local NHS unit near me closed recently, and patients who used to go there for rehab after things like falls and strokes are now expected to pay for social care in homes if they have no-one to help them in the house. Yet again, this means nothing to the rich, the poor get it free, and the JAM in the sandwich end up paying until they are no better off than if they had no (or very few) savings.

BTW What's wrong with integrated care systems?

The most hard-left policy in there is "bringing the banking and financial system into democratic public control".

That won't happen.

The ‘what is left wing’ perception is obviously different for different people, but I think generally the public are cynical of being over-promised to. For example, a minimum wage which is more than 1.5 times the current will be looked on with suspicion. I think many would view writing off national debt and giving asylum to climate refugees as left wing policies too.

Speaking personally, I think the Labour Party has the opportunity to get it right on the NHS and sell that vision to the public, but political dogma within the party had overtaken the reality of the situation facing the NHS and social care, particularly in primary care. What’s happening in Wales (Moderate Labour, Corbyn style Labour never fitted with the political leadership here) is much more akin to the way services should work together in my opinion. I don’t think many understand what integrated care is, but if they needed it they would want it, and there’s a huge difference with it being provided though a not for profit social enterprise and by a profit making organisation.

Ilovecheese

I don't recognise where the policies above come from. Are we going to find out today?

Only if you play nicely

I didn't give the source because I thought that might immediately create a bias.

Ilovecheese

Doodledog Where would you class :
Stay at home mothers/fathers ( I don't mean both, but either mother or father) of young children?
Stay at home parents of disabled children whether young or adult?
People who don't work because they are carers for elderly or disabled family members?

These people, in my opinion save the state a fortune and are doing very valuable, but unpaid, work. They deserve a pension as much as anybody.

I am not a political theorist (far from it!), and was speaking in principle, but it could be possible to build in 'payment holidays' for parents and carers.

A radical overhaul of a system would need a lot of fine-tuning, and this sort of thing would be one of the areas that would need to be looked at in detail, where the devil usually resides.

I don't recognise where the policies above come from. Are we going to find out today?

Doodledog Where would you class :
Stay at home mothers/fathers ( I don't mean both, but either mother or father) of young children?
Stay at home parents of disabled children whether young or adult?
People who don't work because they are carers for elderly or disabled family members?

These people, in my opinion save the state a fortune and are doing very valuable, but unpaid, work. They deserve a pension as much as anybody.

I think your post of 14.35 is really interesting, Doodledog and I think it could start a whole new and different discussion on the role of the 'state' and its relationship with its citizens.

Dinahmo

MaizieD None of them should scare the voters although many will see some of them as extreme left. For me, they are centre or slightly left of. Nothing to be scared by and everything to be approved of. Much much better than anything the current govt is actually doing.

This is what I am trying to do, Dinahmo; I'm trying to tease out just what 'hard left' actually means.

Though I have to say that the folk who are keen on throwing that phrase into the conversation tend to disappear a bit sharpish when asked to explain just what it means and how one would recognise a 'hard left' policy.

I get an inkling from Casdon's response, but I just wondered if rating the degree of 'leftiness' these policies represented would make it any more clear for me.

For myself, I think I'm just another wishy washy white liberal, but I could be entirely mistaken...

PippaZ

All that does is raise more question in my mind, Maisie. One I keep asking (not the right people - obviously) but is it right that we are taxed individually but any benefit is worked out by household? It may be - I don't know but it seems unbalanced.

I am someone who has more questions than answers, sadly.

I believe that we should be taxed individually, and treated as individuals for benefits.

IMO, if someone is supported by their family/husband/dog instead of making their own contribution to society, they should not expect to claim from the state because they have no money.

Equally, if someone falls on hard times and has contributed, why should they be precluded from claiming because someone else in the household is earning?

I exclude anyone who is unable to work from all of the above, incidentally - they should be covered (in their own right) by the contributions of the rest of us.

I suppose I see 'the system' in the same way as I do an insurance policy on a house. Some will need to take out more than others, which is absolutely fine, and many will pay in and be lucky enough never to need to claim. If you don't contribute to the scheme, you can't expect to be covered by it, and neither should your claim be denied because you live with someone whose circumstances are different from your own.

'From each according to ability, and to each according to need', in other words.

I am fairly sure I know where it came from.