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Diary of a (Maybe) Retired Pastor

Tag: Labour government

  • Where’s The Outrage?

    mayberetiredpastor

    Where’s The Outrage? – Reform’s Accidental Recruiter!

    To make an apt answer is a joy to anyone,
        and a word in season, how good it is!

    The Book of Proverbs 15:23, Old Testament, The Bible.

    The appalling performance of the Labour Party in the recent local elections in England  has resulted in a serious challenge to the Prime Minister’s leadership (1). The overwhelming message from voters during the local elections was that the Labour Party had been given a huge majority in the general election in order to bring about radical change. But, instead of radical change, what the country saw was just more of the same. And the blame was pinned clearly and solely on the Prime Minister. Consequently, there is now a leadership contest in progress (albeit with glacial slowness but soon to gather speed).

    Amidst all the commentary and analysis, one aspect of Keir Starmer’s (the Prime Minister) leadership since taking over the party leadership that has not received much comment is his clear bias (I believe unintentional) in favour of the Jewish community. His outrage and anger against any antisemitic activity is clear and public. But when it comes to other communities he is strangely subdued if not silent. Most conspicuously, of course, during the war against Gaza the very cautious criticism of Israel’s actions seemed ludicrously out-of-step with the enormity of the suffering being inflicted at will by Israel. One felt that, David Lammy, as the Foreign Secretary, was chafing at the bit in parliament, longing to go much further in his criticism yet constrained by his office and the Prime Minister.

    Because he is the Prime Minister, this bias has significant consequential  effects in the country. The running political story of this parliament has been the rise of Reform. Reform follows an ancient  path to achieving political success. By focussing on dissatisfaction and anxiety in the country and offering a simple scapegoat it draws large numbers of people. Fundamentally, Reform divides the country into “them” and “us”. Inevitably, this provides a forum for racist tinged thinking, and, sometimes, explicit racist comment.  What one looks for from the government of the day, is a counter-narrative that unites rather than divides. Unfortunately, Keir Starmer’s bias serves only to divide the nation further, not only through his personal comments but through the policy actions taken by his government.

    Strong condemnation of antisemitism is right and appropriate, but so is condemnation of Islamophobia. Keir Starmer’s consistent failure to condemn rising Islamophobia with the same vigour and outrage as he does antisemitism divides the nation as corrosively as Reform’s “them” and “us” populism.  The proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation by the Home Secretary at the time when Israel was visibly intent on destroying all Gaza will only be read in one way by those who watch with horror the destruction of Muslim lives. One journalist (2) has written of Keir Starmer’s “tin ear”. The terrible irony is that his tin ear can lead only to more acts of antisemitism and greater division within society. He is Reform’s great, accidental recruiter!

    1. English Local Council elections are similar to US mid-terms in so far as they provide an opportunity for the electorate to express their evaluation of the current government’s performance.

    2. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/13/keir-starmer-uk-china-menu-prime-minister-beijing?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

  • This Labour Government Disappoints

    mayberetiredpastor

    This Labour Government Disappoints

    Where there is no prophecy, the people cast off restraint …

    Proverbs 29:18a Old Testament, The Bible.

    The timing of the government’s publication of its immigration whitepaper (proposed legislation) was clearly a response to the astonishing success of the anti-immigration Reform party in the recent English local elections. The whitepaper’s emphasis on dramatically reducing immigration and the timing of its publication clearly demonstrates a government that is reacting to populist feeling rather than seeking to shape national debate.

    Reducing the number of legal migrants can be a legitimate government policy but what is missing is any sign that the consequences are being clearly addressed. The aim is simply to reduce the numbers as rapidly as possible to some arbitrarily small number. The care sector has already loudly warned that reducing their ability to hire staff from overseas will mean closures in a sector that is already woefully inadequate for what we need as a nation. All year, the universities have been cutting courses and reducing staff as they try to plan around the major reduction in income as overseas student numbers plummet. Then, there is the growing financial burden of paying for the nation’s pensions. This currently represents around a half of the total welfare budget (1) and is only going to grow bigger as more and more people reach retirement age. And there is the NHS. Despite the increase in funding in the autumn statement, the NHS this year is planning to cut thousands of clinical staff in order to balance the books (2). Decimating the immigrant workforce means decimating the income tax paid by that workforce. How, then, are the nation’s pensions to be paid for? How, then, are we to pay for enough doctors and nurses in the NHS to stop playing catch-up? How do we replace the lost income of universities? How do we prevent closures of care homes?

    It comes down to money. After reducing the immigrant workforce is the government going to invest enough money into these sectors to induce the UK home workforce to take up these jobs or to cover the loss of income? But for the government to invest more money into these sectors taxes will have to rise. It is this conversation that the government refuses to have with the electorate. How much are we willing to pay in taxes so that we can have effective public services, good pensions, and reduce the need for immigrant workers?

    The Bible pithily points out that in the absence of prophecy a nation ends up in disarray. In the Bible, of course, prophecy is tied particularly to the wisdom and truth of God. But we do not need to specify divine inspiration to see that this applies in our time and place. Truth and wisdom, divinely inspired or not, is an important aspect of good government. Where a government will not offer truth and wisdom to a nation, particularly in debating public policy, there will be disarray. In the specific case of the UK, the choice between good public services and long term benefits for seniors and how much we are willing to pay, either directly through taxes or indirectly through immigration,  needs to be made clear and be part of the national debate. Instead, this government (as, indeed, the previous government) seems content to react to populist sentiment rather than lead national debate. The resulting national disarray as public services and benefits shrivel in the vacuum simply nurtures extreme and false sentiment. Many of us had hoped for something more worthy from a Labour government.

    1. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-information-and-guidance/benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-information-and-guidance#social-security-spending-in-the-united-kingdom-and-the-welfare-cap acc. 30.5.25
    2. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/09/nhs-hospitals-england-cuts-financial-reset

  • Wes Streeting, Please Up Your Game!

    mayberetiredpastor

    Wes Streeting, Please Up Your Game!

    The hearts of the wise make their mouths prudent, and their lips promote instruction.

    Proverbs 16:23,  The Old Testament

    We have just spent rather a lot of money on essential maintenance of our house. I knew that we needed to attend to issues that had been developing over the years. We replaced our roof a few years after we moved in and in memory it is still the “new” roof. But damp in certain spots and actual leaking during a heavy rainstorm this year convinced us that essential maintenance work was due!   Similarly, our external walls were showing signs of deterioration and some  repointing was in order. We were not prepared for the amount of work that needed to be undertaken when the builder came round and inspected the roof and walls! As we thought about it more carefully, we realised that our “new” roof was over thirty years old and that the brickwork on the house is nearing 100 years!  So, we bit the bullet and agreed to all the work. Now that the work has been done, we feel reassured that the house will be good for another 30 years and that what we pass on to the children will be worth passing on.

    Wes Streeting, the new Secretary of Health for England, has begun his term by asserting that the problems facing the National Health Service (NHS) cannot be solved by throwing money at it (1).  It’s disappointing to hear a Labour Party Secretary of State still deploying neo-liberal Conservative rhetoric when discussing the problems facing the NHS, even after a huge parliamentary majority has been won by Labour. The facts are indisputable, in every single year of the previous Conservative governments inflation adjusted spending on the NHS has been several percentage points below what is acknowledged as the stand-still spending requirement (2).

    Health economics is complex, but we can get some idea of the scale of the cumulative reduction in financial support for the NHS by the 35% pay claim of junior doctors to restore their pay levels to 2010 levels. We can reasonably assume that the overall funding deficit for the NHS must be on a similar scale. What would happen if our own household incomes shrank by a third over 15 years? Well, for one thing, the essential maintenance that my wife and I have just carried out could not be afforded and we would have increasingly significant problems with leaks and damp in our walls as the fabric of our house deteriorated.

    Which is exactly what has happened in the NHS. We know that waiting-times in the NHS are getting worse. What we may not understand is that a significant proportion of that increase is because the fabric of our hospitals is failing as timely maintenance could not be afforded (2). Power failures, leaks, unsafe buildings result in cancellation of procedures which increase waiting times. Staffing is, of course, another issue. The falling level of pay over the years means that more and more experienced staff leave for better opportunities elsewhere.  This not only means that more and more very expensive private sector (agency) staff are used to fill the gaps, but that the NHS staff body is becoming less and less experienced and can’t work at the same efficiency as the experienced staff they are replacing. And, of course, the failure to properly fund adult social care means that, at any one time, more than 10% of hospital beds are occupied by patients waiting to be discharged.

    All of this is the result of inadequate funding. What Wes Streeting would be right in saying is that increased funding will not result in an overnight fix. There is no fix that could do that. These problems cannot be resolved overnight, or even, in the lifetime of a single parliament. But increased funding is absolutely essential for any improvement at all. To pretend otherwise is simply disingenuous and following the playbook of Conservative neo-liberal-speak. Wes Streeting simply has to up his game if he’s going to make a real difference!

    1. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/27175749/wes-streeting-nhs-major-reform-labour/ acc. 17:52 28.7.24
    2. BBC News – More money and staff – so why isn’t the NHS more productive?
      https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0dmvdmmv80o  acc. 15:55 29.7.24