What do the Labour party need to do to stop their slow death?

[flashbac]

I'll start:

Starmer needs to stop acting like a rabbit in the headlights and actually stand for something. He has no charisma or gravitas. We want someone with a personality. Stand for something Starmer!

Stop pandering to the 'red wall'. Inspire people to vote for the party with some good policies instead of flip flopping about.

Have some inspiring and uplifting policies like:

• Free childcare for working parents
• making public transport normal and affordable
• subsidised green energy initiatives to help householders lower energy bills eg solar panels etc

And they NEED to distance themselves from that anti science TWAW stance. I'm all for being kind but a blanket dilution of what 'woman' means is regressive.

Yeah I don't see the same level of energy / charisma in him

@Blackberrycream

The USA do have property/ land tax but it is not a good advertisement for it. It leads to social segregation as people are forced out of areas rising in value. New York is a city for the rich now. It means the rich/ middle classes live very separately from the poor. This is a good example though of the problem with Labour right now. There seems to be huge enthusiasm in some quarters for taxation as some kind of punitive measure. I have seen it on many threads here with the bile directed at pensioners and their homes. It is not appealing to many. There also seems to be huge faith in the idea that higher taxes will fix the problems in the NHS and education. Most see that the problems are more complex. Some of the problems involve funding but without fixing other issues it will not give us a Canadian health care system. It certainly wouldn’t fix many of the issues with our education system. Taxation should be simple and easy to collect. It should also be mainly income based ( including inheritance which is a form of income). Anything else is an attack on lifestyle and choices. Some save, some spend. Getting rid of allowances/ loopholes would be a good start. Percentages on all income should be aligned with income tax ( share dividends etc. and capital gains). I believe this is under discussion as it is a clear discrepancy.

I mostly agree, but would also extend NIC to "all" income too. It's grossly unfair that NIC is only paid by "workers" and not by those living on other forms of income, such as buy to let, investments, pensions, etc.

@Bluethrough Labour were last in power 11 years ago.... when will tory supporters start taking responsibility for their own Govt's failing?

Blair and Brown spent their 13 years in power blaming the Tories for everything!

user1497207191

If you raise the NIC and make it applicable on btl income won’t that just make rents go up accordingly.

@Bythemillpond

user1497207191

If you raise the NIC and make it applicable on btl income won’t that just make rents go up accordingly.

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on basic economics of supply and demand. Landlords would already charge higher rents if the market would stand it.

You could apply the same argument to businesses - NIC on wages has probably increased inflation of shop goods, manufactured goods, etc., and may well have contributed to so much being made in third world countries where wages are much lower and higher unemployment in the UK.

But money has to come from somewhere to pay for public services and tax NEEDS to be fair to all taxpayers. Brown/Blair put up NICs without putting up other taxes so that was definitely not fair to workers, the only group who pay NIC.

I don’t think there is any maybe maybe not about it.
Look what happened when tge took away mortgage interest tax relief.
Rentals went up. Even those that didn’t have a mortgage saw the rents increasing and raised their own rents to keep in line with the market

I think it is very naive to think making a landlord pay more isn’t going to make renting more expensive

Tbh over the past 5 years we as a family have had more and more involvement with the NHS
I think you could throw all the money in the world at it and it would still be failing.
The problems are with the ridiculous systems that it has in place that no one is willing to change because it’s what they have always done
Just on very basic stuff we have noticed would save enough money to make a serious indent in their costs.

The only solution for Labour is time.

By 2029 I can definitely see a programme of environmentalism, electoral reform, investment in social housing, rejoining the single Market, investment in public services, having a strong appeal. I'd have David Lammy as leader and build towards that.

As we see from this thread and basically any other online argument about "what Labour should do" the coalition is simply too diverse, everyone wants Labour to "speak for them" but in doing so it alienates a large part of its vote base. The only other answer is to be very bland, which doesn't really work.

So focus NOW on holding on to the coming majority and developing the policies that will appeal. Stop being so sentimental about regaining the Red Wall - that isn't where the future majority lies.

@Bythemillpond

Tbh over the past 5 years we as a family have had more and more involvement with the NHS I think you could throw all the money in the world at it and it would still be failing. The problems are with the ridiculous systems that it has in place that no one is willing to change because it’s what they have always done Just on very basic stuff we have noticed would save enough money to make a serious indent in their costs.

Can you give some examples on the basic cost-savers everyone's missing out on?

@Bythemillpond

Tbh over the past 5 years we as a family have had more and more involvement with the NHS I think you could throw all the money in the world at it and it would still be failing. The problems are with the ridiculous systems that it has in place that no one is willing to change because it’s what they have always done Just on very basic stuff we have noticed would save enough money to make a serious indent in their costs.

I agree. Blair/Brown TREBLED spending on the NHS and it still wasn't enough because most of that increase was wasted. As it stands, the NHS is a leaky bucket and no matter how much is thrown at it, without proper reform, most of the extra would be lost in waste and inefficiency.

Too many NHS staff just don't care about the money. I've seen it first hand with my OH who is in the middle of chemotherapy, He has, literally, a cupboard full of drugs he doesn't need. Every month he gets another sackload of drugs, most of which are "just in case", i.e. "just in case" he gets stomach upsets, "just in case" he gets diarrhoea, "just in case" he gets constipated. He keeps telling them he doesn't need them and already has them from previous months, but they just can't be bothered to change it.

The worst are the "proper" chemo drugs. He has one that's about £200 per tablet and another that's a whopping £2,000 per tablet. Every month, the consultant changes the dose, but changes it AFTER the prescription has been issued, so these expensive drugs can be cast aside and replaced with another expensive drug of a different dose just a couple of days later. It's madness but the consultant doesn't seem to care. She's happy to issue a second prescription rather than do her review a couple of days earlier to avoid the duplication and wasted drugs/money.

Throwing ever increasing money at the NHS just facilitates such stupidity and carelessness and isn't the answer.

User149 gosh that’s shocking.
I think there is a charity which will take unused medicine - unopened and in date, obvs, - it might be worth looking into that.
I’ll have a look on google.

Ok, I’ve had a look and there are several.
There’s one called Intercare which distributes medicine and medical equipment in Africa. Maybe your OH’s unused medicine could find a home there.
Maybe someone on mn knows of a charity?

I'd have to agree with the waste in the NHS point. I've also seen it first hand. I'd like to see investment in a 'Waste Tsar' before I'd be happy to pay more for it. But we also have to be careful the argument isn't used to justify privatisation.

I agree the amount of waste in the NHS is huge. Most of it is down to rigid procurement rules where things like stationery and light bulbs can only be purchased from one supplier at roughly 10 times the normal price. Fraud is a big problem. Waste of prescription drugs, like pp mentioned, cupboards full of repeat prescriptions in (mostly elderly) people's houses that nobody has reviewed. When my elderly neighbour died we cleared dozens and dozens of boxes of medicines, all unopened. staff are careless about wasting things too - because it is "free".
The majority of the spending increase in the NHS under Tony Blair was due to his infamous PFI initiative and we are still paying off those debts today.
Income from BTL is taxed and there are very few allowances that can be claimed. Inheritance tax is around 40%.

@Porridgecake

I agree the amount of waste in the NHS is huge. Most of it is down to rigid procurement rules where things like stationery and light bulbs can only be purchased from one supplier at roughly 10 times the normal price. Fraud is a big problem. Waste of prescription drugs, like pp mentioned, cupboards full of repeat prescriptions in (mostly elderly) people's houses that nobody has reviewed. When my elderly neighbour died we cleared dozens and dozens of boxes of medicines, all unopened. staff are careless about wasting things too - because it is "free". The majority of the spending increase in the NHS under Tony Blair was due to his infamous PFI initiative and we are still paying off those debts today. Income from BTL is taxed and there are very few allowances that can be claimed. Inheritance tax is around 40%.

You ve zero evidence for any of that, kings fund study into global health systems puts the NHS very high on efficiency, low on outcomes (pre CV) and as can be seen with the vaccine rollout and how a underfunded service responded, the NHS is pretty flexible too, it just needs the money european heath has traditionlly got.

As for PFI, without it, borrowing would have shot up massively or most likely, we'd not have had any new hospitals built in the last 25 years.

Anyway, most of Blairs spending didn't go on PFI as it was future debt - it want on staff wages & recruitment.

I want to see what Hancock is going to do about 4 to 5 year waiting lists?

Can you give some examples on the basic cost-savers everyone's missing out on?

How about the moving of responsibility for Public Health to LAs for starters? They don't have the expertise in house at councils to provide the health services which fall within the PH remit so have large commissioning teams to put tenders out for these services and monitor the resulting service. The NHS (which previously provided these services anyway) has to submit bids, which is a huge financial and time burden on the NHS.
Then, once an NHS organisation has won the bid, there an absolute industry in providing data to LAs simply to prove that the required services are being provided. Endless detailed information has to be submitted by the NHS regarding the minutiae of the service, just because...well, just because. Meanwhile, highly trained NHS staff spend their time submitting bids and providing data to commissioners when they could actually be managing or delivering a service, rather than having to spend ages debating whether a patient who turns up late for their appointment should be listed in the 'missed target' KPI column because they weren't seen on time.

The problem with Blair's spending was there was no control on it. I worked for one NHS organisation (non patient facing) which wasted hundreds of thousands, and probably millions during that time. There was an entire organisation awayday at a vineyard, camera crews were hired to interview staff to make as video of how wonderful working for the organisation was. Senior staff were allowed to take voluntary redundancy (with an extremely generous payout) and immediately return as 'consultants' earning even more.

A private company was used to water and care for the plants in the offices, we could book events and conferences at the most expensive hotels around. When one colleague didn't want to drive to a conference, she flew instead. Staff stayed at Malmaison and Hyatt hotels for meetings.

The DH provided additional funding (hundreds of thousands) for a project, and when asked what they required from organisations to evidence outcomes to show the money had been appropriately spent, the answer was 'nothing'. I've worked in the NHS almost all my adult life and I've never known anything like it. It was sickening

All repeat prescriptions are regularly reviewed now and you can't be prescribed more than 4 weeks medication at a time. As someone with long term health conditions I find it a royal pain but it's certainly not the case that unused medications continue being prescribed unmonitored anymore.

Repeat prescriptions might be reviewed. That doesn’t mean anything.

Dh is on long term medication. He has 2 types of medication. Type A which he probably needs 4 boxes every 4 weeks and only 1 box of type B every 4 weeks.

Every month he gets 3-4 boxes of medication A and 4-6 boxes of medication B
He has taken to giving the boxes of medication B back at the counter of the pharmacy. They then get annoyed as they then throw 3-5 boxes of perfectly good medication away. Apparently once it has been handed to the customer then it can’t be returned.

He has told everyone who will listen that when he orders his medicine he only need one box of type B but no one takes any notice.

@Bythemillpond

then why haven't you both spoken to the Pharmacist/GP to change his prescription?

Or return the unused meds before leaving the pharmacy? i certainly wouldn't want meds that had been taken off site & then returned.

45billion of NHS spending is on wages, 9 billion on GP meds.

By far the largest waste in the NHS is failing to treat people before they become an emergency or worse, people in great pain, on extra drugs for pain relief, unable to work, waiting years to be treated.

jasjas1973

Bythemillpond

then why haven't you both spoken to the Pharmacist/GP to change his prescription?
Or return the unused meds before leaving the pharmacy? i certainly wouldn't want meds that had been taken off site & then returned

Do you not think we haven’t done all of that

We don’t take the boxes off site we hand them back to the pharmacist. They still end up in the bin.

@Bythemillpond

jasjas1973

Bythemillpond

then why haven't you both spoken to the Pharmacist/GP to change his prescription?
Or return the unused meds before leaving the pharmacy? i certainly wouldn't want meds that had been taken off site & then returned

Do you not think we haven’t done all of that

We don’t take the boxes off site we hand them back to the pharmacist. They still end up in the bin.

I've had exactly the same thing happen time after time. The drug I kept returning was a controlled drug which I'd repeatedly asked the surgery not to dispense. It's so frustrating isn't it.

WellIfYouInsist
People keep saying that the NHS needs more money. What I don’t think people can get their heads around is the sheer amount of money the NHS wastes.

I reckon I have cost the NHS around £250,000 because they refused to send me for a £300 MRI and instead I had consultants appointments, physio appointments every week for 7 years whilst they tried to figure out what was wrong with me.
I ended up going to a private osteopath who diagnosed me within 10 minutes and a £300 MRI confirmed it. I then had physio that was relevant and I got better.
It was either go private or take a load of pills to stop the agony I was in permanently
It wrecked my life. Couldn’t work as I was in too much pain.

Then there is the appointment letters that are typed up and sent out after the appointment date.
CAHMS in our area had over 15,000 missed appointments per month the last time I was in the building.
I could go on and on about the NHS wastage from little things that cost pence but are done on a huge scale day after to day to larger issues.

@Bythemillpond
Totally agree you could throw money at the NHS all day long and it would not fix it .
The waste in the NHS is eye watering .
To fix the NHS you need to complete restrucher it and get all it's process polished up .
People need to make better lifestyle choices and take PERSONAL responibilty for there health

The honey- council tax is about service use so it makes sense for the occupier rather than the owner to pay it. If the owner has to pay it the cost would be passed on to the tenant via a rent increase anyway.