Is Brexit Really What Its All About Prime Minister??

Mrs May has called this snap election to, she tells us, strengthen her hand at the negotiating table with our EU soon-to-be-ex colleagues. But she already had a Parliamentary majority and, seemingly, faced very little effective opposition to anything she put forward in terms of Brexit. We got it: we were leaving, face it and man up.

But that’s not really what this election is about. Really Mrs May just wants a bigger majority to strengthen her hand in her larger aim:  she wants a smaller state. Is that what we citizens want though?

Us citizens, trying to get GP appointments, trying to ride the trains, with a seat (if we’re really lucky!), trying to get help for a loved one who needs it, trying to get a hospital appointment, or supposedly ‘non-urgent’ surgery. The Conservatives have spun us a tale that the pressure on our public services is all down to the influx of immigrants. But if you look around you, is that what you see?

What I see is the effect of cuts, to each and every one of our public services, and all in the name of Austerity. Because ‘we must reduce the deficit’! But must we, really? When so many public sector workers are telling us of the stress they are working under, that they can’t do their jobs to the standard they believe they should because colleagues are either off sick or been made redundant.  Public services are labour intensive.  To deliver a service means some person has to be there, in place, to provide it.  And yes, that does imply a wage bill to match.  Cutting the money to pay for those services means there are fewer people to provide them.  And this is then reflected in longer waits for care. And sometimes it also means a poorer level of care, too.

In the case of the NHS, capping pay has already adversely affected nurse recruitment.  Retention of existing nurses is hit, too.  I recently met a nurse who told me that she had worked for the NHS for 25 years but had had to give it up.  “I found myself in charge of a whole ward, overnight, by myself and got so worried and upset that I drove off the road on the way home one night.  I had to recognise that I couldn’t go on like that; for the sake of my family, I had to leave”.  She had two teenage daughters to support.

But for each nurse who leaves, and isn’t replaced by another full time equivalent, the NHS is forced to buy in agency nurses – who cost more.  This is having a hugely disruptive effect on hospital planning and financing.  This downward spiralling situation is not a given.  It doesn’t have to be like this.  It is a direct result of the decisions taken since 2010 in the name of Austerity and the erroneous belief that we have to ‘reduce the deficit’. The decision to shrink the State is not a financial imperative, it is one driven by dogma.  If we want to improve our public services, to ensure that they are functioning adequately when we, our neighbours, or our loved ones need them, don’t vote for Mrs May!