Would it make any difference to your demise if there were a Conservative PM? Or are you anticipating that you'll live into the reign of King William V with Labour still in Downing Street?
The 'prescription charge' should more properly be called an extra tax on people of working age who need prescription medication. It doesn't cover the full cost of the medication. It doesn't apply to everyone (pensioners, pregnant women and children are exempt). You can get exemption on medical grounds for some conditions but not others (diabetics are exempt but people with asthma are not). It's just a mess.
As a type 1 diabetic I'm very grateful for our former local mp who agitated for this particular medical exemption. My chronically ill wife had the wrong debilitating condition to qualify for a medical exemption for the best part of 20 years until succumbing to type 2 fairly recently. It's a very illogical (and probably immoral) mess.
I've been at work in 2 local primary schools in the last few days where food parcels are being prepared for families who will struggle in the holidays. That this is a necessity in 21st century England should be a cause of sorrow and outrage. The last 14 years have made it routine. The twanglets have grown up thinking that food banks are normal... lord have mercy.
Would it make any difference to your demise if there were a Conservative PM? Or are you anticipating that you'll live into the reign of King William V with Labour still in Downing Street?
We are geared up to have kings for the forseeable future. I can see myself lasting 5 years
If your longevity is linked to the continuation of the monarchy or Labour remaining in power, there will be plenty of both royalists and Labourites (and some are both, of course) willing you to become Methusalah.
It strikes me that the new government seem to have a lot of ideas that they are keen to put into practice ASAP. Some of these ideas (like housebuilding and regional devolution) they mentioned hardly at all during the election campaign. Maybe this is a canny move - say as little as possible about your manifesto before the vote and then there are fewer hostages to fortune afterwards!
It strikes me that the new government seem to have a lot of ideas that they are keen to put into practice ASAP. Some of these ideas (like housebuilding and regional devolution) they mentioned hardly at all during the election campaign. Maybe this is a canny move - say as little as possible about your manifesto before the vote and then there are fewer hostages to fortune afterwards!
I agree with the overall point but they talked about house building A LOT
With such a large change in the House of Commons, I suspect that the Select Committees, members and, importantly, chairs, will be interesting and sometimes crucial.
I am still hesitant about some of the policies of the new government but the first few days have been good. It is the long and medium term stuff that is of concern. Sticking to the Cons financial policies to some extent is worrying. The policies on the NHS also cause suspicion to rise in me.
I am still hesitant about some of the policies of the new government but the first few days have been good. It is the long and medium term stuff that is of concern. Sticking to the Cons financial policies to some extent is worrying. The policies on the NHS also cause suspicion to rise in me.
The majority of NHS staff I know are sceptical about Wes Streeting. Especially doctors. The reason I remain cautiously optimistic is because of the detail of what he has said.
For example, he has said that the NHS is not under-resourced and needs to be more efficient.
That's an horrendous thing for us to hear as we are paired to the bone. There is no more fat to trim and the last half decade of trimmings compromises the service and makes us less efficient. I can give you countless examples.
However, when challenged on that he said something far more interesting and meaningful. He said that overall the funding envelope is not going to increase by much. OK, same old same old. But then he gave this example and he was 100% correct. One of the reasons there is so much pressure on A&E is because of a lack of access to GP services. Apart from bring poor care, this is also very expensive. If someone gets seen by GP it cost about £30. If they can't get the care and end up in A&E two weeks later, that costs £180. So if we spend more money in primary care, we can improve the service and in the end this will save money. He wants to shift more funding to primary care.
There are lots of examples like this. I will judge him on what he does.
I share your worries about Wes Streeting, and even more about Alan Milburn.
However I am encouraged about shift to GP funding. People's failure to get GP appointments has been blamed on "immigrants", and sorting this may reduce Reform's support.
Though, I suspect that shifting NHS spending will require short-term additional expenditure. There will need to be investment in primary care - GPs, pharmacies, health visitors - before that will improve, and savings in A&E will only follow that improvement. Shifting funds from A&E to primary care will lead to improvements in primary care, but it will take time for those improvements to bed in during which time A&E will be even more under-resourced. Likewise, there will need to be investment in social care - care homes and care at home, and hospice care - before that improves, and expensive bed-blocking in hospital wards will only follow that improvement.
Though, I suspect that shifting NHS spending will require short-term additional expenditure. There will need to be investment in primary care - GPs, pharmacies, health visitors - before that will improve, and savings in A&E will only follow that improvement. Shifting funds from A&E to primary care will lead to improvements in primary care, but it will take time for those improvements to bed in during which time A&E will be even more under-resourced. Likewise, there will need to be investment in social care - care homes and care at home, and hospice care - before that improves, and expensive bed-blocking in hospital wards will only follow that improvement.
It will cost more in the short term.
But the way he spoke about suggested - although did not state - a willingness to do this. Hence my cautious optimism.
What the government does about Thames Water is a big test. They have some time to work it out but TW putting pressure on OfWat today, again.
I watch this one with a lot of interest.
AFZ
If Thames Water are alleging that they can't make a steady profit from a monopoly that provides an essential product, which is provided from the sky for free, and which they only have to store, clean, distribute and dispose of it, I take that as a very sound argument for saying that their shares aren't worth anything. In which case, they should be grateful to let off their obligations by being compulsorily bought out, i.e. nationalised, either without compensation or nominal payment, e.g. 5p per £1 share.
Can anyone persuade me that there's something crucial I'm missing that says I'm wrong?
I recognise that no government ever has the guts to say that, but it's long struck me that if commercial enterprises say they can't make a profit from what they're doing, that's a very good argument for saying that's their fault for having overvalued their assets.
In Thames Water's case, I suspect it's also caused by their having distributed supposed profits either as dividends or salaries that they should have been reinvesting - which again argues that if their chickens have come home to roost, they should be the ones that suffer rather the public purse or those dependent on their services. But that is a different point, a gloss on my fundamental one.
What the government does about Thames Water is a big test. They have some time to work it out but TW putting pressure on OfWat today, again.
I watch this one with a lot of interest.
AFZ
If Thames Water are alleging that they can't make a steady profit from a monopoly that provides an essential product, which is provided from the sky for free, and which they only have to store, clean, distribute and dispose of it, I take that as a very sound argument for saying that their shares aren't worth anything. In which case, they should be grateful to let off their obligations by being compulsorily bought out, i.e. nationalised, either without compensation or nominal payment, e.g. 5p per £1 share.
Can anyone persuade me that there's something crucial I'm missing that says I'm wrong?
I recognise that no government ever has the guts to say that, but it's long struck me that if commercial enterprises say they can't make a profit from what they're doing, that's a very good argument for saying that's their fault for having overvalued their assets.
In Thames Water's case, I suspect it's also caused by their having distributed supposed profits either as dividends or salaries that they should have been reinvesting - which again argues that if their chickens have come home to roost, they should be the ones that suffer rather the public purse or those dependent on their services. But that is a different point, a gloss on my fundamental one.
We're agreeing with each other again. Someone, put a stop to it!
What the government does about Thames Water is a big test. They have some time to work it out but TW putting pressure on OfWat today, again.
I watch this one with a lot of interest.
AFZ
If Thames Water are alleging that they can't make a steady profit from a monopoly that provides an essential product, which is provided from the sky for free, and which they only have to store, clean, distribute and dispose of it, I take that as a very sound argument for saying that their shares aren't worth anything. In which case, they should be grateful to let off their obligations by being compulsorily bought out, i.e. nationalised, either without compensation or nominal payment, e.g. 5p per £1 share.
Can anyone persuade me that there's something crucial I'm missing that says I'm wrong?
I recognise that no government ever has the guts to say that, but it's long struck me that if commercial enterprises say they can't make a profit from what they're doing, that's a very good argument for saying that's their fault for having overvalued their assets.
In Thames Water's case, I suspect it's also caused by their having distributed supposed profits either as dividends or salaries that they should have been reinvesting - which again argues that if their chickens have come home to roost, they should be the ones that suffer rather the public purse or those dependent on their services. But that is a different point, a gloss on my fundamental one.
If another company wants to buy them out let them get on with it. No taxpayers money should be wasted. They need to go bust
Problem is that the services they were supposed to provide, still have to be provided. Nationalisation may be the best answer
I've never grasped how privatising essential services that are effectively monopolies is meant to improve them...
It isn’t. It’s so that shareholders can profit from them.
I have long believed that privatising natural monopolies does not make sense.
Let's be honest here, if Thames Water customers could simply disconnect their houses from Thames' water supply and sewage drainage, they'd have no customers left. In a real market, they would have folded a long time ago. Of course, there is no way to do that as building an alternative infrastructure system is clearly ridiculous.
However, let's play with this idea a bit. In principle, it is possible that a privatised service may be better than a publicly owned one, if the result is a better service for the clientele. It must be stated at this point, that in order for that to be the case, then the service must be significantly more efficient in the private sector than the public as you have to achieve the same outputs with a lower cost, having extracted profit for the owners. Advocates always argue that the private sector is so much better than the public and so they are able to achieve this. I have seen no evidence ever, to support this assertion.
What we have observed in the UK, over recent decades, is corporations increasing prices, delivering poorer services and extracting large profits. And customers simply unable to go elsewhere in many cases.
This does not mean that the public sector necessarily works either. It is true that a model of poor service because the customers have no choice and high job security can exist within the public sector. Aberfan disaster was the fault of a public industry.
To me, the issue is management, accountability and culture. The argument that the private sector can do it better because of these things strikes me as flawed for two reasons: firstly the need to cover profits as an additional cost and secondly because I think one can achieve these necessary cultures within the public sector.
Interestingly there is only one privatised natural monopoly that I could think of that was successful and that NATS - air traffic control. What I hadn't realised until I looked it up, is that the NATS is 49% publicly owned with a golden share guaranteeing a controlling interest.
So yeah, we need to get past this myth that private is always better - especially with natural monopolies.
Current practice is for executives to get a large part of their remuneration in shares. Presumably the idea is that it encourages the executives to do well by the company. In fact, since executives can move between companies and because shares are easily sold, it encourages policies that raise share prices in the short term.
Current practice is for executives to get a large part of their remuneration in shares. Presumably the idea is that it encourages the executives to do well by the company. In fact, since executives can move between companies and because shares are easily sold, it encourages policies that raise share prices in the short term.
To me that's not an unsolvable problem. There is huge scope to improve our corporate culture across the board. Share deals for executive merely have to have no-sale before a certain time period attached to them.
I cannot see that privatising the postal service has had any beneficial result wwhatever. It used o be a proud service.
We had big chat about this on here but so long ago. They are prioritising parcels above letters as that makes them money. People who have been waiting for important letters such as hospital appointments or results have had real problems.
I use eBay quite a lot, for various things, and find that items usually only take a day or two whilst in transit - a seller may (for good reasons) not necessarily dispatch an item on the day I ordered it.
IME, all the couriers - Royal Mail, Evri, Hermes, and the rest - are pretty efficient, but these are parcels, not letters. @Hugal may therefore be quite correct...
RM is generally much faster than the others up here, because they can get at least the lighter parcels on the plane straight from Glasgow whereas the others involve a tenuous game of pass-the-parcel to get on the ferry with one of our local couriers, who also tend to be rather less careful.
I use eBay quite a lot, for various things, and find that items usually only take a day or two whilst in transit - a seller may (for good reasons) not necessarily dispatch an item on the day I ordered it.
IME, all the couriers - Royal Mail, Evri, Hermes, and the rest - are pretty efficient, but these are parcels, not letters. @Hugal may therefore be quite correct...
They have been dragged before Parliamentary committees for prioritising parcels and not fulfilling their obligations re letters
I appreciate that the new regime is having to be very circumspect about spending, but AIUI doing away with this benefits cap would be a really positive step.
I appreciate that the new regime is having to be very circumspect about spending, but AIUI doing away with this benefits cap would be a really positive step.
Yes it would. When it was announced by the last government members of the Lab front bench called it out as bad. In an interview Starmer said that Lab would not change it. That their proposed policies would help people with children. It was the last straw for some prominent left of the party members who quit. I do hope they do change their mind.
I appreciate that the new regime is having to be very circumspect about spending, but AIUI doing away with this benefits cap would be a really positive step.
Yes it would. When it was announced by the last government members of the Lab front bench called it out as bad. In an interview Starmer said that Lab would not change it. That their proposed policies would help people with children. It was the last straw for some prominent left of the party members who quit. I do hope they do change their mind.
Well, now that they are in power, let's indeed hope that they do change their mind!
The LibDems (and the Greens, too, AFAIK) are in favour of the cap being removed, so there's some pressure from other parties, as well as from various other quarters.
There are many couples who have chosen not to have more than 2 children because they can't afford to have them.
Your implication seems to be that rich people should have children and poor people shouldn’t - and/or that family planning accidents never happen.
And that relationships never break up and jobs are never lost and landlords never increase rents and small businesses never fail.
Besides, even if you consider the parents to have acted wrongly in having another child it takes a certain level of callousness to react to that by plunging said child and their siblings into poverty. This is exactly the sort of thing that makes many consider the Tories to be the nasty party.
There are many couples who have chosen not to have more than 2 children because they can't afford to have them.
Your implication seems to be that rich people should have children and poor people shouldn’t - and/or that family planning accidents never happen.
And that relationships never break up and jobs are never lost and landlords never increase rents and small businesses never fail.
Besides, even if you consider the parents to have acted wrongly in having another child it takes a certain level of callousness to react to that by plunging said child and their siblings into poverty. This is exactly the sort of thing that makes many consider the Tories to be the nasty party.
In the election campaign did Labour say they were going to change the policy ?
There are many couples who have chosen not to have more than 2 children because they can't afford to have them.
Your implication seems to be that rich people should have children and poor people shouldn’t - and/or that family planning accidents never happen.
And that relationships never break up and jobs are never lost and landlords never increase rents and small businesses never fail.
Besides, even if you consider the parents to have acted wrongly in having another child it takes a certain level of callousness to react to that by plunging said child and their siblings into poverty. This is exactly the sort of thing that makes many consider the Tories to be the nasty party.
In the election campaign did Labour say they were going to change the policy ?
There are many couples who have chosen not to have more than 2 children because they can't afford to have them.
Your implication seems to be that rich people should have children and poor people shouldn’t - and/or that family planning accidents never happen.
And that relationships never break up and jobs are never lost and landlords never increase rents and small businesses never fail.
Besides, even if you consider the parents to have acted wrongly in having another child it takes a certain level of callousness to react to that by plunging said child and their siblings into poverty. This is exactly the sort of thing that makes many consider the Tories to be the nasty party.
In the election campaign did Labour say they were going to change the policy ?
There are many couples who have chosen not to have more than 2 children because they can't afford to have them.
Your implication seems to be that rich people should have children and poor people shouldn’t - and/or that family planning accidents never happen.
Wrong. My implication is that parents should be responsible for their children
And if for whatever reason they cannot discharge that responsibility then tough shit kids, enjoy living in poverty?
This is one of my moral quarrels with the Conservative mindset - it appears to prefer to let people suffer if it can find a way to blame them or someone else for their suffering, rather than being driven by any desire to alleviate suffering as a first priority.
It's almost like the only significance of hungry cold children is so they can heap condemnation on their parents.
And it's one reason I have a lasting and profound dislike of the Conservative party in particular and right-wing politics in general.
Tory Jesus at the feeding of the five thousand;
"Lord, these people have followed you here and having nothing to eat"
"Well the stupid sods should have brought some food with them shouldn’t they? It's their own stupid fault. Why should I do anything to help these feckless idiots?"
"Lord, these people have followed you here and having nothing to eat"
"Well the stupid sods should have brought some food with them shouldn’t they? It's their own stupid fault. Why should I do anything to help these feckless idiots?"
"...if I feed them now, how will they learn self reliance?"
Anyway, even if we cannot get an agreement morally, you'd hope that The Conservatives (and conservatives) might come to realise that it's actually in their own interest. Enlightened self-interest is the concept here.
If you do not support poor children, they have worse educational opportunities, are therefore more likely to commit crime and have much greater demands on the state over the course of their lifetimes. This is not to single out individuals in any way. There are plenty of poor people who do not commit crime. On a societal level though, it is far cheaper to look after the children than pay the extra costs over the following half-century. Not to mention that we all benefit from living in a society that is healthier, and with lower crime.
Which of course, begs the question - if it is in fact in their own interest to support poorer children (which it is) - why do they not do it? I think the answer lies in the fact that there is significant short-term political gain in blaming the poor.
On a different topic, there will be an announcement on prison places today.
There is a crisis in prison numbers - obviously that's Starmer's fault, as he's created the problem in 8 days...
Seriously though, I think Labour have this in hand, it sounds like they're going to release many prisoners at 40% point in their sentence (as opposed to the standard 50% mark).* They are excluding serious violent offenders, sexual offenders and domestic violence offenders from this policy, it has been reported. Currently, the BBC is reporting 700 free places with 1400 being the minimum number needed for the system to work properly. I.e. that's the amount of space you need for moving things around and admitted new prisoners as they're sentenced and managing the population. The 40% scheme is expected to release 10,000 inmates.
So, a pragmatic, grown-up solution. The reason I mention it here, is because this is a classic political problem. If they get it right, it will be forgotten very quickly. It is not an issue that most of the public even thinks about. Conversely, if it goes wrong, they will be figuratively crucified for it.
I hope in the longer term they bring about some serious criminal justice reform. There's an old interview with James Timpson circulating. He suggested that it's a rule of thirds. One third of the prison population absolutely need to be in prison. One third should not be in prison, there are much better sentencing options. Then there's the middle third who may need to be in prison. If we stopped inprisoning the first third then maybe we'd have proper resources for rehabilitation whilst inside and the probation service when we release them.
It's a tall order, but since a week ago, I actually live in hope. Cautious optimism.
One third of the prison population absolutely need to be in prison. One third should not be in prison, there are much better sentencing options. Then there's the middle third who may need to be in prison. If we stopped inprisoning the first third then maybe we'd have proper resources for rehabilitation whilst inside and the probation service when we release them.
It's a tall order, but since a week ago, I actually live in hope. Cautious optimism.
AFZ
I know what you mean - but worth pointing out - I think/really hope you mean stop imprisoning the *second* third...
Comments
I was born when we had a Labour PM and I will conk out when we have a Labour PM
Would it make any difference to your demise if there were a Conservative PM? Or are you anticipating that you'll live into the reign of King William V with Labour still in Downing Street?
As a type 1 diabetic I'm very grateful for our former local mp who agitated for this particular medical exemption. My chronically ill wife had the wrong debilitating condition to qualify for a medical exemption for the best part of 20 years until succumbing to type 2 fairly recently. It's a very illogical (and probably immoral) mess.
We are geared up to have kings for the forseeable future. I can see myself lasting 5 years
As we Orthodox say and sing.
I watch this one with a lot of interest.
AFZ
I agree with the overall point but they talked about house building A LOT
The majority of NHS staff I know are sceptical about Wes Streeting. Especially doctors. The reason I remain cautiously optimistic is because of the detail of what he has said.
For example, he has said that the NHS is not under-resourced and needs to be more efficient.
That's an horrendous thing for us to hear as we are paired to the bone. There is no more fat to trim and the last half decade of trimmings compromises the service and makes us less efficient. I can give you countless examples.
However, when challenged on that he said something far more interesting and meaningful. He said that overall the funding envelope is not going to increase by much. OK, same old same old. But then he gave this example and he was 100% correct. One of the reasons there is so much pressure on A&E is because of a lack of access to GP services. Apart from bring poor care, this is also very expensive. If someone gets seen by GP it cost about £30. If they can't get the care and end up in A&E two weeks later, that costs £180. So if we spend more money in primary care, we can improve the service and in the end this will save money. He wants to shift more funding to primary care.
There are lots of examples like this. I will judge him on what he does.
AFZ
However I am encouraged about shift to GP funding. People's failure to get GP appointments has been blamed on "immigrants", and sorting this may reduce Reform's support.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jul/09/junior-doctors-confident-further-strikes-can-be-avoided-after-meeting-streeting
It will cost more in the short term.
But the way he spoke about suggested - although did not state - a willingness to do this. Hence my cautious optimism.
Can anyone persuade me that there's something crucial I'm missing that says I'm wrong?
I recognise that no government ever has the guts to say that, but it's long struck me that if commercial enterprises say they can't make a profit from what they're doing, that's a very good argument for saying that's their fault for having overvalued their assets.
In Thames Water's case, I suspect it's also caused by their having distributed supposed profits either as dividends or salaries that they should have been reinvesting - which again argues that if their chickens have come home to roost, they should be the ones that suffer rather the public purse or those dependent on their services. But that is a different point, a gloss on my fundamental one.
We're agreeing with each other again. Someone, put a stop to it!
If another company wants to buy them out let them get on with it. No taxpayers money should be wasted. They need to go bust
Problem is that the services they were supposed to provide, still have to be provided. Nationalisation may be the best answer
It's very simple: public bad; private good.
It isn't.
It's done so that politicians don't have to carry the can for failures.
It isn’t. It’s so that shareholders can profit from them.
I have long believed that privatising natural monopolies does not make sense.
Let's be honest here, if Thames Water customers could simply disconnect their houses from Thames' water supply and sewage drainage, they'd have no customers left. In a real market, they would have folded a long time ago. Of course, there is no way to do that as building an alternative infrastructure system is clearly ridiculous.
However, let's play with this idea a bit. In principle, it is possible that a privatised service may be better than a publicly owned one, if the result is a better service for the clientele. It must be stated at this point, that in order for that to be the case, then the service must be significantly more efficient in the private sector than the public as you have to achieve the same outputs with a lower cost, having extracted profit for the owners. Advocates always argue that the private sector is so much better than the public and so they are able to achieve this. I have seen no evidence ever, to support this assertion.
What we have observed in the UK, over recent decades, is corporations increasing prices, delivering poorer services and extracting large profits. And customers simply unable to go elsewhere in many cases.
This does not mean that the public sector necessarily works either. It is true that a model of poor service because the customers have no choice and high job security can exist within the public sector. Aberfan disaster was the fault of a public industry.
To me, the issue is management, accountability and culture. The argument that the private sector can do it better because of these things strikes me as flawed for two reasons: firstly the need to cover profits as an additional cost and secondly because I think one can achieve these necessary cultures within the public sector.
Interestingly there is only one privatised natural monopoly that I could think of that was successful and that NATS - air traffic control. What I hadn't realised until I looked it up, is that the NATS is 49% publicly owned with a golden share guaranteeing a controlling interest.
So yeah, we need to get past this myth that private is always better - especially with natural monopolies.
AFZ
To me that's not an unsolvable problem. There is huge scope to improve our corporate culture across the board. Share deals for executive merely have to have no-sale before a certain time period attached to them.
AFZ
IME, all the couriers - Royal Mail, Evri, Hermes, and the rest - are pretty efficient, but these are parcels, not letters. @Hugal may therefore be quite correct...
They have been dragged before Parliamentary committees for prioritising parcels and not fulfilling their obligations re letters
Meanwhile, I see that demands for the removal of the two-child benefits cap are increasing:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jul/11/uk-two-child-benefit-cap-affected-1-6-million-children-last-year-figures-show
I appreciate that the new regime is having to be very circumspect about spending, but AIUI doing away with this benefits cap would be a really positive step.
Yes it would. When it was announced by the last government members of the Lab front bench called it out as bad. In an interview Starmer said that Lab would not change it. That their proposed policies would help people with children. It was the last straw for some prominent left of the party members who quit. I do hope they do change their mind.
Well, now that they are in power, let's indeed hope that they do change their mind!
The LibDems (and the Greens, too, AFAIK) are in favour of the cap being removed, so there's some pressure from other parties, as well as from various other quarters.
Your implication seems to be that rich people should have children and poor people shouldn’t - and/or that family planning accidents never happen.
And that relationships never break up and jobs are never lost and landlords never increase rents and small businesses never fail.
Besides, even if you consider the parents to have acted wrongly in having another child it takes a certain level of callousness to react to that by plunging said child and their siblings into poverty. This is exactly the sort of thing that makes many consider the Tories to be the nasty party.
In the election campaign did Labour say they were going to change the policy ? Wrong. My implication is that parents should be responsible for their children
We are all, always, responsible for each other.
And if for whatever reason they cannot discharge that responsibility then tough shit kids, enjoy living in poverty?
This is one of my moral quarrels with the Conservative mindset - it appears to prefer to let people suffer if it can find a way to blame them or someone else for their suffering, rather than being driven by any desire to alleviate suffering as a first priority.
It's almost like the only significance of hungry cold children is so they can heap condemnation on their parents.
And it's one reason I have a lasting and profound dislike of the Conservative party in particular and right-wing politics in general.
Tory Jesus at the feeding of the five thousand;
"Lord, these people have followed you here and having nothing to eat"
"Well the stupid sods should have brought some food with them shouldn’t they? It's their own stupid fault. Why should I do anything to help these feckless idiots?"
"...if I feed them now, how will they learn self reliance?"
Some deeper thoughts on this:
https://alienfromzog.blogspot.com/2016/04/thinking-right-and-left.html
Anyway, even if we cannot get an agreement morally, you'd hope that The Conservatives (and conservatives) might come to realise that it's actually in their own interest. Enlightened self-interest is the concept here.
If you do not support poor children, they have worse educational opportunities, are therefore more likely to commit crime and have much greater demands on the state over the course of their lifetimes. This is not to single out individuals in any way. There are plenty of poor people who do not commit crime. On a societal level though, it is far cheaper to look after the children than pay the extra costs over the following half-century. Not to mention that we all benefit from living in a society that is healthier, and with lower crime.
Which of course, begs the question - if it is in fact in their own interest to support poorer children (which it is) - why do they not do it? I think the answer lies in the fact that there is significant short-term political gain in blaming the poor.
AFZ
There is a crisis in prison numbers - obviously that's Starmer's fault, as he's created the problem in 8 days...
Seriously though, I think Labour have this in hand, it sounds like they're going to release many prisoners at 40% point in their sentence (as opposed to the standard 50% mark).* They are excluding serious violent offenders, sexual offenders and domestic violence offenders from this policy, it has been reported. Currently, the BBC is reporting 700 free places with 1400 being the minimum number needed for the system to work properly. I.e. that's the amount of space you need for moving things around and admitted new prisoners as they're sentenced and managing the population. The 40% scheme is expected to release 10,000 inmates.
So, a pragmatic, grown-up solution. The reason I mention it here, is because this is a classic political problem. If they get it right, it will be forgotten very quickly. It is not an issue that most of the public even thinks about. Conversely, if it goes wrong, they will be figuratively crucified for it.
I hope in the longer term they bring about some serious criminal justice reform. There's an old interview with James Timpson circulating. He suggested that it's a rule of thirds. One third of the prison population absolutely need to be in prison. One third should not be in prison, there are much better sentencing options. Then there's the middle third who may need to be in prison. If we stopped inprisoning the first third then maybe we'd have proper resources for rehabilitation whilst inside and the probation service when we release them.
It's a tall order, but since a week ago, I actually live in hope. Cautious optimism.
AFZ
I know what you mean - but worth pointing out - I think/really hope you mean stop imprisoning the *second* third...