Labour Party: the one-message party.

Now we have an election looming, I see that the same old mantras are being pushed by them.

1. The NHS is doomed under the Tories. Vote Labour, get a better NHS.

Not that it ever was better under the previous Labour government, the government that saddled the NHS with expensive Private Partnership deals. Words are not the same as deeds.

2. Labour is the party of the people.

Well, not for a long time. You see in the Labour heartlands, seats are so safe that MPs stay in power for a long time and let's say, get used to the trappings of Parliamentary privilege. The long-term Labour MPs are no better than Tories. Dining at expensive restaurants, being taxied here and there, getting houses funded by the taxpayer... Nice when you can get it, especially when the wages of us poor saps out in the real world are tanking.

The same goes for the bosses at the top of the Unions: free penthouse apartments, funded by the Union members, the same posh restaurants as the Tory and Labour MPs. It makes you sick that they would abuse their privilege this way.

Don't forget that Labour, despite being "The Party of the People" has been in bed with big business for a long time. Just look at how under the previous Labour mob the supply of income for workers transferred from companies to the taxpayer. Yes, I'm talking about in-work benefits, especially tax credits.

It's a great idea when you put it as a way of topping up already poor wages. Not bad, people on low wages with kids get their wages topped up by the government. This would be fine, if corporation tax was raised to pay for it, so that the companies that pay sub-standard wages in effect get fined for doing it. Instead it's paid for by you and me, the ordinary taxpayer. In effect robbing Peter to pay Paul. Those that qualify for tax credits are better off, but the rest of the taxpaying community who don't qualify are effectively worse off because our taxes are higher to pay for it.

The same goes for zero hours contracts and the minimum wage. First off, I can't understand why people on the minimum/living wage should pay tax. And I especially can't understand why someone on the minimum wage should then have their wages topped back up by tax credits. In effect they pay tax, only to have the government give it back to them.

The downside is that the administration of that process needs paying for. So instead of taking them directly out of taxation, a system which is already administered, they pay tax, administered by one team and then apply for a rebate with another team of people and then given that money back. Crazy.

The other downside is the gap between benefits and wages is huge. Getting a tax-free salary equates more closely to benefits, reduces the gap and makes working a better option.

To me it smacks of a Tony Blair job creation scheme, paying people to shuffle paper around. Usually farmed out to somewhere like Wales or the North-East.

The inequality of zero hours contracts needs to be abolished as well. People should not be subject to informal hours arrangements. Again the government i.e. the taxpayer is paying to allow companies to get away with not having regular contracts. If companies want irregular employees on tap but exclusive to them and not able to work anywhere else, then they should pay a retainer to that employee when not employed, effectively paying the benefit the employee would get directly to them instead of the government.

So, what do I want Labour to start doing?

Well, stop banging on about the NHS. It's as boring as the "Safe, Stable Government" mantra chanted by the Tories.

Labour need to stop criticising and start inspiring.

Lift the poor (those on minimum wage) out of taxation, outlaw zero hours contracts, raise corporation tax on large businesses to pay for that and in-work benefits (and actually say that's what it's for, rather than just clobbering business), look to professionalise the social care sector, with a long-term plan to bring it into the NHS.

Legislation could be introduced to link the biggest rise in corporation tax to those companies that use zero hours contracts, or large numbers of minimum wage earners.

Legislation to curb the abuse of union funds needs to be introduced. Again, the marketing of the plan is key: It's helping the members to stop abuse, not bashing union bosses for the sake of it. Union bosses should pay for their accommodation out of their six-figure salaries, just like every other union member.  Highlighting the issue will put a spotlight on the abuse and should get the support of every union member.

Free local councils to start building houses. Forcing them to just build social housing will not generate new houses as it's just a cost to them. Allow them to build a small percentage for private sale so that they can make a profit, but with the caveat that any money raised has to be ringfenced and ploughed back into the housing fund.

Put a cap on public sector wages. Create legislation to cap the top wage to a certain number of times the lowest wage. It's obscene that the taxpayer should be paying large six-figure salaries to council members no matter how high up they are. Public service is a vocation. If you're so good at your job then go and find your way in the private sector. I find that many in the top jobs in public service are not of the standard to justify the huge salaries, they've just appointed themselves the salaries and justified it on the basis of that's what is needed to attract people from the private sector, when no-one from the private sector is actually employed.

I would apply the same cap on salaries for charities, especially those that receive government funding. There should be no members of charities earning over £200,000 salaries. Even £100,000 seems excessive when it can supply a very good standard of living. Charity donations should not be paying for a lavish upper-class lifestyle.

By these measures, Labour can say it is cleaning up the inequalities in employment and making the working environment more equitable for the lower paid. Lowering the wage gap for organisations that take from the public purse will give the feeling to the lower paid that they are not being exploited

Taking the lowest paid out of taxation will provide a boost in living standards and will equalise the gap between benefits and work.

Making companies pay for in-work benefits will shift payment for work away from the taxpayer and back onto business.

The very Ancient and Outmoded Labour Party (Part 2).

I was thinking and I think I've hit what it is about Labour that upsets me. It has failed to be aspirational. Sure, it aspires to be in power, but what after that? Nothing. Maybe it moves the deckchairs around a bit, but nothing truly inspirational. It's fiddling at the margins.

When I say aspirational, I mean for the working class it purports to respresent. What plans does it have to make the lot of the working class better?

A popular policy would be to outlaw zero hours contracts. The heinous things trap people by demanding exclusivity, but not rociprocating by providing a decent working week, every week.

In my mind, exclusivity means the company should pay the worker even though they are not working, because the company they are contracted to is preventing them from working for someone else.

If the company states you cannot work for anyone else, then they should be forced to pay a retainer to the employee. Of course minimum wage legislation means that the employee should be paid minimum wage even if they are not being used.

This is a very similar concept to the IR35 legislation that affected IT contractors.

Ok, a zero hours contract is a step up from employing people as self-emplyed contractors (e.g the so-called "Gig Economy") so the employer pays national insurance etc. but the exclusivity clause means that the employee should be paid for the time they are unable to work for anyone elase.

There should also be legislation aginst penalising people that cannot work at a certain time because they are working for someone else.

The legislation should make the agreement fair and equitable to both parties. At the moment the advantage is all towards the employer.

Another area Labour can help working people is social care. Wages in the social care sector are generally the lowest possible. A vast number of people are working for minimum wage despite having the qualifications and responsibility of administering medication and attending to the social welfare of their clients.

A move to professionalise the social care sector, maybe with union representation is sorely needed, it needs to be brought up to the same status as nursing. Having someone having access to and able to give medication including controlled drugs after a basic one day training course, or worse filling in a questionaire in my mind is just wrong. The discrepancy between social care and the medical profession is massive..

Workers in the care sector need to demonstrate a knowledge of social care and safety legislation. The basic care certificate introduced by CQC goes some way towards this, but more is needed.
More professionalism should improve wages for a sector with some of the poorest. That's what I mean by Labour being aspirational: introducing policies and legislation to improve the conditions of the poorest workers, the ones that are really being exploited.

Of course improved wages in the care sector then increases costs, but as I've previously mentioned, improved professional status will make it easier for the NHS then to take on social care and integrate it with the rest of the NHS, allowing patients in hospitals to be moved out of hospital wards.

A penny or two on income tax or national insurance to pay for the integration of social care budgets into the NHS budget wouldn't be baulked at by the majority of people. It would be a winning policy for Labour.

The very Ancient and Outmoded Labour Party.

It's a pity UKIP didn't win the Stoke by-election, with a defeat 2-0 the Labour party might have taken the hint and sacked their leader, Leicester FC-style.

Instead, with a score draw, the Tories can claim a historic result and Labour can carry on deluding themselves that things are fine and dandy, although the claim that Corbyn hasn't lost a by-election will have to be quietyly shelved. Not that it was much of a claim, the incumbent party almost never wins seats when in power.

The fact that the Labour party is really only relevant to students who have never lived a life, champagne socialists in London and militant socialists in Liverpool who have never grown up really, really upsets me. More than it should I know, but I still understand what the Labour party stood for way back when.

It stood up for the working man, it persuaded and didn't need thuggery to press it's point, because it was RELEVANT to the working man.

The working man could see the point of paying a small payment into a scheme so that we could have free health cover.

The working man could see that paying a small sub to a Union to protect him from overbearing employers.

But where is the relevance of the Labour party these days? Union leaders are seen hob-nobbing in posh restaurants with fat-cats, their leader really wants to do away with the Monarchy and wants a republic, he wants to do away with nuclear weapons, the very things that have kept the Russians from swallowing up the greater part of Europe. His policies are those of the trendy ultra-left, the sort of people who are miles away from the labourers, miners, steel workers, engineers and other blue-collar workers that made it.

They bicker and whinge about nit-picky irrelevances, like rights for every minority group going, including those that would deny them those very rights if they ever got in power.

Where is the working man or woman in all if this leftist irrelevance??

Nowhere. The left refuses to discuss substantive issues and place themselves in an electable position. For instance on the NHS they brook no discussion on how the NHS works, they would rather just shovel more and more cash into the black hole and naively hope more service comes out the other end.

The same mantra is pushed by the left regarding local services provided by councils.

Forget the fat cat bosses at the top earning six-figure salaries, forget the waste and the corruption, forget the lack of vocational nursing places, stopping working class girls getting a decent earning job.

Labour is now a party run largely by ultra-left socialist nutjobs that have absolutely no connection or empathy with the working man and would probably call working people fascists for daring even to earn money.

It just makes me sad that Labour is where it is, irrelevant to most of the people it originally set out to champion.

It makes me even sadder that the people Labour have cast aside still vote for them.