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.

Zombie Blair Ressurected

The Unlawful-War-Fighting Monster Tony Blair might delude himself into thinking his resurrection is more Jesus-like, but in my mind ever time the stinking, lying weasel pops his nose into politics, he will be forever a zombie. Decrepit, deiscredited and universally disliked.

This time he's once again proving his dislike of democracy by becoming a figurehead for the anti-democratic push to ignore the Brexit referendum result and stay in the EU.

I've already blogged on why I voted to leave and my reasons for doing so.

But I'll reiterate: I like many of my peers voted to leave completely  That's end free movement, leave the EU, the ECC, EMCA, the ECJ and virtually every other political edifice with the name "European" in front of it.

That's the baseline. We are out and we make our own way in the world.

Now from that baseline, IF Teresa May can negotiate better terms at no extra cost to us, then fine, crack on. And yes, I'm aware that we have obligations post-Brexit, but they will reduce over time and then thankfully the EU gets none of our money. Ever again.

Of course Tony Blair is pulling out the old line that us leave voters didn't know what we were voting for. I'd counter that voters were very clear about what they wanted: THEY WANTED TO BE FREE FROM EUROPEAN INTERFERENCE and whatever consequences arised out of that were a price worth paying and they were happy to pay.

Of course Blair I'm sure will spout his "better off in, better to have influence in Europe" line. But, already we're seeing by voting to leave we are showing leadership and influence in Europe. The thing is, if the system is broke, then you are better off out of it. And we will show that (as long as politicians don't sabotage the leaving process).

It's a pity that Blair didn't lose an election as PM, instead he let Gordon Brown take the fall. Had he been defeated in the polls he might be a bit more humble. He should really wind his neck in and shut the fuck up.

Sorry Tony, the chance for you to be European president went a long time ago.