Monday, May 12, 2025
Another blow for care services
The paper says that the immigration white paper, to be published today, includes measures to ban new recruitment from abroad for care roles, as part of a wider effort to reduce legal migration and prioritise UK-based workers, but the decision has triggered an angry backlash from industry leaders and trade unions, who say the sector is already stretched to breaking point and still relies heavily on international staff to keep services running:
Prof Martin Green, the chief executive of Care England, said the government was “kicking us while we’re already down”.
“For years, the sector has been propping itself up with dwindling resources, rising costs, and mounting vacancies,” he said.
“International recruitment wasn’t a silver bullet, but it was a lifeline. Taking it away now, with no warning, no funding, and no alternative, is not just shortsighted – it’s cruel.”
Unison, the UK’s biggest union representing health and care workers, also criticised the decision and called for urgent clarity on what the changes meant for those already working in the UK.
Christina McAnea, Unison’s general secretary, said: “The NHS and the care sector would have collapsed long ago without the thousands of workers who’ve come to the UK from overseas.
“Migrant health and care staff already here will now be understandably anxious about what’s to happen to them. The government must reassure these overseas workers they’ll be allowed to stay and continue with their indispensable work.”
She urged ministers to stop describing care jobs as “low skilled” and said the government must “get on with making its fair pay agreement a reality”.
In 2023, more than 58,000 overseas care workers came to the UK on skilled worker visas – nearly half of all new entrants to the social care workforce.
There is of course, nothing worng with populating this workforce with care workers already in the UK, but this needs to be properly planned, including adequate remuneration. Pulling the rug away like this could plunge social care into an even deeper crisis that it is in at present.
Sunday, May 11, 2025
Can Reform hold onto all their newly elected councillors?
It is no surprise therefore that already there have been one or two casualties. The BBC, for example reports that the newly-elected Reform councillor for Newark West, Desmond Clarke, has resigned from Nottinghamshire County Council following election on May 1st, triggering a by-election.
His resignation has been criticised by Conservative group leader and former council leader Sam Smith who said: "Seven days after fighting an election on a promise to cut spending and waste, the Reform County Councillor for Newark West has resigned which will result in the triggering of a by-election that will cost taxpayers thousands of pounds."
Meanwhile, Donna Edmunds, who was elected in Hodnet in Shropshire, has quit Reform UK after she was suspended over a social media post just days after being elected. As the Independent reports, she was suspended for writing on Twitter that she was planning to defect from the party after the local elections:
Ms Edmunds on Sunday had written on the platform that she had been suspended from the party “pending an investigation”.
She had previously posted about waiting for the party’s ousted MP Rupert Lowe to set up a challenger party “and then I will defect”.
When trying to quit the party, Ms Edmund found that her only option was to cancel the auto-renewal of her payment, so she technically will remain a member until the year is up.
But she launched a tirade against Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, declaring that he “must never be prime minister” and is a “terrible leader”.
She said: “A good leader knows that you bring your team with you, that you champion their successes as the team’s successes.
“A bad leader claims personal credit for every win and stabs people in the back.”
Ms Edmunds also said she no longer has to “watch what I say” and so called for the jailed far right activist Tommy Robinson to be freed from jail, describing him as a “political prisoner”.
Her suspension and decision to quit the party just days after the local elections marks a chaotic start to Reform’s life as a party of government, having won control of ten councils as well as the mayoralties of Greater Lincolnshire and Hull and East Yorkshire.
The party also came under fire on Monday for vowing to ban all flags from council buildings except the Union Jack and St George’s flag, meaning Ukraine and pride flags would be barred from being flown by public authorities. Reform was later forced to clarify that county flags would also be allowed.
It also came as The Independent revealed Reform mayor Dame Andrea Jenkyns’ vow to get rid of council diversity officers as one of her first acts in Lincolnshire has fallen flat as the county council doesn’t employ any.
And it emerged the party offers home working despite having vowed to put an end to working from home in local authorities it controls.
It's popcorn season.
Saturday, May 10, 2025
The story of Violet's Leap
One cold night in January 1909 an expensive Belgian car was found hanging over the edge of the sea wall at this location, some 50 metres above the sea. The windscreen was smashed. A Tam o’ Shanter hat was found nearby along with a diary belonging to the hat’s owner, Violet Gordon Charlesworth (pictured right). She was an elegant young lady who lived some 33km away in the Rhyl area.
On the night in question, her sister had run to a nearby pub and tearfully explained that the car had crashed into the wall along the edge of the road, throwing Violet into the sea below.
It soon emerged that all was not as it first appeared. In fact Violet had tried to fake her own death to extricate herself from a dire position of her own making. She and her mother had said she was going to inherit vast sums of money when she was 25. With this tale, and several aliases, they defrauded doctors, widows and stockbrokers of more than £2m in present money. While the average wage at the time was no more than a £1 a week, Violet was spending £4,000 per year on borrowed money without paying a penny back.
Old postcard showing site of Violet's leapThe hunt for her was on, and Britain was gripped by the affair known as “the Welsh Cliff Mystery”. Postcards (such as the one on the left) were sold, some titled “Violet’s Leap”. Red cloaks were fashionable at the time, but sales plummeted once it was known that police were hunting this lady who was likely to be wearing a crimson cloak. The story was even reported in the New York Times. Violet had known her 25th birthday was looming and her creditors would be knocking on her door for their money.
There were numerous reports from across Britain of women supposedly matching Violet’s description. Eventually a newspaper reporter in Oban tracked her down. She was imprisoned in Aylesbury. When she was released she returned to Scotland. Her final resting place is not known. Did she emigrate, or did she change her name again and live a peaceful life?
It's always good to learn the stories behind these names.
Friday, May 09, 2025
Labour's revolting backbenchers
The paper says that the letter from parliamentarians spanning the new intake and veterans, and from the left and right of the party, has set Keir Starmer up for the biggest rebellion of his premiership when the House of Commons votes on the measures next month:
There has already been widespread concern among Labour MPs about proposed changes including a significant tightening of eligibility for personal independent payments (Pips), saving about £5bn annually.
They would also involve cuts or freezes to incapacity benefits for people who apply for universal credit but are judged unfit to work.
According to internal Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) forecasts, the planned disability benefit cuts would affect 700,000 families who are already in poverty.
A vote on the proposals is expected in June, and a number of MPs are concerned they are being asked to approve the plans without proper knowledge of the consequences.
The letter has so far been signed by 42 Labour MPs, putting the government on course for its biggest rebellion yet.
The proposals, set out in a government green paper, have “caused a huge amount of anxiety and concern among disabled people and their families”, according to the letter.
“The planned cuts of more than £7bn represent the biggest attack on the welfare state since George Osborne ushered in the years of austerity and over 3 million of our poorest and most disadvantaged will be affected,” it says.
“Whilst the government may have correctly diagnosed the problem of a broken benefits system and a lack of job opportunities for those who are able to work, they have come up with the wrong medicine. Cuts don’t create jobs, they just cause more hardship.”
The letter calls on ministers to delay any decisions until they see full assessments on the impact of any cuts, and for “a genuine dialogue with disabled people’s organisations to redesign something that is less complex and offers greater support, alongside tackling the barriers that disabled people face when trying to find and maintain employment”.
It goes on: “We also need to invest in creating job opportunities and ensure the law is robust enough to provide employment protections against discrimination. Without a change in direction, the green paper will be impossible to support.”
Among the signatories are some MPs on the left of the party such as Diane Abbott and Kim Johnson, but also a series of more centrist backbenchers, and there are 14 from the 2024 intake, including Lorraine Beavers, Cat Eccles, Terry Jermy, Peter Lamb and Simon Opher.
Starmer could brazen it out of course with his huge majority, but it's a big risk. We will have to see what he decides to do.
Thursday, May 08, 2025
Reeves under fire
They add that there is also speculation that the prime minister could soon be forced to reshuffle his cabinet, with question marks over whether Rachel Reeves can survive as chancellor. I would have thought that moving Reeves to another job would be a prerequisite for any u-turn on winter fuel payments and benefit cuts:
One Labour source suggested: “Rachel is running out of friends. It is just not working.”
Others have suggested that if Sir Keir is to reverse the decision on winter fuel cuts, Ms Reeves “would need to be replaced first”.
Questions remain over who would be a viable candidate to replace her in the Treasury, as another MP noted that Sir Keir has promised Ms Reeves will be chancellor until the next election. Meanwhile, Downing Street has continued to stand by the chancellor.
It comes as new polling from The Times and Sky News – conducted by YouGov – put Reform UK at its highest recorded vote share, sitting seven points ahead of Labour.
Mr Farage’s party was on 29 points, while Labour was on 22. Lagging behind were the Tories on just 17 points, while the Liberal Democrats were on 16.
The anger over the local election results and the fear of Reform seizing power at the next election has brought despair to many MPs.
One MP told The Independent: “I’m not exactly experiencing the sunny uplands at the moment.”
Another darkly added: “It feels very Weimar Republic at the moment. Post hyperinflation, but pre Nazi.”
Meanwhile, the red wall group of Labour MPs, made up of around 45 MPs from red wall constituencies, warned that Sir Keir’s response that he would “go further and faster” in delivering his plans had “fallen on deaf ears”.
They warned that voters across the UK had told the Labour Party “loudly and clearly that we have not met their expectations”.
“Responding to the issues raised by our constituents, including on winter fuel, isn’t weak – it takes us to a position of strength,” a statement added, urging the prime minister to “break the disconnect between Westminster and the red wall areas”.
The red wall is made up of areas in the Midlands and northern England which have typically supported the Labour Party.
One of the red wall MPs, Stoke-on-Trent Central MP Gareth Snell, came out publicly about his concerns. Raising issues of factories in his constituency closing, he told the BBC that his faith in the government “is dwindling.”
On Tuesday, the prime minister acknowledged his government needed to “explain the decisions that we’ve taken” after a “disappointing” set of election results, but his press secretary said the government will not be “blown off course”.
While there were reports that the government was considering whether to increase the £11,500 threshold over which pensioners are no longer eligible for the allowance, the prime minister’s official spokesperson ruled out such a move, saying there will “not be a change to the government’s policy”.
The spokesperson added that the decision “was one that we had to take to ensure economic stability and repair the public finances following the £22bn black hole left by the previous government”.
But there is mounting pressure from within his own party – and from the opposition benches – for Downing Street to U-turn on the issue.
Veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott urged the government to restore the winter fuel allowance in full, saying a review of the policy alone wouldn’t be enough for pensioners, nor would it be enough to “restore Labour’s battered reputation”.
Meanwhile, Labour peer and Welsh first minister Eluned Morgan warned she is “losing patience” with UK Labour, urging the government to have a rethink.
And former transport secretary Louise Haigh said Labour’s “unpopular decisions are overshadowing the good ones”, calling for the party to explore a wealth tax to win back voters following Reform UK’s success in the local elections.
Speaking to BBC Newsnight, the MP for Sheffield Heeley said: “I don’t think we can underestimate how catastrophic those results were last week for the Labour Party. I think the unpopular decisions are overshadowing the good ones.”
Labour MP for Leeds West, Richard Burgon, told Times Radio Labour cannot be “stubborn” on winter fuel payments, saying the policy was both “deeply unpopular” and wrong.
“If the government wants to show that it actually gets it, in the words of the prime minister, then the government must fully reinstate the winter fuel allowance, not just tinker around the edges. And we can’t be dragged, kicking and screaming, into rethinking on this policy,” he said.
There is clearly unrest in the ranks of the Parliamentary Labour Party. How Starmer reacts to that could define his premiership.
Wednesday, May 07, 2025
Desperate Welsh First Minister tacks left, but is it too late?
The paper says Eluned Morgan told them that she wanted Keir Starmer to rethink policy changes on welfare and the winter fuel allowance, and described the Labour party as a “messy family”:
Morgan argued that while the UK party had time to turn its fortunes around, the task was more urgent in Wales because the Senedd elections were only a year away.
Her comments came as an opinion poll suggested Labour was trailing in third place in Wales behind Plaid and Reform UK, with its worst vote share – 18% – since devolution a quarter of a century ago.
Morgan said of the poll: “That is a wake-up call, if ever we’ve seen one. It is a serious challenge for us. It’s a serious challenge for UK Labour. We all need to think very seriously about delivery on the things that matter to people the most.”
The first minister spoke after a passionate speech launching the election campaign and what she called a “red Welsh way”. She said: “We’ve got a year to go and I’m losing patience. They [UK Labour] are very keen for us to promote partnership in power. We are keen to play with them when it comes to partnership in power and it’s already delivered £1.6bn extra for our public services, but it’s not enough and we need to see more from them.
“And time is ticking for us. They’ve got time to turn things around. We have very little time to turn things around in Wales. So our patience is running out.
“I’m determined to make a change for the people of Wales and I haven’t got much time. I am impatient. I need things done. We’re tacking to the left here, we’re saying that we want to make sure that the centre of gravity in Wales is to the left.”
Morgan said there was no split with UK Labour but compared the party to a “messy family”. She said: “We all come from families that are complicated these days and we fall out within our families but we’re still family. We still turn up to each other’s weddings and funerals but in between there may be a bit of a falling out and that’s not the end of the world.”
As well as appealing to UK Labour to think again about welfare cuts and removing the winter fuel allowance, she called for the UK government not to interfere with areas of policy devolved to Wales.
She said: “What we need is respect for devolution. When the Tories were in charge, they disrespected the devolution settlement. We’re a bit concerned that’s continued under Labour. We need devolution to be respected because it was hard fought for and it is the settled will of the Welsh people/.”
.
Welsh Labour's problem is that these are just words. Those people who have been deprived of their winter fuel allowance, or their disability benefit, those who are facing losing their business or their job because of the increase in employers' national insurance payments, or who are struggling to pay massive energy and council tax bills while public services deteriorate around them, or those children slipping into poverty because of the two-child benefit cap won't give a damn whether Eluned Morgan is tacking left or not.
People will vote next year in accordance with their lived experience, and Welsh Labour will need to do a lot more than talk about a complicated family to change that.
Tuesday, May 06, 2025
New report calls for urgent action on failing social care system
Their report said that the current inadequate system is putting “unsustainable pressure” on unpaid carers who are being forced to provide care worth £184 billion a year - "equivalent to a second NHS”, while local authority budgets are "buckling under the pressure” of an increasingly "high price for a failing system", with costs eating up money that could be spent on other things, such as fixing potholes, keeping libraries open and providing youth services:
The report concluded that the Government "does not have a robust understanding of the extent of the current system's failings" or good quality data on the outcomes of delivering high quality care. The MPs said: "Without this, it will be unable to make a clear case for reform."
It comes just days after the formal launch of the Casey Commission into adult social care. All recommendations "must remain affordable", the Government has said, "operating within the fiscal constraints of Spending Review settlements for the remainder of this Parliament".
The health and social care committee has called on the Government to commission research to fully quantify the cost of doing nothing on adult social care reform - including costs to unpaid carers, care workers, councils, care providers, the NHS and the overall economy.
Chair of the committee Layla Moran said: “In our inquiry, we heard that an investment of £6.1 billion would provide full economic benefits of £10.7 billion - a return on investment of 175%. Unless the Government measures the true cost of inaction and can make a convincing case to the Treasury, the recommended reforms that come out of the Casey Commission will be doomed to fail.”
The Royal College of Nursing’s Nicola Ranger said: “This report should act as an urgent wake-up call for the government that waiting for the conclusion of the current review into adult social care in England is not an option."
Isabel Lawicka, director of policy and strategy at NHS Providers, said issues around social care “cannot be kicked down the road any longer”. “The cost and consequences of inaction are plain to see,” she said.
“We gave evidence to the committee highlighting the consequences for the NHS including thousands of people every day stuck in hospital beds, fit to be discharged but can’t be."
Rory Deighton, acute director at the NHS Confederation, said: “The NHS and social care are intricately linked, with delays in social care often leading to patients medically fit enough to go home being stuck in hospital beds.
“This creates bottlenecks, including in the urgent and emergency care pathway which can lead to overcrowded A&Es and delays to ambulances to transfer patients. If the NHS is to continue improving performance then we also need to see a solution to challenges in social care.”
This is a crisis that the present government inherited, but for the sake of everybody involved they can't delay fixing it much longer.
Monday, May 05, 2025
The change that Reform is no longer talking about
An analysis by John Curtice for the BBC identifies that the vagaries of the first past the post system were magnified by this fragmentation leaving Farage's acolytes with far more seats that they would normally win with such a small share of the vote:
At the 2024 general election Reform secured 14% of the vote but just 5 out of 650 seats at Westminster. But crucially, being ahead of everyone else in 2025 ensured the first-past-the-post election system helped Reform.
Its tally of 677 council seats represented 41% of all those being contested on Thursday, 10 points above its share of the vote, a nod to both the nature of the voting system and Reform's ability to cluster votes. That boost helped the party win control of as many as 10 councils, something that Reform's predecessor, UKIP, never managed at the height of its popularity in the run up to the 2015 general election.
In Staffordshire, Reform won 72% of the seats on 41% of the vote. In Kent, 37% of the vote delivered it 70% of the seats, while in Derbyshire the same share was rewarded with 66% of all the councillors.
Instead of insulating Conservative and Labour from the impact of a third-party challenge, as it has done so often before, first past the post exacerbated their losses. In both cases Reform took nearly half of all the seats those parties were defending.
Up until now Farage has been pretty vocal about the need for electoral reform, suddenly he has gone all quiet on the subject. I wonder why.
Sunday, May 04, 2025
Trump-lite
The Independent reports that Andrea Jenkyns’ vow to get rid of council diversity officers as one of her first acts as the new Reform mayor for Lincolnshire has fallen flat after it emerged that the county council doesn’t employ any.
The paper says that Nigel Farage and Dame Andrea have put getting rid of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) officers at the top of their agenda as they impose their own version of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting Doge on the county:
They doubled down on the promise at a rally in Kent last night where Ms Jenkyns and Mr Farage were among a line of leading speakers as part of Reform’s “war on woke”.
Ms Jenkyns said: “We are going to have a Lincolnshire Doge. We are going to ensure that we get rid of diversity officers because amazingly Lincolnshire County Council is now Reform controlled. That is a historic moment.”
However, The Independent has seen a freedom of information answer from Lincolnshire County Council, where Reform now has a majority, stating: “Lincolnshire County Council does not employ any diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) officers.”
The council had been asked how many DEI officers it employed and what their salaries were. The answer was issued in March just before the local election campaign began in the county.
Catchy slogans, hate and prejudice do not solve the real world problems faced by people throughout the UK. Maybe Reform will start to learn this as they begin to grapple with the task they have taken on.
Saturday, May 03, 2025
Badenoch under pressure after disastrous Tory election performance
Unsurpisingly, the Independent reports that senior Tories are already plotting ways to oust their leader after the party’s disastrous local election results.
The paper says that the prospect of the Tories having their fourth leader in less than four years appears to be on the cards, with the party losing hundreds of council seats across England and being almost wiped out in traditionally strong areas for them:
The Independent has learnt that discussions were already underway before Thursday’s local elections to find a way to remove her.
Now senior Tories have told The Independent that they plan to press Robert Jenrick, who came second to Ms Badenoch, to challenge her.
Among the complaints against Ms Badenoch is a lack of vision and policies, a failure to score hits in Prime Minister’s Questions and a failure to properly confront the rising Reform.
Speculation about Mr Jenrick making a leadership push had been rife before the local elections after a recording of him emerging pronouncing on a plan to do a deal with Reform – a move opposed by Ms Badenoch.
Following that, a letter he sent to all candidates without her name on it also emerged.
One senior Tory told The Independent: “I am messaging Robert [Jenrick] to get his act together and make a bid to be leader. We cannot continue like this.”
“It is now just a matter of timing,” one MP said. “There is no way she can lead us into a general election.”
A former ally of Ms Badenoch’s added: “She just does not have it. We have a choice of replacing her with Robert or a lot of us switching to Reform.”
But an MP who had supported Mr Jenrick last year said: “We cannot just keep changing leaders. We have to give her time, otherwise we will look stupid with voters.”
Also believed to be waiting in the wings is former home secretary and foreign secretary James Cleverly, who has kept a low profile.
Of course everybody was expecting the Tories to lose seats, after all they were defending a 2021 highpoint, but the scale of their defeat is pretty breathtaking. They were lucky that a number of councils had their election cancelled this year, or it could have been even much worse.
As the paper points out, almost as if they want to rub it in, the projected election vote share in areas once strong for the Tories put them in fourth place with 15 per cent behind Reform (30 per cent), Labour (20 per cent) and the Lib Dems on 17 per cent.
The next few months will prove to be interesting.
