Theresa May triggers article 50, Jeremy Corbyn’s abysmal polling in London and the NHS – Progress director Richard Angell has this week’s Last Word
Auf Wiedersehen, Europe
Wednesday was a day of real sorrow. The triggering of article 50 has been a long time coming, but seeing Theresa May actually send the letter brought back all the feelings of the 24 June 2016. The fact her approach with our erstwhile allies is to threaten the continent’s security is disappointing. This is hardly a tactic for a good deal, worryingly it suggests a relaxed position towards no deal and the Brexit-at-all costs attitude that is limiting Britain’s options. The fact that Labour’s leadership has so little to say – and even less influence over the government – is depressing, to say the least.
This week’s Newstatesman front page reflects how many in the party will understandably be feeling – make sure you pick up a copy.
London rejects the hard-left
It is easy to become numbed to Labour’s consistently devastating polling numbers. But today’s astonishing polling should hit home just how unpopular Jeremy Corbyn has become.
The research shows that Corbyn has the worst ratings of any party leader in London. In London, a city where he has been a member of parliament for 34 years, where a huge proportion of Labour’s members are, and which was 60 per cent ‘Remain’ in last year’s referendum, Corbyn is less popular than the United Kingdom Independence party’s Paul Nuttall. It would be a mortal embarrassment if it was not of such horrific electoral significance.
Compare Corbyn’s -44 rating with that of mayor of London Sadiq Khan, who scores +35 approval in the capital. It is not mainstream Labour that is the problem; it is the hard-left.
Labour must save the NHS again
In 1997, New Labour inherited a National Health Service on its knees. Eighteen years of Conservative government starving our health service of investment meant ailing patients on trollies in hospital corridors was a common sight. Thirteen years of Labour investment – and of strategic, intelligent reform – saw public satisfaction in the NHS at 88 per cent, waiting times lower than ever before and the days of patients on trollies condemned to history for good. Or so we thought.
In just seven years, the Tories have laid Labour’s proudest creation low once more. Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS confederation, stated this morning that relaxing waiting time targets was an inevitability due to underfunding – and that it was ‘completely unreasonable’ to expect the NHS to function as it once did with ‘restrictions on funding’ rising all the time. There is nothing ‘inevitable’ about the state of Britain’s health service. It is a result of the ill-thought out and costly reforms pursued over the past seven years by the Tories.
That is not to say that Labour should resist any and all attempts to make the NHS fit for the twentieth century. Indeed, it is all the more important that it is our party, so frequently called upon to save the NHS, that is in the vanguard of attempts to modernise it. People are living longer than ever and that is something we ought to celebrate, but that necessitates change and more than anything else – investment.
Those that say the last Labour government achieved nothing need only look at the atrophy of the NHS under the Tories to learn otherwise. Winning matters. Let’s hope the Labour party remembers that in time for us to save the NHS again.
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Richard Angell is director of Progress. He tweets at @RichardAngell
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[Yawn] So Richard is pleased that Labour has had another bad week and absolutely none of that is due to his ceaseless attacks on the elected leadership. So what’s new?
Richard, I hope you are not suggesting that progress is mainstream Labour. Your candidate for the leadership got 5% of the vote. You are a marginal force on the right of the party. Your influence comes from the way you gerrymandered people into safe parliamentary seats in the past. You are an organisation without roots in the membership based on a network of people like who sought self enrichment – a parliamentary group that worked for its own benefit. You have lost the ability to seriously debate the fundamental change facing us.
Elizabeth and Daniel are absolutely right!!!With so many entrenched Progress/Labour Right Wing MPs, who cannot see other alternatives to THE MARKET and GROWTH GODS, there is little hope for them seeing otherwise. What Progress et al need to do is to back off and, if not able to agree with a “NEW AGENDA,” avoid this total undermining of Corbyn and McDonnel. The UK society is fast going to the dogs, particularly the Public Sector: NHS, Education, Justice System, Local Government, etc. Labour should be uniting to fight these evils. Yet, out of self-interest, the Blairite supporters (whether in Parliament or NGOs, “think tanks,”etc.) keep going with this merciless attack on the leadership. I am afraid that it is a relatively new phenomenon where elites at the top of membership organisations ignore the membership or even view it with contempt. If they had listened to and acted upon members views, we might not be in this mess. Instead of being the “servants” of members, they have become their “masters.” They really DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT DEMOCRACY MEANS!!! Subsequently, many member organisations are in serious decline.Old Grassroots Geezer [OGR’E)
These regular downbeat grunts are no longer communicating anything to anyone. Surely it is time for a change of contribution if only not to continuously bore the readers.
What I have most noticed about May bold retaliation to anything put to her in Parliament is the reviled response or extort: look what Labour did; look at what Labour started; look what Labour failed to do; what did Labour do when it had the chance? All this signifies just what the contributor continues to offer without the glimmer of criticism for the failure to inspire and bring about radical changes. The same old, same old is not going to add to sum of Labour’s gain
Verity, I am not sure who it is you are criticising as “grunting,” etc. Is it those who made the comments or Richard Angell? If it is me and other comment writers (Elisabeth and Daniel) I do not grunt but feel very passionate about what is happening to our society, indeed, the World. When May makes criticism of past Labour Governments, perhaps, in part, she may be right? After all, New Labour politicians made many bad decisions. The PPPs, PFIs, etc., for example, are legacies that are financially crippling NHS trusts and Public Sector organisations (something I prophesied at the time). The lack of social house building (i.e. Council Houses) has meant a crisis for the less well off. Instead, they relied upon THE MARKET GOD through private landlord renting which forced up house prices, costing us (Public Benefits) enormous amounts in our taxes. Socially, it has also caused massive instability and upheaval, especially to families and children. Car owners were encouraged to buy Diesel cars. Now, if newspaper reports are correct, they could be a banned in many major cities. Jeremy and McDonnell cannot be blamed. They have to try and defend policies for which they were not responsible for. This is why we need “New Politics.” Incidentally, I believe that very few people read these comments, anyway, so they are not going to make much earth shattering difference to the Progress agenda! We are but lone voices crying (literally?) in the wilderness! OGR’E