A recent article by Daniel Wainwright in the Wolverhampton Express & Star produced some interesting points for consideration. He
wrote “Mr Miliband is the one telling everyone the cost of living is at crisis
point while the figures show record numbers are in work and an economy growing
at a rate which makes us the envy of the rest of Europe”. It’s all very well
saying there are record numbers in work but how many are on temporary/
zero-hours contracts and in low pay? We now have around ONE MILLION people
going to food banks, many of whom are in work. If people are barely getting
enough hours or earning enough money to live on that they have to rely on
charity to eat, then these ‘jobs’ are not worth celebrating at all. Also, people don’t want to hear that the
economy is “growing at a rate which makes us the envy of the rest of Europe”
when they earn so little, they are forced to choose between heating or eating,
or, to put it more starkly, choose between suffering from hypothermia or
starvation. If you couple these low-paid jobs with gas and electricity bills
which continue to rise, then it’s not a case of Ed Miliband “telling everyone
the cost of living is at crisis point”, but more the fact that working people
feel the cost of living is getting out of hand.
Mr Miliband is aware of this and is letting these people know that
Labour will tackle it by cracking down on zero-hours/ temporary contracts, increasing
the minimum wage and freezing energy bills, while the Tories are more
interested in helping the wealthy few. Also, the cost of living crisis isn’t
just affecting those on low incomes but the middle classes as well. Structural
reorganisations in private and also in government-funded not-for-profit and
public sectors mean people find themselves having to reapply for their jobs. If
they are lucky enough to remain in employment, the same jobs pay far less money
than they did five years ago, in some cases, up to £15,000 per annum less.
Mr Wainwright also says
that “He (Ed Miliband) promises to protect the NHS… Yet polls seem to suggest
it is David Cameron which voters trust with the NHS more”. Where has he got
this information from? Certainly not from nurses, of which only 4% believe
Cameron has done a good job with NHS since coming to power. Since the 2010
General Election campaign, Cameron has vowed to protect and safeguard the NHS,
insisting there would be no top-down reorganisation of the service. But the
2012 Health & Social Care Act launched the biggest top-down reorganisation
of the NHS since 1948, opening it up to EU competition laws which has led to
services at local hospitals being considered for privatisation. In addition, spending
cuts have led to A&E departments up and down the country closing, waiting
times in A&E increasing, ambulance response times increasing and drivers not
knowing which hospital they are supposed to be taking patients to, mass
shortages of hospital beds with many other problems besides. How can anybody
trust David Cameron and the Conservative Party with the NHS when they promised
to protect it and are now in process of completely dismantling it? Labour have
said that they will repeal this dangerous and destructive Act of Parliament in
order to save the NHS.
Both the cost of living
crisis and the NHS/A&E crisis have been created by this Tory-led government
and voters need to consider these issues before letting them have another term.
