The Change You Want Is Not The Change The Country Needs

The focus shouldn’t be on rearranging the deckchairs, but on how the party might save itself from oblivion.

Who better to tell us what went wrong and what to do now than one of the Lanyard Class?  

How did it come to this? Ultimately the answer is simple. Labour has strayed a very long way from its founding mission when it was set up by the labour movement well over a century ago: to unashamedly represent the interests of the working class and its organised industrial expressions.

And I suspect you’ll tell us nothing to make us think you’ve learned that lesson yourself and are going to suggest any different tack.

The prime minister has deliberately hollowed out the Labour party, completing its transformation from a mass social democratic party into a brittle elite club.

The Greens under Zack Polanski have gained so much support because they are defending the progressive values Starmer has abandoned. It is always welcome to see political leaders defending migrants, opposing Israel’s genocide and arguing for economic justice.

Yes, as I figured - none of these are subjects that the average man on the Clapham omnibus thinks is a burning issue.

Time is short – and as we look to Labour’s near-future, there can be no doubt that a radical policy rethink is necessary. Repairing our public services by taxing extreme wealth should be the starting point.

And neither is that and it’s not why the Greens picked up so many votes either. Or if it was, the voters were ignorant of the facts about the Greens.

Then we need to see a restoration of pay for all the public-service heroes on whom we rely so much (many of them represented by Unison), and on whose backs the government hopes to rebuild the country: nurses, paramedics, care workers, council staff.

Job for my boys in other words:

As the leader of the UK’s biggest trade union and Labour’s largest affiliate, though, I don’t hesitate to say that this stuff really is the bare minimum.

Unions will try to convince you to join because they are protecting your rights, but these days, that's no longer true - they are cut from the same cloth as the politicians anxious to give away the country.

Still Clapping, Are We?

This time of year is always difficult for those who have lost a loved one, but for Melissa Mead and her husband Paul it is agonisingly so. For it was in December 2014, with Christmas just days away, that their one-year-old son William – their firstborn and longed-for baby – died from sepsis after a catalogue of errors, misdiagnoses and missed opportunities to save him.

Yes, it's that sainted NHS again... 

With an instinct any mother would recognise, Melissa had known something was wrong for weeks, only for her concerns to be dismissed time and again by both doctors and 111 operators.

Well, of course! I mean, 'mum knows best' is just a slogan, isn't it? 

In 2016, an NHS England report into the circumstances of William's death concluded that there had been sixteen failings in his care and four missed opportunities to save his life. In the wake of this devastating verdict, Melissa and Paul, along with the UK Sepsis Trust, have campaigned tirelessly to raise awareness of the life-threatening condition and the need to act quickly, particularly in children. Yet as the Mail reveals today, a report by the National Child Mortality Database reveals that of the 1,507 infection-related child deaths recorded over a three-year period to the end of March 2022, the clinical signs of sepsis were present in 701.

With the money that gets poured into the NHS, it should be a world leader. Yet so often, we learn it's not much better than a Third World health service.  

Surely It's Time There Was Some Redress For This?

A violent thug who attacked a mum and her young son left her home "looking like a bloodbath". 

The 26-year-old Welshman already had a history of violence against women. But the electrician was free to carry out the savage Teesside assault after being spared jail last year despite punching his girlfriend so hard she lost her sense of smell and taste.

Yes, absolutely, this woman didn't do any due diligence before shacking up with the brute and putting herself and her son in danger, but...shouldn't the previous judge also bear some responsibility? 

Shouldn't there be some consequences for lenient sentencing and the resulting fallout?

The court heard that the mother is planning to move away from the area, so she is safe when Dos Santos is released from prison.

Should he ever be? 

Judge Watson jailed Dos Santos for six years and four months and made him the subject of a restraining order prohibiting him from going near the family again.

So, he'll just target another family. It seems there's no shortage of victims, thanks to women with low standards, and of course, thanks to the criminal justice system...