Politics for Thought

Ed Balls, the Shadow Chancellor, has called for £1bn in bank fines to be used to fund the NHS .  The money has been demanded by the Financial Conduct Authority as a penalty for the banks   manipulating currency exchanges .  The NHS has gone backwards since this current government took control, not only is it harder to see a GP but waiting lists in hospitals are on the rise again, A&E departments are in crisis, frontline NHS staff have been cut and most recently the Conservatives are trying to  privatise the NHS !  If you need any reminding about how important the NHS is then all you need to do is watch   Harry Leslie Smith's NHS speech .  We need to do whatever we can to safeguard the NHS and protect it from declining any further.  £1bn from the banks is a brilliant boost to the NHS but this is only a short term fix to these long term problems . What we need is a long term credible plan to fix the NHS and bring ...

In the 2009/10  year 279 thousand people started an apprenticeship.  Year 2012/13 and  510 thousand people started an apprenticeship .  My opinion - the conservative led government have ranked up efforts to get the unemployed on an apprenticeship to help with those unemployment figures! Apprenticeships are normally aimed at 16-18 year old school leavers who want to train and work whilst getting paid at the same time.  The National Minimum Wage for an apprentice aged 16-18 is £2.73 per hour . The pay is quite low, if you work full-time then you'll get around £95 per week , but that's not bad (or is it) for someone of that age who probably has nothing to pay out for.  And if I were 16 again I probably would have done an apprenticeship  rather than go to college and get paid nothing.  45% of the 510 thousand people  that started an apprenticeship in 2012/1013 were  25 years of...

Zero Hour Contracts  are the most  exploitative  practice to ever come about in society.  You have  no say in what hours you work You  work as and when  your boss tells you to You could be  days or weeks without an hour of work Some employers can insist  you don't work for anyone else I don't know about you but I firmly believe this is the closest thing to  legalised slavery  that society has ever been tricked into accepting. If you're unemployed and refuse to accept a zero-hour contract you could  face losing your benefits , doesn't sound very fair to me.  How can someone live with that uncertainty, thinking when will I get my next pay check to feed the kids, to pay the electric, to pay the rent. How can a  government  allow employers to to treat people with such  disrespect ?  SO, I hear that the current government is  doing well  in  reducing the une...

2010 – 2011 61,468 2013 – 2014 913,138 You’re looking at these figures and thinking what on earth is he on about, these are the number of people who received three days’ e mergency food from Trussell Trust foodbanks – Figures compare 2010-2011/2013-2014. Wow. That’s an increase of about 850 thousand people, of those 330 thousand are children . One question you have to ask yourself is what has caused these people to require food hand outs in order to feed themselves and their children when so many of us do not. 47% of these people relied on foodbanks because of benefit delays or changes, that’s almost 430 thousand people . This figure is quite interesting and says something about the current government, here are some of the things from the welfare budget that the current conservative led government have cut, which has led to this: ·          Child Trust Fund abolished – Families made £675 worse off per year. ...

There has been much talk about the minimum wage, all three main political parties have promised to  increase the NMW  in the run up to the next general election - now is a good time to see how and if the NMW works.  If it were not for the minimum wage many of us would have been working like slaves and society would be a completely different place. The minimum wage works, it was a smart move to introduce the minimum wage and it brought many people out of poverty. But now whoever is on minimum wage is quite likely to be in the poverty bracket. The poverty rate of working age adults without children currently hovers around 20%! Lets look at some  figures : Your take home pay on minimum wage after tax and NI is  £212 per week .  In Essex an average one bedroom property would cost about £110 per week to rent - add council tax (£25) and bills (£25) and you're making it £160 a week just to have a roof over your head.  That leaves you with  £52 ...