You may think that’s a provocative title – but I think that is exactly where we are. The big question of the day is who will carry the can for a floundering, decaying political party? For a discredited, disreputable Government? Or for a country that’s going down the pan?
As we witness the Rwanda Safety Bill pass I can only conclude this is a new high (or rather low) in British politics – others have said it better than me. Stephen Kinnock MP took to X to say, “The Conservative Party is no longer a serious party at all. It’s a rabble. An alphabet soup of factions and cabals.”
It remains to be seen how the Bill will progress from this point, and what factional disruptions and costly, time consuming challenges there will be.
Frankly I’m worried. All of this is wholly performative. It’s politics thinly, bleakly weaponised to stir up division and legitimise racism. It’s simply all about the blame game. The narrative is transparent, don’t blame us – blame them. Please don’t fall for it!
Think about those who reach our shores in small boats – humans – skin and blood just like us.
Think about the death of the man on the Bibby Stockholm barge this week. It was predicted and preventable. Another Tory cock-up. Another example of performative political engineering. 500 people forced to live in a prison like structure designed to hold just 220 people. It’s inhumane.
Even if we can ‘disapply’ the Human Rights Act (whatever that actually means and ignoring what it does to the UK’s global reputation) the cost of the Rwanda plan is estimated to be £400m. It seems not only an extremely high price to pay to remove a couple of hundred people, but money that could be more wisely spent actually tackling the gangs trafficking people and reducing the asylum claim backlog. And will the Rwanda plan even work as a deterrent? Probably not when you have 99% chance of not being sent to Rwanda. So I doubt it. And just watch those costs escalate…
Can we really ignore genuine asylum seekers? Like the women I met who was a domestic slave, who fled for her life when the wealthy family she was literally shackled to bought her to London. She was on duty 24 hours a day and forced to sleep on the floor, frequently kicked awake… and worse. Or the women that was horrifically sex trafficked. Or the man I met whose mother, fearing he would be beaten to death, scraped every penny she could to get him – a gay man – out of a country where homosexuality is still outlawed.
These asylum seekers often suffer from serious mental health issues, and have suffered immeasurably getting here, yet we stuff them into unsuitable places like the Bibby Stockholm and hotels that currently cost £8M a day and we give them £9 per week to manage on. (We’re all heart eh?) While we delay processing their legitimate claims for years. Many of them could be earning and contributing. Most want too. U.K. businesses report they have vacancies they can’t fill.
Manston.
What exactly are the plans for Manston now it’s been deemed a permanent processing centre?
I’ve long advocated that local councillors – such as myself- should be able to gain access to the Manston processing centre. So that those being held there – and you can be held for up to 96 hours – can have someone independent from the immigration processing centre to confide in or to seek advice from. Also because many members of our local community want to show care and compassion.
To date this has been flatly denied.
Recently I wrote to Phil Douglas Director General at the Border Force to ask about the £50M food contract for Manston. I was frankly concerned by the quality and volume of cheap un-nutritious food that was being offered – as it approached its sell by date – to various Thanet food projects. I was amazed to find out that unbranded pot noodles which can be purchased for around a pound were costing the public purse £5 each! Someone is doing very well skimming the top of this contract!
Now we know the next phase of the Manston project is likely to cost £1B between now and 2034, and as 100 hotels used to house asylum seekers are earmarked for closure by Spring ‘24, I’m concerned the expansion at Manston and elsewhere will see a growth in substandard and possibly tented accommodation. Or maybe construction firm Laing O’Rourke, who have been given a million-pound contract to help with the “rapid construction” of new blocks at immigration removal centres will be deployed here in Thanet. I think we should know. Don’t you?
It’s the economy stupid!
Britain has become a poorer, more unequal country under the Tories. That’s a fact. Inequality has increased, record numbers of children are being pushed into poverty, the gap between rich and poor is widening.
A recent Resolution Foundation report shows that fifteen years of economic stagnation have left the typical UK household £8,300 poorer than peers in countries like France and Germany. It certainly feels like that to me.
Even right wingers are warning that Britain is slipping back to the social divide redolent of the Victorian era. (That’s not a typo!) A recent Centre for Social Justice’s (CSJ) report ‘Two Nations: The State of Poverty in the UK’ highlights the U.K. is marked by a widening gulf between mainstream society and a depressed and poverty stricken underclass.
With wage growth slowing to 7.3% and job vacancies also declining we are being warned that Britain’s economy is stagnating. Some analysts have said we could go into a shallow recession over the coming months. Great.
But still – stop the boats!
Last but far from least – Health is wealth.
We’ve been struggling to meet out cancer targets in Kent for a long while – certainly all the while I’ve been a member of the Kent HOSC – Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee. As far back as 2013 our cancer death rates were high and the impact was most severe in the poorer areas of Kent – like Thanet.
“Tory health cuts have led to the shocking inequality in cancer deaths across the U.K. experts claim. A study found people in poorer areas are more likely to die from disease than those living in wealthier spots.” Jeremy Armstrong Daily Mirror 11/12/23.
The latest official figures show that the NHS waiting list in England has hit a record high of nearly 7.8 million, which includes people waiting for multiple tests or procedures. It is the highest number since records began in August 2007. Access to GP’s remains tricky and this too slows down diagnosis and vital treatment.
At the HOSC I was concerned that Kent is still failing to meet nationally agreed cancer targets and that committee members aren’t being presented with the detail on a sufficiently granular level. I’ve requested ward by ward detail on cancer treatments, especially Breast, Bowel and Cervical cancers. The devil as always, is in the detail.
You can always depend on the Tories to exacerbate inequality.
The charts speak for themselves.
Graph 1 Cervical screening coverage: aged 25 to 49 years old for NHS Kent and Medway ICB.
Graph 2 Cervical screening coverage: aged 50 to 64 years old for NHS Kent and Medway ICB.
Graph 3 Breast screening coverage: aged 50 to 70 years old for NHS Kent Medway ICB.
General Election anyone?
