Coronavirus - how has the UK done? (Part 2)

          This is part two of a blog on the result, the outcomes as best we can measure at the moment of how our government has responded to the developing Coronavirus pandemic. If you haven’t read the first part, this may make little sense. By way of an introduction, I’m considering the outcome of the decisions made against a very singular metric – how many people died in the first 5 weeks of the crisis. More information on why has already been covered. But before you go any further, there should be some warnings around limitations of data. I have compared the UK as broadly comparable to 4 other countries on this metric. But no two countries are identical, although they are all developed European economies with similar social structures and demographics. Additionally, I am using the best statistics available to me. These are not perfect and in the future better understanding will come of the comparisons. But that won’t be reported in the news.

            Now I have got that out of the way, what does the metric show us?

Country	Deaths per 1,000 population in first 5 weeks
UK	0.38
Spain	0.37
France	0.29
Italy	0.26
Germany	0.05

            On this basis, the UK has had worse results than other European neighbours in dealing with the virus. I have already looked at two areas that governments could impact: Health service capacity and resilience; and speed and scope of social distancing measures. In both cases, mistakes were made. Those mistakes have almost certainly cost lives. But the other things I want to consider in this blog were provision or Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and testing strategies for Coronavirus.

            Provision of Personal Protective Equipment

            As previously mentioned the UK had planned for an epidemic such as Coronavirus and how our healthcare system would cope. It was called Exercise Cygnus and took place in 2016. The results of the exercise have remained classified. However, at the time some information did come out, via we must assume approved news, from the Chief Medical Officer. They were stark warnings. In the event of a flu pandemic the UK would be short of three things: ventilators, PPE and capacity to dispose of bodies.

            This led to a lot of planning by NHS England. Top of that list was that NHS Trusts needed to be better prepared. We needed more PPE. We needed more ventilators. We needed a better way to properly look after those who died. In order to put this in place the NHS needed something that was becoming increasingly short. It needed the money to buy these things. No extra funding came from the government. NHS chief executives were left with an obvious choice really. As budgets became more and more restricted due to austerity and government set targets were missed and services and trusts started to fail financially. Use the budget you already have to try to keep services running now to the best of your ability OR spend that budget on the possibility of a future pandemic. Which would you do?

            Coming into this crisis we did not have enough PPE. This was because the Conservative government of the day chose not to provide any more funding. Interestingly a lot of media outlets sympathetic to the conservatives have tried to blame this on NHS executives. I find this hard to swallow and incredibly low. What were they meant to but it with? Hope and charm?

            PPE is incredibly important because, as Italy found out very swiftly, without doctors and nurses you can have a surplus of ventilators but no-one to run them if they too have caught Coronavirus. In this country we are rightly proud and protective of our NHS. It is truly a shining example of socialism working. In fact since the start of UK lockdown measures we have had a weekly round of applause for our NHS workers. Everybody feels and knows it implicitly in this country. We rely on and owe the NHS and its staff so much.

But this must include that we owe keeping them safe where possible. Even for those who don’t believe in the NHS it is a simple equation in a time of pandemic – fewer healthcare professionals mean each of us is at greater risk. Therefore PPE to keep them safe must be paramount. What did the government do when they knew more money was needed to pay for PPE a WHOLE 3 YEARS AGO? Provided no additional funding. Who have media outlets tried to blame? NHS executives. In June of last year a governmental body again warned the government that there was no stockpile of PPE and this left us open to the threat. The government again did nothing. We should be rioting in the streets over this betrayal. Once it is safe to do so, obviously.

What is just as heinous is the handling of this shortage by the government of today. It may be the same party, but you can possibly see the argument of “it was different ministers then”. As soon as this happened our government should have done everything, and I mean everything, in its power to source additional PPE. Surely at least they have done that?

On March 25^th, when the howls of outrage were starting to really wing out and hit the politicians in Westminster, Boris Johnson said this:

“On the personal protective equipment the answer is by the end of this week.”

That is the sort of bold, definitive promise that we all want to hear from our politicians. Measurable, reassuring, no nonsense. More media coverage followed to reinforce this determination. And by the way, this promise was not JUST that the NHS would have the PPE it needed. This was a promise that care homes as well as the NHS would have all the PPE needed to keep staff safe. In fact Matt Hancock was able to trumpet that 997 MILLION items of PPE had been handed out. Outstanding delivery.

Except, of course, that the target wasn’t met. The truth is that a survey by the British Medical Association (who know a thing or two about healthcare and PPE) on the 18^th April – 3 weeks later found that half of doctors working in high risk of infection areas reported a shortage of PPE. The situation is far, far worse in the overwhelmingly privatised care sector. The Royal College of Nurses has told members that as a last resort if there is insufficient PPE they can refuse to treat a patient. Just pause and think about that scenario. 

And it is not as if getting PPE right now is an easy thing. There is a worldwide shortage. Every country is trying to source PPE of the right type. Well, every country except those who planned in advance and built a stockpile when told to by medical experts, obviously. We, along with other countries need billions of items of PPE. And PPE covers a wide variety of items. It must be the right PPE for the right use.

What about the almost 1 billion items distributed? Well, it turns out that of those 1 billion items, 50% of them were surgical gloves. So that leaves 500 million items to cover masks, gowns, eye protection etc. Oh, and the gloves were not pairs. They were individual gloves. Now, unless Doctor Richard Kimble was on to something and there are a fuck-load of one-armed men running around the NHS individual gloves are a mis-counting by any standard. Still, ignoring that the Secretary of State for Health tried to pull the wool over the eyes of the public on that particular topic, there must be a reason we are doing so badly.

For many of us, we would possibly focus on supply chain problems. 36 individual companies, many of whom are specialist manufacturers of PPE, have complained that they have approached the government but been ignored. This is not that surprising for people who have had involvement with government procurement. The government didn’t sign up to a European-wide initiative to buy PPE because, using the official language, of a “communications error”. How much communication is involved? “Would you like to join?”, “Yes please”. But as it turns out, if you believe the government’s own line there is another culprit.

The focus for the Secretary of State’s commentary on the shortage? That doctors and nurses are using too much of it. Yes, that is right. It is not the fault of a government that failed to stockpile despite being told twice to do so. It is not the fault of a supply chain that everyone knows is failing in lots of places. It is the fault of the same doctors and nurses who Conservative politicians are out on their doorsteps applauding every Thursday night. The same NHS staff who have lost over 100 colleagues to Coronavirus. How many of those would still be alive with the correct PPE?

Testing for Coronavirus

At a press conference in front of the world’s press on the 16^th March – 5 days before the UK went in to lockdown – the Director General of the WHO made it clear. The most important tool, in their view, to arrest the spread of the disease was:

“Our key message is: test, test, test”.

Now, that is easier said than done. For a start, that means that you have to have the capacity and capability – including the right resources – to actually perform testing. Quite simply, the UK had never needed to have that capacity before and was unprepared. It would be easy to accept this as an obvious rationale for why we didn’t test more. I am not a scientist or healthcare professional. I can’t tell you what chemicals, equipment and laboratory space is needed to perform these tests. Not many people are. Of course, this explanation falls down when you look at a very close comparison.

Germany, who had cases around the same time as the UK, were able to implement track and trace testing and target community transmission. They were able to ramp up their testing from none to 500,000 tests a week in the first two months. Not only that, but they used a system of track and trace. Anybody who tested positive was isolated, their contacts ascertained and isolated and tested. Any who were found positive - their contacts ascertained and isolated and tested etc. etc. By focussing on positive tests and then targeting outbreaks in this way Germany has managed to have, based on the measure I have used, had far and away the best outcomes. Similar results have been seen in other countries who have taken this approach. South Korea is a good example – but they had suffered because of the MERS outbreak a number of years ago. They had experience and new what to do. Germany copied their approach. For some reason, we didn’t.

To put into context the differences, by the time Germany had capacity for 70,000 tests a week, the UK had increased capacity at the same time to 5,000 a day. Hardly comparable.  Not only that, but on March 13^th the government made the decision to stop testing for Coronavirus outside of hospitals. Consider that for a moment. At a crucial point in the battle, when we had evidence to compare from different countries on which strategies worked best, we chose to stop following the most effective one. In fact even the Chief Scientific Officer, Deputy Chief Medical Officer and the Security Minister have all accepted that this was a mistake and we could have had better outcomes if we had ramped up testing much more quickly. The question that must be answered then is why? Why didn’t we increase testing capacity when other European countries were able to? Why did we stop track and trace when we did? Even Italy – who were held out as an example of what not to do – had managed 2.2 million tests by the end of April – 1.5 times what the UK had managed.

The Prime Minister himself appeared to understand how important testing and testing capacity was when he promised in early March (when testing was around 5,000 per day) that this would be ramped up to 25,000 and then 250,000. Of course, he never gave a timeline for this but this shows clear intent. Does this mean it was ineptitude rather than ignorance that led to our woeful testing regime? I would hope that any inquiry would look at that – but I wouldn’t hold your breath for an inquiry to hold a Conservative government to account. If you are still able to hold your breath that is.

Obviously, the government would need to explain this. On March 31^st the daily government press briefing made it clear what the problem with increasing testing was. There was a global lack of the chemical reagents needed to perform the tests. This was hampering the UK effort. Which makes me wonder – why didn’t Germany have the same problem? What had they done that we hadn’t? After all, they are only a short hop over the North Sea (or Nordsee coming the other way). What did we fail to do or what did they succeed in that we didn’t.

As the clamour and cry got louder, and the original target from the Prime Minister was forgotten, a truly unusual and remarkable thing happened. The government set a target for the number of tests to be performed, with a deadline attached. The target was that 100,000 tests per day would be delivered by the end of April. This sort of thing – a government giving a way to be held to account – seems like a novelty. The politicians we have had for 30 years or more have been far too clever and sneaky to do this. Was this finally some honest politics?

It would be refreshing to think so. Unfortunately, I think this has been the very opposite. And at the time, it must have seemed a very astute thing to do. Matt Hancock gave himself 28 days from the 2^nd April to get the number of Covid19 tests up to 100,000 a day from 10,000 a day at the time. Increasing our testing ten-fold over the space of a month. A definite and gargantuan effort that would be admired when it was achieved, surely? Or does it raise more questions and hide a multitude of sins? Firstly, why 100,000 tests a day? There is no scientific basis for this, no magic limit we must pass as a country to get back in control. Even that capacity would be only 20% of the testing capacity Germany had mustered to get in control of the disease.

Why then? 100,000 a day from 10,000 a day. Amazing. Of course one of the other things that a statistic like this and a target like this does is focus your mind. But to focus you on one thing means that you are no longer focussed on other things. Even if they are more important. This target meant that people no longer focussed on the number of people tested IN TOTAL. Or on which groups got priority testing. That means that the news isn’t reporting on the fact that by the 28^th April the UK had still only tested 763k people IN TOTAL compared to Germany’s 2,547k – or one third as many. Or that we had carried out less tests than Italy, Spain and around the same as France on 724k. So whilst we were focussing on tests per day, we were still falling behind in total. One problem with this measure you might argue is obvious – that those countries have different populations. Actually, if anything, that makes it worse. If we rank order countries by number of tests performed compared to population and add it to the table above:

Country	Deaths per 1,000 population in first 5 weeks	Tests per 1,000 population by 28th April
Italy	0.26	30.6
Germany	0.05	29.1
Spain	0.37	28.9
UK	0.38	11.2
France	0.29	11.1

100,000 tests per day. It may feel like a bold target. But just perhaps it was a clever distraction tool. Of course the reason that politicians very rarely give such targets is simple – if you miss it you might be held to account. But with 28 days surely we would achieve it. According to the government we did. On the 30^th April and the 1^st May the government proudly announced that we had performed over 100,000 tests on each of those days. Well, kind of met it. Because what the Department of Health and Social Care had to do, in order to even meet the target for those two days was not only count tests actually performed, but include tests sent out in the post to people.

Some might argue that this was a reasonable measure. Certainly government ministers were willing to stand behind these figures as evidence of meeting their target. I don’t believe the vast majority of people see it that way. For most of us a test for a disease does exactly that. It isn’t that you have received a test kit in the post. It is that something has been carried out that will tell the person taking the test whether they are infected or not. We don’t give qualifications to people because they are in the exam hall. They must be tested. Once that target had been set, there was no way that the government could miss it. No matter what, they would find some way to be able to say they had. I expected to see queues of military personnel that day lined up to be tested. Nice to know that the government found a cheaper and easier way to lift the tests performed figure of 80,000 above their magical threshold.

Even if you are convinced that the government met that target – it was for two days only. Since that point it has failed for 5 consecutive days to repeat it. Quite simply, anyone who would believe they hit that target and it had an impact has been conned. The language of the latest announcements is all about the targets for testing “capacity”. But having capacity and actually testing are not the same. I have the capacity to reach a million readers. The fact that it is more like 300 is a much more telling statistic. This is another broken target.

Looking at the metrics on number of deaths, where does that leave the assessment of how we have done? It isn’t great. We now have the highest death toll in Europe as of the 7^th May – even though other countries have tested more so should have higher confirmed deaths than us. In fact we have the second highest death toll in the world – behind the USA. Of course, that is if you accept that China is reporting the correct figures. Even if they aren’t – that still makes us the 3^rd highest. With 1 & 2 having many multiple times our population. When you look at the levers and controls our government had, and how they were deployed, it isn’t hard to see why. Looking at this crisis it appears that at every step the government have been more focussed on looking good rather than doing good. We can only hope that they pay for that at the next election.

Coronavirus - how has the UK done? (Part 1)

          If you are a conservative politician, particularly PM or a cabinet member, then today must feel like a victory. Finally, managed to hit a target in relation to Coronavirus. One set only a month ago. Surely this shows that this government means what it says and now Boris Johnson PM is back in charge everything will turn out alright? As a voter who wanted them in power, who thinks that a Labour government would have been far worse, this must feel like vindication.

          Well, if you believe that, then I have a genuine Picasso to sell you, guvnor. Honest. Boner Fidey it is. What we have seen during this crisis is some masterful propaganda. Genuinely a masterclass in managing the public perception. Because, based on what information we have at the moment, we have fared worse than almost any other country in terms of our response to the challenges of Coronavirus. This is not just based on opinion or preference or political leanings. We, as a country and as a society, have lost far more people, suffered more death than we ever should have done according to the latest death tolls.

          That may seem like a bold statement, but it is based on the available statistics. Ultimately if we are going to compare countries, then this needs to be based on the outcomes – how fatal or damaging this virus has been. That is a really difficult thing to measure, but the consensus appears to be to use fatalities from Coronavirus (whilst we wait for the data to be considered in more detail over a longer period). The obvious comparisons against the UK are other European states. Proximity, similar socialist outlooks (i.e. healthcare, schools, sick pay etc.), access to world travel, genetically, social / ethnic mix, etc.It is worth saying up front - the data is not complete yet. Nor is it all directly comparable. In fact no two countries are the same in their demography or how they collect and report statistics. In time, there will be long statistical and research studies performed that will produce that information. But by then it will be ignored. The only limited defence that I can use is this - if we compare against 4 other countries that the OECD (and others) regularly compare us against as being similar, this should mitigate some bias. The changes of all 4 being incorrectly reported IN THE SAME DIRECTION are vanishingly small. 

          What do the available statistics tell us? Well in the UK in the first 5 weeks of Coronavirus impacting us (i.e. since we started recording 10+ deaths per day) there have been 26,097 reported deaths. From a population of 68 million. That means we have seen 0.38 fatalities from Coronavirus per 1,000 population. In Italy, over the equivalent first 5 weeks, that was 15,887 deaths against 60m (gives 0.26 per 1,000 population). In fact, if we look at number of deaths for similar size European countries, they are easily to tabulate. Simply put, we have seen a greater number of deaths than any country in Europe on that basis.

Country	Deaths per 1,000 population in first 5 weeks
UK	0.38
Spain	0.37
France	0.29
Italy	0.26
Germany	0.05

Based on information collated by Statista.com

         
          So, we can’t argue otherwise – we have the worst outcomes in the early stages of any comparable European country. Yes, statistics are tricky, and there may be under-reporting or other issues. But there is no reason to believe that these issues would unfairly treat us compared to 4 other countries all with the same challenges. Why? Why have we done so badly compared to other countries? Particularly given when we have, according to international comparisons one of the best healthcare systems in the world?

          There are lots of news articles calling out specific activities that did or didn’t happen that, frankly, I am going to dismiss. Whether your feeling is that Dominic Cummings should not have sat in on meetings of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), or that Boris Johnson should have been present for the 5 Cobra meetings that he missed, whilst these may show the method of operation of this government, they really can’t account for the difference in death rates. In fact, many people would argue keeping Boris Johnson away from making decisions is probably helpful rather than a detriment. I instead think we should be focussing on 4 key areas that do seem to have made a difference to the success of different countries in reducing the death toll. They are:

• 1.    Speed and scope of social distancing measures;

• 2.    Ability to increase capacity of health services;

• 3.    Provision of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE); and

• 4   Testing for Coronavirus.

I don’t want to spend time going in to why each of these is important in the fight. After all, since the start of this crisis the people who were previously constitutional experts on Facebook have re-trained as virologists it turns out. But the world over these 4 tools or levers (along with track and trace as a fifth in some countries) have been the available actions open to governments to use. I am going to consider the first two in this blog (part 1), and then look at the second two and the media management in part 2.

Speed and scope of social distancing measures

In the UK, by the 5^th March we had breached the figure of 100 confirmed Coronavirus cases (it was 114 on that day). It seems a reasonable starting point for comparisons to be taken against other countries. To put some context around it, by then we had seen Italy (which reached that milestone on the 23^rd February) in clear trouble with an explosion in number of cases that was already threatening to overwhelm their health service – by the 5^th March this had turned in to 4,000 confirmed cases. By the 10^th March, this had turned in to 10,000 confirmed cases in Italy (along with 631 deaths). Our government knew that this was a problem, and one that required urgent action.

It is both surprising and appalling then that we did not initiate the social distancing measures we now see until the 23^rd March. That is 18 days when the government failed to take action to implement social distancing that had been seen to work in other countries and that scientists were saying was our best action at that point in time. 18 days. In that time period alone over 3,000 more people had been CONFIRMED as having been infected in the UK – when the rate of infection was doubling every 2 days. 359 people died from it in that period. Quite simply our government acted too late.

There has been lots of speculation and accusation as to why that is. Certainly, interviews given in the early to middle part of March by ministers and officials suggest that at that point the government was working to a “herd immunity” strategy. This changed very suddenly around March 18^th – when this was dismissed by (amongst others) Matt Hancock MP – the Secretary of State for Health. But why the sudden (apparent) change? Because the whole concept of herd immunity was rubbished by the science. It wasn’t something you could aim for; it was something that might be a side effect of not acting enough and letting lots of people die. But this wasn’t new scientific thinking – this was always the case. 

A fair challenge then, is why are there no members of SAGE coming out to say that the government ignored their advice? Every government minister who has given press conferences or updates, from the very outset, has stuck to the line - "we are being led by the science" or "we are following the advice of the scientists". Surely we should be raging at SAGE for giving such bad advice? 

This ignores a fundamental and very important aspect of scientific advice. Scientists provide answers. What they don't do, in this setting, is ask the questions. It is quite simple really to use the questions to lead your response. If you ask "What is the best way to reduce deaths and keep people safe from Coronavirus?" to a group of scientists you will get one set of answers. If you ask "What is the best route to take to manage Coronavirus whilst protecting the economy?" or "What steps will we be able to implement quickly on Coronavirus without worrying the public?" or many other, well you get very different answers. It is a very clever way of deflecting the blame from yourself as a government. We are being led by the science. What you never add is that the science is being led by you. 

What questions the scientists were being asked to opine on can be guessed at. But we don’t know, and right at this moment that isn’t important. What does matter is that because Boris Johnson’s government left it so long more people have been infected, and more people have died.

Ability to increase capacity of health services

One of the most worrying things for anyone following the news during the early days of this crisis was watching the health services of European countries struggle and collapse under the pressure. Countries worst hit by this phenomenon were Italy, Spain, and Portugal. There are a number of connecting themes for these countries – that are shared with the UK. The specifics of the Coronavirus mean that to reduce death tolls (amongst patients) requires 3 things – ventilators (along with the specialist spaces in hospitals); doctors; and nurses to run those beds. It is really that simple. Because we don’t yet have a really effective treatment regime or a vaccine the only thing that health services can do is treat the symptoms. Beds, doctors and nurses.

The common thread that runs through those 3 countries is that they were all hit hard during the last financial crisis, and that they all suffered from long, drawn out austerity plans that reduced the capacity and capability of their health services. They are 3 of the 5 “PIIGS” economies that were most impacted (the other 2 were Ireland and Greece) and faced the deepest cuts. Quite simply government spending on healthcare had been slashed in those countries in the run up to the current crisis. In fact, spending had fallen in Portugal and Spain and kept flat in Italy.

Why then didn’t we see the NHS facing the same catastrophe? This is a mixture of a number of factors, some historic and some based on government actions. The NHS has seen – over the years of Tory austerity – a marked reduction in growth of spending on it. The statistics and budgets make it very clear that since 2009 the NHS has not had the same level of government support it had previously enjoyed. This is not a point that can be argued. Certainly, we now spend more than we previously have, and this rises every year. But it is not rising in line with the historic trend. Our government is constantly tightening what is spent on health services.

Thankfully, historically we have invested in health services more than other countries. This has meant that because of a higher starting point even though we have faced similar or greater cuts due to austerity our health service is still amongst the best in the world. And you get it for free – at the time of writing this. We haven’t yet been dragged down to the level of care that the government appears to be heading towards over the last 11 years. 

Additionally, one thing that the NHS did very quickly that other countries hadn't gotten right was to immediately limit the scope of all other services provided. In particular "elective" procedures. To give an example of an elective procedure, these include knee and hip replacements, removal of cataracts or fitting of leg-braces. I am not a clinician, and these decisions must be led by what is needed. What can be mentioned is that this decision has one other helpful effect. The government hasn't met it's target for elective procedures for the last 8 years (having previously met it or been close since the introduction). At least this time next year they have a reasonable explanation for it. Is it too much to expect that this will be the end of that measure?

In addition, the government was able to, at very short notice, set up additional centres to help deal with any overspill by utilising NHS and military (along with civilian contractor) resources. The speed at which these were made ready and operational is a testament to the excellence of our armed forces and the NHS. Thankfully the planning for this sort of threat had been done well in advance. In 2016 there was a 3-day exercise on how the UK would cope with a flu pandemic. The findings from that exercise were stark. And unfortunately, many were not listened to. We have known for a number of years that we needed a stockpile of ventilators and PPE. But the government never spent the money to acquire them.

We did have the plans drawn up to increase the number of available beds. In fact, these plans were immediately put in place. The army and NHS managed to set up the Nightingale centre in an unbelievable amount of time due to their hard work. It has so far treated 51 patients in it’s 4000 beds. It wasn’t needed in the end, because the NHS in London worked brilliantly to manage the surge in numbers. Time may yet tell, and this may be a prescient decision. We may face a second surge in cases. Or we may face a double crisis when the flu season starts if we haven’t gotten a vaccine. As a much wiser man than I said “I would rather be looking at it, than looking for it”.

In addition, it made excellent news when it was opened, and really, isn’t that all that matters? Again, what was needed, much more than the beds themselves, was a good media story to placate the media. When this is over, hopefully there will be an enquiry – one aim should be to understand how the NHS pulled off the seemingly impossible, and another should be to work out why the hell we didn’t implement the learnings of our disaster planning exercise.

That doesn’t finish this blog – in fact this is only halfway. In part 2 I want to cover PPE, testing and media management. Because it seems that a lot more time has been spent considering media management than any other aspect.

All we need now is Spandau Ballet

              I am sat writing this the evening before the first full budget of our 2nd Tory chancellor of the last 20 years, Philip Hammond MP. We have now had a full 6 years of Tory chancellors - even if for 5 of those they were supported in Parliament by a weak and ineffective coalition partner in the Lib Dems. So, it is probably worth looking at how well those Tory chancellors and governments have done for us. By us, I mean the great British working classes. I include in that those of us lucky enough to be working, and those of us who for whatever reason can't or aren't working at the moment. It is also right and fair to measure those chancellors against what they set out as their own priorities. After all, it is not fair to only measure them against things they never promised to do.

              Like most economists (and other political writers) it would be really easy for me to fall into jargon and measures that most people don't understand. Who really feels GDP, deficit, debt ratios? Whilst I want to steer clear of these as much as possible - they are necessary to consider. Mainly because these were the measures which George Osborne and then Philip Hammond have measured themselves against. But there are other measures that they feed into - and these do matter. These are how well-off we as individuals feel, and the future prospects for the economy. As well as these, there are other factors that matter - how well funded and effective our public services are; how much tax we pay and how many of us are in gainful employment.

              Coming into power in 2010 was never going to be easy for any government. The world was still reeling from a financial crisis, caused by global banks, that was as severe as The Great Depression. This was impacting pretty much every country - though some worse than others. In the UK because we had bailed out the banks here we had a massive public sector debt (the amount the government owes) that had risen from under 40% to around 65% a the time of the General Election. This was the worst of all worlds - it was driven by an increasing amount of debt from bailing out the banks, a shrinking economy and a growing deficit. The deficit or surplus is the difference between how much the government is earning (basically through taxation) compared to how much it spends (on services for the people). 

             So whichever Chancellor came in had to do one (or all) of 3 things - grow the economy, reduce the deficit and / or reduce the overall debt the government had. The prevailing idea from George Osborne (and presumably supported at that point by the public) was to reduce the deficit, within 5 years, and thereby start to pay down the debt levels. Surely we could return to surplus? After all, we had run a surplus for the overwhelming majority of the Blair years, after the deficit laden years of the Thatcher government. This therefore gave rise to the austerity agenda - the aim being to reduce how much the government spent to get in line with what they earned. 

             But the Tories also inherited a number of other problems and benefits at that time. For example, we had an NHS that was the best in the world, as proven by a number of international comparative studies. This was not only in terms of the service provided, but also how much it cost to provide. Gone were the days of waiting on trolleys in corridors. We had improved standards across schools. Whilst not all of the policies used were particularly popular, they were, mostly, working. Sure Start and EMA were supported by all parties as right and necessary because of the benefits to social well-being. The unemployment rate however had taken a marked increase - meaning fewer people were working - whilst this had stayed stable around the 5% mark for the majority of the Blair years this shot up as a result of the global banking crisis to 7.5%. This had been a massive improvement - during the Thatcher years it had been between 7.5% and 10% for almost the entire period. 

            So across those areas, how have the Tories done? Well, let's look at deficit and debt reduction, unemployment, amount we pay in tax, and those services mentioned above one at a time. 

Debt & Deficit

Since 2010, the debt as a share of GDP (the most reliable measure) has increased from 65% to 85%. In money terms, these 6 years have added £1trillion of debt. That is debt which our government must now pay back. More worryingly, the deficit is still at 3%. We were meant to be rid of both of those things by now. In fact, neither has been delivered on. We are worse off than we were. 

Unemployment

Here, it appears, we have good news. The unemployment rate has seen a steady downward trend. It has moved from a recent high of 8.5% to 4.8%. We should all be celebrating, shouldn't we? Well, it isn't quite so rosy. 700,000 of those new jobs are zero hours contracts. That is 700,000 people who don't know if they will have work from one day to the next. We may as well go back to the days of the Labour exchange. Workers earnings have not increased - which you would expect from high employment. More people can say they have a job, but more than ever don't have enough money coming in to actually survive. So we must remain cautious if we want to say this is good news.

Taxation

The level of government taxation - ie how much they take out of the economy each year to pay for public services has now increased back to levels last seen in 1986. So whilst they have spectacularly failed to reduce the deficit, they have done that whilst taking more of your money from you. Not only that, but the source of that tax has become far less friendly for you. Much less is being taken from big businesses and wealthy individuals. Instead, more tax is being taken from your wallet, by way of increases in VAT and Insurance Premium Tax. They have openly and actively taken from the poor to give to the rich. A true reverse Robin Hood. 

Public services

Well, Sure Start and EMA didn't survive the first year under the Tories. Our health service is once again falling apart. This winter we had the worst performance during the winter since we started measuring such things. Junior doctors went out on strike - previously unheard of. In education there are experts, councillors (of all parties), headteachers and MPs screaming at the government to address the lack of funding. What it the response of the current government? To instead set aside money for their pet project of grammar schools and free schools. Just consider that, any extra money they find is not going to your child's school - but to open a new one that you have no say over. Teachers are leaving the profession in droves, and recruitment of new ones is drying up. We are back to poor services where only the wealthy will be okay. 

                  So, it is amazing that we find ourselves here again. A government that can't get spending under control, where services are so poor they are a laughing stock, where only the wealthy are benefitting. Things haven't been this bad across so many measures since the early 1980s. Some would argue that there are other similarities - for example a Labour leader who is painted as a dangerous leftie by the media and who doesn't seem either willing or able to shake off the tag. What is worrying is that against this backdrop the Tories are still enjoying electoral success. This really should be a wake up call and warning to the Labour Party. The question is whether they are listening - or repeating the internal fights of the 1980s. Only time will tell. The problem is, how much of a country will we have left at the end of it?

Some Leave voters have every right to be angry. They just need to work out who with.

So quite an extraordinary act took place last week. 3 judges from the High Court in London made a decision on a technical point of law and sent the news and the political sphere into overdrive. This doesn't happen very often, but given the topic they were ruling on this was hardly surprising. They were passing judgement on a case brought by a group of private citizens against the UK Government on the specific legal steps the government must take to invoke Article 50 of the EU - that is to start the formal process of Brexit.

This has been jumped on, by members of the public and experienced politicians alike as an attempt to derail the democratic will of the UK - that we want to leave the EU. The majority have spoken, and here are a bunch of bremoaners trying to stop that from happening. Is that the case though? Our democracy that has been hard won and hard protected now under attack? Certainly during the Leave campaign much was made of our governance, rights and democracy tying back to the Magna Carta and being uninterrupted since then. Is someone trying to run roughshod over that?
I believe the answer is an unequivocal yes. Should Leavers be angry? For some of them, I think they have every right to be.

Lots of leavers voted that way for lots of different reasons. I think it is a real shame that so many have wanted to tar them all as racists. Some Leavers had decided, long before any cases were put forward that they wanted to Vote Leave. That is absolutely fine. It is a democracy. We don't get a right to limit the vote to only people who consider issues in the way that we do. It is the system we have. But over the course of the referendum campaign, there were really 4 key issues that were used to push the Leave vote. Firstly, to take back control of unchecked immigration. Secondly, to take back control of our laws and rulings. Third, that we would be able to create new and better trading relationships with a wider range of partners. Finally, that we could save money paid in to the EU and use this, for example, to give the NHS an extra £350 million a week. 

These 4 issues, when combined and brought together, spoke to the very heart of the issues a large group of people care about. It spoke to our national pride and national strength. Anyone arguing against this could easily be derided as not patriotic (I know this, because I took this claim fairly regularly). But I can see the emotional flow of that argument. These claims were pushed very strongly, not just by the official campaign, but by UKIP and the majority of the British press too. 

It's quite easy to see, when someone is faced with this level of emotional argument, and see a set of factors that are so clearly wrong and unjust, that they expect everyone else to see it too. I actually wonder why there wasn't more aggression and violence. But also, if you have been given this story, you would assume that once through the referendum, this horrible situation would be remedied quickly. No more EU, no more money paid, no more immigration, control back in your hands.

Unfortunately, they have been both badly let down, and badly lied to. Firstly, David Cameron has let down not only Leavers but everybody in the country. This referendum was only ever meant to kill off UKIP. There was never any intention within government that Remain would actually lose. For this reason, there was never any clarity or honesty as to what would happen if they did. The government didn't even make contingency plans for that outcome. Just imagine that, a government not planning for a possible outcome of a binary referendum. Leave was never on the cards. Why else do you think the PM immediately resigned?

The other effect of this is that there was never any clarity given on how we would or could leave and what leaving would free us from. Had government departments been allowed to work on both outcomes then a clear option would have been given. Stay, and you get A. Leave and you get B. Unfortunately, this was taken away from the electorate. Instead, the Vote Leave campaign, UKIP and press barons were allowed to fill the void where official government guidance should have been. 

A really good example of this is shown by the reaction to the court case last week. The legislation which allowed the referendum was quite clear that it was advisory. Any decision was always going to be subject to British laws and British government - in the shape of the houses of parliament. But if you have been told for three months - you, personally - that you were taking back control, wouldn't you be shocked to now hear that? I would be. 

But this belief that people were given, came quite clearly from UKIP, Vote Leave and the press. It is therefore not at all surprising that all of those bodies have immediately come out and attacked the judges and the law of this country. Not because they ever believed it. But because the alternative is that this raw emotion they have unleashed turns on them to hold them to account for selling them a fairytale. 

Indeed, the judges had not made any ruling on whether we could or couldn't or even should or shouldn't leave the EU. They were purely ruling to say that British Law must be followed. However, social media and the mainstream media were awash with this attempt to stop Brexit by these judges. Never mind the fact that reading of it is completely untrue - UKIP, The Daily Mail, The Express all presented it as an attempt BY THE JUDGES to stop Brexit. In fact, in ever more dangerous behaviour Nigel Farage has called on people to march on the Supreme Court. Because nothing says respect for the rule of law like attempting to intimidate judges. 

Of course, this is just one example where a lack of planning and honesty is going to cause problems. There was never any decision or agreement on whether we would have any future relationship with Europe at all. This was not covered in the referendum. We were given a binary choice between the status quo and whatever the Leave campaign wanted to sell us. So it is far from certain whether our final leaving deal will include: Trade tariffs, freedom of movement, single market access, accepting some European rules. But the Leave camp have already sold all of these things. Given the level of emotion they have plumbed and brought to the surface, this could lead to even greater anger in the future. 

If you voted or now want to Leave, I would not expect any other outcome. But it is time to look at what you have been sold, and whether you actually want it. And if you do, what should it look like? The problem is that other Leavers might have a different view from you. There is no way you can all be kept happy. So, you have every right to be angry. But be angry with David Cameron for making a mess of such an important democratic process. Be angry with those who have lied to you. But don't be angry with the courts. Once this is all over, it is likely they will be the only ones left to us. Do you really want to damage them to the point that they can no longer hold the government to account?

I shouldn’t be writing this blog

           I really shouldn’t. On Thursday the UK voted that we should leave the EU. 1 million people more voted to leave than remain. Whether you agree with that decision or not it is a fact. The people who voted most strongly for Leave were, based on the official polling data, from working class towns who have been let down and left behind over the past 30 plus years. This was a chance for them to scream out their anger and rage at the state of their lives and the fact that they don’t feel listened to. Since the results the far right, the racists and the xenophobes have used that as an excuse to peddle their hatred, believing (I think wrongly) that the vote has shown more people agree with them than they previously knew. The Prime Minister has resigned. The EU want us to start negotiations. The Vote Leave campaign have come out already and said their big claims (more NHS money and lower immigration) were never actually true. People who voted leave are about to find out that when the campaign said “Take Back Control” they added a silent “and give it to Etonians in London”. We are about to go into one of the angriest phases in this country’s history.

We should all be sitting down, and working out what we do to get from this point to one where we can act as a country again. Hell, we need to decide what sort of country we really want first. Not what sort of country are we being offered by career politicians in London. I should be setting out, as a socialist, my view for what that could look like and how we could achieve it. We need cool heads, reconciliation and calm debate to answer all of those people who voted in anger. We must not fail to hear that voice – they are the majority in this country. That is what I should be doing.

But no. Instead I am writing a blog about another attempted coup in the fucking Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP). A party which now appears to be so full of career politicians from the Blair years that it is incapable of seeing outside the Westminster bubble they live in. Who think it is more important to get the “right” result from the leadership election they were on the wrong side of than look to their constituents and address their concerns.

Now, in an attempt to upset every Labour party member in one go, I am going to admit to something which people will see as an act of treason itself. I no longer believe that Labour would get the best possible results in a general election with Jeremy Corbyn as their leader. I voted for JC, and I strongly believe that we need a left leaning leader in order to win back not only votes, but those people who have roared at the government in this referendum. We must not allow them to fall down the route of listening to the racist demagogues of UKIP. So I think we need a left-wing leader who can get those people back. I believe there may be better candidates than JC. I do not believe his performance in the referendum was strong enough. There were enough instances of poor performance and behaviour that we should all be able to see it. I do believe that a move towards a left wing leader who is a more natural vote winner is the direction we should go in.

But this is not the way to do that. At a point when we need a strong, united and responsive Labour Party we are turning our backs on the country to fight internally. What a hideous joke. I am still waiting for the punchline. Let’s be clear on this – dear politicians of pretty much every party YOU ARE NOT DELIVERING WHAT THE PEOPLE OF THIS COUNTRY WANT. Many feel they no longer have a voice and government is a long way away and not listening. Well done to the PLP for showing those people that is exactly what politicians do. Particularly when you consider the reason for this timing – so that this coup can happen before changes to the NEC lead to rule changes that might make it more difficult to get rid of the party leader.

The problem is one entirely of your own making PLP. The party in parliament is so far further right than the party members that when the leadership election comes up there is only ever going to be one left wing candidate – the fact that they take turns putting themselves forward proves that. But what happened last year (after the tories won an outright victory) is that people said “enough is enough, we want left wing policies and a left wing leader”. We gave you those instructions. By an absolute landslide. There is no questioning the view of the party members in this. The fact that people signed up to join the party in their thousands to make sure that happened should have given you some idea. This, I believe, is the route to taking our country back from those who no longer care about the working class.

Instead of working with those instructions and that leadership you have used every opportunity to undermine and challenge it. You have shown no loyalty to your party members. I do now hope you understand that those party members should feel no loyalty back to you. Neither should the electorate of the country as a whole. You have put your own self-interest ahead of the national one. For that you should be appalled at your behaviour. If you do not like the views of the membership of the Labour party feel free to leave and join another party. Get elected on the back of their membership fees, their hard work and activism, their policies. You truly should be ashamed of your behaviour. We certainly are. 

How to face the UKIP challenge

          Never one to step back from a challenge me. I recently got myself embroiled in a debate (well, I say debate, I was providing arguments whilst ‘kippers were sharing faked up images from Tommy Robinson) on twitter. The disagreement was over UKIP policies. I actually had to think on this – do I know their policies well enough? Do I understand them? We certainly can’t assume that we have enough liberal people in the country that UKIP can’t be a threat. Maybe I am doing them a disservice – and there is more to support than denigrate.

So, the challenge is twofold. One, I have set myself is to review and consider their manifesto. After all, they might be a party that we face at the next election (unless they crumble in the run up to or the aftermath of the EU referendum). Two, how do we see off their challenge? They themselves feel that they are a direct challenger to Labour in working class areas (although, you know, only when they aren’t faced with a democratic vote of the people of an area http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35003152 like in Oldham West and Royton).

Certainly, in specific instances, UKIP do sound like they have some compelling arguments and ideas. Patrick O’Flynn came across as the least rabid right-winger on Question Time on Thursday 14^th January 2016 http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06wcm9d . Although I would urge caution – the other right wingers included Camilla Long, Kelvin Mackenzie and Nick Boles, so Genghis Khan may have appeared reasonable in that company. He certainly gained some praise for the housing policies he espoused.

As the last formal document expressing policy for UKIP, I got hold of a copy of their 2015 manifesto http://www.ukip.org/manifesto2015 which comes with a handy back of a fag packet economic assessment of their tax and spending plans – provided by CEBR. This is marked up as “independent”. Now, if anyone has ever bought a house, you know that there is no such thing as independent. Whoever pays the bill calls the shots and gets the report they want. I couldn’t quite find the details of the independent person who had paid for this report. I am sure UKIP will help explain how this was done independently. So in the interest of fairness we will assume it was performed independently.

I will be honest, there is probably too much to wade through in one sitting – even if you enjoy blogging as much as I do. So I can going to focus on specific areas. What got me into this conversation was the explanation of UKIP housing policies, so we should look at

Housing.

                The main thrust of the UKIP argument is really strong. A really sensible proposal. An absolute acceptance that there is a massive shortage of social housing, and that it has been caused by housing sell offs during the 80s. In order to combat that, they have a number of different planks to their housing strategy.

•                 Bringing 280,000 houses back in to use by charging 50% additional council tax for homes left empty for 2 years.These are houses which the owners can already afford to own, and leave standing empty whilst paying council tax on them. How much difference will an extra £500 per year make? This would not have anywhere near enough of an impact. (Rating – not effective)
• Incentivise building of 2.5million houses on Brownfield sites at a cost of £1.75billion over 5 years. Really, looking at this, I initially believed this to be reasonable. However, the devil is in the detail. To build 2.5million houses would require all of the sites to be redeveloped. Even UKIP have admitted their incentives would only cover 30% of sites – so a basic assumption would be an extra 750,000 houses built over the 5 year period on top of where we are now. So that would still make it a win – if the technology genuinely exists to achieve this. (Rating – appears possible)
• Releasing long held dormant land from local and central government.There are no costings for this, or how much impact there will be from this – it is a completely uncosted, result free fudge (Rating – space filler)
• Reduce the pressure on housing waiting lists by not allowing foreign nationals to access social housing until they have been here for 5 years, working and paying tax. This is the biggest plank of their proposal, and seen as the biggest issue, so I want to consider this in more detail.I think here we see the real thrust of UKIP and what they want to achieve. 

                So let’s agree some basic facts. Using the latest data I can find, around 8 million foreign nationals abide in the UK http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/migrants-uk-overview at the present time. If we assume they are in family groups of 4, that means they require about 2 million houses. Of those 43% own their own home and 39% rent privately http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/migrants-and-housing-uk-experiences-and-impacts . That leaves approx 18% in social housing – that would mean a reduction in the social housing stock of 360,000 houses. There are 4 million social houses in Britain https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/423249/Dwelling_Stock_Estimates_2014_England.pdf out of a total of 23 million.

So, as a very rough estimate, that means that migrants (of all types) take up 8.7% of housing, and 9% of social housing. I don’t have any better figures, but let’s assume 50% of migrants have been here less than 5 years. That means actually, this would free up about 4.5% of social housing – but push this into private rented. This would simply mean higher private rents (more people after fewer tenancies). What are social housing rents now set with regards to? Private rents. So rent will go up for everyone, and the only people who will benefit are PRIVATE LANDLORDS. 

Alternatively, this approach could mean we have fewer migrants at all. This would seem to follow the general thrust of the UKIP arguments in other areas – where they wish to reduce immigration.  Many might think this is a benefit to us. Of course, it would mean the end of the NHS, as 11% of all NHS staff are foreign nationals http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/26/nhs-foreign-nationals-immigration-health-service - rising to 26% of doctors. So, yes, cheaper housing, but an NHS that can not cope – without enough doctors. So irrespective of any question of morality, that would be a massive loss to the country.

(Rating – higher rents paid by EVERYONE in the private sector OR no NHS – you decide).

So, there you have it, the UKIP housing policy laid bare for all to see. One potentially good idea, two soundbites and one policy so monumentally dangerous we could never enact it (that is even if it was compatible with the law, which I am not sure it would be). My worry is that like a lot of their other policies, what initially sounds straightforward is really an absolute disaster waiting to happen. This is why we need to fight UKIP – and this is how we need to fight them. By challenging their catchphrases and soundbites and making them admit the dangerous policies that follow behind.