JON ASHWORTH: ‘Giving each little one one of the best probability in life needs to be at coronary heart of Labour’s imaginative and prescient’
‘The British people are yearning to hear a compelling story about our country’s future with bold urgent action’, the former shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth writes
My message to Keir Starmer’s top team: put children, decent jobs and the NHS central to your Budget next week.
When Chancellor Rachel Reeves presents her second Labour budget we all expect her to raise some taxes. In a perfect world, she wouldn’t want more tax rises. But we don’t live in a perfect world.
To stabilise the public finances helping mortgage rates float down, invest in the economy and transform the NHS, tough decisions on tax will have to be taken The simple truth is, years of Tory austerity, a mishandled Brexit and the barmpot recklessness of Liz Truss hammered the economy leaving working families worse off.
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Labour ministers have no option but to clear up that lingering Tory mess. But I know the British people are yearning to hear a compelling story about our country’s future with bold urgent action from Labour ministers too. Patience is wearing thin.
People want life to become more affordable. They want to see a doctor quickly when they ill. They want good well-paid jobs with help for the workless one million young people to find employment or decent training. And they want their children will have the very best prospects. It’s only a Labour government that can deliver these changes.
The Conservatives would cut public services like the NHS to the bone by £46 billion. Nigel Fararge is even more extreme wanting to charge people for treatment. The only path to creating prosperity, with good jobs and raised living standards is through investment, sound public finances and modernised public services. And investing in our greatest asset – our children – is best down payment we can put on our country’s future.
Labour must confront the shame of 4.5 million children now in poverty. This isn’t just statistics on a spreadsheet but a real life ordeal for families in every community. What’s more it represents a lack of opportunity and waste of potential for our country too.
Labour’s free breakfast clubs are so important and will make a huge difference. Labour must go further too. I’ve always supported lifting the two-child benefit limit. It was a vicious Tory policy pushing children into poverty. It’s why I branded it heinous in this newspaper.
In consigning it to the dustbin, Rachel Reeves can lift children out of poverty and because almost sixty per cent of households impacted by this limit are in work, she would also send the clearest possible signal Labour is helping working families with the rising cost of living too.
Labour is a moral mission or nothing. That’s why giving every child the best chance in life has to be at the heart of Labour’s vision.
‘Blundering Boris Johnson should have acted sooner to impose restrictions’
I was shadow Health Secretary through the pandemic, so it’s no surprise I’ve studied carefully the latest findings of the Covid Inquiry.
It confirms what we all knew. Blundering Boris Johnson should have acted sooner to impose restrictions when we all could see the speed and severity at which that deadly virus was spreading. For me there were other mistakes. Workers deserved proper sick pay. Children should have been kept in school longer. And the monstrous failure to protect care homes was unforgivable.
Today Labour must get on with the job of fixing social care and not kick this problem into the long grass. Our elderly and frail who gave so much to build our country, deserve the security, dignity and comfort of decent care in old age.
‘Every day genocidal atrocities unfold in Sudan’
Every day genocidal atrocities unfold in Sudan where a brutal war has torn the country apart for over two years. Ethnic cleansing sees innocent people slaughtered, sexual violence used as a weapon and famine. It saddens me that such little attention is given to this catastrophe.
As an MP I pressed for humanitarian action and I welcome Labour working internationally for an immediate ceasefire. The world can’t walk by on the other side.
‘Who will hit number one this Christmas Day?’
Christmas tunes are already playing in the Ashworth house though the tree isn’t up yet. Who will hit number one this Christmas Day?Last Christmas bagged the number one spot these last two years. Wham must be odds on favourite for the hat trick?
