Reforming the contract, rebuilding capacity and strengthening prevention are not quick wins, but they are the right choices. They would demonstrate that Conservatives are prepared to govern with responsibility, fairness and long-term purpose.
We’re not just the party of success stories; we’re the party of survival stories. And for women like me, who’ve lived through poverty, abuse, illness, and rebuilding, survival is political. It teaches us why we keep fighting for others.
“We will by the next general election get waiting times [down] from 18 months when we came in to 18 weeks,” he says.
Anticapitalism disguised as other social justice causes is not new, but it does seem to be increasing. It has long been true of many environmental campaigns and voices. The rise in anticapitalist activism disguised as health science is a growing problem.
With our public finances buckling under the strain of out-of-control healthcare spending, the least that our citizens can do is not eat and drink themselves into chronic morbidity. If a tax helps with that, then fine.
On paper, it may sound like a bold public health initiative, but in reality, it’s poorly thought-out, discriminatory, expensive and will likely hurt our international standing.
Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust operates duplicated services that require largely duplicate staffing – driving permanent staff costs significantly higher than many comparable London hospitals.
This isn’t about cold-hearted cost-cutting. If we continue to treat the NHS as limitless, we risk losing it altogether. But if we treat it as the vital, complex, dynamic logistical operation that it is—we might just save it.
He has has a problem that Ethelred never faced: Britain is borrowing £150 billion a year simply to cover its existing spending commitments. There. Is. No. Money.
The patients, the taxpayer and the workforce need more than a placebo; they need evidence-based treatment. They need a plan that works and works together.
The law would generate confusion, resentment, and most dangerously, opportunity for those already profiting from the island’s thriving illicit tobacco trade.
Even the smallest of suggested UK EU reforms – reforms which make it easier for businesses to trade and create wealth – are characterised as being a betrayal; the event is described as a “surrender summit” – it makes the Tories look backward-facing and dogmatic.
The policy was a poorly thought-out one, which went against our general principles. It has achieved little and certainly would have swayed few people to vote for us. With new leadership and an eye for the future, we can be honest about it.
If it is to succeed, the union must show where the money will come from without overburdening taxpayers. It must combine principle with political judgement, build strategic alliances, and make its case through astute strategy rather than spectacle and disruption – being more Caesar than Spartacus in its approach.