A few weeks ago, Keir Starmer stood in the same rose garden in Downing Street that had seen the pantomime of the Dominic Cummings Barnard Castle press conference and numerous staff parties during lockdown and delivered a measured, sensible, truthful speech.
The electorate have been saying they were fed up with the constant lies, spin and lack of direction of the last few Conservative governments. Here was a new Prime Minister telling it how it is and explaining what needs to be done.
It wouldn’t have been easy listening for some, but how refreshing to hear the honest facts. Keir Starmer emphasised that the Labour Government are going to need to put solid foundations in place before we start to see improvements.
Anyone who works in the public sector and in infrastructure has seen the steady decline of the services needed to keep us all safe, healthy and secure due to excessive cuts to public sector budgets.
This decline is despite the dedicated hard work of those employed in these services, budgets have been cut to the bone whilst demand increases.
I’ve seen first-hand how the Revenue Support Grant from the Tory Government to our council was slashed every year for the last 14 years, leaving councillors of all parties little choice but to put up council tax in order to pay for all the services your council provides for you, the majority of which is needed for adults and children’s social care.
I hope this government will end the Tory habit of Local Authority settlements being delivered yearly and instead gives councils a multi-year settlement which allows for longer-term planning, procurement and budgeting.
We need an end to the utility industries prioritising the profits of shareholders over maintaining and developing the delivery of energy and water throughout the UK.
I welcome this Labour Government plan to bring radical change to this situation, but – along with most reasonable people who don’t write the headlines in the Tory-owned media – I appreciate this will take time.
Already we have the creation of a National Wealth Fund, changes to planning legislation, the creation of GB Energy, and successful negotiations with Unions that have ended years of strikes in our hospitals and on some of our railways.
There are plans to strengthen the powers of the water regulator to stop the shameful ruin of our rivers and beaches. This Government has achieved more in the last 9 weeks than the previous government did in 14 years.
Although I have become weary of three-word slogans, ‘fixing the foundations’ is exactly what the country needs. From solid foundations we can attain prosperity and security for everyone in our society.
Let’s give this Labour Government the chance to push through the changes necessary to achieve this.
This is a monthly guest column provided by
Cllr Carl Meader, leader of Bedford Borough Labour Group.
It is published unedited and does not reflect the
views of the Bedford Independent.
