Labour are back in power!

"And no anchovies!" Cameron gets
tough with Theresa May. Clegg rather
 likes anchovies but says nothing.

We won! We won! Rejoice! Well, when I say we won, I mean that the Labour Party won. I'm not entirely sure that means 'we' but at least it means the Tories didn't win. My enemy's enemy etc. Yes, the Tories lost and that means the end of tyranny and injustice throughout the land. Tiny Tim will live, no more cuts, no more VAT rises, no more student fees, no more public executions...

I don't think I am over-stating it when I say it's the constitutional equivalent of destroying the Coalition Death Star - or were the Coalition the goodies? I don't know and, frankly, this is no time for fact checking. Darth Cameron and his stormtrooper Jabba the Clegg have seen their forces routed by the cuddly new E 'wok' Miliband...What are you saying Chewbacca? The Coalition hasn't collapsed? The Death Star wasn't destroyed?  We are still facing a winter feeling the full force of the cuts.

Always bad news

Well, looking on the Mr Brightside at least that's one less seat that Labour have to win. Two less for the Coalition majority. We're a step closer to the promised land and a new era of hope and fair government. What is it Lassie? You mean Labour already held the seat? Labour won the seat in May but a special court found ex-Labour minister Phil Woolas made false statements about the Lib Dem candidate and the result was declared void. So Labour won a seat they already had. Even so, Lassie, it's a morale boosting result for everyone who opposes the evil Coalition.

Time at least for a few rousing words to Labour's Rebel Alliance massing on Saddleworthonia. Time for one of those inspiring speeches that Eddie M has become famous for, here it comes: "I think the voters of Oldham east and Saddleworth have sent a very clear message to the government about some of the things they've been doing" 'Some of the things,' Eddie? Only, 'some of the things'? Well, that showed them. What a battle cry. It's like Father Ted's "Down with that sort of thing."

In case you don't recognise him
- this is the less well known Miliband

We don't like 'some of the things' the government is doing! How very considered. Which bits do we like? "We don't like the cuts and stuff but we do really like the new wallpaper in the Cabinet Rooms." Hang on, don't panic, there's more: "But more importantly, I hope the government will listen to what they've said about those key issues." You tell them Eddie, I 'hope' they listen too...but what if they don't?" Here comes the knock out blow: "This is the first step in a long journey for Labour." Sorry, but I feel a bit depressed now. I think I might go home and cry...

More importantly, at least the the Lib Dems lost, and if there is one thing we dislike more than Tories, it's the Parliamentary Liberal Democrats. I say 'Parliamentary' because, to show I am not a complete bigot, I want to admit that some of my best friends are Lib Dems. It would be a bit awkward in Bathavonton to get the right numbers for dinner parties if we could only invite Revolutionary Syndicalist Reactionaries like ourselves. To the RSRs, any agreement on a time or a menu for dinner would signify an acquiescence to bourgeois bureaucratic tendencies and would require an immediate programme of re-education.

In the old days, Liberal dinner guests always seem so easy to please. Always on time. So polite. Never overstay their welcome. They may not always have agreed with the principles of the RSR, but at least they expressed the appropriate level of guilt for their divergence from the the correct ideology. They were keen to assure everyone, 'that they had heard Bash Street Comp was very good, it's just that Eton was a family tradition.' Inviting a Lib Dem to dinner used to be like inviting the punchline. The Party were so charmingly ineffectual, you just had to vote for them occasionally. Their conversion to the 'dark side' has been like discovering that the little boy you sponsored through school turned out to be one of the Taliban. But now we know what they are really like we won't fall for that again...will we?

Skip - "You are dumber than a sheep"

Hang on Skippy, you must be mistaken. The Lib Dem share of the vote went up? THE LIB DEM VOTE WENT UP? Obviously, a party that has proved itself to be utterly untrustworthy and lacking in any moral fibre has become more popular. Of course it has. Now that it is clear that the Lib Dems are led by two of the most cynical and self-serving politicians of our time - against some very strong opposition - it is obvious that they should gain the respect of the British electorate. In fact, looking at the result, it appears that Clegg and Cable's duplicity has been so pronounced that a lot of confused Tories ended up voting for them. What colour do you get if you mix blue and orange. It can only be a matter of time.

Canthingsonlygetbetter?

Land of my Pilgrim Fathers - Boston Lincolnshire

"We're the forgotten town" says my brother. It's a common refrain as I speak to members of my family. Once the second biggest port in England and a hotbed of radical religious fervour that influenced the world - it is now a traffic clogged backwater. As someone who left the town 22 years ago it seems fitting that nowadays the towns greatest historical legacy is to be known as a place that people escaped. When the Pilgrim Fathers (who were imprisoned there) arrived in America they chose to name their home Boston.

Yet, 'forgotten town' seems an odd label. Over the last few years, for a small market town of only 60,000, Boston has attracted a remarkable amount media attention - none of it good. Firstly, Boston United, the local football team, attracted attention for making illegal payments to players and avoiding tax. United were subsequently relegated three leagues in two years. The chant from the terraces of 'who ate all the pies' was easy to answer because in 2006, Boston was named the fattest town in Britain with 31% of its residents clinically obese.

The growth in its population was not just around the waist. In 2001 96% of the population were regarded themselves as 'white' British. After the expansion of the European Union in 2004, Boston saw its population grow by 25% in just a couple of years. Although wages are very low in the area, migrants from Eastern European countries with even lower wages were were attracted by the prospect of working on the farms and in the food packing and processing factories. According to Refugee Support, 95% of local employers use casual labour and 98% is immigrant labour.  In 2008, Hazel Blears, then Communities Secretary,  confirmed to a Commons Select Committee that one in four people were from Portugal or Eastern Europe and an incredible 65 languages were spoken. 

Much attention, and rightly, has been given to the plight of the new 'Bostonians'. In 2007, The Independent ran a story, 'Immigration: In the town where the gangmaster is king.' Gangmasters are contracted to provide labour for the agricultural and horticultural industry. The Reverend David de Verny, former Chapain to migrant workers, was very critical of the system, "Two hundred years after the official abolition of slavery we are treating foreign workers like slaves. We are only interested in them as economic commodities."

Verny's concerns seem to be borne out by the practices of the gangmasters. The Independent reported they had a 'very holistic approach to "caring" for their workers – getting the wages back by selling them housing, food from their own shop, vodka or hard drugs, or prostitutes. Marta, a 28 year old from Warsaw said, "The gangmaster system rules the town. It is a total disaster. People work for 12 hours, seven days a week, for very little money. All the Poles live together in overcrowded houses paying ridiculous rents to the gangmaster. They travel together and they have no money or time to learn English. What chance do they have?"

Little has been said, however, about the problems that this huge influx of immigrants has brought to the town. Maggie Peberdy of the Citizens' Advice Bureau, noted that, "If you're 50 years old and have been working for the same company for a long time, you're in big trouble. You may be getting slow and a bit arthritic, but the boss can get in a Pole who is younger and faster. He will work seven days a week, at all hours, and he'll be paid piecemeal with no sick pay, no holiday pay, nothing. Unless you accept those terms too you may be out of a job." The immigrants have enabled the producers to keep wages low. 

The strain is being felt in a number of ways. Last year a Boston Headteacher warned that, soon, 60% of pupils will be from immigrant families. A police report in 2006 highlighted that Eastern European 'mafia-style gangsters were organising prostitution. In a stop and check operation, Lincolnshire police found 50 per cent of all drivers were committing an offence and 97 per cent of those were migrant workers. The police noted 'a marked increase in road traffic accidents in this rural area.' Boston had also seen a rapid increase in house prices because gangmasters were buying homes to house their low-paid workers. The council estimated the average two-bedroom house price has risen 400 per cent in six years with the  ‘ghettoisation’ of some areas. 

Advice worker, Maggie Peberdy explains, "There are things you can't talk about because you get accused of racism. "One is housing. There is a myth that they are all young, fit and single, but if you put people like that together in vast numbers they soon stop being single. They make couples, and then babies. They may have to be considered a priority for housing help. Their needs will be perceived as greater than those of local people, who may get upset." As The Independent pointed out, these are the words of someone who has demonstrated a commitment to helping the immigrant population. The Telegraph reported last year that the recession has not seen the migrants returning home. Boston is now officially the fertility capital of Britain with an average of 2.8 babies per woman, thanks largely to the new immigrant families. 

All public services have been put under pressure by the population growth and by the challenges of dealing with people who don't speak English and have different cultural expectations. Remember, this is a rural and very isolated part of the country. When I was at secondary school I was regarded as an ethnic minority for having an Irish grandfather and being a catholic. Don't underestimate what a culture shock this has been for everyone concerned. Current estimates suggest that there are at least 66,000 people living in the borough. Yet government funding is based on the data from the last census which showed 54,000, no wonder services are struggling to cope. In the circumstances, it seems quite an achievement that there has not been more tension in the town. 

Visiting Boston from Bath is a pretty big culture shock, even for someone who was raised in the town. It feels like venturing into a rather dystopian vision of globalised Britain. It is a town that feels deprived. Lacking money, yes, but to a large extent direction and hope. The election, in 2008, of a BNP candidate to the Fenside Ward, on Boston Council again drew the media, but, the BNP's victory, while no doubt reflecting a degree of racial tension, with a poll of just 279 votes on a turnout of 22% it was hardly a racist mandate. What the media missed and is more interesting, I think, is that 25 of the 32 council seats are controlled by independents. There is a general feeling that the mainstream parties just aren't interested in Boston people or their problems.  

What are the problems? For me, it's not about race, it is about poverty. Towns like Boston reflect the two-tier society (at the very least) that we are creating. Boston and towns like it are an indictment of how working class people have been badly let down by the Conservatives and New Labour over the last thirty years. Whole towns are simply being left behind. Can we afford to allow whole boroughs to disengage from mainstream politics? Their 'ultimate solutions' might be even less palatable than the BNP.

Now, can I eat all the pies, please?

Conservative reform and the baying mob

In Pakistan, Aasia Bibi, a mother of five, has been sentenced to hang under Pakistan's blasphemy laws.  Meanwhile, in the UK, the Tories are keen to push through a series of reforms that promote decentralisation, devolution and empowerment, to create what David Cameron calls an, “empowering state” rather than an “overpowering state.” Rather than debating the horror of double glazing in a grade two listed house, Bibi's story confronts some of the big questions about how a society should be run. Religion, class, and human rights. Bibi's life. Yet, Bibi's plight could hold a warning to Cameron and his allies.

The 'localism' proposals cut across a range of policy areas: in crime they propose to make police locally accountable to a directly elected individual and will oblige the police to publish detailed local crime data statistics every month hold the police to account for their performance. In health reform Primary Care Trusts are being dissolved and responsibility for commissioning services will be given to local GPs. With the reform of the National Institute for Heath and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the decision about what drugs a patient can access will be left to the doctor. In planning, local communities will be able to propose development which, if it meets certain safeguards and gets 50% of support in a local referendum, will be  built without planning permission.

In principle, this all sounds perfectly legitimate. However, as the BBC's Nick Robinson said in his blog recently, "Governments with money centralise and claim the credit. Governments without cash decentralise and spread the blame." In practice, the Tories are passing over a lot of responsibility and tough choices without providing the money to carry out the new duties properly. The medical reforms are a good example. Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has confirmed that Primary Care Trusts are to be abolished by 2013, from when GPs will plan hospital care and manage budgets. The PCTs will be replaced with 500 GP consortia.

The exact proposals have yet to be published but the overall effect will be to leave far fewer people  without the appropriate training or experience, with a smaller budget, making some very tough decisions about local priorities. Not only will the GPs on the consortium have to work alongside colleagues struggling with their own set of priorities, they will also come face to face with patients each day. The nature of the job also means that GPs tend to be prominent people within the community. GPs and the consortium members, in particular, will no doubt be subject extreme personal pressure from individual patients and organised groups.

On the back of these reforms, the Conservatives intend to strip NICE of the power to turn down new medicines. NICE ensures that the drug budgets within the NHS are used in the most cost-effective way. The power to turn down medicines was a response to the postcode lottery when some patients could get treatment and others couldn't. The pharmaceutical industry has always been critical of NICE and must be rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of influencing local GP consortia to provide more expensive treatments.

Dr Clare Gerada, chair of the Royal College of GPs, attacked the propsals:


"GPs will bare the brunt of the proposed £20 billion savings. I'm concerned that my profession, GPs, will be exposed to lobbying by patients, patient groups and the pharma industry to fund or commission their bit of the service. There could be letters from MPs and patient groups, and begging letters from patients. At worst, the negative impact for GPs could be patients lobbying outside their front door, saying, 'You've got a nice BMW car but you will not allow me to have this cytotoxic drug that will give me three more months of life.' Patients might think that the decision made about their healthcare will be based on self-interest – GPs saving money for themselves rather than spending it on patients. Certain treatment decisions, and a GP consortium's need to balance its books could be misconstrued...Making GPs "the new rationers" of NHS care could ruin the long-established bonds of trust between them and their patients." 

The fact is that whether we like it or not, the NHS has a limited budget and there is an opportunity cost for every decision made. That is, for every new cancer drug that provides perhaps a year of life, a seemingly more banal but long term and life enhancing treatment may be denied. There is a choice. Do you want to make the decision between extending a life temporarily or providing a number of hip operations? Such decisions require objectivity, careful un-emotive planning away from frontline pressures.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan, Bibi's case is the first time a woman has been sentenced to death for blasphemy. It has provoked a cleric in Peshawar to offer a reward of 500,000 rupees (£3800) for her death and has led to the murder of Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer by one of his own guards. The liberal governor had dared to take up Bibi's cause with the president and condemn the blasphemy laws. His death prompted a 'rally against fear' but as Declan Walsh noted in the Observer yesterday, politicians in Pakistan are 'terrified of being on the wrong side of the blasphemy debate.' The government has subsequently confirmed that they will not repeal the laws.

In her home town of Itanwali, Walsh reported that the local people are growing impatient for the sentence to be carried out. However, it appears unlikely that Aasia Bibi will be hanged. Despite this atmosphere of fear no blasphemy convict has ever been hanged in Pakistan. In 2001, Dr Younus was accused of defaming Muhammad. His conviction was finally overturned by the Supreme Court. In fact, according to The Observer,  most blasphemy prosecutions are overturned by the appeal courts, which are to some degree immune to the pressures of the mob that afflict local benches. Usually the judges simply find that there's no evidence to support the case.' In other cases the defendants have received a presidential pardon.

There are enormous differences between Pakistan and the UK but I think the case flags up some important issues for policy-makers. The rush for local decision-making needs to be considered very carefully.  Do we want our health priorities decided by the marketing department of the drug companies or by the local organisations who shout the loudest? As the Tories rush through their 'localism' reforms, I think the lesson of the Bibi case is that only authority, size and space can create the robust decision-making that is 'immune to the pressures of the mob'.

It's a matter of life and death.