By laurie love

It’s five thirty in the morning on my day off. Through my window I can feel the gentle cool breeze that only seems to come to Florida with the rain. The thunder is distant and safe and I’ve just made my morning report to my brother about our critically ill mother. I would love to go back to sleep but there is another matter weighing on my mind.

In 90 days my two kids and I might well be living in our car. Not an easy predicament to sleep through. Not unlike many US families caught in the foreclosure crisis we are in the process of losing our home. Unlike most US families we have no way out.

Let me explain. No there is too much, let me sum up.

A few years back many people went to the bank and found out they could afford to pay $30 a year for a mortgage. They also found out that even though they could only afford $30 a year the bank was willing to loan them enough to pay $70 a year. Being the upwardly thinking Americans that they are they took the $70 offer, bought a ginormous house, more furniture, the extra stereo and cable equipment ‘needed’ for a larger house and moved in. Never mind the cost; they were investing in their future!

A couple of years down the road the recession was looming (though not ‘officially’ declared as having arrived) and those same people started to panic. Their investments were no longer worth what they wanted them to be worth (apparently no one ever told them that investments were *NOT* a sure thing) and they began to bail.

Being upside-down in a mortgage began to get the kind of sympathy that a cancer diagnosis used to bring. The weird thing is, with precious few exceptions, being upside-down meant practically nothing. Those with worthless mortgages still took grand, stress relieving vacations, they still bought all the latest electronic gadgets and their children still went on to college in brand new cars. So what was the big deal? No idea. No really, outside of being a tool to earn sympathy at social gatherings and a deterrent for buying and selling houses the world didn’t need to alter its spin even a fraction of one second.

But then those sympathy deserving people (insert huge sarcasm sign here) stopped paying their mortgages. Which makes perfect sense really. Who wants to be stuck with an investment that isn’t going to pay off? And when nobody is buying houses because the banks have stopped that assinine habit of over lending and your house is no longer the beauty queen of the real estate market what choice do you have? You quit paying your mortgage and wait for the bank come kick you out of your home.

This maneuver is actually beneficial on two levels. One, you get out of your dumb-ass investment and two, you get huge amounts of sympathy because people think the recession is causing you to lose your home.

And in steps the US government! All those brave, brave politicians came so touchingly to our aid. First, they rescued the banks; the ones that so unscrupulously screwed the people into taking all those supersized mortgages entirely against their wills and who are, quite frankly, just too big to fail without further screwing the American populace; then, they rescued the people; so that all of those poor desperate people who went kicking and screaming into loans that they couldn’t afford are now fully equipped with enough credit to go back out and do it all over again! (or, should they so choose, remain in the house that they should have never purchased to begin with. Rescuee’s choice)

And the whole country breathes a sigh of relief. Whew!

Well maybe not the whole country.

See, the other group of people affected by the foreclosure crisis have a different story. In fact, they have my story. This group of people fall into what is known amongst the untouchable factions as ‘the working poor’.

Now I must admit that for sympathy purposes most Americans not making as much money as Donald Trump consider themselves ‘working poor’. That’s not who I’m talking about. The ‘working poor’ that I’m talking about are the actually working poor. And unfortunately they make up a very foundational group within our countries’ society.

The actually working poor families work at least one full time worth of job per household but still don’t make enough to pay for all of the genuine necessities required to live. Please note that the satellite sports package is *NOT* a genuine necessity. On the other hand, as public schools are on the move to only have internet text books, the internet is. So we’re not talking tents, sleeping bags and mess kits as ‘genuine’ necessities; we’re talking reality here Greg. And reality is a much bigger picture coming in at a much bigger price.

For instance, I work full time in a hospital intensive care unit. I’ve worked for my hospital for nearly four years but I haven’t been able to make enough money to go back to school so I’m stuck in the job of nursing assistant which pays around $10 an hour or for my last year’s taxes a little over $19,000 annually. I have the advantage of having a phenomenal son who is willing to work for family money rather than his own personal money. He works almost fulltime in a labor position (because he doesn’t have a degree yet) that he’s held since he was in high school. Together our household income is right around $30,000 annual. The trick is that in our community a household of three requires no less than $60,000 annual to pay for basic necessities.

We are very hardworking and in all ways, including fiscally, responsible. Both of my kids and I volunteer weekly in areas of our community that serve other individuals with needs that can’t be met without physical human assistance. We are goal oriented and planning for the future; including college educations that will allow us to eventually find jobs that pay a gainful wage. We even have a plan for helping the working poor community once we have the ability. We are the American Dream; with, of course, the one small exception of income.

About eight years ago we moved into an apartment over our landlord’s garage. It’s only one bedroom for the three of us but we live in the land of the brave and we’ve made it work. A few years ago when our landlord started dropping the phrase ‘upside-down’ I began putting out feelers just in case he jumped ship. My stress level increased as I  found out what I had already suspected; we can’t afford to live anywhere else; so we stayed.

A couple of years later said landlord met me in the drive and gave me the news that he was ‘letting the property go’ and would be moving out. I asked if we could rent the main house and thus save the property. He told me he’d think about it. The next week he was gone. And not gone in the sense that he moved back to Ohio, I mean gone as in he liberated all of the appliances from his part of the building, trashed the house so it was uninhabitable and disappeared. Turns out he was already deep in the foreclosure process when he had spoken to me the week before and we were unjust and truly, screwed.

In the next few weeks I did a lot of networking, enough in fact to find out that there was a new federal law that gives renters an extra 90 days to move out once they’re served with eviction papers. This process is nice but not much more comforting than having a rescue unit transport your non-breathing family member to the hospital rather than you driving them yourself; it is a reprieve of sorts but doesn’t do much for the underlying problem.

Now a couple of years later (what with the bank screw ups in processing the foreclosures and the sheer number of people bailing on their investment screw-ups) our property has finally been foreclosed on and we’re 90 days away from being homeless.

When networking, I’m finding those ‘upside-down getting sympathy people’ have only one suggestion; homeless shelters. Nice right? Even so, I might have considered that as a last chance back up if it weren’t for one small problem. My son is over eighteen and as such he would be thrown into the barracks with the homeless male gen-pop rather than into a family room with his sister and me; needless to say shelters are no longer even a remote consideration.

About the only people in our physical reality of any help, or source of sympathy, are working poor themselves (or just outside it) and are limited in the help they can give; but they’re looking.

Which brought me round to the wonders of the internet and all its glorious search engines. Surely in the global age I can find something that will aid us in our quest to remain housed, right? Wrong. I’m sure that part of the problem is that as much as 40% of those affected by foreclosure are reported to be renters, like me, adding up to at least 100,000 US families. This daunting number would give rise to the notion that private agencies (churches, charities and the like) cannot rescue us all. Which means that the problem needs to be addresses by our beloved government.

Yes, I realize that the government has rescued a lot of people over the last few years but let’s take a quick look at that. First the banks. Wells Fargo was bailed out with multimillions of tax payer dollars and legally responsible for our property once our landlord bailed but could not even be contacted for comment when the large tree on the front of the property was knocked over in a tornado and blocked the drive so completely that it was days before we could dig our own way out to be able to get to work. Or Fanny Mae, also a multimillion dollar bailout bank who has now engaged a real estate agent to bully me into accepting a cash-for-keys deal that would get us off the property in the shortest time possible and with very little effort on their part. And of course let us not forget that my wonderful slumlord who over extended his greedy little self to begin with was still offered any number of possibilities to save his house and his credit in spite of the fact that he made a bad investment all of his very own little accord.

So what do I do now? I write an article that I will turn over to as many people as possible hoping that one of them will somehow reach a government official who will care enough to take some kind of action allowing for the rescue of my family in the next 90 days. I just as desperately cross my fingers that said action will not only rescue my family but all of the families across this country, that I so dearly love, who through no fault of their own have fallen victim to a crisis created entirely by greed.

Please, God. Bless America.

24 January 2013

Andy Burnham MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, said today at the King’s Fund:

Today I open Labour’s health and care policy review.

For the first time in 20 years, our Party has the chance to rethink its health and care policy from first principles.

Whatever your political views, it’s a big moment.

It presents the chance to change the terms of the health and care debate.

That is what One Nation Labour is setting out to do.

For too long, it has been trapped on narrow ground, in technical debates about regulation, commissioning, competition.

It is struggling to come up with credible answers to the questions that the 21st century is asking with ever greater urgency.

I want to change the debate by opening up new possibilities and posing new questions of my own, starting with people and families and what they want from a 21st century health and care service.

For now, they are just that – questions. This is a Green Paper moment – the start of a conversation not the end.

But what you will hear today is the first articulation of a coherent and genuine alternative to the current Government’s direction.

It is the product both of careful reflection on Labour’s time in government and a response to what has happened since.

Everything I say today is based on two unshakable assumptions.

First, that the health and care we want will need to be delivered in a tighter fiscal climate for the foreseeable future, so we have to think even more fundamentally about getting better results for people and families from what we already have.

Second, our fragile NHS has no capacity for further top-down reorganisation, having been ground down by the current round. I know that any changes must be delivered through the organisations and structures we inherit in 2015.

But that can’t mean planning for no change.

Those questions that the 21st century is bringing demand an answer.

When the modern condition means we are all living with higher levels of stress, change and insecurity, how do we give families the mental health support they will need and remove the stigma?

How will we ensure we are not overwhelmed by the costs of treating diseases linked to lifestyle and diet?

And how can we stop people fearing old age and have true peace of mind throughout a longer life?

Huge questions that require scale and a sense of ambition in our answers.

When a Labour Opposition last undertook this exercise, the world looked very different. But it had to be similarly ambitious.

People were waiting months and years for hospital treatment, even dying on NHS waiting lists.

So Labour set itself the mission of rescuing a beleaguered NHS which was starting to look as if it was on the way out.

A big ambition and, by and large, with help of the professions, we succeeded.

We left office with waiting lists at an all-time low and patient satisfaction at an all-time high; a major turn-around from the NHS we inherited in 1997.

But that doesn’t tell the whole story.

I can trace the moment that made me think differently, and challenge an approach that was too focused on hospitals.

In early 2007, my sister-in-law was in the Royal Marsden dying from breast cancer.

After visiting one night, she called me over and asked if I could get her home to be with her four children.

I told her I thought I would be able to.

But, after a day of phone calls, I will never forget having to going back to Claire and say it couldn’t be done.

And I was a Minister who knew how the system worked, so what chance have families who are at a low ebb and don’t know where to start?

As a Government, we were talking about choice. But it was a painful discovery for me to find we were unable to deliver to this most fundamental of choices.

Concerns about the way we care for people in the later stages of life, as well as how it is paid for, has built and built over recent years.

Stories of older people neglected or abused in care homes, isolated in their own homes or lost in acute hospitals – disorientated and dehydrated – recurred with ever greater frequency.

I have thought long and hard about why this is happening.

It is in part explained by regulatory failures and we will of course learn the lessons emerging from the Francis Report as part of this policy review.

Changes in nursing and professional practice may also have played a part.

But, in my view, these explanations deal with the symptoms rather than the cause of a problem that goes much deeper.

My penny-drop moment came last year when I was work-shadowing a ward sister at the Royal Derby.

It was not long after the Prime Minister had proposed hourly bed rounds for nurses.

I asked her what she thought of that. Her answer made an impression on me.

It was not that nurses didn’t care any more, she said. On the whole, they did.

It was more that the wards today are simply not staffed to deal with the complexity of what the ageing society is bringing to them.

When she qualified, it was rare to see someone in their 80s on the ward after a major operation.

Now there are ever greater numbers of very frail people in their 80s and 90s, with intensive physical, mental and social care needs.

Hospitals hadn’t changed to reflect this new reality, she said, and nurses were struggling to cope with it.

They were still operating on a 20th century production-line model, with a tendency to see the immediate problem – the broken hip, the stroke – but not the whole-person behind it.

They are geared up to meet physical needs, but not to provide the mental or social care that we will all need in the later stages of life.

So our hospitals, designed for the last century, are in danger of being overwhelmed by the demographic challenges of this century.

And that is the crux of our problem.

To understand its roots, it helps to go back to the 1948 World Health Organisation definition of health:

“a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

A simple vision which stands today.

But, for all its strengths, the NHS was not set up to achieve it. It went two thirds of the way, although mental health was not given proper priority, but the third, social, was left out altogether.

The trouble is that last bit is the preventative part.

Helping people with daily living, staying active and independent, delays the day they need more expensive physical and mental support.

But deep in the DNA of the NHS is the notion that the home, the place where so much happens to affect health, is not its responsibility.

It doesn’t pay for grab rails or walk-in showers, even if it is accepted that they can keep people safer and healthy.

The exclusion of the social side of care from the NHS settlement explains why it has never been able to break out of a ‘treatment service’ mentality and truly embrace prevention. It is a medical model; patient-centred, not person-centred.

But, in reality, it’s even worse than that.

For 65 years, England has tried to meet one person’s needs not through two but three services: physical, through the mainstream NHS; mental, through a detached system on the fringes of the NHS; and social, through a means-tested and charged-for council service, that varies greatly from one area to the next.

One person. Three care services.

For most of the 20th century, we just about managed to make it work for most people.

When people had chronic or terminal illness at a younger age, they could still cope with daily living even towards the end of life. Families lived closer to each other and, with a bit of council support, could cope.

Now, in the century of the ageing society, the gaps between our three services are getting dangerous.

The 21st century is asking questions of our 20th century health and care system that, in its current position, will never be able to answer to the public’s satisfaction.

As we live longer, people’s needs become a complex blur of the physical, mental and social.

It is just not possible to disaggregate them and meet them through our three separate services.

But that’s what we’re still trying to do.

So, wherever people are in this disjointed system, some or all of one person’s needs will be left unmet.

In the acute hospital ward, social and mental needs can be neglected. This explains why older people often go downhill quickly on admission to hospital.

In mental health care settings, people can have their physical health overlooked, in part explaining why those with serious mental health problems die 15 years younger than the rest of the population.

And, in places, such is the low standard of social care provision in both the home and care homes, barely any needs are properly met.

What, realistically, can be achieved from a home care service based around ten-minute slots per person?

On a practical level, families are looking for things from the current system that it just isn’t able to provide.

They desperately want co-ordination of care – a single point of contact for all of mum or dad’s needs – but it’s unlikely to be on offer in a three-service world.

So people continue to face the frustration of telling the same story over again to all of the different council and NHS professionals who come through the door.

Carers get ground down by the battle to get support, spending days on the phone being passed from pillar to post.

So far, I have spoken about the experience of older people and their carers.

But the problems I describe – the lack of a whole-person approach – holds equally true for the start of life and adults with disabilities.

Parents of children with severe disabilities will recognise the pattern – the battle for support, the lack of co-ordination and a single point of contact.

CAMHS support at the right time can make all the difference to a young life but is often not there when it is needed.

Children on the autistic spectrum are frequently missed altogether.

The mantra is that early intervention makes all the difference. But it is rarely a reality in a system that doesn’t have prevention at its heart.

If we leave things as they are, carers of young and old will continue to feel the frustration of dealing with services which don’t provide what they really need, that don’t see the whole-person.

They won’t provide the quality people want.

But nor will they be financially sustainable in this century.

For One Nation Labour, this is crucial. Protecting the institutions that bind us together, like the NHS – the expression of what we can achieve together when everyone plays their part.

Right now, the incentives are working in the wrong direction.

For older people, the gravitational pull is towards hospital and care home.

For the want of spending a few hundred pounds in the home, we seem to be happy to pick up hospital bills for thousands.

We are paying for failure on a grand scale, allowing people to fail at home and drift into expensive hospital beds and from there into expensive care homes.

The trouble is no-one has the incentive to invest in prevention.

Councils face different pressures and priorities than the NHS, with significant cuts in funding and an overriding incentive to keep council tax low.

So care services have been whittled away, in the knowledge that the NHS will always provide a safety net for people who can’t cope. And, of course, this could be said to suit hospitals as they get paid for each person who comes through the door.

In their defence, councils and the NHS may be following the institutional logic of the systems they are in.

But it’s financial madness, as well as being bad for people.

Hospital Chief Executives tell me that, on any given day, around 30 to 40 per cent of beds are occupied by older people who, if better provision was available, would not need to be there.

If we leave things as they are, our DGHs will be like warehouses of older people – lined up on the wards because we failed to do something better for them.

But it gets worse. Once they are there, they go downhill for lack of whole-person support and end up on a fast-track to care homes – costing them and us even more.

We could get much better results for people, and much more for the £104bn we spend on the NHS and the £15bn on social care, but only if we turn this system on its head.

We need incentives in the right place – keeping people at home and out of hospitals.

We must take away the debates between different parts of the public sector, where the NHS won’t invest if councils reap the benefit and vice versa, that are utterly meaningless to the public.

So the question I am today putting at the heart of Labour’s policy review is this: is it time for the full integration of health and social care?

One budget, one service co-ordinating all of one person’s needs: physical, mental and social. Whole-Person Care.

A service that starts with what people want – to stay comfortable at home – and is built around them.

When you start to think of a one-budget, one-service world, all kinds of new possibilities open up.

If the NHS was commissioned to provide Whole-Person Care in all settings – physical, mental, social from home to hospital – a decisive shift can be made towards prevention.

A year-of-care approach to funding, for instance, would finally put the financial incentives where they need to be.

NHS hospitals would be paid more for keeping people comfortable at home rather than admitting them.

That would be true human progress in the century of the ageing society.

Commissioning acute trusts in this way could change the terms of the debate about hospitals at a stroke.

Rather than feeling under constant siege, it could create positive conditions for the District General Hospital to evolve over time into a fundamentally different entity: an integrated care provider from home to hospital.

In Torbay, where the NHS and Council have already gone some way down this path, around 200 beds have been taken out from the local hospital without any great argument as families have other things they truly value.

Unlike other parts of England, they have one point of contact for the co-ordination of health and care needs.

Occupational Therapists visit homes the same day or the day after they are requested; urgent aids and adaptations supplied in minutes not days.

If an older person has to go into hospital, a care worker provides support on the ward and ensures the right package of care is in place to help get them back home as soon as possible.

Imagine what a step forward it would be if we could introduce these three things across England.

For the increasing numbers of people who are filled with dread at the thought of mum or dad going into hospital, social care support on the ward would provide instant reassurance.

It is a clear illustration of what becomes possible in a one-service, one-budget world with prevention at its heart.

If local hospitals are to grow into integrated providers of Whole-Person Care, then it will make sense to continue to separate general care from specialist care, and continue to centralise the latter.

So hospitals will need to change and we shouldn’t fear that.

But, with the change I propose, we can also put that whole debate on a much better footing.

If people accept changes to some parts of the local hospital, it becomes more possible to protect the parts that they truly value – specifically local general acute and emergency provision.

The model I am proposing could create a firmer financial base under acute hospitals trusts where they can sustain a back-stop, local A&E service as part of a more streamlined, re-modelled, efficient local healthcare system.

So A&Es need not close for purely or predominantly financial reasons, although a compelling clinical case for change must always be heard and we would never make the mistake of a blanket moratorium.

I am clear that we will never make the most of our £120 billion health and care budget unless hospitals have positive reasons to grow into the community, and we break down the divide between primary and secondary care.

It could see GPs working differently, as we can see in Torbay, leading teams of others professionals – physios, Occupational Therapists, district nurses – managing the care of the at-risk older population.

Nerves about hospital take-over start to disappear in a one-budget world where the financial incentives work in the opposite direction.

NHS hospitals need the security to embrace change and that change will happen more quickly in an NHS Preferred Provider world rather than an Any Qualified Provider world, where every change is an open tender.

I don’t shy away from saying this.

I believe passionately in the public NHS and what it represents.

I think a majority of the public share this sentiment.

They are uncomfortable with mixing medicine with the money motive. They support what the NHS represents – people before profits – as memorably celebrated by Danny Boyle at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

Over time, allowing the advance of a market with no limits will undermine the core, emergency, public provision that people hold dear.

So I challenge those who say that the continued advance of competition and the market into the NHS is the answer to the challenges of this century.

The evidence simply doesn’t support it – financially or on quality grounds.

If we look around the world, market-based health systems cost more per person not less than the NHS. The planned nature of our system, under attack from the current Government’s reforms, is its most precious strength in facing a century when demand will ratchet up.

Rather than allowing the NHS model to be gradually eroded, we should be protecting it and extending it as the most efficient way of meeting this century’s pressures.

The AQP approach will not deliver what people want either.

Families are demanding integration. Markets deliver fragmentation.

The logical conclusion of the open-tender approach is to bring an ever-increasing number of providers on to the pitch, dealing with ever smaller elements of a person’s care, without an overall co-ordinating force.

If we look to the US, the best providers are working on that highly integrated basis, co-ordinating physical, mental and social care from home to hospital.

We have got to take the best of that approach and universalise it here.

But there are dangers of monopolistic or unresponsive providers.

Even if the NHS is co-ordinating all care, it is essential that people are able to choose other providers. And within a managed system there must always be a role for the private and voluntary sectors and the innovation they bring.

But let me say something that the last Labour Government didn’t make clear: choice is not the same thing as competition.

The system I am describing will only work if it is based around what people and families want, giving them full control.

To make that a reality, we want to empower patients to have more control over their care, such as dialysis treatment in the home or the choice to die at home or in a hospice.

We will work towards extending patients’ rights to treatment in the NHS Constitution.

This would mean the system would have to change to provide what people want, rather than vice versa.

The best advert for the people-centred system in Torbay is that more people there die at home than in any other part of England.

When I visited, they explained that they had never set out to do that – a target had not been set – but it had been a natural consequence of a system built around people. A real lesson there for politicians.

So an NHS providing all care – physical, mental and social – would be held to account by powerful patient rights.

But, as part of our consultation, we will be asking whether it follows that local government could take a prominent role working in partnership with CCGs on commissioning with a single budget.

This change would allow a much more ambitious approach to commissioning than we have previously managed.

At the moment, we are commissioning health services. This was the case with PCTs and will remain so with CCGs.

The challenges of the 21st century are such that we need to make a shift to commissioning for good population health, making the link with housing, planning, employment, leisure and education.

This approach to commissioning, particularly in the early years, begins to make a reality of the Marmot vision, where all the determinants of health are in play. Improving PH will not be a fringe pursuit for councils but central to everything that they do.

But it also solves a problem that is becoming increasingly urgent.

Councils are warning that, within a decade, they will be overwhelmed by the costs of care if nothing changes.

They point to a chart – affectionately known as the ‘graph of doom’ – which shows there will be little money for libraries, parks and leisure centres by 2020.

One of the great strengths of the one-budget, Whole-Person approach would be to break this downward spiral.

It would give local government a positive future and local communities a real say.

The challenge becomes not how to patch two conflicting worlds together but how to make the most of a single budget.

To address fears that health money will be siphoned off into other, unrelated areas, reassurance is provided by a much more clearly defined national entitlement, based around a strengthened NICE, able to take a broader view of all local public spending when making its recommendations.

It won’t be the job of people at local level to decide what should be provided. That will be set out in a new entitlement. But it will be their job to decide how it should be provided.

That would provide clarity about the respective roles of national and local government, too often a source of confusion and tension.

But I want to be clear: nothing I have said today requires a top-down structural re-organisation.

In the same way that Andrew Lansley should have refocused PCTs and put doctors in charge, I will simply re-focus the organisations I inherit to deliver this vision of Whole-Person Care.

Health and Well-Being Boards could come to the fore, with CCGs supporting them with technical advice.

While we retain the organisations, we will repeal the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and the rules of the market.

It is a confused, sub-optimal piece of legislation not worthy of the NHS and which fails to give the clarity respective bodies need about their role.

This approach creates the conditions for the evolutionary change towards the Whole-Person vision rather than structural upheaval.

At a stroke, those two crucial local institutions – council and hospital – have an alignment of interests and a clear future role to grow into.

But the same is true for social care.

At present, it is trapped in a failing financial model.

The great attraction of the Whole-Person approach, with the NHS taking responsibility for coordination, is that it will be in a position to raise the standards and horizons of social care, lifting it out of today’s cut-price, minimum wage business.

Social care careers would be more valued and young people able to progress as part of an integrated Whole-Person workforce.

Of course, the change we aspire to, particularly in social care, won’t come by simply changing structures. It will need a change of culture including leadership, training, working in teams, better information and seeing patients and families as partners in achieving better health and care.

So Whole-Person Care is the proposal at the heart of Labour’s health and care policy review which is formally launched today.

It will be led by Liz Kendall, and will run alongside Diane Abbott’s separate Public Health Policy Review. Over the next six months, we will be holding events in all parts of England seeking views on two central questions.

First, do you see merit in this vision of Whole-Person Care and support the proposals for the full integration of health and social care?

Second, if you do, how far down this path of integration do you think we should go?

The fact is that, even if we move to a fully integrated model, and shift resources from hospital to home, it won’t be enough to pay for all of one person’s care needs.

We need to be very clear about that.

So this opens up the question of the funding of social care.

It is the case that, with the shift of resources out of hospital, more preventative social care could be provided in the home and, in all likelihood, better standards of social care offered, as we have seen in Torbay.

For instance, we have already proposed that this should include people on the end-of-life register. It would also include provision for those with the highest needs and at risk from going into hospital.

But rather than leave this unspecified, people need to know exactly where they stand. Currently, council care provision is the ultimate lottery.

In a single system, it would be right to set for the first time a clear entitlement to what social care could be provided and on what terms, as part of a national entitlement to health and care.

That would help people understand what is not covered – which is very unclear to people at present.

But the question arises: what is the fairest way of helping people cover the rest?

At present, beyond the £23,000 floor, care charges are unlimited.

These are ‘dementia taxes’: the more vulnerable you are, the more you pay.

As cruel as pre-NHS or US healthcare.

No other part of our welfare state works in this way and, in the century of the ageing society, failure to resolve how we pay for care could undermine the NHS, the contributory principle and incentives to save.

Some people might ask why they should save for retirement, when the chances of it all being washed away increase every year?

In this century, we can’t carry on letting people go into old age with everything – home, savings, pension – on the roulette table.

So there is a political consensus that the status quo is the worst of all possible worlds and it needs to change.

We agree about the need to find a fairer way of paying for social care, but not on what that system should be.

The Government have begun to set out their version of Andrew Dilnot’s proposals.

A cap, not of £35,000 but over the £50,000 Dilnot recommended, and possibly up to £75,000.

This is better than the status quo.

But we all know that setting a cap of up to £150,000 for a couple is not a fair solution.

For Labour, it fails a basic One Nation test.

Offering some protection to the better off, but doing little to help a couple in an average semi in the Midlands or the North.

But it also fails a sustainability test.

By failing to address the shortfall in council budgets, it leaves people exposed to ever-increasing care charges and more likely to pay up to the level of the cap.

This won’t feel like progress to many.

So, as part of Labour’s policy consultation, we will ask for views on other ways of paying for social care.

We will only have a solution when all people, regardless of their savings and the severity of their needs, have the chance to protect what they have worked for.

There are two basic choices – a voluntary or all-in approach – and, at this stage, we are seeking views on which path people think we should take, building on the foundations of a fully merged health and social care system.

Both would represent a significant improvement on the status quo, but both present significant difficulties in terms of implementation.

Andrew Dilnot’s proposed cap and means-test would help everyone protect their savings.

It would mean people only pay as much as they need to, but, in the worst case scenario, could stand to lose a significant chunk of their savings.

If people support this option, we would be interested in hearing views on how it could be funded.

One of the problems with the voluntary approach is it assumes the continuation of two care worlds – one charged for, the other one free-at-the-point-of-use – with all its complexity.

So it is right to ask whether we can move to an all-in system, extend the NHS principle to all care.

This would mean asking people to pay differently for social care to create a level playing field on how all care is provided.

But it would only work on the all-in principle and that is its major downside: all people would be required to contribute, rather than just those needing care.

People’s exposure to care costs in an all-in system would be significantly lower. But, as with any insurance system, people might pay and never end up using the service.

As with the voluntary option we would be interested in hearing people views on the pros and cons of the all-in principle and options for how this could be done.

It is an open question whether a broad consensus can be found on funding social care on either a voluntary or all-in principle.

But Labour is clear that this must not stand in the way of progress now to get much more for people from what we currently spend on health and care.

To Beveridge’s five giants of the 20th century, the 21st is rapidly adding a sixth: fear of old age.

If we do nothing, that fear will only grow as we hear more and more stories of older people failed by a system that is simply not geared up to meet their needs.

A One Nation approach to health and care means giving all people freedom from this fear, all families peace of mind.

Whole-Person Care is a vision for a truly integrated service not just battling disease and infirmity but able to aspire to give all people a complete state of physical, mental and social well-being.

A people-centred service which starts with people’s lives, their hopes and dreams, and builds out from there, strengthening and extending the NHS in the 21st century not whittling it away.

A service which affords everyone’s parents the dignity and respect we would want for our own.

There will be many questions which arise from what I have said today.

I don’t yet have all the answers.

But that’s why Labour is opening this discussion now.

It’s an open invitation to anyone who has anxieties about what is happening to the NHS right now to help us build a genuine alternative – integrated, collaborative, accountable.

I don’t want to do the usual politician thing of pulling a policy out of the hat at the time of the next manifesto that takes people by surprise.

Instead, I want to involve as many people as I can in shaping an alternative they can believe in.

The task is urgent because the NHS is on the same fast-track to fragmentation that social care has been down.

The further it carries on down this path, the harder it will be to glue it back together.

Unlike the last Election, the next one needs to give people a proper choice of what kind of health and care system they want in the 21st century.

That’s why I started by saying it’s time to change the terms of the debate and put more ambition into our ideas.

Labour is rediscovering its roots and its ability to think in the boldest terms about a society that cares for everyone and leaves no-one behind.

People need One Nation Labour to be as brave in this Century as Bevan was in the last.

That’s the challenge and we will rise to it.

I felt I made the right choice for our family. Yet when people asked me “What do you do ?” “Where do you work” –  why did I feel I had to apologise, I felt I was a second class citizen.

Why did I feel like this. I guess because I wasn’t in a career or that I wasn’t working for an employer.  For some reason in the the 21st Century if you decide to stay at home to be with the children, you immediately feel guilty. Why is that ? Why has it changed so much ?

I think women need to support the choices of women. If a woman decides to be at home with her children, to not have external childcare, then she should be supported in her choice. If a woman decides she wants to carry on working for an employer, pursue her career, use external childcare, then that is her choice. To me both are of equal status. We support each other.

Also women who have taken a career break need to be supported back into the workforce. So many women fall into this category, where they have taken time out and yet it is very difficult for them to get back into employment and pursue a career.

We need to have more understanding. In a modern world we need to be flexible in our thinking. Women should be treasured in society for all we do.

Let’s talk about AWS baby

It was the first Councillor Camp for Social Media in the world, apparently !  It’s always nice to be at the launch of something that is exciting and new.

I was greeted by a lovely buffet breakfast and coffee. I got my Rosie badge, proceeded to sit at the front, my eyesight isn’t what it used to be.

My fellow Cllrs then began to arrive. I chatted with Cllrs from other parts of the country, from different political parties. It was a cross party event.

The event began at 10am with

@dominiccampbell

Dominic introduced us to what the day would behold. We would have speakers first, but they were only allowed 10 mins each, otherwise we might fall asleep ( I’m guessing). Then we would have an un conference. I admit I have never heard of this before. Basically  we  set the agenda for the day. We think of ideas and base group discussion around those ideas or questions.

For some reason when Dominic said about an un conference, I immediately linked it to an un birthday , thus thinking of the Mad Hatters Tea Party, then thought of Alice in Wonderland. Which I guess connects to a Looking glass, which kinda  is what Social Media is, get my drift. Ermmm, ok maybe not. I shall continue…

First to speak was Facebook, and guess what they were speaking about – Twitter. Aha – gotcha.

Elizabeth from Facebook spoke about Facebook pages for Local Govt, gave us examples.

The part that interested me the most was how the Police had become great users of Social Media. They were leading the way in the public sector.

I enjoyed this part of the talk about the cloud words that had been formed by their use of Social Media. I like the slogan “Where local government meets people”

I also thought an excellent idea that had been done by a Local Authority in Denmark was to have a Facebook page showing the residents what their Council Tax money was spent on. I think its important for the residents to know where their money is being spent. Fascinating to see how Local Authorities around Europe had been creative with their Facebook pages.

The next few speakers discussed how they used Twitter in their Council meetings, they had hashtags that could be followed by  residents, who could then follow the committee’s on line. Could follow the budget. I thought this was another creative way to engage the public in the process of Local Govt.

Skype was also being used by a local Cllr to engage with his residents.

After we had heard from the speakers, each one interesting, with different ideas, approaches. Time had arrived for the un conference. We gathered our thoughts on post it notes, placed them on a board. Areas where allocated where we could discuss the topics, themes, ideas and questions.

Firstly I found myself in Facebook group, where we discussed how we could use Facebook as a Cllr. Nice to hear

@merici

speak about her involvement in the Obama on line campaign. I have heard @Merici speak before at a Labour Women’s Network event, I enjoy listening to her style, its quick, to the point and precise. No wonder Obama’s campaign was a success with her help.

What was clear from this discussion was to be authentic on line. This I have always been, so I completely understand why this is important. I could talk about this for ages but maybe that needs another blog.

Next discussion group I was in was about trying to get elderly into Social Media. My way of tackling this, was to try to encourage elderly people to have tablets, if they can afford to. I think tablets are user friendly. I know our more mature Councillors enjoy working from their tablets. It was also suggested that maybe elderly members of the community could go into schools, so that younger people could help them with iPads, tablets etc…Which is also a way of elderly members in society being able to tell the younger people their stories. A way of engaging two generations.

We did all agree though, that with closures of Libraries and cut backs, would be increasingly difficult for elderly people to access the internet, if they hadn’t got it at home. It can be an extra cost that many elderly cannot afford.

Next discussion group was about App’s but this soon turned into a conversation about why women aren’t engaging on social media, as they may have done in the past. I was the one who changed the subject -oophs – also this is another blog subject I must blog about !

Final discussion was about Social Media and how we can make it better for Cllr’s to use, encourage Cllr’s to use it. This of course allowed me to explain my story that I came into politics via Social Media, Twitter. So I come from the completely different perspective because I was on Twitter before I joined a political party.

I found it a productive day on the whole. There are many ideas that I took away with me that I hope to share with fellow Cllr’s in my City. Interesting that some Councils were far more advanced than others on Social Media. We all felt that we didn’t get enough support in this area, its confusing at times. I guess it is evolving.

Vive la Revolution

Plus thank you to everyone  who  organised the event ….

You can follow

@CouncillorCamp

The women who were top of our polls on New Years Day were The Royal Marine Calendar -RMWAGS

Lindsay Meadows is also top of our polls.

So this year we have two joint winners.

Our international winner is Malala Yousafzai

Michelle Obama, Tammy Baldwin, Clare Balding, RMWAGS, Hannah Cockcroft, Lucy Lawless, Malala Yousafzai, Victoria Pendleton, Lindsay Meadows, Mary Beard, Pat Onions, Jessica Ennis, Charlotte Church, Hillary Clinton

Click more to read about the nominations.

Michelle Obama @MichelleObama

nominated by @DCWood1986

When asked to consider who I thought the most inspirational woman was, the first name to pop into my head was Michelle Obama – First Lady of the United States of America.

I’m sure that other contributions will argue that X, Y or Z should win (and I’m sure they’re great women) because in 1992 they did this or because in 2004 they campaigned for that. However, I’m nominating Michelle Obama because she has those most rare of qualities – she exudes dignity, charisma, warmth and graciousness.

These qualities become all the more exceptional when one considers what her and her family has had to endure, since her husband became president of the United States. They’ve been branded terrorists, their nationality is regularly questioned and so too their religion. This – what can only be described as a smear campaign – has been led by the Right, as a cynical attempt to undermine President Obama’s liberal political agenda.

It often occurs to me that, in politics, one must expect to face hostility from abroad, but to face it from home, and with such frequent vitriol, must be quite upsetting and demoralizing.

Despite this, though, Michelle Obama is constantly positive and optimistic. In addition, she’s a formidable campaigner, in her own right, promoting diversity and equality in education and highlighting the need for children to eat healthily and get exercise.

And she isn’t from a privileged background, either. As a child, living at home, her parents rented an apartment off of her aunt, who lived in the basement. Furthermore, when Michelle Obama went to Princeton, she was shocked by how many of the students had BMWs, as she didn’t know any adults who drove one.

However, coming from a modest background has not stopped Michelle Obama being a high achiever, and this is another reason why I think she deserves to win. On graduating from Princeton she then progressed to Harvard Law School, where she earned her Juris Doctor (J.D.). After this, she then secured a job with law firm, Sidley Austin, where she met Barack.

Whilst achieving all this, Michelle Obama never forgot her principles, though. At Harvard she partook in demonstrations, demanding that more lecturers from minority backgrounds were appointed. In addition, she also worked for the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, which assisted low income tenants with housing cases.

Therefore, I think Michelle Obama should win because she combines integrity, aspiration, achievement and the principles of equality. She inspires me, because her example proves that despite how cynical, tribal and divisive politics can become, it is also an arena in which people like her, and us, can succeed.

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Tammy Baldwin

nominated by @TheStevenThomas

Tammy Baldwin is the senator-elect from Wisconsin.  A Democrat, Baldwin will in January become the first openly gay member of the US Senate; she will join 19 other women in the largest female contingent in Senate history.

Baldwin has blazed a trail throughout her political career: in 1998 she became both the first woman elected to Congress from Wisconsin and the first openly gay non-incumbent elected to the House of Representatives. But the Senate has long been a men’s club: even when the five new women are sworn in, only 44 women will ever have served there.

This was an election cycle when some men claimed to know more about the workings of women’s bodies than most women, and when LGBT equality finally won at the ballot box.  The election of a record number of women, and of Baldwin in particular, may just indicate a new maturity amongst US voters towards gender and sexuality which all on the left will welcome.

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Clare Balding  @clarebalding

nominated by @PaddyBriggs

is a TV presenter, journalist and retired amateur jockey. She currently presents for BBC Sport and Channel 4.

She has reported from five Olympic Games, for BBC Radio in Atlanta and for BBC Television in Sydney, Athens, Beijing and London. She has presented two Paralympic Games, the Winter Olympics from Turin and Vancouver as well as the Commonwealth Games from Melbourne and Delhi. She is the face of the BBC’s rugby league coverage, having presented Grandstand from a Rugby League Challenge Cup semi-final, and having been so impressed by the vibrancy and physical challenge of the sport she asked to cover further rugby league events.

In 2010 Balding became a patron of the British Thyroid Foundation

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RMWAGS  @rmwagscalendar

nominated by @AquaDesignGroup

The Royal Marines Charitable Trust Fund

A cause very close to our hearts! The Royal Marines Charitable Trust Fund is the overarching Royal Marine Charity run by Royal Marines for Royal Marines. It works for Royal Marines both during and after their service, providing help and support to them and their families in difficult times. They also donate to numerous military charities including SSAFA; St Dunstan’s; Combat Stress; BLESMA; RN/RM Children’s Fund.

All of our proceeds will be going to the RMCTF so if you want to know more visit their website www.rmctf.org.uk

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Hannah Cockcroft  @HCDream2012

nominated by @janethkeene

Hannah Lucy Cockroft is a British wheelchair athlete specialising in sprint distances in the T34 classification. She holds the Paralympic and world records for both the 100 metres T34 and 200 metres T34.Competing for Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Paralympics, she won two gold medals.

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Lucy Lawless @reallucylawless

nominated by @SusannaRustin

Lawless is a member of the board of trustees of the StarShip Foundation, the charity arm of the Starship Children’s Health (hospital) which is part of the Auckland District Health Board. It is set up to provide additional equipment, support and help to staff, patients and families.She devotes much time and energy to fundraising for the organisation. She recently sat for the New Zealand television seriesThe Sitting, an arts series where celebrity portraits are produced during an interview session with the portraits later auctioned for charity. Lucy attended the auction where her portrait fetched the top price, with the whole event raising $39,000 for Starship. Lawless has often raised money for concerts and events, donates part of her salary in favour of the institution, and has sold some Xena costumes to contribute funds. In mid February 2012, Lucy sang at New Zealander Of The Year donating her appearance fee to the Starship Foundation. Friday 21 September is “Lucy Lawless Feel the Love Day.” The day, organised by the Official Lucy Lawless Fan Club, begins a week of charitable acts and donations by fans in honour and support of Lucy.

In May 2009, Lucy Lawless became a ‘climate ambassador’ for the Greenpeace ’Sign On’ campaign.

 *************

nominated by @Rosiecosy 

@TheStevenThomas

@Trillian_01

(Pashto: ملاله یوسفزۍ‎ Malālah Yūsafzay, born 12 July 1997) is a school student and education activist from the town of Mingora in the Swat District of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. She is known for her education and women’s rights activism in the Swat Valley, where the Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school. In early 2009, at the age of 11/12, Yousafzai wrote a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC detailing her life under Taliban rule, their attempts to take control of the valley, and her views on promoting education for girls.The following summer, a New York Times documentary was filmed about her life as the Pakistani military intervened in the region, culminating in the Second Battle of Swat.Yousafzai began to rise in prominence, giving interviews in print and on television and taking a position as chairperson of the District Child Assembly Swat.She has since been nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize by Desmond Tutu and has won Pakistan’s first National Youth Peace Prize.P A number of prominent individuals, including the Canadian Minister of Citizenship, are supporting a petition to nominate Yousafzai for the Nobel Peace Prize.

On 9 October 2012, Yousafzai was shot in the head and neck in an assassination attempt by Taliban gunmen while returning home on a school bus.In the days immediately following the attack, she remained unconscious and in critical condition, but later her condition improved enough for her to be sent to a hospital in the United Kingdom for intensive rehabilitation. On 12 October, a group of 50 Islamic clerics in Pakistan issued a fatwā against those who tried to kill her,but the Taliban reiterated its intent to kill Yousafzai and her father, Ziauddin.

Former British Prime Minister and current UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown launched a United Nations petition in Yousafzai’s name, using the slogan “I am Malala” and demanding that all children worldwide be in school by the end of 2015. Brown said he would hand the petition to Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari in November. UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon has announced that 10 November will be celebrated as Malala Day.

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Victoria Pendleton  @v_pendleton

nominated by  @GeoffSirenFM

Victoria Louise Pendleton, MBE (born 24 September 1980) is a British former track cyclist who specialised in the sprint, team sprint and keirin disciplines.

Pendleton represented Great Britain and England in international competition, winning nine world titles including a record six in the individual sprint competition. Pendleton is the reigning World champion for the sprint, and a former Olympic, European and Commonwealth champion. In 2012 she won the gold medal in the keirin at the 2012 Summer Olympics, as well as silver in the sprint.

*************

@lindsaym59

Lindsay Meadows  

nominated by @DrSwaff

Who fought bowel cancer with dignity, courage and strength. Now at peace. A true inspiration.

Support Bowel Cancer UK

It’s our 25th Anniversary and we need your help to stop people dying needlessly from bowel cancer.

Whether you fancy taking part in a charity cycle challenge or running for Bowel Cancer UK in a charity race. Perhaps you want something more adventurous such as skydiving or trekking on an overseas charity expedition. There really is something for everyone. Fundraise for us today!  http://www.bowelcanceruk.org.uk/

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Mary Beard  @wmarybeard

nominated by @PaulbernalUK  

 Mary Beard  is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Newnham College. She is the Classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement, and author of the blog “A Don’s Life” which appears in The Times as a regular column. Her frequent media appearances and sometimes controversial public statements have led to her being described as “Britain’s best-known classicist”

Pat Onions

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 Jessica Ennis   

@J_Ennis

nominated by @Web-ism

Jessica Ennis, MBE is a British track and field athlete specialising in multi-eventing disciplines and 100 metres hurdles. A member of the City of Sheffield Athletic Club, she is the current Olympic heptathlon champion. She is also the former European and world heptathlon champion and the former world indoor pentathlon champion. She is the current British national record holder for the heptathlon, the indoor pentathlon, the high jump and the 100 metres hurdles.

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Charlotte Church @charlottechurch

nominated by @Rosiecosy

Charlotte Maria Church is a Welsh singer-songwriter, actress and television presenter.

Also campaigner for Hacked Off campaign.

*************

Hillary Clinton

nominated by  @D_Blanchflower  

Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton  is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of PresidentBarack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she was the First Lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001. In the 2008 election, Clinton was a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

In 1994, as First Lady of the United States, her major initiative, the Clinton health care plan, failed to gain approval from the U.S. Congress. However, in 1997 and 1999, Clinton played a role in advocating the creation of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Adoption and Safe Families Act, and the Foster Care Independence Act.

Clinton became the first former First Lady to serve in a president’s cabinet. he has put into place institutional changes seeking to maximize departmental effectiveness and promote the empowerment of women worldwide, and has set records for most-traveled secretary for time in office. She has been at the forefront of the U.S. response to the Arab Spring, including advocating for the military intervention in Libya. She has used “smart power” as the strategy for asserting U.S. leadership and values in the world and has championed the use of social media in getting the U.S. message out.

The turn out in local elections or by elections is roughly about 30%. You might  say  politics doesn’t actually capture the  the hearts and minds of the British people.

We shouldn’t be satisfied  with a turn out   of 30% . We should want a turn out of 80% at least.

Politics affects all our lives. The decisions made by politicians affects our health, education, transport. The list is endless.

Yet why do people feel disinterested, why do people feel their vote doesn’t count, why do people not want to get involved.

I think they feel powerless at times. Politician after politician has made a promise, they will do this, they will do that. Then when they don’t do what they have said they are going to do, the person that voted for them or their party feels let down. A good example of this is the promises Nick Clegg made in his manifesto. How can you make a pledge saying you will fight against any rise in tuition fees and then do the exact opposite. Citing that the game has changed because they are in power. All the excuses in the world will not change the fact that you made a promise, a pledge to your voters and you broke that promise.

This is what damages the faith in politics and politicians.

Another point is that politicians seem to want to play a political game. Politics isn’t a game. It’s life. The decisions you make as a politician actually affect the lives of the people who you represent.

I am a local politician. I came into politics because I actually felt it needed more people like me who weren’t in it for the game, who actually wanted to try and change the perception of politics. If I can inspire others to get involved, to feel that their vote does count, then maybe just maybe we can , little by little  we can get people to the ballot box and  they can  feel empowered.

We are dramatically underrepresented in position of politics,power and influence.

The cuts by the Govt are hitting women the hardest. The public sector where the Govt is cutting severely, majority of jobs are held by women.

I always think the facts speak for themselves :

75% of local government workers are women. 1 in 8 of all jobs done by women are in local government.

77% of NHS workers are women.

80% of adult social care workers are women.

82% of education workers are women.

Women experience a full-time pay gap of 14.9%

64% of low paid workers are women.

40% of ethnic minority women live in poverty.

Women’s average personal pensions are only 62% of average for men.

92% of lone parents – group more likely to live below the poverty line- are women

The costs of childcare in the UK are amongst the highest in the world, heavyly limiting women’s choices to take up paid work.

Then look at the facts for women in positions of influence :

Currently in the UK, women are

22% of MP’s

22% of Peer’s

16% of all Govt Ministers

22% of Cabinet Ministers

36% of Members of the Scottish Parliament

18% of the Northern Ireland Assembly

42% of Members of the Welsh Assembly

26% of Members of European Parliament

9% of University Vice Chancellors

It will take up to 70 years, to achieve an equal numbers of women MP’s and 150 years to achieve parity in local government.

Time to speak up sisters

Thanks to www.cfwd.org.uk for this information and Fawcett Society.

Austerity isn’t working

Our country faces long-term economic problems. But our political leaders have failed to face up to them.

For the next five years or more, unless policies change the economy will not grow, incomes will not rise, and there will be almost no new jobs.

If the government keeps on with big spending cuts and austerity  we face a lost decade. Even on their own terms government policies are failing. To close the deficit we need a healthy growing economy that generates tax income. But austerity has led to a vicious circle of decline.

Instead of just letting the banks go back to business and bonuses as usual, we need policies that promote new and old industries.

This new approach would create jobs, especially for young people.

It would encourage companies to raise average pay, penalise big bonuses and invest in training and new industries. It would crack down on tax evasion by big companies and the super-rich. It would tackle the growing inequality between the super-rich and everyone else.

Rather than deep, rapid spending cuts, we need to reverse our decline and build an economy that works for ordinary families.

I marched with UNITE the Union. We were at the front of the march. At 12pm we began the march from Embankment to Hyde Park. We marched past the Houses of Parliament, Downing Street. The atmosphere was great. Many families were in the march.

I took part in the march to represent ordinary people who are struggling to pay their bills, who are suffering from harsh and deep cuts. I marched for our NHS and our Education, who are going through unnecessary reforms and will be subject to privatisation in the future. Our society foundations are becoming unstable through austerity. We need to send a clear message to the Government that the people will be vocal about what is happening to them. We will march, we will protest and we  will stand by ordinary people.