The Labour Leadership

Jeremy Corbyn, until recently unknown to me, is now leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.  This is an unusual situation for a virtually unheard of backbencher to be elected to lead one of the two main political parties at Westminster.

In recent weeks I have researched Jeremy Corbyn, he is a consistent, honourable and principled man who stands up for what he believes in and does not pander to what is popular, only to what he firmly believes in.  He is not your stereotypical party leader, I don't think that the PR people at Labour HQ are going to get an easy life, he won't change to suit their agenda.  Additionally, he is 66 years old.  I don't personally believe that age is an issue, you could argue that he has more experience however, of late there has been a swing towards younger party leaders, not older ones.  Everything about Jeremy Corbyn appears to go against the grain.

Many in the Conservative party see his election as leader to be a great own goal for labour, with suggestions that Labour may remain in opposition for at least two more terms.  Time will tell, Mr corbyn has a huge challenge ahead.  He needs to bring the parliamentary party together, unite them and take them all in one direction.  This is an uphill struggle.  A quick look at Mr Corbyn's voting record and we note that he regularly voted against his own party in office and in opposition, why should others now vote with him.  Rosie Winterton has a great challenge continuing as Chief Whip.

Good democracy requires checks and balances, typically at Westminster we have essentially witnessed a two party parliament, during the last term with the Lib Dems in coalition, their numbers being so high we appeared to be heading towards a three party system, May 2015 reverted Westminster back to type.  For a government to be effective it needs a majority, it also needs a strong opposition to hold it to account and to ensure that all new bills are carefully considered and appropriately challenged.  The government does not have a strong majority and the opposition may or may not be strong.  So much is reliant on Mr Corbyn's leadership to ensure that there is a strong and effective opposition.

Time will tell us if the populist choice of the new college of electors has delivered the right result for the party and more importantly for the country.  I for one, wait to see what happens next.  I do hope that common sense prevails and we can have an effective parliament, representative of the people delivering for the majority.

Extreme Pressure

The Newcastle Sunday Sun front page reported that the police and crime commissioners for Northumbria, Cleveland and Durham police forces are concerned at the high number of police resources being used to prop up the ambulance service.  After reading the article two things struck me; first of all the fact that the ambulance service is not only receiving support from the police, both the red cross and St John Ambulance are providing support too; secondly, the ambulance service Chief Executive, Yvonne Ormston, acknowledged the problem and informed the reporter that the ambulance service had declared and maintained a status of 'extreme pressure'.  Additionally, considerable mileage was made over the handover times at hospitals.  This further demonstrates that the whole health economy is suffering 'extreme pressure'.

What exactly is a status of 'extreme pressure'?  More importantly how does the ambulance service respond to such a status?  I wonder if they bring in additional staff on overtime shifts, use senior staff and others from an operational background to help deliver the service?  I imagine from the way it was reported that it is more of a Corporal Jones 'don't panic' situation.  I acknowledge that it is not easy to respond to growing demand when finances are tight, it is easy to say that the government has provided an extra so many million pounds to help.  Quite simply, Yvonne Ormston cannot sit at home on an evening and knit a few paramedics.  Additional funding needs to be programmed into the system to enable organisations to respond, otherwise all we will hear of is a declaration of 'extreme pressure'.


the fundamental question for all political parties to consider is this:  How do we respond to increasing demand for health and social care services with a growing elderly population?   I don't blame the elderly for living longer, hopefully I will be one of their number soon.  This really is the most important question to be answered as we head towards a general election in May.  Whoever wins they will have to deal with 'extreme pressure'.