Tag Archives: what would paddy do?

We can start to improve social care by tackling attitudes towards migrants

By Lucy Nethsingha | Wed 12th March 2025 - 11:12 am

If ever there’s an issue – or a sub-section of a broader issue – that sums up the sense that the UK is broken, even eight months after a new government was supposed to set a new direction, it’s social care.

The crisis in social care has been recognised for decades, but successive governments have failed to tackle it, and it’s getting rapidly worse. This is bad enough on its own, but it has two serious knock-on effects: it reduces the effectiveness of the NHS as it cannot release from hospitals some patients who are fit to leave but have nowhere to go; and it further drags down the reputation of local government, which doesn’t have the resources to deal with social care and sinks ever lower in the public’s estimation. Add the effects of Brexit, Covid, the cost-of-living crisis and a toxic debate on immigration, and you see why the situation with social care is worse now than it has ever been.

So what do we do? Well, a lot of money would help – most solutions to the social care problem require money, but, let’s face it, the kind of public spending that just isn’t feasible at the moment. So we have to look in other directions.

There have been four major shocks to the social care system in recent years: Covid, the cost-of-living crisis, Brexit, and Britain’s attitude towards immigration. The first two are factors largely outside our control. We can’t undo the loss of so many NHS and care staff due to the impact of Covid, and the cost of living crisis, coupled with repeated rises to the Real Living Wage and NI rates for employers, has sent the cost of staff rocketing, with many care companies struggling to compete for permanent staff and often forced to pay high wages to agency personnel.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged featured, immigration and social care | 14 Comments

A distinctive defence niche for the Lib Dems to seize

By Duncan Brack | Mon 10th March 2025 - 10:35 am

In the last couple of weeks, policy on defence has suddenly moved centre-stage – to the point where even Lib Dem Voice has an article about it! The support given to Ukraine by our parliamentary party is no less than one would expect, but perhaps we should look a little deeper, as there’s an idea for making defence spending more effective which the Liberal Democrats are ideally placed to champion.

Much political and media attention is focused on the need to spend more on defence as a percentage of GDP. Starmer realised the significance of this and the need to act urgently ahead of his visit to the White House. He shifted from his 2024 manifesto position of 2.5 per cent ‘when resources allow’ to 2.5 per cent from 2027, with funding coming from reductions in international development assistance.

But we need to be clear on what the money will buy. What capabilities does the UK need? Also, how do we ensure value for money – maximising the benefit from each pound, both in terms of defence capability but also as a contribution to UK jobs and economic growth, rather than US imports?

Currently the UK’s defence, intelligence and security arrangements are effectively joined at the hip with the US. Our nuclear deterrent is supplied by the US. Our intelligence comes largely from the US through the Five Eyes network, led by the US. Much of our kit is purchased from the US and our command and control is dependent on US technology.

So a pressing question is whether we now need to establish our own defence capability independent of the US. In the short term, this may be difficult – hence the need to maintain a relationship with President Trump. But in the medium term, and particularly in how the UK uses its increased defence budget, there is an urgent need to move away from US dependence, as the last few weeks have underlined.

We could attempt to do this on a UK-only basis. Or we could attempt it through much greater cooperation and integration across Europe. While grateful for European support, the Ukrainians have experienced at first hand the difficulties of fighting a war using what they have described as a ‘military zoo’. The EU has 12 types of battle tank, while the US has one.

This, then, is the opportunity. At a time when the UK and its European partners need to step up expenditure on defence when resources are limited, it is vital that the extra money is spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. Crucially, if the UK is to realise economies of scale and interoperability and have the ability to act without relying on the US, then Europe’s military capabilities must be integrated much more closely. We need to create a single European defence industry capable of supplying our needs, ensuring European control of the technology, and ensuring that the economic benefits, including jobs, are shared fairly with our partners on this side of the Atlantic.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged defence, featured and the yorkists | 14 Comments