One controversy too many: Ukip’s overexposure will be the death of them

Like the playground bully, Ukip don’t like it up ‘em. Used to having it their own way for too long.

Until relatively recently, the party’s escaped a proper forensic examination. The media’s attention split between Nigel Farage and the odd bit of racism from a party eccentric. Or two. Or three…

Farage, despite what his supporters may claim, has had an easy ride. It’s all looked so simple: drag the media down to another boozer, get snapped sipping away at a pint, then throw them another juicy soundbite.

Finally, the media have woken up. It’s always been a given that Ukip would do well at the European elections. Now polls shows them leading, and comfortably so. In a few weeks we’ll have even more Ukip councillors.

It’s at this point that the media have decided to do what they’re best at: hold the powerful (or those who seek power) to account.  

And do Ukip not like it. It’s been easy batting away the casual racism/sexism/homophobia if it’s only coming from a handful of dinosaurs. A lot harder when that handful is in fact several dozen handfuls. The bad apples are no longer the exception but the rule.

Predictably, Ukip have cried foul, claiming victim status. The establishment are after them. Asking questions that, shock horror, they’ve been asking of other parties for years.

Ukip hope to be the underdog that the British root for. Clean up on a tide of none of the above.

Except, the increased media scrutiny has shown that whilst the British may fall for the underdog, they’re not too keen on it being of the racist variety.

An ITN/ComRes poll of over 2,000 people has found a third regard Ukip as a racist party. Not a party that’s asking legitimate questions about immigration, or one that’s sticking up for British workers, but one that’s racist. That is one that discriminates against people for no other reason than their background.

Tellingly, almost a third weren’t sure. In other words, most people were unable to deny categorically that Ukip aren’t a racist party. Not much of a vindication for the UK’s premier ‘non-racist’ party, as they usually like to pride themselves.

The most common refrain to those who dare highlight the party’s racism is that we’re only helping to send more voters into their arms. It’s counter-productive to pick out the racist bits, they argue. Counter-productive to who?

Instead should we cast aside years of hard fought equality for minority groups and protection from discriminatory practices?

It’s hard to understand how it can be counter-productive in 2014 (yes that’s right. It is 2014 just in case some of us had forgotten) to let people know that the group that keep promising to cause an earthquake in British politics is nothing better than a ramshackle party made up of closeted and uncloseted racists.

General rule of thumb: it’s always good to expose racism when it rears its ugly head. History isn’t particularly kind to those who brush it off.

That, together with Ukip’s economic illiteracy and general absurdity, should be more than enough to ensure that next month’s elections see it peak.

After which people will get on with the serious business of choosing who they want to see run the country. A clue: it won’t be the perennial jokers.

Whatever they may say, voters do want their politicians engaged in the general drudgery of constituency life. Come next May, the amateurs will get pushed aside.    

This first appeared on Speaker's Chair on Thursday 1st May 2014

Labour/Tory fears of alienating working class voters has allowed Ukip’s poison to go unchallenged.

How many racists does it take to make a political party? One? Five? Fifty? Whatever the number, Ukip will hope it’s a big one.

 

Not a week goes by it seems without another Ukip candidate/official/elected representative making headlines for spouting bile. The media has sharpened its lens as we approach the European elections.

Who exactly are these people that so many intend to vote for? Enough votes to threaten Labour for top spot.

The anti-racist pressure group Hope not Hate have spent time providing some answers with a bulging dossier on its ‘Purple Rain’ blog. That should keep you busy for a few hours.

Next time Nigel Farage or one of his spokesmen tries to deflect attention away from these supposedly ‘isolated’ cases, remember this blog and its damning evidence.

Much of the talk this week has centred over whether it’s fair to brand Ukip’s latest election posters racist, xenophobic or mere scaremongering. Or possibly a bit of all three. Whichever label you settle on, it’s become patently obvious that the EU is just a distraction for Ukip’s main message: anti immigrant and anti immigration.

Ukip will claim that Britain can only control its borders by exiting the EU, but really it’s the immigration issue that gets its motley crew and supporters most agitated. How else to explain why it puts immigration at the very heart of its euro-scepticism?

Farage may talk of trade deals not suffering or foreign businesses still investing, but it’s anti-immigrant discourse that takes centre stage on the posters and in media briefings.

Its supporters don’t care for the ins and outs of EU membership. They see a party that promises to stop foreigners taking their jobs and undercutting their wages, and that’ll do nicely.

And where is the establishment that Farage rails against in all this? Where are the Cabinet or Shadow Cabinet members to speak out against Ukip’s poison?

For the most part, the main parties have been worryingly silent. Bar the odd comment from a minor Labour figure, the party of the left have been mute.

Labour and the Conservatives are now too scared of alienating working class voters that they daren’t say anything. Too fearful of seeing voters they believe should be theirs continue to snuggle up to cheeky chappy Nige.

On immigration, Labour have spent a lot of time in opposition apologising. Apologising for the scale of immigration under New Labour. Apologising for underestimating the impact immigration has had on settled working class communities. And also apologised for its effects on the wages of low skilled British workers.

Even though, on this last point, they needn’t have apologised, as the evidence points to it being negligible.

In fact, under Ed Miliband, on balance, Labour has got its stance on immigration pretty sound.

The Conservatives have spent much of this parliament fretting about the amount of support they’re leaking to Ukip. They’ve talked a good crackdown on immigration. Made all the right sounding tough noises. Yet they’re still unable to reverse the polling damage. That bit will come next year when it really matters, although the party aren’t willing to acknowledge that just yet.

Bearing all this in mind, from a purely selfish electioneering perspective, you can see why Ukip have been given a free ride. And therefore why it’s been left to a few hardy souls in the media to take on the fight. But this shouldn’t excuse Labour or the Conservatives. And to a much lesser extent the Lib Dems.

With every week that passes, Nick Clegg’s decision to debate Nigel Farage looks even more commendable. Brave, even. Although it shouldn’t require bravery to debate a man whose raison d’etre is gutter politics.

Clegg hasn’t shied away from challenging Ukip. Ed Miliband and David Cameron don’t even know where to start.

It’s Labour’s passivity that should most alarm leftists. This week should have provided the party with more than enough ammunition. Ukip are dripping with controversy. And yet, the party has calculated that fronting up to Farage directly may cost them the very votes they need just to break even. That is, get them where they were in 2010.

What we are left with is the hope that Ukip will provide us with one controversy too many. Enough that the public (not nearly as intolerant and prejudiced as Ukip likes to think it is) will come to their senses and decide enough is enough. They may have tired of the mainstream, but faced with this unpleasant rabble, they’re willing to give them another go.

Something has gone wrong when indiscretions and racist incident after racist incident can keep being brushed off as more evidence of a party’s eccentricities, but nothing worse.

When David Cameron told us (in 2006) that Ukip were a party of ‘fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists,’ little did he know how prophetic this charge would turn out to be. We can now take away the ‘closet’ part.

This first appeared on Speaker's Chair on Sunday 27th April 2014
 

Clegg has shown he’s still an asset to the Lib Dems. The party’s supporters should realise that.

Nick Clegg had nothing to lose in his debates with Nigel Farage. His ratings have been dreadful all parliament. Getting into a verbal ding dong with the Ukip leader about the merits of the EU was hardly going to give us the resurrection of Clegg from 2010 .

Instead, this was his chance to speak directly to his own supporters. To that committed but quiet bunch of Europhiles. To show Lib Dem activists that it is possible to govern with the Conservatives and still retain some essence of what it means to be a Liberal.

Let’s be honest, despite its importance, despite the fact that we’re beholden to many of its laws (whatever percentage they may be. We’re still none the wiser), the EU isn’t the kind of topic that gets people stirring. In fact, it’s pretty dull.

And that was part of the problem for Clegg. Extoling its virtues was never really going to cut it with viewers. Not much whooping and cheering to be had about trade agreements and low tariffs with our European neighbours.

Giving unelected bureaucrats and the elite (which of course being the leader of a political party, and an MEP who spends much of this time in Brussels, means Farage most definitely isn’t a member of the aforementioned) a good old fashioned tonking was always going to win most of people over.  

Clegg had the hard part, Farage was given the easy lines. And to be fair, I’m sure Clegg knew this beforehand.

These debates were about the Deputy Prime Minister rising above the bluster, the heavy rhetoric, countering the immigrant bashing hysteria, and the numbers plucked out of the sky.

This was about a Deputy PM behaving as you’d expect a PM’s number two to behave. And to this extent, he passed with flying colours.

Clegg was certainly a lot more confident and polished last week. A little too growly yesterday. When he spoke he did sound at times like the sort of technocrat Farage rails against for a living.

Most importantly, he sounded like he deserved to be where he is right now: Deputy PM and leader of some 57 MPs, yet still able to push through policies that have pleased his supporters.

He alienated a large chunk the moment he agreed to go into coalition. Even more when it became clear he had signed them up to a parliament of spending cuts. But, his party are in power and influencing policy way and above they have a right to given their size. 

Four years on, his position within the party seems more secure than ever. Despite the battering it takes in poll after poll.

Clegg will hope that this represents the start of clawing back some of the deserters. It won’t be an easy process, but as the two TV debates have shown, he won’t shy away from a challenge. The fact he agreed to do them tells you something about the character and resilience of the man.

With no natural successor in the wings, Clegg has shown that he’s still an asset to his party. His party’s supporters would be wise to realise that.

 

This first appeared on Speaker's Chair on Thursday 3rd April 2014

Tory Bashing and Academic waffle are the limits of Ed Miliband’s leadership

The most memorable line in Peter Shaffer’s terrific 1984 film, Amadeus, comes after an audience have been treated to another of Mozart’s spectacular operas. At the conclusion Mozart is warmly congratulated by Emperor Joseph II, only to be told that his latest masterpiece contained “too many notes.” Mozart’s retort is both brilliant and arrogant, asking the Emperor to identify which such notes he should dispense with.

I won’t overburden him and describe Ed Miliband as the Mozart of the political world…but fast forward 200 years and a similar affliction affects the Labour leader.

There is quite simply something of the too many notes about him.

His Labour Party is overflowing with ideas. Full to bursting. Miliband’s stewardship has already come complete with a vision for a fairer, more responsible, capitalism. There’s a whole dossier outlining how he hopes to reformulate the state.

I can’t remember an opposition leader who’s tried to address so many issues all at once. Attacking rewards for failure, bankers’ bonuses, the need to share the spoils of victory, empowering local communities (find me a leader who hasn’t promised this over the last decade). It’s all there.

Early criticism that the party lacks ideas now looks foolish. The real problem is that the party has too many ideas. And yet on the one idea that matters, how it’ll do more with less should it win, it falls worryingly short.

From the moment he took over, Ed Miliband has had a lot to say about everything. His problem has been putting his thoughts down into a coherent sentence. One that someone whose only political act is voting in a general election can understand.

Last weekend, Labour MP John Mann (£) and other party figures finally articulated what any observer with half a brain knows and has been saying for the last couple of years. They warned Miliband of “trying to be too clever.” Now was time for some “understandable” policies.

Mann urged him to start speaking:

“The language of voters in Bassetlaw not academics in Hampstead. It’s talking clear, simple language that people understand. It’s all too clever at the moment. A reshuffle of his speechwriters would help.”

“We're trying to be too clever - too many nuanced messages to too many different people. It needs to able to address my constituents, and people like them around the country in simple unambiguous terms.”

When Ed Miliband wasn’t spending time delivering another academic-type lecture, he was wasting time in the early days of this parliament opposing. Opposing Tory cuts  - all of them – opposing public service reform (in education in particular).

Without articulating alternatives you are no better than a protest party. A party where people can register their discontent and anger.  Not a party ready to govern. Certainly not a party for the undecideds or the non tribals of this world.

Under Ed Miliband, Labour has become more tribal than ever before. Recent keynote speeches have summed up an obvious problem with his leadership: he is at his most comfortable when playing to the gallery. That is, when playing it safe, saying things that his party’s core base want to hear. Saying things that will get a rise, that will get his troops united in their loathing of the Tories and their Lib Dem puppets.

Which can work, but only to a limited extent.  You’re expending energy convincing people who are already convinced.

Last year’s Party Conference speech was a classic case in point. In his 2012 Conference speech, his demolition of the coalition – weakened and bruised after that year’s budget – was inch perfect.

Last year we should have got more of what a future Labour government would look like in another austerity parliament. Instead, we got another episode of Tory bashing. And Murdoch bashing. And NHS pedestal raising.  And of course the members lapped it up. This is why they came. But, they were all going to be voting Labour no matter what Ed Miliband said.

And so it’s continued. Heavily trailed speeches since have followed a similar pattern. If Miliband peaked during Conference 2012, Conference 2013 highlighted a leadership on the slide. The slide hasn’t stopped since.

Tory bashing only gets you so far because in the end, in order to win power, Labour might actually need the support of some of these Tories. And nobody likes to be bashed for long.

The leadership are behaving in much the same way as your average Labour activist on Twitter: uninterested in the constructive criticism and heavily defensive. What the hell do you know, they shout. We’re ahead in the polls. That line of attack is now a few months away from vanishing.

 

This first appeared on Speaker's Chair on Tuesday 25th March 2014

Tory Bingo poster wasn’t aimed at middle class politicos on Twitter all day

There’s no two ways about it. The language is clunky, unsubtle, and at first sights pretty patronising. Helping “hardworking people do more of the things they enjoy.”

“Hardworking people” seems to be the establishment’s attempts at embracing classless terminology. An irritating, over-used term, that simultaneously covers working and middle class folk.

It’s the ‘they’ part of the poster that seems to have got people up in arms.

The implication being ‘they’ are not us. ‘They’ spend their leisure time in the pub or down the bingo hall. Not activities we indulge them, but if it keeps ‘them’ happy, who are we to argue. Here’s your reward for a hard few years: halving the bingo tax and a penny off beer duty. Cheers!

There’s no doubt this poster will do nothing to counter the Tories being out of touch charge. They’re destined to fight the election against this backdrop. They’ll be hoping that out of touch but fiscally responsible trumps the weak and backs away from making tough decisions lot.

Sorry to break this to you dearest Twitterati, but I’m pretty sure the poster wasn’t designed with you in mind. If you spend most of your day on Twitter, commenting on politics, slagging off the Tories and/or Labour, if your only experience of a working men’s club comes from Phoenix Nights, you are definitely not the target audience.

Those who stand to benefit from said cuts will be delighted. They’re certainly not going to be fussed about a poster they’re unlikely to ever see. You see, Twitter isn’t the font of all knowledge, shocking as that may seem to some. Twitter loves to bully people into group-think, but it really isn’t an accurate representation of life out there.

I’m on the damn thing every day, but have always made sure to take a lot of what gets commented and scrutinised on there with a pinch of salt.

Yes, pundits from the Daily Mail to The Guardian have been equally scathing about the poster. Labour will use it in future campaigns as example no. 83 of the scorn Etonians have for the masses. Except, it’ll be a campaign that resonates with the usual suspects: those who despise Tories and always will. Or at least those who would never dream of voting Conservative no matter what they do.

My hunch is that the Tory brass who signed this off were making a direct appeal to traditional, Thatcherite, working class, voters. The ones who propelled her and kept her in office for 11 years. The ones Nigel Farage and his motley crew have been so successful in winning over. For the time being, anyway.

A bit of flack on Twitter won’t distract from CCHQ’s central message: out of the way Ukip. We want our working class supporters back.

This first appeared on Speaker's Chair on Thursday 20th March 2014

Kevin Pietersen: for once the powers that be have made the right decision

Always a drama with Kevin Pietersen. The way he batted, the way he got (himself) out, and the way he theatrically tumbled to the ground when fielding, pausing for effect, looking like he picked up a niggle. Pietersen never did understated. A softly spoken man when chatting to the media, almost bashful at times, in contrast to his expansive and exaggerated drives, pull shots and hooks.

It’s a sad but inevitable day that it’s had to end like this. But Pietersen is lucky he’s been allowed to play for England this long: to get to his 100 caps and pass 8,000 Test runs. He should have been axed after 2012’s ‘Textgate’ saga. How can anyone possibly have a bad word to say about one of the gentlemen of sport, Andrew Strauss?

Many of England’s players have their own newspaper columns where they say not very much. However one column that sticks in my mind came from James Anderson in the Mail on Sunday, soon after Pietersen had been dropped from the final Test against South Africa in the summer of 2012, after the ‘Textgate’ revelations came to light:

“Frankly, as players, all this has been a distraction we could well do without as we approach a massively important final match at Lord’s.

“Going into the match without Kevin wouldn’t be ideal because, as everyone who saw the knock last week will know, an innings like that is invaluable.

“At the same time, no player is ever bigger than the team.

“Kevin talked about having issues within the dressing room. What’s frustrating is that this was, literally, the first we knew about it. Kevin has mentioned nothing to us.”

That last sentence is very revealing. Jonathan Agnew, a pundit who I respect more than any other, has cautioned against speculating about what did and didn’t happen within the dressing room over the last few years. Unless you were there you can’t possibly know. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a good educated guess.

Mike Atherton, in his Times (£) piece today, notes bluntly, that Pietersen simply ran out of allies:

“Even Alastair Cook, the young captain who had taken Pietersen back into the fold after the retirement of Andrew Strauss, now wants to rebuild an England team without him.

“Cook has come to realise that all that glitters out in the middle is not necessarily gold in the dressing room.”

Atherton adds that all the key figures at the ECB were unanimous in their decision. And the key line:

“Downton had also taken findings from England players after the whitewash in Australia, and there were no voices among the senior players telling him that Pietersen should remain.”

As a huge England fan and a Pietersen devotee (until the last couple of years, anyway) I actually find that sentence quite upsetting. Assuming what Atherton says is true, and cricket journos seem to get closer to the players than in other sports, it doesn’t say much for Pietersen as a member of the team.

There have always been doubts and whispers that he never got on with his teammates. That he was a bit of a loner off the field who didn’t really mix with the others. Again, it’s hard to know for certain how accurate these reports are. But when the same stories emerge time and again you begin to wonder.

There were issues with his time at Nottinghamshire and apparent fallings out with teammates. He left Hampshire after barely playing any matches for them, citing the need to be closer to his family in London. He fell out very publically with England coach Peter Moores when he was captain. They both left their roles soon after. In his autobiography, released in 2011, Graeme Swann wrote:

“There is no doubt that Kev is a good player, a really fine batsman, but he was never the right man to be captain."

A lot of discussion since the news broke yesterday has centered around the likes of Michael Vaughan and the view that every team needs to be able to manage mavericks. This belies the fact that England have been trying to manage this maverick since the very beginning and have done pretty well. They have been more than accommodating.

I would argue that a player of less ability wouldn’t have been tolerated for this long. I’m sure there are times when you can make exceptions and forgive and forget, but Pietersen has been trying the patience of a lot of people over a good number of years. He’s had his chances. Several of them.

In terms of his performances on the pitch, his shot selection has got more erratic, even by his crazy standards. Some of his dismissals in the most recent Ashes were unforgiveable. Agnew argues that:

“He dug deep and fought only once, when he scored 71 and 49 at Melbourne.

“If he had averaged 40 and been caught behind every time, then he may have survived. However, the way he got out in the first three Tests in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth will have played a big part in the decision taken by the ECB.

“Pietersen has always batted however he feels on a particular day, but if he could not get his head down and play for the team when they were up against it, could he ever do so?”

When getting out at Perth, to yet another reckless shot, he tweeted his delight at having reached 8,000 Test runs. The fact that England were on the verge of another trashing, and with it the surrendering of the Ashes, made the timing of the tweet a little insensitive to say the least.

During his summarising over the winter, Geoffrey Boycott commented that far from inspiring his younger teammates, the way Pietersen was batting, the way he kept losing concentration and playing stupid shots, showed he wasn’t really much of an example to others. Worse, he kept getting out the same way, expressing no regret because that’s just how he plays, and then got away with it because he’s Kevin Pietersen.

This isn’t about picking a scapegoat. This is about someone who now seems incapable of playing for the team when the situation demands it, about someone who has gone about alienating his colleagues who no doubt have been a little resentful that he’s got away with things others would surely have not.

It’s the end of the greatest England player I’ve ever had the privilege to see. When batting I never dared leave the room, such was the unpredictable nature of his play. He’s given us years of thrills and excitement. He’s also given everyone involved one hell of a headache. For once, the powers that be have made the right decision.   

This piece was first published by Speaker's Chair on Wednesday 5th February 2014

The NHS needs to adapt to the lives of working people

Most proposed reforms carry with them the promise of a bundle of cash. If we throw X billion at Y problem, the public will see we’re doing something and said problem will be fixed. But the fact that Labour invested huge sums in education and health yet we still have an underperforming state school system, and a health service that often fails to get the basics right, shows the limitations of money.

It’s always been a source of frustration for me that aspects of the NHS don’t seem to cater for those in work, i.e. most of us. If you’re elderly, unemployed, self-employed or a student, you’re fine. You can afford the rigidity the service demands. But, if you work the standard 9-5, Monday to Friday shift, you’ll find a health service not always accommodating to your needs.

This is particularly the case when trying to see your GP, although I’ve never really had my own GP. I always laugh when the receptionist asks who my GP is. I never see the same person twice so your guess is as good as mine is the response I never but should give.

Recent experiences have left me frustrated, angry and bemused at how inflexible and unresponsive our system is. Often it leaves me with the impression that the needs of its staff come way above those of its patients. The NHS should adapt according to how we lead our lives and not bristle every time changes are suggested that attempt to do just that.   

Speak to any working person and I’ll have a small wager that most of them have had one of those ‘why is this so difficult?’ moments. I regularly have one of those moments.

Because people were getting fed up at not being able to phone their surgery and make an appointment to see their GP on that same day, the last Labour government stepped in to remedy that. In typical Labour fashion, they put something right by going to the other extreme. How to attract more GPs? Pay them a whopping salary, tie them in to long contracts, and allow them to opt out of evening and weekend work. Can’t see your GP on the same day? From 8.30am put your surgery number on redial and compete with every other poor sod also frantically trying to get one of the handful of available slots that day.

Now trying to book a GP appointment has become as much of a lottery as trying to get through to Ticketmaster to book concert tickets. Yes I know, most of the latter is now done online, but it’s much more fun dialling the same number over a hundred times in an hour on the off chance that the engaged tone will miraculously become the ringing tone.

If you plan to ring up at 8.30, you need to be organised. Where will you be at 8.30am? Not everyone gets to work at this time. Londoners tend to start later than everyone else. 8.30 is probably going to be too late to leave for work. You may be stuck on the tube at 8.30, or on a crowded bus, or even worse, in an open plan office. You can’t disappear from your desk for an hour with your mobile stuck on redial. But, the best thing about this system is that it doesn’t realise how barmy it actually is.

The last time I took part in this process left me grumpy all day. At work, at 8.30am, ready to start ringing. Incredibly, I got through within 10 minutes. Only about 20 redials needed. I asked if I could have the latest possible appointment. Was I able to come in at 9.30? Wow, that is late, I had no idea my surgery opened that late. Good for them. They didn’t. The receptionist meant in 40 minutes time. I explained that wasn’t possible as I was already at work and reliant on public transport. I would never have made it back in time. I meant later as in not early.

I was offered 11.30am. Again, not convenient. Unfortunately, my working day is longer than 8.30-11am. I was told all the late appointments had been taken. Already? Yes, they’d been booked up in advance. How advanced I enquired? A few weeks ago. If I wanted a late slot, the next available day would be in two weeks. Reluctantly and quietly fuming I asked for one of those. The receptionist told me patients have to ring after 11.30 to make future – non same day - appointments. It was at this moment I leapt aboard my high horse to begin the inevitable rant, but being the polite chap that I am, made sure I prefaced it with a courteous: “look, I know none of this is your fault. It’s the system.”

If for whatever reason you are home all day, you have the luxury of being able to see your GP at anytime. If you don’t, be prepared to say very rude things the next time you hear some Leftist devotee describe the NHS as ‘the envy of the world.’

I know this isn’t something that afflicts all people. Some surgeries offer late night appointments, although often reserved for one day a week. You are now able to book online if you’re lucky.

My new surgery has embraced the internet age and offers this service. However, in order to be eligible to use it, you first need to fill in a form, which can be emailed back. My surgery informed me last week that they currently have no working email address so the form has to be returned in person. Thus, if you want to use the online booking procedure, you need to fill in the form online, print it out, and then traipse to the surgery to hand it in, in person. That is when you have the time to go to your surgery. On a day you’re not working of course. I was also helpfully notified that only some appointments to see only certain doctors would be available online.

When I first joined this surgery I was told that my registration form couldn’t be filled in online but had to be brought back in person. I’d left any suitable ID at home so couldn’t hand it in there and then. Two trips to register were required.

It shouldn’t be this hard. I realise that many people, such as the elderly, don’t have access to the internet, or are uncomfortable at using it, but for those that do, having to revert back to a time where things need to be booked over the phone, and forms need to be handed in, is a right pain in the backside.

When politicians talk about reforming the NHS or any other area of the public sector, it’s the little things they need to get right. The things that shouldn’t cost a fortune.

The NHS is not flexible or internet-friendly enough. The backlash from GPs when the government proposed that all surgeries open weekends and evenings is evidence to me that they’ve had it their own way for far too long. For £103,000 a year (the average salary of a GP partner), the least they should be doing is opening for a few hours on the weekend and until at least 8pm during the week.

Our medical records should be available online. Patients should be able to email surgeries rather than rely on phoning. Steps are already in place to ensure that patients will soon be able to register to see a GP near where they work, or near their children’s school. Ideally, we’d have the option of registering at two practices: one near home and one near work.

It’s true that those of a working age are also the least likely to need a GP, but that doesn’t mean that when we do need one, the process should be tortuous. The hard-working-people-that-want-to-get-on would like to see their GP at a time of their convenience please.

 

This comment piece was first published on Speaker's Chair on Tuesday 4th February 2014