What is the UK election for?

In the end-of-public-school term jollies of Britain's inaptly named 'House of Commons', all three main parties signed up to no VAT increases, no National Insurance increases - and this all started with last month's main party agreement to cut £30 billion off government expenditure in the first three years of the new Parliament - whoever wins. (The SNP, for what it is worth, did not join the 'let's cut £30 bill' herd.)

Westminster parties therefore agree about the main tax and the main cuts picture after the election (given a few, marginal and minor scraps about mansion taxes and the rest.) And here is the second bit. This part also has to be 'locked in' by the main Westminister parties otherwise a further £30 billion cut is totally unobtainable. Here is how the BBC reported the Kings Fund's view of the future of the NHS. (26 March)


'Professor John Appleby, chief economist at the King's Fund, which specialises in health care policy, said: "The next government will inherit a health service that has run out of money and is operating at the very edge of its limits.
"There is now a real risk that patient care will deteriorate as service and financial pressures become overwhelming."
He said in terms of how standards were slipping - not how low they had reached - the situation was the worst it had been since the "early 1990s".
The report noted much of the deterioration has happened in the second-half of the Parliament with many measures of performance being maintained in the first few years.
It said the next government had to address the funding situation, adding the extra £8bn a year NHS England says is needed by 2020, was the "minimum" that would be required.'

There was no competition in the dieing days of Parliament about the desperate need for funding increases to meet this crisis in the nation's health service (and that is despite Labour choosing the NHS as its main flag for the election.)

The Institute of Fiscal Affairs (26 March) also produced a report on education spending.

Their report said

'Between 2010–11 and 2014–15, there has been a 0.6% real-terms increase in current spending per pupil, though capital spending has been cut by over one third in real-terms. Over the next parliament, current spending on schools could be squeezed harder. Although the commitments made by the three main UK parties are subtly different, they could all imply real spending per pupil falling by 7% or more between 2014–15 and 2019–20.'

And if increased staff wages and pensions commitments were not covered then the cut could be more like 12% per pupil.

Again, the 'subtle differences' between the parties do not deal with the basic facts. Both education and health will be brutally cut back per head of the population whichever main Westminster party gains control.

We could go on. But the question surely arises; What are we voting for? Simple. We vote for any candidate that genuinely opposes austerity and who does not scapegoat any part of the 99%. Anything else is truly a wasted vote. Note to self: we must make sure in the future that we scrap and reorganise a decaying and laughable political system that cannot provide for a debate just before an election about the need to defend and grow our key services; where none of the main Westminster parties feel able to challenge austerity.