Life right now appears to be fragile in many ways.
Many interactions with government agencies or large corporations can give the impression that everything is about to fall apart.
People are struggling to keep up with rising bills, especially the poorest, who spend a greater proportion of their income on necessities like energy.
The number of people on the NHS waiting list is increasing, and ambulance response times are increasing, putting people’s lives at risk.
Even vacationing families are having their vacations ruined due to flight cancellations.
Most frustratingly, the government appears to have no plan to address these issues, preferring to focus on day-to-day firefighting – and fire starting.
They are attempting to ignite culture wars and attack some of the UK’s most iconic institutions to distract from their complete lack of vision. They appear to be out of ideas and steam, but there is no shortage of hot air.
Nadine Dorries, the Culture Secretary, is a particularly egregious offender: she is hell-bent on privatizing Channel 4 despite widespread opposition and a tenuous economic case, while threatening the BBC with the abolition of the license fee.
National pride entails more than just waving the flag and singing the national anthem; it also entails ensuring that everyone has equal access to better jobs, a better life, and a brighter future.
This necessitates a strategy and some foresight.
The government, however, is plagued by short-termism, with Boris Johnson’s allies rallying around ‘Operation Big Dog.’
Following the PM’s narrow victory in the confidence vote this week, Downing Street issued a statement saying Johnson would lay out his “vision for the coming weeks.”
Were they revealing how little time he has left to him?
But, for the time being, Boris Johnson is Prime Minister, and it’s pointless to complain about his government’s failings.
Delegates from across my union, Prospect, will meet in Bournemouth this weekend for our annual conference, where we’ll discuss practical solutions to the challenges that our country faces.
Here are a few places to begin if the Prime Minister wants to “get on with the job and deliver on what matters to the British people.”
Begin now to properly invest in renewables and nuclear power, bringing us closer to Net Zero, creating good, skilled jobs across the country, and reducing our reliance on foreign gas, ensuring we never again face such exorbitant energy prices.
EDF has already confirmed that Hinkley Point B will close this year due to the government’s inaction on extending the lives of nuclear power plants.
With all but one of our remaining plants set to close by the end of the decade, the government must act quickly to heed union demands that operators investigate the possibility of extending the life of these plants in a safe manner.
Boris and his ministers must also get serious about Brexit, by putting an end to the bombast and addressing the flaws in a deal that was never ‘oven-ready.’
Britain’s prices are rising due to trade barriers with our closest neighbors.
This isn’t about refighting the referendum; it’s about making it work for the British people, who are starved for pragmatism rather than puff and posturing.
Unions warned the government that ending furlough while international travel restrictions remained would be devastating to the aviation industry, and we’re now seeing the results of their refusal to listen.
Aviation workers must be placed on the Shortage Occupation List, a government program that relaxes immigration requirements for industries with a staffing shortage.
Ministers may think it’s clever to make speeches about ‘cancel culture,’ but the public is more concerned about canceled flights.
Public employees are overworked and underpaid, with the government threatening to fire them if they don’t keep up with inflation.
Prospect members assisted in coordinating the pandemic response, reopening our schools, and ensuring that workplaces were safe to return to – and their reward from this government has been a threat to cut 91,000 of them in order to return to pre-Brexit staffing levels.
Whatever your feelings about Brexit, it resulted in the repatriation of powers, responsibility, and eventually workload from Brussels, therefore we won’t apologize for calling these cuts illogical vandalism that will only harm important services.
We also want the government to commit to a vision for the future of work that is fair and flexible for all employees, not just corporations.
Flexibility entails more than the capacity to work from home a few days a week for some people: it also entails the ability to balance work with care responsibilities, the right to withdraw from an always-on working culture, and ensuring that people work to live, not live to work.
They should also push forward the long-delayed Employment Bill to improve working people’s lives and ensure that the P&O sackings do not happen again.
So, if you’re staying, Prime Minister, get to work. Put an end to the culture wars and rule by press release, and start developing the economy that the people of this country so richly deserve.
The events of the past week, I’m sure, have made you think about what kind of legacy you want to leave behind.
Now is the time to make sure you have one to brag about, regardless of whether it’s in metric or imperial measurements.
Mike Clancy is the General Secretary of Prospect, a union that represents 150,000 public and private sector workers.