Looking ahead to 2025

No one expects 2025 to be plain sailing. Though I’ll of course work for the best. It’s not just that there’s no easy way back from an NHS in its worst ever crisis, the worst housing emergency in living memory, a faltering economy and the world in its most dangerous state since the end of the Cold War. Other policy has been going south too…

I was disappointed with the Government’s decision not to offer compensation to women pensioners born in the 1950s (so called ‘WASPI women’). 6,820 women in the West Cornwall & Scilly constituency have lost out. I hope to meet WASPI campaigners soon to consider next steps.

I appreciate this would have been a difficult decision for any incoming government, but it brings shame on both Labour and the Conservatives. The Conservatives deliberately slowed the process to leave the controversy for the next government, and Labour has unfortunately made the wrong call.

The new government didn’t need to turn its back on millions of pension-age women who were wronged through no fault of their own, ignoring the independent Ombudsman’s recommendations; especially so soon after they took away winter fuel payments from many. The Conservatives left our economy in a shambles, but asking wronged pensioners to pay the price for their mismanagement is simply unfair.

 

For years, my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I have pushed the government to fairly compensate WASPI women in line with the Ombudsman’s recommendations.

So close to the “Holy Land” at Christmas, Israel’s far-right Netanyahu regime continues its punishment and cold-blooded slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza (and the West Bank). The last functioning hospital in northern Gaza – Kamal Adwan – was raided and cleared by Israeli forces. Israel’s army is one of the most powerful and sophisticated on the planet. Netanyahu’s regime has committed atrocity after atrocity; killed nearly 46,000, mostly women and children; over 108,000 seriously wounded. Since Christmas day at that hospital, 5 journalists and 5 medical staff killed; babies dying of hypothermia.

Netanyahu still tries to justify his cold-blooded slaughter as “self-defence”. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for his arrest.

Since warrants were issued, Netanyahu and his supporters have continued their murderous strategy with impunity. Perhaps they know our Government wouldn’t comply, if the opportunity arose? We must hope the new government will – unlike the last Conservative government – respect and uphold international law.

I’ve called on the government to scrap the employers’ National Insurance Contributions (NICs) hike and to instead raise tax on energy giants, big business and the banks. Recent polling by the Liberal Democrats has revealed that almost half of south west businesses expect to see businesses closures as a result. The NICs increase also threatens GP surgeries, hospices, social care, care homes and other services the government claims it wants to restore.