Politician attempts to defend record on social care

Guardian: "David Cameron is heckled repeatedly on Tuesday while addressing an audience at an Age UK event on the state of the NHS. Members of the audience shout: 'Rubbish!' and: 'You're not answering the question!' as the prime minister takes questions about the NHS and healthcare for the elderly " https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-at-age-uk - full text of opening speech I don't know of a full text or recording of the question and answer session. There are excepts on a youtube video titled "Daily Telegraph" and "ITN", but no reference on the ITN web site and no full text on the Age Concern web site that I can find. I've emailed Age Concern's PR person in case she knows of one, but doubt she'll have time to respond.

Five days later, no reply, so we don't know if any good points were made by audience members because there's no public record of them.

Post to 38 degrees for Richmond Park Constituency

Social care.

Introducing myself:

I want to get something done about social care by disrupting the next Westminster election, if I can persuade other disrupters to agree!

I want a fixed national social care budget read-out alongside health and defence in parliament as part of the budget. It can be allocated to councils by need if they can be trusted to ring-fence it. It cannot be set by councils.

I realise that this is a popular idea but there are a lot of similar and overlapping points of view, so I just want to make a fuss in the next election somehow.

Making a fuss could involve someone standing for parliament and agreeing to stand-down if one of the top two other candidates agrees to rebel against their party whip and support the idea if elected.

That's me. That's why I logged-on and posted. I have a little-read blog on http://election-richmond-park.blogspot.co.uk/ and I have done a bit of questioning and googling to find out about how elections work but have probably forgotten it again - there's some deadline for agreeing to pay a deposit and get free postage for your electoral bit of paper to votors, and some deadline for taking your name off the ballot paper. The ideal outcome that could influence a mainstream candidate is to pay a deposit, get your bit of paper posted free to votors, and show that you have enough support that you could keep your deposit by not standing-down. Something like pledges of financial support.

I've written the odd thing on another blog about cheap ink paper and home printing, but whatever I write on blogs will only put readers off as I want to concentrate on a social care budget that's as national as any other budget read-out in the budget speech.

John R.

PS I'm not an easy person to convert towards other similar campaigns. Just thought it best to say before anyone tries!

Posted on http://election.38degrees.org.uk/areas/1086

Election Richmond Park 2015 of National Social Care Budget?

What to call the blog. Or "campaign" as some things like this become.

Election Richmond Park 2015

...is a good way of attracting people the right people, but less good at saying why I want candidates to press their parties for a change of manifesto.

National Social Care Budget is good, but sounds like a national thing, which it isn't: it's just an attempt to make the top two party candidates make some sort of commitment to better budgeting.

National Care Budget sounds a bit uggy, as though going for a sympathy vote, but has great advantages.
National Social.... has not been a good start in the past
Social... sounds like "socialist", which most people are, including most conservatives who support the NHS and the welfare state, but those who use the word tend to have views that annoy conservatives like being against capital or in favour of nationalisation or whatever it is, so "social care" is not great if it sounds like "socialist".
Care... is pretty embarassing because it's the word councils use for this vague area of budget. They also use it to distinguish their own staff on an average wage from agency care assistants on less than the minimum wage. And on the social-work side of things, it's true that jobs like teaching self-help, advising on benefits, referring through a maze of referral systems, assessment, and counselling or groupwork are all technical jobs which are sometimes done well as a technical speciality. So nobody really likes the word "care": care assistants know that it's an excuse for low wages; technical staff know that it distracts from what they do. As for unpaid carers, nobody disputes that they need help but they don't get a budget.

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