Rushanara a proud remainer













Wait for the manifesto

Quite right, lets not get swept away in a torrent of election promises. I would vote for Labour if they actually put the Free University education into their election manifesto. All the parties now start to outdo each other with promise after promise and that will of course steer the forecasts.

Yet all the other stuff, the increased living wage I am concerned about.

Since we have the living wage, I saw an immense rise in food and household item prices. Especially the low-cost budget items supermarkets had, have now doubled in price. This makes it even more difficult for those with income problems to survive.

When I was raising my children in poverty, I could manage on my benefits, which came on time and when they did not come on time, I once even went to the police station and accused the DWP of theft because they kept my benefits back. That was possible then because they had to pay your benefits by law within a certain time. Now they have changed the rules, they now can keep benefits back.

Strictly speaking I also was able to substitute my income on credit cards, and as I was very good with money, I always managed to pay them each month, with the minimum payment, which increased my interest payments astronomically. We then also had to pay the insurance, which was as much as the interest and doubled the payments.

But thankfully somebody then reaslised how wrong the PPI was. That happened during the Conservative government, that we gotten the chance to claim that back.

I could manage with the basic food items (that was all before the year 2000)  and my kids are all healthy. We had cheap fruit stalls in Bethnal Green, just opposite Tescos and the lady who ran it gotten up at 3am to buy from the fruit market and then sell it to us.

We could buy cheap household cleaners. The size of the cleaners has since doubled and so has the price. That is not good if you have to manage on weekly payments. A basic tube of toothpaste used to cost 20p in Sainsbury, now its 50p.

But now benefits are paid monthly and so they increased the sizes and prizes of goods. So now people end up having food banks; I never had any food banks, when I raised my children. We had benefits on time and cheap food in the shops.

Husbands could also get work on the grey market, which were paid in hand and that helped with the budget. That was then ended by stricter benefit laws. Then people started snooping on each other.

So lets wait for the manifestos to see what voting could be good. I need to see whether they claw back on the triple Pension and the Freedom pass to pay for some promises they make.



It’s Christmas


There won’t be a problem voting Labour for all those who want the best for their families. Since the Bank of England cut the Growth Forecast for Britain if Boris’s Brexit deal goes through, we might as well do what is good for us all.

Who could argue with free University education for our youngsters. People with children in school, planning for uni, will love that new policy.

We desperately need investment in social infrastructure, we all had enough from rising crime and falling police numbers.

Apparently both Labour and Conservatives hustle for the voters with promises of investment. Yet only Labour promises free University education; this is already in place in Scotland.

Those who come up with all those ‘Jeremy unfit to be prime minister’ can’t bring any convincing arguments for this.

Literally for free university education I coudn’t care less whether we remain or stay in the EU, but would prefer it in the EU as it doesn’t cause as many problems with the home counties, who all want to stay in. Labour promised a referendum either for Boris’s deal or staying.

It seems much more in tune with what people on the ground want, a Labour government. Moving civil servants to Middle England will help solve the London congestion. House prices are much to high in London and the counties can do with some sprucing up. As the HS2 railway will be completed by Labour nobody with common sense could not vote Labour this time around.

This will also relieve the London airports and level out investment through the British isles.

Deal or no deal

With the oncoming general election the Conservatives are striving to get into government once again, which would lengthen their stretch by another 5 years.

Promises to end fracking, raise benefits by the inflation level from next year is meant to appeal to those poor who are leaning towards the Leave campaign but are natural Labour voters.

I think that offer is not good enough. What about the rubbish housing laws that see the poor misplaced and moved out of areas into short-term tenancies?

What about working conditions that don’t even allow workers to determine when they want to take a holiday, gave us zero-hour contracts?

And of course the promise of the Labour Party to end the misery caused by tuitition fees will be very attractive to large swathes of the population, even the middle classes will like it.

Free care for the elderly will attract everybody who has some property and does not want to have to sell it to pay for care.

The Conservative Party even gotten rid of the maintenance allowance for poorer students. That was a payment of around 3 – 4.000 pounds per year to help students with rent and living costs whilst studying. The first act the Conservative government did was to stop the Child Trust Fund, which paid money into an account created for every newborn child.

A rise of benefits with inflation will not even touch the loss of other major needs.

The benefits freeze was initiated by George Osborne, who then opted to leave the government. Osborne also was a big influence on the decision to hold the referendum that still haunts this nation for years to come.

Labour can’t loose this general election

Corbyn has the winning formula.

He appeals to

  • the young by promising to abolish university tuitition fees
  • the middle ages by supporting young students and older relatives and by improving workers rights, health care and public transport.
  • the old by promising free health care.

Nobody cannot vote for this unless they are rich and do not rely on public services. Since the rich are in the minority, they cannot possibly win any election.

Even though I fell out with Labour big time some years ago, this new election manifesto is likely to be a big winner.

people in line

Photo by Cátia Matos on

We have listened to the repetitive speeches how the Conservatives increased the employment rate but forgotten to mention that those people also increasingly rely on food banks.

Labour pledge to end tuition fees

Just watching Jeremy Corbyn’s speech at the Labour election manifesto launch in Battersea and the pledge to end university tuition fees actually will make me vote for them.

The outlook of my daughter having to open letters each month, which spell out the debt she owes in University loan and interest and will severely affect her is not the best one.

Free care for the elderly will appeal to many people too.

Just hope they will also get rid of the bedroom tax for council tenants along with abolishing Universal Credit.

It remains to be seen how all this will be financed. Hopefully the Freedom pass will not be affected. I missed a statement about the Free TV license on this occasion.

Taxes for private schools I fully support as they can afford to nurture themselves and their pupils and the poor get more and more cut backs in schools.


The worst outcome

Seeing the mood in parliament it seems to become a Home nations and Labour supporters versus the Conservatives.

But we do need certainty as business investment will rely on it.

As stated previously with a new election Boris Johnson wants to rid the Conservatives of those Members of Parliament who lost the whip and who voted against the government.

Experience shows that those standing as independents rarely win elections.

Perhaps those independents will find other mainstream parties to put them up as candidates.

I am in an unusual position. I am a pensioner and as such benefit from the triple lock Conservative policy, that raises pensions guaranteed but I am also solely in contact with young people all the time and get a good idea what young people and working people do not like about this government.

With all those new parties springing up and the Liberals getting a lot more support than before, which they lost due to the previous stint of collaboration with a Conservative government, I wonder whether we are going towards a repeat of exactly the last scenario whereby Liberals prop up the Conservatives again.

I think people want genuine change, better jobs protection, better housing and less crime.

Education has become a sore point because so many schools close and many others spring up with not enough regulation to ensure quality.

On one hand this government wants to tear education away from local authorities to get direct government funding for Academies but on the other hand the local authorities get more responsibilities to raise their own finance. So why do schools get taken out of the equation?

We do see the gentrification of local communities in the social sense but local councils are supposed to get more responsibilities running their local communities whilst the poor are moved around like pawns on a chess board.

The low tax, high wage economy is not working because crazy, unstable policies have driven business out of Britain and the home nations are in the mood to cry independence.

Our charities rely on individual donations and those attracting more money can care better for their needy but those failing to attract donations cannot provide services. This leaves whole swathes of needy people uncared for, hence a rise in crime.

Leaving things to sort themselves out is obviously not working.



Will we get a winter general election?









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