‘Differential regional pay rates will only add to health inequalities.
And of course health inequalities will get even worse, if the competition for decent income reduces the interest in employment Up North of top researchers and clinicians – this has horrendous implications for, e.g., some medical schools and associated teaching hospitals.
But there are also other considerations, such as housing.
Even now, those in many professions who are fortunate enough to be able to keep accommodation which they own in the South usually keep it, when they move North for career experience. There is already a vast divide between (a) people, often mobile professionals, who can own property in the South-East and also when their careers require it live further North, and (b) those who started in the North and can barely buy anything in the South, however much they need to get professional experience there.
Reducing incomes away from the South-East will exacerbate this divide significantly, and will have serious impacts for national and regional housing markets, with all the additional outcomes which will inevitably follow.
This proposal kicks any remaining shred of regional strategy way out of sight, and announces loud and clear that Tory ministers – Osborne, Lansley, Cameron and all – have absolutely no interest in achieving greater equity of well-being amongst UK citizens. Some of us may already know that, but now many more will also recognise this stark truth.
Are the LibDems past caring?
The response of the Liberal Democrats to these proposals for regional pay will be interesting.
Their support has traditionally be greater in areas where pay will now be falling relative to the South-East; but can the LibDems sink any further in electoral terms?
Will Nick Clegg and the rest of his party sign up to the Osborne-Lansley axis, on the basis that electorally things can’t get any worse for the LibDems; or will there be resistance in the hope that ‘fighting back’ will bolster their future prospects with the voters?
An opportunity to arrest De-governance?
Whatever, it’s probably a vain hope that the Clegg response will be based on much more than short-term party political advantage. He has already capitulated completely to the De-governance, anti- serious social policy, agenda of his Tory minders, and the LibDem party as a whole is it seems powerless to change this.
Perhaps though there’s a small hope that others may put this further LibDem discomfort to better use. We need very urgently to arrest the disastrous trajectory of the ConDem mission by any means available, and this political fissure is grist to that mill.
This entry was posted in Viewpoint and tagged Andrew Lansley, ConDems, Conservative, David Cameron, DE-governance, economy, George Osborne, health, housing, Liberal Democrat, NHS, Nick Clegg, pay, regional, strategy. Bookmark the permalink.