I met with Barbara (with her husband Brian) on 29 September a Brexit supporter to hear about some of her policy ideas about moving the UK forward but also on how life needs to be significantly improved for the elderly.
Barbara and Brian have been let down by our MP and the main political parties. She now only has hope in the Brexit Party. I promised her I would share her story and her insightful views on this website.
Barbara is in her 70s and is married to Brian. I also met Brian who spent his whole career, from 1962 to 2008 in the railway industry (and coincidentally we found out worked with my late Grandfather, a train guard at Ilford Station in the 1980s and 90s).
Here’s Barbara showing off her fabulous jacket she bought from a charity shop 30 years ago for about £2. Nice!
We as a younger generation have a duty to listen to our elderly. They have incredible wisdom and experience and we could learn more quickly, and avoid re-learning lessons of the past, by speaking with, but more importantly listening to, those who are older and wiser.
More about Barbara
Barbara spent her whole career in health services starting as a health services cleaner, before moving up the career ladder and managing a GP’s office. In the 1980s she was made redundant and decided to pursue a Business Management degree at the Open university to keep developing before going back into the NHS in more senior roles and eventually retiring.
She earns inadequate pension income with her husband Brian, as their bills and rent far exceeds their pensions. Barbara and Brian have clearly worked very hard all their career but have to live very frugally, including compromising on food. Holidays have always been a pipe dream for them.
Barbara is a mother of three surviving adult children including a son who is deaf and has other serious health issues, living some distance away making family support more challenging. She also had a daughter who sadly passed away 10 years ago from cancer. She is also a proud grandmother
It was a privilege meeting her and hearing some of her views.
Barbara’s values and observations on society
1. Restoration of choice
Barbara is fundamentally a believer in choice over burdensome regulation prescribing human behaviour. Humans as a whole need to be trusted to make the right choices. We need to avoid becoming a nation of group thinkers or sheep.
2. Health and lifestyle
Barbara has seen how we as a society have become weaker and sicker over the years. This is in part because we have become increasingly dependent on drugs. As someone who has seen family members with health issues and spent her career in the NHS, she knows first-hand that, when drugs are prescribed, they often have harmful side effects which lead to additional drugs being prescribed with other side effects, and so on. And so all too often leads to a cycle of increasing dependence of drugs and increasingly deteriorating health. Doctors have a responsibility to do better in this regard.
Barbara believes better, credible research is also needs to be undertaken into herbal based alternatives to drugs. We need to move a culture of healthier eating, including organic food absent of unhealthy pesticides. One of the key problems today is the availability of less healthy food, compared to more expensive and often unaffordable and healthier organic food.
We need to have more of an attitude of hope and positive thinking. Scientific evidence is increasingly showing the general benefits of this. Her belief in this is partly influenced by the poor treatment her daughter received by the NHS before passing away from cancer (see more at Barbara’s view on policy below).
3. Respect for yourself, your neighbours and the community
Barbara highlights we need to be more respectful as a society. Respect for ourselves and each other is a fundamental value and we all need to live by that value. Like many people, Barbara believes in karma, that you reap what you sow. Our society reflects who we are individually and collectively.
Small examples:
- streets being littered with rubbish. This is because people throw away litter too readily and do not clean their own homes regularly. It is far worse now than when we had the “Keep Britain Tidy” campaign years ago.
- drivers being increasingly selfish, for example, unnecessarily not giving way to pedestrians or worse using their horn when they have to slow down to pedestrians when they are crossing the road.
The main example is the all-time low quality and competence of our politicians in Parliament today. If it wasn’t for the Brexit Party, Barbara says she would not have any motivation to vote at the next General Election.
4. Barbara on choice and smoking
Barbara is smoker. This is one vice she and Brian want to continue to enjoy because she simply cannot afford other means to enjoy herself. She sees a hypocrisy in vilifying smoking (and smokers) but completely ignoring alcohol which is also harmful. As part of the restoration of choice she would like to see bars and pubs be allowed to introduce smoking rooms (particularly during the winter time) or at the very least follow the example in France where you have outdoor tarpaulin covered areas with heaters where smokers can be more comfortable and less exposed to extreme weather. Because of the vilification of smokers Barbara and Brian only smoke at home and no longer go to the pub.
Barbara has recommended reading Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains by Michael J. McFadden for the argument that the basis for the smoking ban, that 2nd hand smoke is harmful, has been exaggerated and subject to Government manipulation.
5. Environment and greedy consumerism
Barbara has seen how we have increasingly developed into a throw-away-consumer society over the years and have become too greedy. A small example is how her Mother used two bags for shopping, using them for years before we became a plastic bag society. Despite the 5p charge, we’re still a plastic bag society.
Barbara’s view on policy: her 6 priorities
1. Healthcare/NHS improvement
Barbara has spent her career working for the NHS (Barking, Havering and Redbridge) and knows more than most it needs lots of improvement. Some of this is down to getting the basics right. For example, although 10 years ago, her daughter was undergoing radiography treatment. She was treated by a “professional” who was interviewed for the role but never vetted. It turned out he was not qualified. There were deficiencies in care standards where she was treated at Royal Marsden Hospital which Barbara believes led to her daughter’s accelerated demise. For example, she was screaming in agony days before she passed away but was ignored by staff until Barbara, through her anger was required to force the Doctor on duty, to ensure she was seen to.
The lack of care is something I and many others looking after loved ones can relate to. For example, my Auntie had a stroke a few years ago as a result of which she lost her ability to speak and walk. She was wheelchair bound and being treated in Homerton University Hospital in East London. On one occasion she had fallen on the hospital hallway floor unable to call for help and was ignored for hours while her husband was at work. Similarly, there were care issues with my Father while he was being treated, both at King George’s Hospital and, to a lesser extent, at Queen’s. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon story.
Anyway, Barbara says:
- The post code lottery reflects inefficiency and inconsistency in funding of services
- Interest and debt on repayment of Queen’s hospital is still being paid out of the NHS budget taking away much needed funding from healthcare. Having looked into this myself, the level of debt at Barking, Havering and Redbridge Hospitals Trust is staggering; borrowing due within a year as at March 2019 stands at almost £77million. This excludes total borrowings, which become due longer term after March 2020, standing at over £353million.
- Procurement: supply contracts can only be awarded to certain vetted companies. This keeps prices artificially and significantly inflated as suppliers take advantage of the small supply pool. This unnecessarily excludes small businesses from the procurement process and eliminates needed competition. Barbara shared this report with me about drugs suppliers cheating the NHS, highlighting this is something NHS are aware of; Drugs firms colluded to hike fludrocortisone price by 1800%, says watchdog, 4 October 2019.
- Drugs supply outside the EU: A deal with the US or other non-EU country does not sell out the NHS. It simply further opens existing channels for the supply of drugs and equipment. Some tablets are very costly and more competition in the supply of essentially the same drugs is needed. The misleading campaign by Labour angers Barbara.
- Fair Pay for GP staff: Barbara notes some GPs are not only paid by the patient but also have their rents covered by the NHS. Many earn well but do not pay their staff sufficiently. Guidelines on remuneration of junior staff and nurses should be introduced for GPs responsible for budgets.
- Provide GP offices within Tesco’s/Sainsbury’s for free, particularly to help those who find going to a GP’s office inaccessible.
Barbara and Brian have also kindly spoken to me about their views on video.
2. Increase pensions
Many elderly retired people who have worked hard all their lives receive inadequate state pension payments. This needs to be at least doubled, particularly for those who are not wealthy and were not able to afford private pensions.
3. Housing
- Barbara sees a potential solution to supply for the most in need with modern pre-fabs to enable a solution for those who cannot afford the market rate for rent. Post-war this was a quick solution for building 2 or more a week.
- Unoccupied homes and flats should be subject to a forced sale to help increase supply of homes on the market.
- We should not build new homes unless this is properly supported by proper infrastructure to support it such as schools, hospitals, GP offices and utility infrastructure.
4. Education
- We need to end unnecessary statistics and league tables and focus on improving the quality of education.
- Education is focused on the side of academic ability but ignores vocational ability. Two of her sons were academically able and so the school system worked fine for them. Her other son’s strength was more vocational so he struggled with school and was left behind. Schools should have both academic and vocations skills, including cooking, as mandatory.
5. Restrict foreign aid
Look after your own first. The UK is not sufficiently looking after the interests of its own citizens, particularly those in need and the elderly. Get that right first before spending funds on foreign aid.
6. Restore legal aid
After significant cuts in legal aid, those who cannot afford it are now no longer able to defend themselves or get access to justice. This has become a country where big Government and corporations rule with no representation for the vulnerable and poor.
Barbara’s expectations of Politicians
Politicians in this day and age need to be more than political experts (and today they are so incompetent they are not even that). To be effective they need to be micro managers and do proper analysis into public services such as the NHS and education. They need to do much more than read briefings. They have outsourced this function but are not themselves sufficiently engaged with issues on a micro level so improvement is slow. There is no sufficiency of monitoring progress and this is in part due politicians acting to short-term goals reflecting their term rather than the long-run benefit of the country.