Needs Thought?

A rare event happened in the House of Commons today. The Prime Minister, in responding to the Langstaff report on the contaminated blood scandal covering a period twenty years, until around 1991 has offered the victims and their families an unequivocal apology for what he called a day of shame for the British state. Significantly the Leader of the Opposition has agreed, saying politics has failed.

In a recent post I expressed my sense of shame that the next generation is burdened with unfair house prices and the inability of our politicians to solve our housing, infrastructure and growth crisis since the seventies. Housing policy failure is another failure of domestic politics.

Years of failure in the use of contaminated blood led to a shocking level of unnecessary deaths. Housing policy failure, thankfully has not resulted in unnecessary deaths. Instead it has resulted in an unnecessary and massive blockage to the future prosperity of millions of people, especially young people. Forgive me please. Is there a comparison.? Are there echoes? Are there shared causes, or attitudes of mind? And if so, what do they tell us?

Sir Brian Langstaff’s report talks of failure by governments, by officials and by doctors. Housing policy failure over several decades is also the fault of the current and previous governments. Most of all caused by wanton disregard by local councils knowingly ignoring their future responsibilities in favour of short term electoral benefit. So I reverse the indictment. Local councils are the culprits, not held to account by their own officials, or the responsible departments in Whitehall and given alibi’s every step by opportunistic MP’s. who turn their backs on a duty to look ahead.

Is this unhappy mind-set the fault of our form of democratic accountability? The first past the post system encourages short term, confrontational attitudes and discourages long term, consensus based spatial policy making? Can we afford to continue with this form of delinquent governance if we look at the challenges ahead? Perhaps these doubts illuminate the declining trust we have in recent politics built on hidden agenda with no integrity? Some new thinking about domestic priorities is needed.

Ian Campbell

20 May 2024