THE government seems to have got itself in a bit of a pickle about its pledges.
These things can be complicated. A simpler list of actions and timescales might look like this:
1. End the voucher system for asylum seekers -- today
2. Restore the pensions and benefits link with pay and prices -- today
3. Repeal Section 28 (Local Government Act, England and Wales) -- today
4. Increase public services employment, eg by improving pay for nurses and teachers -- today
5. Scrap nuclear missiles (Scots and English courts find them immoral) and depleted uranium -- today.
And so on. Measures like these begin to tackle discrimination and disadvantage, and help to give us -- all -- the fairer and healthier society which ministers want.
As would "joining up" the railways (and likewise removing health and education from the clutches of private finance initiatives). Public health is not safe in private hands.
JOHN NICHOLSON, Chief Executive, UK Public Health Association, Ardwick Green North, Manchester.
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