Barbara Keeley, Labour’s Shadow Mental
Health Minister,
responding to the Tories’ social care announcement ahead of their manifesto,
said:

“You can’t trust the
Tories’ promises on social care. In their last manifesto they promised a cap on
care costs. But they broke their promise, letting older and vulnerable people
down.

“It’s the Tories who have
pushed social care into crisis; their cuts to councils have meant £4.6bn axed
from social care budgets between 2010-2015, leaving 1.2 million
people struggling to get by without care. And NHS bosses have recently said
that the money the Tories promised them won’t help alleviate the problems, with
bosses warning the system won’t see anything like the level of resource
required.

“We need real action to
fix the system, not reheated broken promises with little detail about how
they’ll be delivered.

“While the Tories offer
more of the same failure and broken promises, Labour has pledged action. We’ll
increase social care budgets by £8bn over the lifetime of the Parliament,
including an additional £1bn for the first year. We will set up a National Care
Service to provide the care that people deserve.”

Ahead
of the Conservative Party’s Manifesto launch, Labour is today publishing a
document looking at the Tories’ record of broken promises.

The
document – entitled: ‘One Tory Manifesto. Two years of Failure. 50 Broken
Promises’ – lists 50 examples of when the Conservatives broke their word. From
the NHS to education, from living standards to policing, the Tories have broken
their promises time and again. 

·        
They promised on the economy, but they have
missed every debt and deficit target they set themselves

·        
They promised to raise living standards, but working
families are set to be on average over £1,400 a year worse off

·        
They promised to improve all standards of NHS care,
but A&Es are in their worst state on record and hospitals are in
financial crisis

·        
They promised to protect school spending, but per
pupil spending is going down and class sizes are soaring

As
they launch their latest manifesto, it is a reminder that the Tories can’t be
trusted to keep their word.

Andrew
Gwynne, Labour’s National Election Co-ordinator, said:

“When Theresa May launches the Tory manifesto we can
expect her to make a raft of promises to the British people. But, as the
Conservatives make their latest solemn pledge there’s one thing we must bear in
mind: we’ve been here before.

“Theresa May pretends
otherwise, but she is a politician with a track record of failure and broken
promises. From the economy to the NHS, and policing to schools, Theresa May’s
Tories have failed again and again to deliver on the pledges they made.

“They made promises, they
quickly broke them; they would do so again. The Tories can’t be trusted.
Britain cannot afford five more years of them and their broken promises.”

File photo of South China Sea. [Photo/Xinhua]

China has succeeded in collecting samples of combustible ice in the South China Sea, a major breakthrough that may lead to a global energy revolution, Minister of Land and Resources Jiang Daming said Thursday.

This is China’s first success in mining flammable ice at sea, after nearly two decades of research and exploration, the minister said at a trial mining site in the Shenhu area of the South China Sea Thursday.

China found flammable ice, a kind of natural gas hydrate, in the South China Sea in 2007.

International scientific circles have predicted that natural gas hydrate is the best replacement for oil and natural gas.

Inflation has risen by similar amounts in Europe, the UK and the US. Yesterday the Euro area figure for April hit 1.9%, compared to minus 0.2% a year earlier. German inflation reached 2%, compared to minus 0.3% a year earlier. UK inflation at 2.7% compared with plus 0.3% a year ago has risen almost identically to German inflation over the last year, implying the UK inflation is not to do with sterling or Brexit as some allege.

The annual UK figure for April inflation at 2.7% reflected higher energy prices over the year. 30% of the price rise came from transport, with a surge in airfares for Easter a particularly strong item for April, and higher Vehicle Excise Duties adding to the pain. 22% of it came from household items, where Council tax rises and dearer electricity were two of the big movers. Motor fuel prices fell a little, after being the dominant cause of inflation for the last year.

There are no signs of a wage/price spiral developing as it used to do in the last century. There is not much evidence of companies pushing through price rises to offset the fall in sterling that has taken place over the last two years, though where they can companies seek a small rise as some compensation for general cost pressures. It is interesting that on both sides of the Atlantic with differing patterns of currency performance, the rise in inflation has been so similar. It mainly reflects energy and commodity prices, with some price pressures from China on her exports. Later this year unless there is another oil and commodity price surge, inflation might fall back a little.

Published and promoted by Fraser Mc Farland on behalf of John Redwood, both at 30 Rose Street Wokingham RG40 1XU