If you want to register to vote you need to do so before 20th April 2010. You can find out how to do this here http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/, a website from The Electoral Commission.
You cannot escape the common message from all political parties this election. There are going to have to be "cuts" in the public spend on services regardless of who gains power.
Already I have seen and indeed been involved in discussions about cuts in healthcare provision. Doing more for less. 10% cuts in some healthcare services this year with more next year.
More people are being tested and treated with HIV however already concern is mounting about the ability to meet the costs of Antiretrovirals and you may find that the choices once there are limited by the cost restrictions.
Secondary Care is expensive and so, if you have not already experienced it, you will see you are directed more towards your GP for non-HIV related treatment, as primary care is cheaper. You maybe interested in http://www.accessgp.org .
The way HIV care has been funded has changed. Once ALL HIV/AIDs care was "specialised commissioning". Now only problematic, non-stable HIV will be subject to "specialised commissioning".
As things have changed with HIV, the advent of new more adherent Antiretroviral therapies the Health model needs to change to reflect the fact that people with HIV are living longer and healthier lives with inpatient attendances low.
We have an ageing population generally and now one living with HIV also. This brings more demand for health services that deal with this new health issues. As well as creating a burden generally on the Welfare State when it comes to providing Community Based care. Meaning HIV has to fight and struggle to ensure it gets a "fair and equitable" chance of having the care necessary provided for sufferers.
Accessing benefits and the changes that will come in from October this year will place new challenges on claimants. The size of the welfare benefit budget is a target for cuts, don't be mislead by the amount of fraud reported or DWP errors, the figures quoted are large BUT in terms of the overall total budget they are very small. Real cuts to this budget will simply mean less people being able to access the benefits they need or more stringent checks and criteria that have to be met. You may find you no longer qualify for the benefits you once had and have to re-engage with work.
So, in a financially constrained future, you have to choose who will best ensure not only is HIV/AIDs not forgotten, or those ill-treated because we are a minority of society generally, with those making decisions on our life outcomes not being sufficiently trained in HIV and the issues arising. You also have to choose who will bring about equality and help if you need to re-engage with the work place.
Things are already changing, post 6th May 2010, YOUR VOTE or LACK of VOTE will set the agenda for the next 5 years of government & policy.
Government policy affects Health Care, Welfare Support, the money given to local councils including the AIDS Support Grant and international policy. You have a vote to use to have your say on this.
Some will also have local Council Elections. Local council decide how to spend money from both Council Tax receipts and funding from Central Government. How your council spends its AIDS Support Grant, if it "tops" this up from general council funds, the services both provided by your local council such as social services or by 3rd sector, charitable, organisations will relate to whomever has a majority on your council on 7th May 2010. So this is another oppourtunity for you to have your say and vote, locally for the council and policy you need.
Electing a local councillor or MP is as much about electing someone you believe will be able to advocate for you should the need arise. Someone you feel you could turn to and ask for help should you have benefit issue, housing issue, health issue etc. . Much of what these people do is based in YOUR community, representing and taking on issues from your neighbours. MP's hold weekly surgeries for this very reason.
Of course one way of overcoming the Stigmatism some of us feel, living with HIV, is to take an active part in our community. The easiest way is to register and vote.
Not voting simply means that, whatever government is in power on the 7th May 2010, you condone and agree there policy and direction for the country or your local council.
You may not get the outcome you want by voting, but change doesn't happen by not voting at all.
Take some time to consider not only the national politics that beset the media but look more locally at the type of person, policies and politics you want to access.
Issues -
- Access to Health Care & fair access to therapies and treatments.
- Equitable access to Welfare Benefits and state/council social service provision
- Equitable access to "back to work" schemes and job oppourtunites
- Further equality for disabled people.
- End of the Criminalisation of HIV in the UK.
In alphabetical order, click the Party Name to be directed to there website;
England, Scotland & Wales.
Click here for a list of Local Council Elections also happening.
Northern Ireland.
PDF version
From Rightsnet.org.uk
Welfare benefit and tax credits highlights in the Labour Party election manifesto
Reforms designed to 'increase fairness and work incentives'
The Labour Party has today published its 'Manifesto 2010: A future fair for all' which outlines 'tough choices on welfare' aimed at increasing fairness and work incentives and includes savings of £1.5 billion.
Welfare benefit and tax credit measures included in the manifesto include -
- 200,000 jobs through the Future Jobs Fund, with a job or training place for young people who are out of work for six months, but benefits cut at ten months if they refuse to take part;
- a £40-a-week Better-off in Work guarantee;
- the extension of the 'tough-but-fair' work capability test which will help to reduce the benefit bill by £1.5 billion over the next four years, with the reassessment of 1.5 million incapacity benefit claims by 2014;
- a guarantee of supported employment after two years on benefit for those with the most serious conditions or disabilities who want to work;
- extra help for lone parents with childcare, training and support to find family-friendly work, while requiring those with children aged three to take steps to prepare for work and to actively seek work once their youngest child is seven years old;
- the reform of housing benefit to ensure that 'we do not subsidise people to live in the private sector on rents that other ordinary working families could not afford';
- a new 'fathers' month' consisting of four weeks of paid leave, rather than the current two, to be paid for with savings from housing benefit reforms;
- a 'toddler tax credit', increasing the child element of child tax credit by £4 a week for families with children aged one and two from 2012;
- a re-established link between the basic state pension and earnings from 2012 with pension credit also rising in line with earnings;
- people aged 60 and over to be able to claim working tax credit if they work at least 16 hours a week, rather than 30 hours as at present;
- grandparents who give up work to help care for their grandchildren to receive national insurance credits towards their state pension;
- a commitment to continued help for pensioners, for example through the winter fuel payment, and free eye tests and prescriptions;
- the Savings Gateway account for people on lower incomes to be available to over eight million families from July 2010, providing, with the future extension of this approach to savings for more people on middle incomes and the development of a matched savings account for all 18-30 basic-rate taxpayers; and
- a commitment to protecting the Child Trust Fund with an additional £100 a year for all disabled children.
You can read further information and comment on tcell.org.uk on Labour by clicking here.
From Rightsnet.org.uk
Welfare benefit and tax credits highlights in the Conservative Party election manifesto
Reforms designed to make savings and 'get Britain working again'
The Conservative Party has today published its 'Manifesto 2010 - Invitation to Join the Government of Britain' which outlines reforms designed to make savings in benefit expenditure and 'get Britain working again'.
Welfare benefit and tax credit measures in the manifesto include -
- to stop paying tax credits to families with incomes over £50,000 per year;
- to end the 'couple penalty' for all couples in the tax credit system;
- to reform the administration of tax credits to reduce fraud and overpayments;
- to bring forward the date at which the state pension age starts to rise to 66, although this won't be before 2010 for men and 2020 for women;
- to raise the primary threshold for national insurance by £24 a week and raise the upper earnings limit by £29 a week;
- to create a single Work Programme for everyone who is unemployed, including the 2.6 million people claiming incapacity benefit, which will offer targeted, personalised help sooner;
- to delivered the Work Programme through private and voluntary sector providers to be rewarded on a payment by results basis for getting people into sustainable work;
- long-term benefit claimants who fail to find work to be required to 'work for the dole' on community work programmes;
- jobseeker's allowance claimant's who refuse to join the Work Programme to lose the right to claim out-of-work benefits until they do and claimants who refuse to accept reasonable job offers to risk forfeiting their benefits for up to three years;
- to reassess all current claimants of incapacity benefit, with those found fit for work to be transferred onto jobseeker's allowance;
- to draw on a range of Service Academies to offer pre-employment training for unemployed people with the first Service Academy, for hospitality and leisure, to provide up to 50,000 training places and work placements;
- to enable welfare-to-work providers and employers to purchase services from Mental Health Trusts;
- to freeze council tax for two years, in partnership with local councils, to be paid for by reducing spending on government consultants and advertising;
- to re-link the basic state pension to earnings, and 'protect' the winter fuel payment and pension credit;
- to 'protect' disability living allowance and attendance allowance; and
- to cut government contributions to the Child Trust Fund for all but the poorest third of families and families with disabled children.
You can read further information and comment on tcell.org.uk on the Conservatives by clicking here.
If you want to register to vote you need to do so before 20th April 2010. You can find out how to do this here http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/, a website from The Electoral Commission.
From Rightsnet.org
Welfare benefit and tax credits highlights in the Liberal Democrat Party election manifesto
Reforms designed to create 'fair taxes and fair benefits'
The Liberal Democrat Party has today published its 'Manifesto 2010 - change that works for you' which outlines reforms designed to make savings and create 'fair taxes and fair benefits to help every family get by'.
Welfare benefit and tax credit measures in the manifesto include -
- the immediate restoration of the link between the state pension and earnings;
- the annual uprating of the state pension by whichever is the higher of growth in earnings, growth in prices or 2.5 per cent;
- fixing payments of tax credits for six months at a time and targeting payments towards 'those who need them most';
- reforming winter fuel payments to extend them to all severely disabled people, paid for by delaying age-related payments until people reach 65, with transitional protection for those currently in receipt of pension credit;
- the long term aim of introducing a citizen's pension to be paid to all UK citizens who are long-term residents, set at the level of pension credit;
- the scrapping of council tax to be replaced by 'a fair local tax, based on people's ability to pay'; and
- ending payments into Child Trust Funds;
From Rightsnet.org.uk
Welfare benefit and tax credit highlights from Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party
With the three main political parties having published their election manifestos last week, Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party have now also set out their priorities for the next parliament.
Highlighting that there are now 7.5 million working age adults living in poverty in the UK, and calling for measures to achieve fairness and decrease the gap between the rich and poor, Plaid Cymru -
- calls on the next Westminster government to make the abolition of child poverty a top priority;
- calls for the introduction of a 'living pension' for those aged 80 and over within this parliament, with a lower qualifying age as finances allow in the longer term;
- opposes punitive sanctions for incapacity benefit claimants with severe mental health problems;
- opposes the privatisation of back-to-work services and the compulsory drug testing of claimants; and
- states that unemployed people must be supported into work consistent with their abilities, capacity and individual circumstances.
In addition, and with a focus on winning the best deal for Scotland and protecting local services and the most vulnerable, the Scottish National Party -
- calls for the restoration of the link between the state pension and earnings which will provide a 'much needed £110 million boost' for Scottish pensioners;
- opposes an increase in national insurance contributions; and
- opposes changes to attendance allowance or carer's allowance that to pay for reform of care for the elderly 'down south'.
The Plaid Cymru Manifesto 2010, Think Different - Think Plaid, is available from plaidcymru.org, and the Scottish National Party manifesto 2010, Elect a local champion, is available from snp.org
NB - links to many of the political parties' contesting seats across the UK in the 2010 general election are available from bbc
.co.uk
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The article below from the Guardian is about 'cuts'. "The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) claims all three parties had been 'strikingly reticent' on post-election cuts" . The IFS is recognised as impartial when it comes to there reporting and you will often see the political parties quoting there data, figures etc.
What we know is that cuts are coming. Why is this important if you are HIV+ or suffer from AIDS? It may mean less choices for you. Less choice of treatments, which consultants you see, how often, less social care, less equity in the welfare system. We are already seeing people with HIV pushed towards there GP for more care issues, even if it would be there choice to keep the GP in the "dark" over there HIV. I think it used to be called "patient choice".
Ring fencing budgets implies no budgets would be cut for example the NHS. But think about this a little. Here in London cuts are being made. If the Health Budget doesn't get a yearly rise to take into account inflation, it is effectively a cut. If any cost goes up in the NHS without an increase in the overall budget it is a cut. So if staff get an above inflation pay rise and the budget isn't increased to absorb this, it is a cut as the money comes from the money already allocated.
This is the same for Welfare, and of course Social care.
Be aware of the billions of pounds spent by many government departments, a few million here and there is, in the whole scheme of things, a small amount compared with the whole.
Question your prospective members of parliament, your local prospective councillors - BUT ABOVE ALL PLEASE USE YOUR VOTE.
All three parties came under sustained pressure to spell out the scale of their plans for public spending cuts today as a leading financial thinktank said the Conservatives were planning the biggest squeeze on government spending since the second world war.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies, in an audit of the main parties' economic plans, said all three had been "strikingly reticent" on post-election cuts.
And Labour, which had criticised the media for failing to focus on policy, came under pressure from journalists who tried in vain to get the business secretary, Lord Mandelson, to spell out the party's plans for cutting public spending after the election.
It is the first time that the issue of the scale of the impending squeeze on public spending has dominated a campaign marked by discussions of TV debates, opinion polls and permutations in a hung parliament.
In its report, the IFS said the spending cuts of Labour and the Liberal Democrats are the harshest since the 1980s, It also challenged the Liberal Democrats claiming their plans to find £5bn from tax avoidance measures was not credible. And it said the Tories' plans were the harshest of all.
"Over the next four years starting next year (2011-12), Labour and the Liberal Democrats would need to deliver the deepest sustained cuts to spending on public services since the late 1970s", said Robert Chote, the IFS director. "While starting this year, the Conservatives would need to deliver cuts to public spending on public services that have not been delivered over any five-year period since the second world war."
Chote blamed all three parties for failing to provide detail for the electorate. "The opposition parties have not even set out the fiscal targets clearly and all three are particularly vague on their plans for public spending. The blame lies for that primarily with the government for refusing to hold a spending review before the election."
The IFS give none of the parties high marks, saying 87% of Labour cuts are not spelled out, 82% of the Tories' plans are unspecified and 74% of Lib Dems have not yet been detailed.
The debate about public spending comes ahead of the third and final TV debate on Thursday that is likely to be dominated by the issue of the economy. On Thursday morning the prestigious National Institute of Economic and Social research is also due to publish its findings on future public finances, and whether the government's stimulus measures have worked, or need to be maintained.
At a morning press conference today.Mandelson came under attack from the BBC political editor, Nick Robinson, and Sky News political editor, Adam Boulton, over his party's refusal to provide details of his planned cuts. Boulton read out a list of cuts the Financial Times said was likely if Labour is to meet its pledge to halve the cuts within four years. Mandelson urged Boulton to calm down and said neither the FT nor the IFS were standing at the election.
Philip Hammond, the shadow chief secretary, conceded that none of the parties had given enough detail. "I don't think any party has identified in detail how they will reduce public spending over the course of the coming parliament."
He blamed the government for failing to hold a spending review before the election. "If the government published a comprehensive spending review they would set a baseline and that would be a challenge to the opposition parties then to respond to that."
The IFS attack came on a day when Labour prepared to screen a party election broadcast warning of a "nightmare on your street", warning spending cuts will lead to scrapped child tax credit payment and child trust fund payments.
The broadcast shows an army of grim-faced bureaucrats stalking suburban streets issuing grave warnings to happy families. "Within a few weeks of being elected the Conservatives would stop baby bond payments for families with incomes over £16,000," it says.
Labour wanted to focus on families today, highlighting its toddler tax credit of £200 a year to help family budgets and its plan to double paternity leave to four weeks. Gordon Brown again complained the way in which newspapers and broadcasters were ignoring big issues such as crime and health .
The Tories focussed on crime with Cameron admitting he was in a tight contest and need a "great 10 days" to win. Speaking at a centre for social justice event he developed his "broken Britain" theme, sharing a platform with former EastEnders actress Brooke Kinsella, whose brother Ben was stabbed to death in 2008.
The home secretary, Alan Johnson, said the idea of a "broken society" was "claptrap" and the Conservatives were "telling lies" about crime as statistics as they showed violent crime was falling.
Nick Clegg insisted he would not be kingmaker in the event of a hung parliament. He also promised the NHS a greater say in the way in which it is run.
Clegg said he was was aiming to "secure the majority of support" from the British electorate and had not entered into talks with either the Tories or Labour.
He again refused to rule out working with Gordon Brown in the event of a hung parliament but repeated his assertion it would be impossible for the Labour leader to remain in No 10 if his party had slumped to third in the vote share.
Asked today on Radio 5 Live whether he could work with Brown, he said: "It is not for me to decide, it is for people to decide how the government should be formed.
"I am not the kingmaker, David Cameron is not the kingmaker, Gordon Brown is not the kingmaker.
"There are 45 million people who have still got to choose and I am not going to short-circuit that. It is simply not for any politician to do that."
Put to him that he had indicated it would be a "problem" to work with Mr Brown, he said: "No, no, no.
"What I have said is something very specific, which is that I think many people, not me, it is not about politicians, it is about many people who are thinking about how they are going to vote, would find it a bit peculiar that under our system, under our conventions, someone who is in No 10 can carry on being in No 10 even if they have come last in terms of the votes cast."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/27/ifs-come-clean-cuts
Click here to try "Vote Match" it can be a little bit of fun to spend a few minutes doing the survey which at the end will tell you where it thinks your vote lies.