How the Labour Government could well get its comeuppance - Daxa Patel
According to the BBC, each costing £594 each. What is special about these folders is the Department for Culture Media and Sport bought the folders from a luxury manufacturer. The Chancellor is from our neck of the woods and is best placed to advise her colleagues that in Yorkshire one can buy leather bound document holders, if that is absolutely necessary, for around a fraction of the cost.
I echo the words of my editor in his recent column on how the Government is devoid of conviction. I would go one step further and add, the Government will get their comeuppance as they are meandering without any clue or sense.
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Hide AdThe opposition leader hopefully sees the threat from the Reform Party, so they ought to capitalise on the current Government’s mishaps. The Labour Party has spent too much time focusing on change that they’ve overlooked one important aspect, to be in politics one genuinely must want to serve their masters, which is the public.


Coming into power without any forward planning or method is not just madness, it is negligence.
Sometimes, inept leadership can continue, and it can continue for years, but one day we get caught out. Our own city council in Leeds has decided to increase our council tax payments yet has chosen to spend £1.9m on implementing parking charges at local parks and attractions like the Chevin Park and Golden Acre Park.
For many this Christmas will be tough. Each time I visit our local supermarket I am staggered at the sight of the donation trolleys and the gift food bags for foodbanks.
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Hide AdAll the while, our elected government officials wear designer spectacles, suits and dresses, go on luxurious holidays and then buy luxurious paper ring binders with not the slightest of remorse.
Pat McFadden will be forgiven for sounding like Dominic Cummings when calling out for disrupters to join the civil service, a bit like serial claimants claiming compensation on a no win no fee agreement, this government is hell bent on blaming everything that is going wrong on everyone else but them. I urge the Prime Minister though, I am certain this will fall on deaf ears, that rather than charm the President Elect of the USA, he pays more attention to his Ministers behaviour than blaming the country.
A friend told me how his 89-year-old mum spent 17 hours of her precious fragile life sitting in A&E only to be told there is nothing they can do and she was sent home. We have an NHS that is not fit for purpose and now we have a government that is less than two hundred days old that is not fit for purpose.
It is still not too late for the Government to vindicate itself through action and show they put country first then party. Each government minister instead of blaming the civil service should set the tone by taking a pay cut themselves and by refusing freebies to show they mean to serve us.
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Hide AdThe Government’s six milestones and so-called relaunch is meaningless unless they improve how the voters perceive them. Putting more money in the pockets of working people requires them to be an example first. I am certain all Ministers can afford to live modestly and have modest holidays like the rest of us.
Building 1.5 million homes and fast-tracking planning decisions on around 150 infrastructure projects is a good aim as is the aim to treat 92 per cent of NHS patients within 18 weeks. However, like the previous government these are just words and empty promises, there are no personal penalties if these milestones are not reached.
The negative press the government is getting is not for nothing. I am impressed by the news media outlets for outing stories like the luxurious folders one.
Being a Labour supporter or politician does not give someone a licence to say one thing and do the opposite when all around us our compatriots are facing a cost-of-living crisis.
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Hide AdWe have an out-of-control immigration problem and a social care crisis, just to name two problems of many. Councils are struggling to cope with the demands due to overspending by millions of pounds, in our city of Leeds alone, the council has spent ridiculous amounts of money in making a one-way system in our city centre whereby it is now impossible to drop granny at the train station.
Talk about empowering the taxpayers and offering ease. There is a race to make savings, yet the council informs of a potential huge budget deficit and we have effectively abandoned our vulnerable to a failing NHS and social care system.
New Year greetings to you all and we hope for better days to come.
Daxa Manhar Patel is a leadership coach, author and solicitor.
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