GAZ BE ROTTEN

Meet Nikki. She’s a mum in her fifties who came to see me. Since her job in a nursery became all too much, she’s started receiving universal credit. Without qualifications and, as she put it, being ‘no good at computers’, she's struggling to find another job. But that’s not why she came to speak to me. Her real worry was her son, Jack, who signed on the moment he turned 18. He's got autism and ADHD, but Nikki wants him to work. She's frustrated the state is paying him money to stay at home. She desperately wants the job centre to get on his case. But there’s no sign of that. So, Jack is literally left to his own devices, gaming in his bedroom most of the time. Who would want that life for their child? Stories like Jack's are increasingly common. It’s a disaster. Hundreds of thousands of young people are setting out on a life on benefits. Only the Conservatives have a detailed plan to put an end to this and help young people into work. We’ll halve National Insurance for employers hiring 21 to 24-year-olds, create 100,000 more apprenticeships, and introduce a Get to Work programme to stop young people going straight from education onto benefits.

Nurses like Sandie should be allowed to do their job caring for patients, not subjected to witch hunts for defending their basic rights to privacy and dignity. This ruling on her union’s failures to support her (not about single-sex spaces where she has already won) is disapppointing but takes nothing away from Sandie’s courage in standing up not just for herself but for women’s rights. The usual suspects will twist the outcome to attack her after what she’s been through but she is braver and better than them. Either way, the next Conservative government will put a stop to this nonsense. The NHS should support its nurses, and regulators should focus on what actually matters: professional standards and patient safety not silly fads.