Last week, Lostwithiel received an extraordinary amount of news coverage after a frustrated resident used concrete to repair a huge pothole which had closed a road for over a month. 

This was covered by the national media because it struck a chord with millions of people who feel that the Government simply isn’t there when we need it any more: People are pulling out their own teeth because they can’t find an NHS dentist; People are waiting over eighteen months for hospital treatment; People are quitting their jobs to care for elderly relatives, or for grandchildren (or sometimes both at once); People are living in their parents’ spare rooms, or even in vans and cars because there is a desperate lack of affordable housing.

The standard answer given by Conservative MPs to every one of these problems is to say “we’re spending record amounts” on whatever area is mentioned. And whilst this is technically true, this money is spent on expensive “sticking-plaster” interventions which provide terrible value for money.

We all know that prevention is better than cure, and we’ve all heard the saying “a stitch in time saves nine”, yet for all the billions being spent on crisis measures, the Government continues to underfund the actions which would save the most money in the long-run:

Paying care-workers at least £2 per hour above the minimum wage would attract tens of thousands more carers to the profession, freeing up thousands of hospital beds and enabling hundreds of thousands of relatives to return to paid employment.

Paying doctors and nurses better wages would prevent hospitals having to spend a fortune on expensive agency staff to cover unfilled vacancies.

Re-writing the NHS dental contract to prioritise children and vulnerable groups would reduce the number of people needing expensive treatment after years without seeing any dentist at all.

Funding councils properly would enable them to resurface roads before they start to crumble, drastically reducing the cost of pothole repairs.

Building more affordable homes would reduce the amount of housing benefit being paid to private landlords.

And above all, investing in renewable energy, upgrading the grid and insulating our homes would protect us all from high fossil-fuel prices.

Liberal Democrats on Cornwall Council have fought for all of these policies, but they have all been blocked by Conservative councillors and MPs who only ever seem interested in cutting costs today rather than doing what actually offers the best long-term value for money. 

After thirteen years in power, they know that they have left it too late to see the fruits of any new long-term investments before the next General Election, so we can expect to see a succession of expensive sticking-plasters from now until polling day.