Tom Zundel

Care Management Show 2024 • 13th September 2024

Opinion: Redirecting NHS funding to social care makes sense if hospital backlogs are to be tackled

For anyone that watches even just a few minutes of news a week, the sorry state of the NHS is not a novel sight. What is clear though is that, despite record increases in spending, our healthcare system faces a crisis that is threatening its ability to provide timely and effective care.
Part of this stems from the occupants of our hospitals. Every day over 14,000 NHS hospital beds are occupied by patients who are medically fit for discharge but remain in hospitals due to a lack of appropriate s...

Comment Central • 3rd September 2024

The two-child benefit cap is a poverty trap that must be removed

When Alison Garnham, head of the Child Poverty Action Group, described the cap as the “biggest driver” of child poverty, she was absolutely right.

Blog • 26th July 2024

Labour will regret its rejection of low-hanging fruit

Labour’s manifesto explicitly states that its ambition is for people to have a fair chance in life. In fact, Keir Starmer, in his introduction to the document, claims that “if you work hard then - whoever you are, wherever you started in life - Britain is a country that will respect your contribution and give you a fair chance to get on”.

Comment Central • 26th January 2024

Ignoring housing will mean decades out of power for the Tories

The Conservative Party is facing electoral oblivion. This isn't a comment on the nature of the polls for the next election but rather a reflection on its ageing voter base. From Matt Hancock to Tom Tugendhat, Tories warn that more must be done to convince younger voters to give the party a chance. The problem is they don't seem interested.

Reinvention: an International Journal of Undergraduate Research • 1st November 2023

View of Mental Health: Is Pandemic Stress Exclusive to the Rich?

Under the frustration of continued lockdowns, people engaged in small ways of securing happiness and wellbeing, such as learning new skills and hobbies, meditating and streaming movies. They said we all fought together in the shared struggle to defeat the virus. But were we all really in this together? Or were large swathes of society left forgotten?

The Boar • 4th October 2022

Are Degrees Still Worthwhile?

The start of another year at Warwick seems like a poor time to contemplate the point of my expensive education. The prospect of borrowing thousands a year just to complete a degree that doesn’t even guarantee a relevant job is hardly the thing freshers want to hear as they move into their student accommodation. However, with a rising number of students going to university and another record set to be broken this year, the question does have to be asked; are degrees still worthwhile?

Labour Hub • 16th September 2022

The Trajectory of Liz Truss

Liz Truss, having been elected by 0.3 per cent of the country, is now Prime Minister. Truss’s record, combined with scrutiny of her policy proposals, suggests she will be an utter disaster in office. She is ideologically committed to making life worse for the majority of people. Truss was elected MP for South West Norfolk in 2010. Throughout her time in Parliament, and indeed before her election, her politics have consisted of primitive Thatcherism mixed with the career-driven opportunism typic

Shout Out UK • 27th July 2022

Is the Conservatives' Future Tied to Honouring Climate Commitments?

The UK Conservative Party has been in something of a civil war as it seeks to select its new leader and the nation’s prime minister. Despite the three frontrunners — Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt — all committing to the target of net zero by 2050, there has been a disturbing lack of even lukewarm support for environmentalism beyond this.

Perspectives • 24th July 2022

Red meat promises to the Conservative Party could win the leadership but won’t be kept

“There is no magic money tree”. Theresa May’s words were part-and-parcel of Conservative economics for much of the last 40 years since Thatcher came to dominate the party. This was true, perhaps most of all for Cameron, pursuing aggressive cuts to public expenditure following the Global Financial Crisis on the grounds that the public finances should and must be balanced. Whilst arguably an economically illiterate fiscal policy, it is inarguable that that was the government’s strategy.

Sublation Magazine • 23rd July 2022

No Contest of Ideas

The race is on. Boris Johnson didn’t even have time to resign before the first Cabinet minister had declared their candidacy for the leadership of the Conservative Party. Although the race has now been reduced to two, with Rishi Sunak, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Liz Truss, Foreign Secretary, facing a ballot of Conservative Party members, the number of declared candidates with MPs backing them has been as high as ten.

The Boar • 21st July 2022

Lula can and must break Brazil’s decade of stagnation

Obama called him “the most popular politician on Earth”; he left office with an 83% approval rating, and now, he wants his job back. Lula’s ability to seek electoral office once more, hindered as a result of his corruption charges, was given an unexpected boost when courts annulled his convictions, clearing the way for him to contest the presidential election.

The Boar • 22nd December 2021

Unpopular, ineffective and unfair: why inheritance tax should be replaced

It’s rare to find a tax as controversial in the developed world as inheritance tax. Unpopular with political parties and the public alike, it’s been rated as the U.K.’s least fair tax, with a net rating of -37, staggering compared to a highly regressive tax like VAT with a rating of +1. As such, it may seem surprising that inheritance taxes on average produce just 0.5% of national revenue for OECD countries and the UK.

The Boar • 19th October 2021

Conservative corruption is all too obvious

The pandemic has brought unprecedented hardship to tens of millions of Britons, with over 130,000 loved ones lost to the virus. The strict lockdowns and restrictions introduced to fight it only adding to the loss of livelihoods and the devastating decline of our people’s mental health. However, the past year has also provided us with an enlightened view of the government’s irresponsible and crony spending of public funds.

Notes in the Margins of the Days • 18th August 2021

Taxation in an Oligarchy: How the British State Advantages the Rich

The majority of the British political establishment in both parties is dedicated to serving the interests of elites. While this political aim can be understood through a variety of lenses, taxation offers a useful entry point for building an understanding of Britain’s institutions and their class biases.