Finally, we get an announcement on some desperately needed new money for adult social care.
The Chancellor Sajid Javid has in fact showered us with funding promises, from schools to the NHS and police.
But we can all see that it is no coincidence this comes alongside a call for a general election and is a cynical attempt to buy off the electorate.
Of course, we welcome any new funding and we will spend it wisely on the most vulnerable in our community, such as the elderly, disabled and those with mental health problems.
But after taking adult social care to the brink over years of austerity cuts, this one-year funding is nothing but a sticking plaster.
It will take billions of pounds across the UK to bring levels of funding up to where they were under a Labour government and our population is getting older and is living with more long-term conditions than ever before.
And many of these people are the most vulnerable in our society who have had so many of the safety nets taken away from them over years of funding cuts.
We also welcome new funding for public health and prevention. This is in fact where a large part of the new HNS money should be focused.
It is by supporting people to live healthy and fulfilled lives and by properly resourcing primary care services that we can take the pressure off our over-burdened hospitals.
The Tories talk the talk about prevention but when the much-promised money comes through to the NHS, how much will actually trickle down to these community services?
No, austerity is not over. Ask anyone who receives adult social care services in this city and they will tell you that the staff are fantastic but there is just not enough of them to go around.
A government is judged by how much it cares for the most vulnerable in our community and we cannot trust the Tories with our precious welfare state.
Councillor Clare Moonan is the Labour chair of the Brighton and Hove Health and Wellbeing Board.
Shame that councillor Moonan hasn’t read the details of the announcements to see that the new “funding” for her area of social care is just allowing councils to hike up council tax even more. I would expect her to focus on her brief a bit more and be open with residents on the reality
It would be good, wouldn’t it, if, just for a novelty, we had an independent, expert view on matters like this, rather than yet another politically-biased article having a go at the ‘other side’.
This follows on from Cllr McCafferty being allowed to publish a totally irrelevant (to Brighton & Hove) piece about the Irish peace process and Brexit. Is it the case that, if you are somehow involved in local politics, B & H News will let you publish anything you fancy?