The NHS sell-off gathers speed.

The NHS sell-off gathers speed.

Warning: voting Tory can seriously damage (y)our health

The Tories understand greed better than most. All the time the so-called 'reforms' of the NHS were weaving their slimy way through both Houses of Parliament we were frequently assured that there was to be no sell off of the NHS. What lies. What bullshit. They knew full well what would happen. Give a greedy bastard half an inch and he wants a yard. And so it has come to pass. 

“Five family doctors have this week become millionaires from the sale of their NHS-funded firm to one of the country's biggest private healthcare companies in a deal that reveals how physicians can potentially profit from government policy in the new NHS.

On Tuesday, the private health company Care UK announced that it had paid £48m for England's biggest out-of-hours GP service, Harmoni, originally set up as a GP co-operative, creating a new private health concern that could treat 15 million patients. The deal shows how GPs could profit from the coalition's health reforms by using their expertise to bid for contracts, then cashing in when a corporation buys them out.” Guardian 10/11/12

So five greedy bastards masquerading as GPs sell off ‘their’ co-operative to a private healthcare company. How can this be ‘theirs’ to sell? The NHS is ours. Paid for and run by our taxes. Not any more it seems. 

“Another winner seems to be NHS reform champion Ian Goodman. The north-west London GP chairs the Hillingdon clinical commissioning group and was also a board director of Harmoni. He could make as much as £2.6m.” Ibid. 

Fancy that! And him a ‘reform champion’ too!

Thank you Lansley- you lying devious slimy bastard.

Thank you Cameron - you deeply devious, duplicitous and venal bastard.

Thank you all the Tory party who knew full well that if they spelt out their plans before the election they would not be elected into government. 

And thank you all you sublimely stupid Liberal Democlots for being so gullible .....or are you on the gravy train too?

And thank you NewLabour for breaking the firewall around the NHS and introducing privatisation, albeit in a small way. You opened the gates and let the barbarians in. 

A special thank you Patricia Hewitt as you went off to work for Boots and other healthcare companies. You stand exposed as another greedy self-serving betrayer of your younger values. 

Enjoy the view in the mirror as the vulnerable who you once championed are left to suffer.

US Election - take 2.

US Election - take 2.

In 2008 we were told the US voted in ‘huge numbers’ to elect Obama. The numbers were 131 million voted or 57% of those registered to vote. Hardly a torrent then.

And in 2012? The numbers are still very raw. Apparently turnout is determined by each state and can take several days to collate. What we do know is that the overall figure of 117 million is some way down on 2008. New Jersey and New York figures are understandably down. Not by 14 million though!

This is despite $6 billion being spent on campaigning. Over 1 million adverts. Predominantly negative ‘attack’ adverts which denigrate the opponent with a mixture of smear, innuendo and half-truths bordering on downright lies. Costly and counter-productive, off-putting and dispiriting, they are a disgraceful element of US politics. Yet both major parties are locked into a death spiral where neither can stand back and call a halt to the madness.  

The overwhelming feeling from Mr and Mrs Public is one of relief that they do not have to suffer these intrusions for another three years.

The sums involved are obscene and also reflect the way huge corporations and businesses try to buy influence. Again rotten. Michelle Bachman, the Tea Party fruitbat favourite of the right outspent her democrat opponent by 12-1 yet scraped in by 4600 votes. 

Not quite the ‘City on the Hill’ so beloved by proud Americans. The days of ‘Mr Smith Goes to Washington’ are long gone.

US Election

US Election

Earlier this year I met a woman who was a producer for a small news-based tv company in the States. She said she was dreading the election. Her reason was the amount and viciousness of the attack ads that are aired in the run up to polling day. Vast amounts of money are spent by both sides to denigrate their rival. Smears, half-truths and downright lies are peddled at the electorate. They interrupt every newscast and tv programme with increasing momentum. It is nasty and barmy. 

Obama has had to deal with more than most incumbents just because he is a black president. The race card has not been played overtly but it has been used by the Tea Party wing plus other right wing organisations to paint him as not being American. They have made great play about his ‘otherness’ without ever demeaning themselves by saying it is because of his skin colour. 

Listening to vox pops from the US run on our media is deeply frustrating. Listening to some half-baked fruitcake declare themselves for Romney because they ‘are catholic and they listen to what their priest says in the pulpit’ is enough to make you weep. Have they not been around on this planet while the catholic church were engaged in kiddy-fiddling? Where were they when that huge cover-up was exposed? 

To add to the angst, Romney is a Mormon, which on the mumbo-jumbo scale is way up there. 

There are many things to be disappointed and even angry about Obama (Drones, Guantanamo, Israel) but (and it is a massive BUT) Romney would be so much worse. One of Romney’s supporters said that he was impressed when he was with him in Israel and the Israelis were embarrassed about the huge wall they are building to keep the Palestinians apart. It is a horrible construction and fundamentally inhuman. The Israelis were right to be ashamed. Romney thought it was good.

Despite all the money, all the airtime and all the vituperation, barely 50% will actually vote. Listening to the attack dogs of both sides it feels like a country tearing itself apart. Bearing in mind many of them are armed to the teeth - that is a worry.

Liberal Democlots

Liberal Democlots

A wonderful expression that fell from the lips of a friend as he tried to express his feelings about our current government. Listening to the Liberal Democlats wriggling and squirming as they try to justify why they are really close to the tories in government but remain different confirms the assessment. Take a look at the shenanigans in just two everyday days in the life of our leaders.

We begin with Cameron getting a kicking from his own backbenchers with the gleeful help of the Labour Party. He then ran into the wet flannel that is his Deputy PM who accused him of wrapping false promises in the union jack. We are told by the Democlots that they get on very well together.....Hmmm.

Meanwhile further along the benches we have Liberal Democlot Ed Davey slapping down his deputy, the tory John Hayes, who said, “We have enough wind farms”. “Oh no we haven’t,” says Ed, “Oh yes we have” says John and so on and on. 

Defence Minister Hammond took it on himself to suddenly announce a boost for Trident - which was news to his democlot colleagues.

To put the tin lid on matters in the age of austerity came the news that Hague at the Foreign Office had spent £10,000 re-stuffing an anaconda. Surely a euphemism if ever there was one.

It is not just that they are mainly toffs from public schools, nor is it that they are nearly all (incredibly) millionaires or that they are hopelessly out of touch with the bod in the street.....

No they are quite simply clueless and incompetent.

While they are farting about squabbling on the periphery, lurching from cock-up to crisis and back again, they have done nothing to address the financial sector or tax evasion.

Green on Blue

Green on Blue

‘Green on Blue’ sounds quite benign

Hints for decorating? Or interior design?

Alien to this currency is in the news -

Of more men dying in, ‘green on blues’

Killed by Afghans  -  without a chance

To save our leaders, as they dance

From Lie to fib and back to Lie

Is no good reason for any to die

What do they think lying in the Afghan sand

Why are we in this benighted land?

Fading into the arid dust

Do they wonder - as they must -

About all of those who’ve gone before

WTF was all that for?

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Are you listening Dr Reid?

Who committed 3500 troops to Helmand with the infamous line:

They (the troops) will leave, “Without a single shot being fired.”

Such stupidity guaranteed his entry into the House of Lords.

Not for him grieving fathers, mothers,sisters, brothers.

Not for him grieving wives and children. 

£300 a day expenses and a seat with G4S as a ‘security consultant‘  - Who said satire was dead.

Men with little willies

There are members of our society who positively drool with delight at the prospect of having nuclear weapons. They believe it helps us strut our stuff on the world stage. You will even hear them crowing about us ‘punching above our weight.’ Ring any bells Mr Cameron? Mr Hammond? Mr Blair?

These people are morons. Some of them are corrupt morons who seek to make their fortunes by promoting the deadliest weapons on the planet. They do this by walking out of civil service, political or armed forces jobs and signing on with the weapons makers. They then use their so-called ‘good offices’ and connections to persuade a reluctant public to cough up vast sums of moolah for weapons we can never use. 

Absolute bloody madness. 

Current threats come from terrorists largely created by our empirical endeavours on the world stage. Thank you very much Mr Blair. For making us all so much less safe. Not that you will be too troubled by the anger and disgust of us mere mortals as you are by now quite barking. 

Iran want their own nuclear weapons  and who can blame them. They are surrounded by states with nuclear weapons. Their near neighbours Israel allegedly hold a couple of hundred alone. Around the world unequal and opposite forces are at work. 

There are only 9  states with nuclear weapons (including Israel who have always denied it despite the best and bravest efforts of Mordechai Vanunu) who form a club of the ‘haves’. They are reluctant to encourage others to join their club and may even launch military attacks on Iran to uphold that stance. The overwhelming majority of countries do not own nuclear weapons. They do not want proliferation either but they are not hypocritical about it. South Africa stand alone as the only country to date to get rid of them.

Anyone who is comfortable with the prospect of countries having nuclear weapons should consider Pakistan.......and North Korea. Enough said.

At the change of government and the appointment of a new Prime Minister, a strange little ritual takes place. Inside the safe of each of our nuclear attack submarines is a top-secret document written by the previous PM. It contains detailed instructions to the commander of how he is supposed to respond should the UK come under a nuclear attack. The new PM has to write down what they want the Commander of the sub to do. The previous letter is destroyed. As the sub could be on patrol, hidden deep in a distant ocean, this is not straightforward. One test apparently is to listen to broadcasts from Radio 4. In the horrendous event of a nuclear strike it is believed Radio 4 would go off the air. The Commander would be then under pressure to find out what has happened - if this followed a period of international tension then the culprit(s) could be clear. Even then the message from the PM could be not to retaliate but to sail to somewhere like Australia and take it from there. It could be to launch everything at a perceived attacker - but will the Commander obey? Given widespread nuclear devastation what would be the point? And what would the Americans say? They have ultimate control of the weapons and may say yay or nay. 

But what if it had been the work of a suicide bomber with a knapsack-size nuclear weapon? Or a series of similar attacks? Who is the commander then supposed to obliterate? These and similar issues need airing and clarifying before any decision is made to spend further untold billions on weapons which, if they have to be used, will mean that human beings are in a  parlous state.

All of this is a result of generations of voters electing men with little willies who mask their lack of manhood by association with weapons - the more deadly the better. In strictly humanitarian terms it has been a seriously bad move for the human race. Be assured - whatever can go wrong - will go wrong.

We would have been a lot safer if we had bought these emasculated creeps a bright red shiny sports car each.

Ash to ashes

Once again the competence of our political elite is called into question. This time it is another doozy. The government were warned three years ago that ash dieback disease was spreading across Europe and was rampant in Denmark. They were urged to ban the import of young ash saplings. They did nothing.

In February this year the disease appeared in some imported seedlings in Buckinghamshire. Again they did nothing. The disease then appeared in a further nine sites all from imported seedlings. Again - nothing - apart from a decision to launch a consultation about what to do!

The consultation was due to report this month. Events have overtaken it. Ash dieback has been found in mature trees in Norfolk and Suffolk. Now there may be no way of stopping it. As a fungal disease it spreads on the wind and the spores will be on their destructive way.

Tomorrow the government will formally announce the banning of imported ash seedlings.

Doh! And indeed thrice Doh!