Privatisation of the NHS

Early day motion 773

Lies, damned lies and Tory lies. “The NHS is safe in our hands.” Oh Yeah. Over the last few months there has been a shift from public to private health taking place across England. Many of these private medical firms lobbied and sponsored Tory MPs, Advisers  and Ministers. Now its payback time. 

To make matters worse, every time we have trod this well-worn path in the past as good public services went to rapacious private companies, the classic defence against transparency was the weaselly cry, “Commercial confidentiality.” This protected several serious wrongdoers from scrutiny. It is deeply concerning that this will be used to sell-off the jewels in the NHS leaving the dross to be covered by the taxpayer. 

A final thought. It will be interesting to see what job Lansley gets when he leaves Parliament. Should he go anywhere near a private health company he should be thrown into jail for corruption. It didn’t happen to Patricia Hewitt so do not hold your breath. 

In the meantime encourage your MP to sign early day motion  773 set out below. 

Early day motion 773

PRIVATE HEALTHCARE COMPANIES AND FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

Session: 2012-13

Date tabled: 26.11.2012

“That this House notes that the most significant development that has followed from the Government's healthcare reforms has been the 7 billion worth of new contracts being made available to the private health sector; further notes that at least five former advisers to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer are now working for lobbying firms with private healthcare clients; recalls the Prime Minister's own reported remarks prior to the general election when he described lobbying as `the next big scandal waiting to happen'; recognises the growing scandal of the procurement model that favours the private health sector over the NHS, by allowing private companies to hide behind commercial confidentiality and which compromises the best practice aspirations of the public sector;condemns the practice of revolving doors, whereby Government health advisers move to lucrative contracts in the private healthcare sector, especially at a time when the privatisation of the NHS is proceeding by stealth;is deeply concerned at the unfair advantages being handed to private healthcare companies; and demands that in future all private healthcare companies be subject to freedom of information requests under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in the same way as existing NHS public sector organisations.”

PR Propaganda

Mid-term review

Where in all the froth and bovine excrement of the ‘mid-term review’ did it have anything about an apology for lying to us? 

Remember, “There will be no top down reorganisation of the NHS,” Camercon prior to the election........which he did not win. This, despite Labour being a shambles under the leadership of Gordon Brown. A party riven with failed leadership bids presented an open goal for the tories -- which Camercon and his toff chums duly missed. 

Wonder how many seats they would have ended up with if we knew then what we know now etc etc. 

No mention either that the nasty party are well and truly back - and continuing to lie and lie and lie again. This time they are scapegoating the poor and vulnerable.

Divide and rule.

A disgusting way to govern.

Pustulent Pustules

Thank you Mr Bell for getting Dungcan Smith spot on! -  -  - geddit?

“One of the good things Labour did between 1997 and 2010 was a serious campaign to eliminate child poverty in Britain. Targeted benefits and support for the poorest families were provided.

In 1997 26 per cent of Britain's children were living in poverty. By 2010, that was 17 per cent, and it was on a trajectory that would have reduced that to 10 per cent by 2022.

But there was a stark change in the graph as soon as the Tory-Lib Dem coalition took power. The child poverty rate rose immediately. It's now at 21 per cent and is set to rise to 25 per cent by 2017.

The effects of poverty on health are obvious. Studies by the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust show that in one of London's poorest boroughs, Tottenham, the number of children born with low birth weight was 12.5 per cent, compared with a national average of 7.5 per cent. In healthier countries it is lower - for example it stands at 3.8 per cent in Iceland.

Low birth weight often leads to further problems in later childhood and has been linked to underachievement in education.

So the benefits cap will keep child poverty rising. Who else is affected?

Disability benefit is affected slightly differently. However, the government's welfare strategy has still thumped disability benefits very hard.

Since the "emergency Budget" of 2010 £500 million has been taken from the pockets of disabled people.” Jeremy Corbyn MP for Islington writing in the Morning Star 9/1/13

A commentator calling themselves '1Essex' had this comment yesterday in the Guardian 'Comment is Free' section.

“Who are the biggest benefit scroungers of all? Companies who won't pay their workers a living wage, so that they have to be subsidised by the taxpayer”.....

To which ‘Haward’ added

“and , as a result of this miserly approach , they can pay their executives large enough bonuses for them to take advantage of the Coalition's tax cuts for the very rich”

They can then use some of their ill-gotten gains to pay ('donate to')the Tory party thereby guaranteeing the gravy train rolls on. 

The whole shebang drive on our roads, use our health services and enjoy our protection and security - without coughing up so much as a Starbuck.

One Laws for them - another for the rest of us

Listening to the LibDem apologist for the government on this morning’s ‘Today’ programme was fascinating so much for what was not said. Harrumphreys did his usual chattus interruptus and pursued one particular line of attack. This was about the inevitable divorce of the coalition partners in the run up to the next election. The mouthpiece did his best to push his oft-repeated message that, thanks to the coalition - and the noble Liberal Democlots in particular - the country had been saved from a fate worse than death. 

His arguments were more than somewhat undermined as the mouthpiece was none other than David Laws. The man who had fiddled his expenses to the tune of over £50,000. He had resigned from the newly-formed Cabinet after 17 days and had to apologise to the House of Commons. Wow. 

After spending two years on the backbenches he has been returned to Cabinet. He even had the gall to mention that there would be further cuts on the way but scrupulously avoided any mention of cheats, skivers or fiddlers. Fancy that.

Any common oik caught fiddling their benefits to the tune of £50k would not have been treated so leniently. Even his own father says Laws should have gone to jail.

There was also no mention - either from Harrumphreys or Laws - of tax evasion and avoidance. The one area of our society in most need of urgent reform, and the one area the government, with the collusion of much of the media, have done very little about. 

The BBC, for example, squirming over their mis-handling of the Saville affair, are more than a little anxious about the cosy little deals they struck with their star performers to pay less tax. 

Hawks in Danger of Extinction

‘Just one breeding pair of hen harriers is left in England, warns the RSPB, which claims gamekeepers on grouse moors are being ordered by landowners to shoot the rare birds.’ Tracy McVeigh investigates Observer 6/1/13

“Only one pair of breeding hen harriers remains in England, according to the RSPB, which blames illegal persecution for what it fears is now the near extinction of the bird of prey in the country.

"It will be a tragedy if this bird disappears. It's a scandal that such a rare and iconic species has been deliberately persecuted to this extent," said Grahame Madge of the bird conservation charity. He said Yorkshire was now a "black spot" for British birds of prey, dozens of which were being targeted by gamekeepers on the area's vast shooting estates, who were under pressure to keep grouse and pheasant numbers high for their clients.

"It's like a return to the days of the Victorians up there; the landowners think they are a law unto themselves and the gamekeepers have to do what they're told or they'll be out of a job," he said. "And it isn't just hen harriers: our team of investigators are constantly uncovering evidence of other birds of prey being illegally shot, poisoned and trapped."

Madge said that the results which emerged a few weeks ago from scientific tests carried out on the carcass of Bowland Betty, a ringed hen harrier found in 2012 on Thorny Grain Moor in the Yorkshire Dales, proved what the charity has been saying for some time. "We found traces of lead in the bird's leg which proved what we have been saying: she was deliberately targeted, illegally shot. It may not have been the shot that killed her; she may have lingered on injured for a time, we can't tell unfortunately. But it is clear evidence, if any was needed, that there is deliberate, illegal persecution of our birds of prey ongoing."

He attacked the shooting estates for overbreeding game birds and called for the introduction of "diversionary feeding" on the estates – where food left out for nesting hen harriers and other raptors diverts the birds from attacking red grouse.

The RSPB last month launched an appeal to raise an extra £600,000 for its investigations team. The charity believes the unique heather moors of Yorkshire should be supporting more than 300 pairs of the birds, which are more common across the border in Scotland, although numbers there are estimated to be 13% below what they would be without human interference. In Orkney the numbers have reached a 10-year high with 100 females producing 100 chicks last year after efforts to reduce the numbers of sheep grazing on their habitat were successful.

However, landowners and others working in the countryside claim that the RSPB is ignoring the real story that is one of success with birds of prey in British skies.

Last week Adrian Blackmore of the Countryside Alliance sent out a letter to all MPs to counteract the RSPB campaigning on hen harriers, claiming the blame for the poor breeding success was not down to the gamebird industry.

"Many single birds have been seen throughout the uplands of England, including males and females in the Bowland Fells, its traditional stronghold. Yet even there, despite the best efforts of conservationists and land managers, still none bred successfully. This poor breeding success of hen harriers is, I am afraid, all too often blamed on grouse moors and their managers, regardless of whether or not that is actually the case. Heather moorland managed for grouse shooting only accounts for one-fifth of the uplands of England and Wales, and the breeding success of hen harriers on the remaining four-fifths, where no such management takes place, is no better."

Hen harriers were, he said, "susceptible to bad weather, disturbance, poor habitat and lack of available food, as well as factors that are as yet still unclear, as is the case on the Isle of Man, where the RSPB's 2010 Hen Harrier Survey found that the population had halved for reasons that remain unknown."

Blackmore said he did not deny that illegal persecution may play a part, but that there were other contributory factors. He said the species was doing well in other countries. "The RSPB often uses language that gives the impression birds of prey are rare and in trouble. In fact they are, on the whole, doing incredibly well and most are at their highest levels since records began. Why does the RSPB obfuscate on this?"

But the RSPB says that some three-quarters of those prosecuted over illegal killing of birds of prey are connected to the gamebird industry. And the National Gamekeepers Organisation [NGO] does acknowledge that there can be great pressure on estate workers to deal with birds of prey, which are a relatively new arrival on sporting estates after they were persecuted and poisoned into a decline at the end of the last century.

"There is some persecution of birds of prey and very regrettably some of it is done by gamekeepers. We condemn it," said Charles Nodder of the NGO. "In PR terms it is our worst nightmare. But it is numerically tiny. Even if we take all species into account, not just raptors, there are on average about four convictions of gamekeepers a year for wildlife offences. That is less than one in a thousand of the total number of gamekeepers." Observer 6/1/13

Islay still has a reasonable population of Hen Harriers although there were noticeably less last year than usual. To see them quartering the ground looking for prey is one of the great birding sights. It is possible that the Islay population has been affected by persecution. Many birds travel towards the south of England and the Norfolk area for the winter and spend time en route in suitable habitat such as grouse moors. 

The illegal persecution of protected species by the landed gentry - and the lack of prosecutions - is yet further proof (if any were needed) of how there is one law for the rich......

An open letter to Kathryn Bigelow from Naomi Wolf

“The Hurt Locker was a beautiful, brave film; many young women in film were inspired as they watched you become the first woman ever to win an Oscar for directing. But with Zero Dark Thirty, you have attained a different kind of distinction.

Your film Zero Dark Thirty is a huge hit here. But in falsely justifying, in scene after scene, the torture of detainees in "the global war on terror", Zero Dark Thirty is a gorgeously-shot, two-hour ad for keeping intelligence agents who committed crimes against Guantánamo prisoners out of jail. It makes heroes and heroines out of people who committed violent crimes against other people based on their race – something that has historical precedent.

Your film claims, in many scenes, that CIA torture was redeemed by the "information" it "secured", information that, according to your script, led to Bin Laden's capture. This narrative is a form of manufacture of innocence to mask a great crime: what your script blithely calls "the detainee program"....

....You claim that your film is "based on real events", and in interviews, you insist that it is a mixture of fact and fiction, "part documentary". "Real", "true", and even "documentary", are big and important words. By claiming such terms, you generate media and sales traction – on a mendacious basis. There are filmmakers who work very hard to produce films that are actually "based on real events": they are called documentarians. Alex Gibney, in Taxi to the Dark Side, and Rory Kennedy, in Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, have both produced true and sourceable documentary films about what your script blithely calls "the detainee program" – that is, the regime of torture to generate false confessions at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib – which your script claims led straight to Bin Laden.

Fine, fellow reporter: produce your sources. Provide your evidence that torture produced lifesaving – or any – worthwhile intelligence.

But you can't present evidence for this claim. Because it does not exist.

Five decades of research, cited in the 2008 documentary The End of America, confirm that torture does not work. Robert Fisk provides another summary of that categorical conclusion. And this 2011 account from Human Rights First rebuts the very premise of Zero Dark Thirty.

Your actors complain about detainees' representation by lawyers – suggesting that these do-gooders in suits endanger the rest of us. I have been to see your "detainee program" firsthand. The prisoners, whom your film describes as being "lawyered up", meet with those lawyers in rooms that are wired for sound; yet, those lawyers can't tell the world what happened to their clients – because the descriptions of the very torture these men endured are classified.....

...In a time of darkness in America, you are being feted by Hollywood, and hailed by major media. But to me, the path your career has now taken reminds of no one so much as that other female film pioneer who became, eventually, an apologist for evil: Leni Riefenstahl. Riefenstahl's 1935 Triumph of the Will, which glorified Nazi military power, was a massive hit in Germany. Riefenstahl was the first female film director to be hailed worldwide.

It may seem extreme to make comparison with this other great, but profoundly compromised film-maker, but there are real echoes. When Riefenstahl began to glamorize the National Socialists, in the early 1930s, the Nazis' worst atrocities had not yet begun; yet abusive detention camps had already been opened to house political dissidents beyond the rule of law – the equivalent of today's Guantánamo, Bagram base, and other unnameable CIA "black sites". And Riefenstahl was lionised by the German elites and acclaimed for her propaganda on behalf of Hitler's regime.

But the world changed. The ugliness of what she did could not, over time, be hidden. Americans, too, will wake up and see through Zero Dark Thirty's apologia for the regime's standard lies that this brutality is somehow necessary. When that happens, the same community that now applauds you will recoil.

Like Riefenstahl, you are a great artist. But now you will be remembered forever as torture's handmaiden.” Guardian online 5/1/13

Dungcan Smith

The dark arts are essential skills for a modern politician.

Divide and rule has been the practice of the despotic through the ages. Our current shower of self-serving job-seekers are continuing the practice. To this end they set up false problems. The government’s own figures identify benefit fraud as a tiny proportion of the amount spent helping the needy, the elderly and the vulnerable

The myth

Benefit scroungers are bringing down the economy

And who says this? Well if it isn’t Iain ‘beware the quiet man’ Dungcan Smith! Just in case people with short memories are reading this, here is a synopsis of some of his ‘previous.’ 

“Dung-can Smith. The man with the invented CV.

Just because Iain Duncan Smith said in his biography on the Conservative Party website, his entry in Who's Who, and in his entry in Wikipedia that he went to the Universita di Perugia in Italy and got a degree there, and it turned out to be all bullshit doesn't mean that he is a liar and a cheat.

It was probably just a simple typo, that's all.

Mr Duncan Smith's office admitted to Newsnight that he didn't get any qualifications in Perugia or even finish his exams, and all references to this unfortunate incident have been erased completely from Wikipedia.

His claims that he was educated at prestigious-sounding Dunchurch College of Management is only a little bit untrue. Dunchurch was the GEC Marconi staff training college and I am sure Iain probably attended a training course there when he worked for them.

This too has been erased from his now sanitised Wikipedia entry.

He is a very nice man. The Guardian's editor thinks so, anyway.

A Guardian editorial said in April (last) year The welfare secretary has emerged as the last man in cabinet standing up for the poor.

I expect the people about to be thrown into poverty by him will be very pleased to hear that, Mr Rusbridger”  

‘Gowvah’  writing in the Guardian Comment is Free section 3/1/13

The reality

“Those at the sharp end are being hit hardest: from cuts to disability and housing benefits, tax credits and the educational maintenance allowance and now increases in council tax while NHS waiting lists are lengthening, food banks are mushrooming across the country and charities report sharp increases in the number of children going hungry. All this to pay for the collapse in corporate investment and tax revenues triggered by the greatest crash since the 30s.

At the other end of the spectrum though, things are going swimmingly. The richest 1,000 people in Britain have seen their wealth increase by £155bn since the crisis began – more than enough to pay off the whole government deficit of £119bn at a stroke. Anyone earning over £1m a year can look forward to a £42,000 tax cut in the spring, while firms have been rewarded with a 2% cut in corporation tax to 24%.

Not that many of them pay anything like that, even now. The scale of tax avoidance by high-street brand multinationals has now become clear, in no small part thanks to campaigning groups such as UK Uncut. Asda, Google, Apple, eBay, Ikea, Starbucks, Vodafone: all pay minimal tax on massive UK revenues, mostly by diverting profits earned in Britain to their parent companies, or lower tax jurisdictions via royalty and service payments or transfer pricing.

Four US companies – Amazon, Facebook, Google and Starbucks – have paid just £30m tax on sales of £3.1bn over the last four years, according to a Guardian analysis. Apple is estimated to have avoided over £550m in tax on more than £2bn worth of underlying profits in Britain by channelling business through Ireland, according to a Sunday Times analysis, while Starbucks has paid no corporation tax in Britain for the last three years.

The Tory MP and tax lawyer Charlie Elphicke estimates 19 US-owned multinationals are paying an effective tax rate of 3% on British profits, instead of the standard rate of 26%. It's all entirely legal, of course. But taken together with the multiple individual tax scams of the elite, this roll call of corporate infamy has become an intolerable scandal, when taxes are rising and jobs, benefits and pay being cut for the majority.

Not only that, but collecting the taxes that these companies have wriggled out of would go a long way to shrinking the deficit for which working- and middle-class Britain's living standards are being sacrificed. The total tax gap between what's owed and collected has been estimated by Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK at £120bn a year: £25bn in legal tax avoidance, £70bn in fraudulent tax evasion and £25bn in late payments. (my emphasis)

Seumas Milne Guardian October 2012

Every time Dungcan speaks, remember his ‘creativity’ and that he is a Tory with many friends in the city. Judge them by their deeds not their words. The Tories, with the supine assistance of their sad accomplices, the Illiberal Democlots, have actually reduced the number of tax inspectors.

“..ministers are absurdly slashing the tax inspection workforce, and even introducing a new incentive for British multinationals to move their operations in business to overseas tax havens. The scheme would, accountants KPMG have been advising clients, offer an "effective UK tax rate of 5.5%" from 2014 (and cut British tax revenues into the bargain)” ibid