Monthly Archives: September 2012

UK politics news review

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It’s the last day of the Liberal-Democrat-Conservatives conference at Brighton today.

  • Seumas Milne has a comment is free article on the unity of the coalitionwhile there is empty, superficial, phoney differentiation.…Some of the battles are real enough. But when it comes to the core of the government’s programme, they’re little more than shadow boxing. As the Lib Dems’ man at the Treasury, Danny Alexander, spelled out on Tuesday, the whole coalition backs a scale of cuts the Institute for Fiscal Studies has called “almost without historical and international precedent” – but is now committed to an additional £15bn squeeze for 2015-16.

    For all the Lib Dem boasts about their green credentials, a pupil premium that isn’t getting through to the poorest and increases in tax allowances that are mainly benefiting the better off, they remain fully signed up to the main agenda: an austerity, welfare cuts and privatisation programme that is cutting taxes for the rich and the banks, throttling recovery and threatening to widen inequality still further for years to come.

    We may not all be in this together – but they are. Lib Dem activists naturally don’t like it, but there’s little sign of rebellion. In what remains the most democratic of the main parties’ conferences, delegates still allowed themselves to be pushed into voting for more austerity – apparently out of loyalty and fear of what Tim Farron, their president, insisted would mean “chaos, mass unemployment and human misery”.

    When it comes to the Liberal Democrat leadership, it’s easy to forget how close the Orange Book faction around Clegg were to the Tories on economic policy to start with. In an echo of New Labour, the pro-privatisation, small state Orange Bookers – including Clegg, David Laws and Ed Davey – took over the Lib Dems at exactly the time the neoliberal model they so admired was imploding in the crisis of 2007-8.

    But their rapid rise laid the ground for the coalition with Cameron’s Tories. And any idea that they might have rethought a discredited ideology was dispelled on the Brighton fringe, where the home office minister Jeremy Browne rhapsodised about the free market, and Orange Book editor and hedge funder Paul Marshall gleefully recalled that Cable, another contributor, had endorsed privatisation of public services and a state spending cap of 40% of GDP (it’s now about 45%).

    …

  • Conservative Liberal-Democrat leader Nick Clegg is expected to make a speech today extolling the virtues of the ConDems slashing social benefits and public services while supporting super-rich bankers with huge benefits. He is expected to make the preposterous claim that the fourth, fifth or sixth party in UK politics is now a party of government. I expect the speech will be altered to avoid mention of Alan Sugar who called him a twat.

  • 6,000 nurses cut from NHS in two years

    The number of nurses and midwives working in the NHS has plummeted by almost 6,000 in the last two years, figures showed today.

    Since April 2010 the number of qualified nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff has fallen by 5,748, according to data gathered by the Health And Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC).

    Between May and June this year a further 840 posts were lost, according to the HSCIC’s workforce statistics for England.

    The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) warned that the fall in numbers would cost the NHS more in the long run.

    RCN chief and general secretary Peter Carter said: “Our members have been highlighting the posts being slashed by NHS trusts for more than two years now and we have proved that more than 60,000 posts are at risk.

    “You simply can’t take out this many posts without profoundly affecting patient care.”

 

 

NHS privatisation: Compilation of financial and vested interests

 

 

“We do want to break up the NHS. We don’t want to privatise it, we want to break it up.” Nick Clegg.

 

Nick Clegg’s demand for the NHS to be broken up

…

Opponents said the comments about the NHS, in a 2005 interview in the Independent, showed that Mr Clegg had no understanding of the way the health service works.

In the interview, carried out while Charles Kennedy was leader and two years before Mr Clegg took the job, he said: ‘I think breaking up the NHS is exactly what you do need to do to make it a more responsive service.’

Asked whether he favoured a Canadian or European-style social insurance system, he said: ‘I don’t think anything should be ruled out. I do think they deserve to be looked at because frankly the faults of the British health service compared to others still leave much to be desired.

‘We will have to provide alternatives about what a different NHS looks like.’

Under a social insurance system, members pay into an insurance scheme, either themselves or through an employer, to guarantee their healthcare. It means that those who pay into a more expensive scheme can get better care.

Under the NHS, however, everyone pays into the same scheme through taxes – and is then guaranteed care that is ‘free at the point of use’.

In the interview, Mr Clegg said ‘defending the status quo’ is no longer an option. Instead, he called on his party to ‘let its hair down’, ‘break a long-standing taboo’ and be ‘reckless’ in its thinking.

‘We do want to break up the NHS,’ he said. ‘We don’t want to privatise it, we want to break it up. Should the debate be taboo? Of course not, absolutely not.’

A year earlier, Mr Clegg had contributed to the notorious Orange Book in which those on the right of the party discussed how policies should change under Mr Kennedy’s leadership. The conclusion of the book outlines in more detail the type of insurance scheme he was outlining.

‘The NHS is failing to deliver a health service that meets the needs and expectations of today’s population,’ it said.

John Lister, of the lobby group Health Emergency, said: ‘These comments show Mr Clegg does not understand the NHS. He seems to be ignorant of the fact that social insurance schemes in Europe are far more expensive.’

Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: ‘The NHS is one of Britain’s most loved institutions. People will be worried that Nick Clegg wants to “break it up”.’ [!!! That’s Andrew Lansley pretending that the NHS is safe in Tory hands before the election !!!]

 

How the Orange Bookers took over the Lib Dems

…
What Britain now has is a blue-orange coalition, with the little-known Orange Book forming the core of current Lib Dem political thinking. To understand how this disreputable arrangement has come about, we need to examine the philosophy laid out in The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism, edited by David Laws (now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Paul Marshall. Particularly interesting are the contributions of the Lib Dems’ present leadership.

Published in 2004, the Orange Book marked the start of the slow decline of progressive values in the Lib Dems and the gradual abandonment of social market values. It also provided the ideological standpoint around which the party’s right wing was able to coalesce and begin their march to power in the Lib Dems. What is remarkable is the failure of former SDP and Labour elements to sound warning bells about the direction the party was taking. Former Labour ministers such as Shirley Williams and Tom McNally should be ashamed of their inaction.

Clegg and his Lib Dem supporters have much in common with David Cameron and his allies in their philosophical approach and with their social liberal solutions to society’s perceived ills. The Orange Book is predicated on an abiding belief in the free market’s ability to address issues such as public healthcare, pensions, environment, globalisation, social and agricultural policy, local government and prisons.

The Lib Dem leadership seems to sit very easily in the Tory-led coalition. This is an arranged marriage between partners of a similar background and belief. Even the Tory-Whig coalition of early 1780s, although its members were from the same class, at least had fundamental political differences. Now we see a Government made up of a single elite that has previously manifested itself as two separate political parties and which is divided more by subtle shades of opinion than any profound ideological difference.
…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Continue ReadingUK politics news review

NHS news review

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Conservative election poster 2010

A few recent news articles about the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat(Conservative) coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

 

Today’s NHS news review makes clear that the Lib-Dem-Conservative – the ConDems – coalition government’s brutal attack on the NHS continues apace.

NHS rationing ‘forcing patients to go private’

More patients are going private because the NHS is increasingly cutting back on providing a range of treatments.

GPs believe the numbers of patients asking about paying for operations including cataract removal and joint replacements has increased markedly in the last year, according to a poll.

Dr Clare Gerada, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said it was “incontrovertible” that increased NHS rationing was behind the increase in going private, a trend she described as “very sad”.

The poll, carried out by ComRes for the firm BMI Healthcare, found that 70 per cent of GPs are now unable to refer a patient for further treatment on the NHS at least once a month because they do not qualify under local criteria.

Primary care trusts (PCTs) have increasingly been restricting access to treatments including cataract removals, hernia operations and hip and knee replacements, by raising the threshold of how ill or disabled a patient has to be.

A quarter (24 per cent) said they themselves were now more likely to raise the possibility with patients, compared to only three per cent who said they were less likely to do so.

The principal reason behind increased interest in “self-pay” healthcare is treatments no longer being available on the NHS, according to the poll, with 66 per cent of GPs citing this.

Furthermore, 56 per cent thought patients were considering self-pay more because NHS waiting times had increased.

Dr Mark Ferreira, medical development director of BMI Healthcare, said: “As this survey shows, patients are being forced to consider how they will be treated and how they will pay for their healthcare.”

…

CBI says only privatisation can save the NHS

Only outsourcing to the private sector can save the NHS and other public services, according to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).

A report commissioned by the CBI estimated that outsourcing of public services could save the Government £22.6bn a year by enabling adoption of more efficient business methods.

CBI Director General John Cridland said the report proved that for UK public services “business as usual is not an option”.

He criticised the coalition Government for failing to deliver on the policies of its 2011 white paper Open Public Services, which promised rapid privatisation.

…

Serco and Virgin Care are among 39 parties interested in South London Healthcare Trust

Thirty-nine organisations have expressed interest in taking over all or part of South London Healthcare NHS Trust, the first trust to have the failure regime applied to it.

Earlier this year special administrator, Matthew Kershaw, invited public and private organisations to express interest in running it.

HealthInvestor can reveal that organisations that have expressed interest include Oxleas Foundation Trust, Serco and Virgin Care.

A spokesman for the Office of the Trust Special Administrator said: ‘The market engagement exercise carried out by the Trust Special Administrator has now come to an end. There have been 39 responses received and these are being reviewed against the criteria set for this process which have been developed to ensure possible recommendations deliver safe, high quality, affordable and sustainable health services for the people of south east London.’

 

NHS privatisation: Compilation of financial and vested interests

 

 

“We do want to break up the NHS. We don’t want to privatise it, we want to break it up.” Nick Clegg.

 

Nick Clegg’s demand for the NHS to be broken up

…

Opponents said the comments about the NHS, in a 2005 interview in the Independent, showed that Mr Clegg had no understanding of the way the health service works.

In the interview, carried out while Charles Kennedy was leader and two years before Mr Clegg took the job, he said: ‘I think breaking up the NHS is exactly what you do need to do to make it a more responsive service.’

Asked whether he favoured a Canadian or European-style social insurance system, he said: ‘I don’t think anything should be ruled out. I do think they deserve to be looked at because frankly the faults of the British health service compared to others still leave much to be desired.

‘We will have to provide alternatives about what a different NHS looks like.’

Under a social insurance system, members pay into an insurance scheme, either themselves or through an employer, to guarantee their healthcare. It means that those who pay into a more expensive scheme can get better care.

Under the NHS, however, everyone pays into the same scheme through taxes – and is then guaranteed care that is ‘free at the point of use’.

In the interview, Mr Clegg said ‘defending the status quo’ is no longer an option. Instead, he called on his party to ‘let its hair down’, ‘break a long-standing taboo’ and be ‘reckless’ in its thinking.

‘We do want to break up the NHS,’ he said. ‘We don’t want to privatise it, we want to break it up. Should the debate be taboo? Of course not, absolutely not.’

A year earlier, Mr Clegg had contributed to the notorious Orange Book in which those on the right of the party discussed how policies should change under Mr Kennedy’s leadership. The conclusion of the book outlines in more detail the type of insurance scheme he was outlining.

‘The NHS is failing to deliver a health service that meets the needs and expectations of today’s population,’ it said.

John Lister, of the lobby group Health Emergency, said: ‘These comments show Mr Clegg does not understand the NHS. He seems to be ignorant of the fact that social insurance schemes in Europe are far more expensive.’

Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: ‘The NHS is one of Britain’s most loved institutions. People will be worried that Nick Clegg wants to “break it up”.’ [!!! That’s Andrew Lansley pretending that the NHS is safe in Tory hands before the election !!!]

 

How the Orange Bookers took over the Lib Dems

…
What Britain now has is a blue-orange coalition, with the little-known Orange Book forming the core of current Lib Dem political thinking. To understand how this disreputable arrangement has come about, we need to examine the philosophy laid out in The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism, edited by David Laws (now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Paul Marshall. Particularly interesting are the contributions of the Lib Dems’ present leadership.

Published in 2004, the Orange Book marked the start of the slow decline of progressive values in the Lib Dems and the gradual abandonment of social market values. It also provided the ideological standpoint around which the party’s right wing was able to coalesce and begin their march to power in the Lib Dems. What is remarkable is the failure of former SDP and Labour elements to sound warning bells about the direction the party was taking. Former Labour ministers such as Shirley Williams and Tom McNally should be ashamed of their inaction.

Clegg and his Lib Dem supporters have much in common with David Cameron and his allies in their philosophical approach and with their social liberal solutions to society’s perceived ills. The Orange Book is predicated on an abiding belief in the free market’s ability to address issues such as public healthcare, pensions, environment, globalisation, social and agricultural policy, local government and prisons.

The Lib Dem leadership seems to sit very easily in the Tory-led coalition. This is an arranged marriage between partners of a similar background and belief. Even the Tory-Whig coalition of early 1780s, although its members were from the same class, at least had fundamental political differences. Now we see a Government made up of a single elite that has previously manifested itself as two separate political parties and which is divided more by subtle shades of opinion than any profound ideological difference.
…

Continue ReadingNHS news review

UK politics news review

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There’s still little UK politics news despite the Liberal-Democrat-Conservative conference continiuing at Brighton.

 

  • Students reject Nick Clegg apology

    Lib Dems are less popular than the Conservatives, according to an NUS survey

    Nick Clegg‘s apology has done little to redeem his party’s reputation among students, according to an NUS survey of 25,000 students.Just one in 10 students (11.1%) say they are more likely to vote Lib Dem after the deputy prime minister said sorry for promising not to increase tuition fees before the last election.

    When asked which political party they would to vote for, one in 13 (7.7%) said they would back the Lib Dems, making them less popular than Labour (37.9%), Conservatives (16.8%) and the Green party (8.0%).NUS president

    Liam Burns was unsurprised by the findings, adding that students felt betrayed by Clegg’s decision to renegade on his promise not to vote for a tuition fee rise. “Nick Clegg actually won students’ votes by signing the pledge. It is clear he has lost them by breaking it. This attempted apology has created more confusion than clarity. Mr Clegg must now make amends by changing his policies.”

    In the runup to the 2010 general election the Lib Dems targeted university campuses with their campaign to abolish fees, while Clegg and his MPs signed the NUS pledge not to vote for a rise.

    …

  • Some Li b-Dem made a speech which attacked their Tory companions.
  • Problems continue for patrician Andrew Mitchell as a policeman’s log is published.

 

NHS privatisation: Compilation of financial and vested interests

 

 

“We do want to break up the NHS. We don’t want to privatise it, we want to break it up.” Nick Clegg.

 

Nick Clegg’s demand for the NHS to be broken up

…

Opponents said the comments about the NHS, in a 2005 interview in the Independent, showed that Mr Clegg had no understanding of the way the health service works.

In the interview, carried out while Charles Kennedy was leader and two years before Mr Clegg took the job, he said: ‘I think breaking up the NHS is exactly what you do need to do to make it a more responsive service.’

Asked whether he favoured a Canadian or European-style social insurance system, he said: ‘I don’t think anything should be ruled out. I do think they deserve to be looked at because frankly the faults of the British health service compared to others still leave much to be desired.

‘We will have to provide alternatives about what a different NHS looks like.’

Under a social insurance system, members pay into an insurance scheme, either themselves or through an employer, to guarantee their healthcare. It means that those who pay into a more expensive scheme can get better care.

Under the NHS, however, everyone pays into the same scheme through taxes – and is then guaranteed care that is ‘free at the point of use’.

In the interview, Mr Clegg said ‘defending the status quo’ is no longer an option. Instead, he called on his party to ‘let its hair down’, ‘break a long-standing taboo’ and be ‘reckless’ in its thinking.

‘We do want to break up the NHS,’ he said. ‘We don’t want to privatise it, we want to break it up. Should the debate be taboo? Of course not, absolutely not.’

A year earlier, Mr Clegg had contributed to the notorious Orange Book in which those on the right of the party discussed how policies should change under Mr Kennedy’s leadership. The conclusion of the book outlines in more detail the type of insurance scheme he was outlining.

‘The NHS is failing to deliver a health service that meets the needs and expectations of today’s population,’ it said.

John Lister, of the lobby group Health Emergency, said: ‘These comments show Mr Clegg does not understand the NHS. He seems to be ignorant of the fact that social insurance schemes in Europe are far more expensive.’

Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: ‘The NHS is one of Britain’s most loved institutions. People will be worried that Nick Clegg wants to “break it up”.’ [!!! That’s Andrew Lansley pretending that the NHS is safe in Tory hands before the election !!!]

 

How the Orange Bookers took over the Lib Dems

…
What Britain now has is a blue-orange coalition, with the little-known Orange Book forming the core of current Lib Dem political thinking. To understand how this disreputable arrangement has come about, we need to examine the philosophy laid out in The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism, edited by David Laws (now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Paul Marshall. Particularly interesting are the contributions of the Lib Dems’ present leadership.

Published in 2004, the Orange Book marked the start of the slow decline of progressive values in the Lib Dems and the gradual abandonment of social market values. It also provided the ideological standpoint around which the party’s right wing was able to coalesce and begin their march to power in the Lib Dems. What is remarkable is the failure of former SDP and Labour elements to sound warning bells about the direction the party was taking. Former Labour ministers such as Shirley Williams and Tom McNally should be ashamed of their inaction.

Clegg and his Lib Dem supporters have much in common with David Cameron and his allies in their philosophical approach and with their social liberal solutions to society’s perceived ills. The Orange Book is predicated on an abiding belief in the free market’s ability to address issues such as public healthcare, pensions, environment, globalisation, social and agricultural policy, local government and prisons.

The Lib Dem leadership seems to sit very easily in the Tory-led coalition. This is an arranged marriage between partners of a similar background and belief. Even the Tory-Whig coalition of early 1780s, although its members were from the same class, at least had fundamental political differences. Now we see a Government made up of a single elite that has previously manifested itself as two separate political parties and which is divided more by subtle shades of opinion than any profound ideological difference.
…

Continue ReadingUK politics news review

UK politics news review

Spread the love

There’s very little politics news at the moment. If you want some real politics and real reality I suggest that you watch the revolution will not be televised – a chronicle of the US-backed coup attempt against Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela. The phrase the revolution will not be televised is often wrongly attributed to Jean Baudrillard while it is actually the title of a song by Gil Scott-Heron.

  • The Liberal-Democrat-Conservative conference continues at Brighton. There’s not much happening and you can’t believe a word they say anyway. Clegg has suggested that parents and grandparents can help raise deposits for houses against their pensions. Although vague and woolly at the moment, it looks like a loan of a portion of the pension pot. There are also rumours of taxing the rich and objecting – belatedly – to the Con-Dems’ attack on benefits. (Clegg and the Liberal-Democrat-Conservatives are generally despised and desperate for support).

  • Living standards report shows bleak future of a divided Britain

    Independent study suggests rich will get richer and the poor poorer as chancellor plans further £10bn of welfare cuts

    Living standards for low- and middle-income households will fall until 2020, even if the country enters a golden period of steady economic growth, according to an incendiary analysis of deepening income inequality in Britain.

    The independent study, carried out for the Resolution Foundation by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Institute for Employment Research, paints a stark picture of a nation increasingly polarised between a poorer half whose incomes are set to fall and a top half whose living standards will continue to rise.

  • Downing Street nonsense continues. Tory Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell allegedly insulted Downing Street policemen when they refused to open the big gate for him on his bicycle.

 

NHS privatisation: Compilation of financial and vested interests

 

 

“We do want to break up the NHS. We don’t want to privatise it, we want to break it up.” Nick Clegg.

 

Nick Clegg’s demand for the NHS to be broken up

…

Opponents said the comments about the NHS, in a 2005 interview in the Independent, showed that Mr Clegg had no understanding of the way the health service works.

In the interview, carried out while Charles Kennedy was leader and two years before Mr Clegg took the job, he said: ‘I think breaking up the NHS is exactly what you do need to do to make it a more responsive service.’

Asked whether he favoured a Canadian or European-style social insurance system, he said: ‘I don’t think anything should be ruled out. I do think they deserve to be looked at because frankly the faults of the British health service compared to others still leave much to be desired.

‘We will have to provide alternatives about what a different NHS looks like.’

Under a social insurance system, members pay into an insurance scheme, either themselves or through an employer, to guarantee their healthcare. It means that those who pay into a more expensive scheme can get better care.

Under the NHS, however, everyone pays into the same scheme through taxes – and is then guaranteed care that is ‘free at the point of use’.

In the interview, Mr Clegg said ‘defending the status quo’ is no longer an option. Instead, he called on his party to ‘let its hair down’, ‘break a long-standing taboo’ and be ‘reckless’ in its thinking.

‘We do want to break up the NHS,’ he said. ‘We don’t want to privatise it, we want to break it up. Should the debate be taboo? Of course not, absolutely not.’

A year earlier, Mr Clegg had contributed to the notorious Orange Book in which those on the right of the party discussed how policies should change under Mr Kennedy’s leadership. The conclusion of the book outlines in more detail the type of insurance scheme he was outlining.

‘The NHS is failing to deliver a health service that meets the needs and expectations of today’s population,’ it said.

John Lister, of the lobby group Health Emergency, said: ‘These comments show Mr Clegg does not understand the NHS. He seems to be ignorant of the fact that social insurance schemes in Europe are far more expensive.’

Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: ‘The NHS is one of Britain’s most loved institutions. People will be worried that Nick Clegg wants to “break it up”.’ [!!! That’s Andrew Lansley pretending that the NHS is safe in Tory hands before the election !!!]

 

How the Orange Bookers took over the Lib Dems

…
What Britain now has is a blue-orange coalition, with the little-known Orange Book forming the core of current Lib Dem political thinking. To understand how this disreputable arrangement has come about, we need to examine the philosophy laid out in The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism, edited by David Laws (now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Paul Marshall. Particularly interesting are the contributions of the Lib Dems’ present leadership.

Published in 2004, the Orange Book marked the start of the slow decline of progressive values in the Lib Dems and the gradual abandonment of social market values. It also provided the ideological standpoint around which the party’s right wing was able to coalesce and begin their march to power in the Lib Dems. What is remarkable is the failure of former SDP and Labour elements to sound warning bells about the direction the party was taking. Former Labour ministers such as Shirley Williams and Tom McNally should be ashamed of their inaction.

Clegg and his Lib Dem supporters have much in common with David Cameron and his allies in their philosophical approach and with their social liberal solutions to society’s perceived ills. The Orange Book is predicated on an abiding belief in the free market’s ability to address issues such as public healthcare, pensions, environment, globalisation, social and agricultural policy, local government and prisons.

The Lib Dem leadership seems to sit very easily in the Tory-led coalition. This is an arranged marriage between partners of a similar background and belief. Even the Tory-Whig coalition of early 1780s, although its members were from the same class, at least had fundamental political differences. Now we see a Government made up of a single elite that has previously manifested itself as two separate political parties and which is divided more by subtle shades of opinion than any profound ideological difference.
…

Continue ReadingUK politics news review