Campaigners demand Keir Starmer commits to ending NHS privatisation

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https://leftfootforward.org/2023/08/campaigners-demand-keir-starmer-commits-to-ending-nhs-privatisation/

Keir Starmer sucking up to the rich and powerful at World Economic Forum, Davos.
Keir Starmer sucking up to the rich and powerful at World Economic Forum, Davos.

“The call from the public is too clear for Keir Starmer to ignore – we want an NHS we can be proud of again.”

Anti-privatisation campaigners today launched a petition calling for Keir Starmer to commit to reinstating the NHS as a fully public service. The petition, coordinated by We Own It, calls on the Labour leader to pledge to end NHS privatisation in advance of the next general election.

Opinion polls have consistently shown that the public support the NHS being in public ownership. Figures from Survation suggest as much as 78% of the public support a publicly owned health service.

Despite this, research indicates that decades of private sector involvement in the health service has eroded the core principles of the NHS, with a marketised, two-tier system emerging.

Keir Starmer has so far refused to commit to ending NHS privatisation if he enters Downing Street after the next election. That’s despite a pledge he made in the 2020 Labour leadership election to “end NHS privatisation and reinstate the NHS on the basis of its founding principles.”

https://leftfootforward.org/2023/08/campaigners-demand-keir-starmer-commits-to-ending-nhs-privatisation/

Continue ReadingCampaigners demand Keir Starmer commits to ending NHS privatisation

Twitter forced to add information to Starmer’s misleading NHS/local election claim

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Original article republished from the Skwawkbox for non-commercial use.

Not for the first time, Starmer and Labour claim local elections will affect national policies

Keir Starmer has suffered the indignity of corrective action by Twitter after he posted a claim that votes in the local elections next month will affect the NHS.

Starmer claimed that voting for Labour would lead to ‘an NHS that treats patients on time again’ – but of course, local government does not decide NHS policy, capacity or funding:

Starmer, of course, has already committed to increasing privatisation – the key cause of the NHS’s problems – in the NHS. He and his Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting have both accepted large donations from private health investors and Starmer employed a private health lobbyist in his team soon after becoming Labour leader – which he achieved through a series of promises that were all binned and broken after he took over.

Starmer has defended Labour’s recent appalling campaign messages. Now a social media platform has had to attach information to his campaign claim to reduce the extent to which it misleads voters. The scandal comes on the same day news emerged that Starmer accepted corporate hospitality from a firm that had to pay out almost £11 million after installing Grenfell-like flammable cladding to an apartment block.

Original article republished from the Skwawkbox for non-commercial use.

Continue ReadingTwitter forced to add information to Starmer’s misleading NHS/local election claim