Osborne's meanest silent trick

Good old Boy George.  The Osborne person has excelled himself.  Did you think that you had heard it all in his Budget speech? Of course you did, but think again. OK so there is  a lot of paperwork that accompanies a budget, but you would have thought that the wallpaper heir would have had the nerve not to paper over a policy that will effect every person over 80 in the country and announce it in his speech, especially considering it was one of the shortest in modern times.

So if lack of time wasn't the problem it must have been some other reason.  No prizes for guessing, just look him in the eyes. And what about  PRDave,  who pledged during the election  not to cut winter fuel allowances. who is now an accomplice to what must be one of the meanest tricks yet played by this government.

In 2008 Labour introduced an additional payment of up to £100 on top of the basic £250 pensioner's winter fuel payment. This has continued every winter since but the two millionaires are scrapping the top up from next winter.  To add insult to injury a Treasury spokesman argued that the government is not cutting anything, but simply allowing the top up to expire.

And the cost?  Well there are about 2.4 million pensioners over 80. who receive the extra £100.  It's simple calculation.

No, No and No to a healthcare market

Yesterday the BMA passed a series of motions extremely critical of the NHS bill now before Parliament.  It is worth considering what are the implications of these proposals. There is some justification to fear that they will lead to a break up of the NHS.  "Any willing provider" will be able to takeover any of the services provided by the NHS. The danger is that our NHS will be reduced to a logo, backed by public money, while unaccountable profit-making companies will run services. Worse still, the bill gives the health sector the task of making sure the NHS abides by EU competition law, making it almost impossible for services to return in-house once they have been put out to tender. It is effectively a one-way ticket to NHS privatisation.

The risk of proceeding with these reforms is substantial. The NHS is already making unprecedented savings of £20bn over the next four years. Job losses, cuts and disruption to services will increase and become highly visible. Forcing the NHS into the biggest reform package in its history is a sizeable risk. Core parts of the proposed changes, like GP commissioning, are untested, and will be fraught with implementation difficulties.

With the formation of up to 500 GP consortia, all free to set their own priorities, a highly visible postcode lottery will develop. The financial success of each GP consortia will also affect the service that their patients receive. It will influence the type of care provided and how long it lasts. Some patients needing hospital treatment may, because of financial restraints, find waiting lists extended into the next financial year.

Providing more choice to patients has done very little to improve quality. Most people when offered a choice opt for their local hospital. Choice may be important, but for patients it comes below the quality, speed and accessibility of care.

GP commissioning is central to the reforms yet it is highly controversial and will be very difficult to implement. It could easily be undermined by a lack of expertise to fulfil the commissioning role amongst GPs. Any gap would inevitably be filled by private firms. These reforms would therefore result in the increasing privatisation of our health service.

The proposals also introduce a potential conflict of interest for GPs in advising their patients, as they would become both service provider and service purchaser.

Two thirds of GPs oppose the plans to force practices to join commissioning consortia, and almost all say that the profession should have been consulted in advance.  The BMA has said that it will put ‘absolutely everything’ on the table including strike action when it determines the medical profession’s response to the Government’s NHS reforms at a meeting this week. Doctors’ leaders have set out a series of demands to ministers they say must be met before they can support the health bill, including amendments to ensure GPs are free to co-operate with hospital specialists and to scrap moves for providers to compete on price. And why is there no pilot of the scheme? The NHS has undergone major restructuring 15 times in the past 30 years, with little or no evidence that these reorganisations have made any improvements.

The 'any willing provider' approach in an expanded NHS market will see many new entrants, including international corporations, competing to treat NHS patients. There is a proven threat to quality of care from involving profit-led companies in the provision of healthcare. Private healthcare providers, for example, have been known to “cherry-pick” the less complex patients. The quality of work done in private treatment centres has been seriously criticised by NHS surgeons and their professional bodies. The danger is that these private companies will inevitably put profit before patients.

There is also a real danger of a two-tier service developing. While providers will compete for contracts in more affluent areas, poorer communities could struggle to sustain a comprehensive range of healthcare of a comparable standard. The increasing trend to allow personal top-ups to the funding of NHS care will widen the divisions between those who can afford to pay and those who can't. 

This is what markets do. They create hierarchies of service, not universal excellence.

Stride stays silent as Devon people go hungry

  What exactly does our MP Mel Stride do other than hire himself out to Tory councillors who tip him off for endless photo opportunities? His website is no help as the last entry is 25^th October when he notes that he enjoyed some bird watching at the RSPB’s Exe Estuary reserve.

Where is he while more than 350 redundancies have occurred in his constituency in the last few weeks and 200 hundred hungry people a week in Okehampton are having to depend on food donated by locals to build up a food bank?

This apalling idictment of government policies is happening on his doorstep while Mr Stride is publicly welcoming the Government's new welfare system as marking the beginning of a new era of 21st century welfare. Mr Stride is quoted as saying: "These reforms show that this government is on the side of people who want to get ahead….these measures will get people into work “

But Mr Stride seems to have decided to adopt a 19^th century paternalistic approach to his constituents, He seeks to establish himself as the all round caring good egg who will without question attach himself to a local issue as long as it doesn’t dent his credentials as an ultra government loyalist and is totally uncontroversial.

In this way he is following in a grand Tory tradition, adopting the role of the local squire, who would invariably have been the figurehead for any local good cause. The loan of whose name and face would be a sure-fire seal of approval.

Perhaps Mr Stride feels that his photographic presence in local newspapers is reassuring, however together with his bland notes from Westminster and press releases that also appear in some sections of the local Devon press, his attitude   to the electorate can only be described as condescending.

Where is Mr Stride when it comes to real issues that affect local people: cuts in frontline policing and bus subsidies; the Crediton link road, youth unemployment, the scrapping of the EMA, the cost of fuel, the removal of security for many council house tenants on benefits, the reduction in forces pensions and cuts in children’s and young people’s services, now unemployment and hunger at the heart of his constituency

Perhaps he doesn’t see any photo opportunities attached to these issues, however comfortably seated behind Cameron on the government benches, he is probably more concerned with a possible future call-up to a junior ministerial post.  

Opposition to NHS changes hardens

Structured and meaningful opposition is mounting against Lansley's NHS changes, first the BMA have called a special conference which might result in a vote of no confidence in Lansley, secondly the LibDem Conference has voted against the changes.  Read about these developments  in 2 New Statesman articles:

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/03/bma-health-nhs-lansley

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/03/nhs-reform-health-bill-public

Another fine mess PRDave got us into

The debate over what is the most effective  form of protest these days;  punching a wall,  kicking a lamp post or wrestling a hedgehog, has been brutally superceded  by yet another grievous item of news from the bowels of PRDave's command centre. Even if all these things were to be performed simultaneously naked in Downing St while wearing a  novelty mask of Thatcher they would only serve to provide light relief to the Bobby guarding the door. 

Nothing seems to get through to PRDave except maybe embarrassment. But even then with a few well rehearsed sneers at Miliband's  second cousin in Belgium, he'll be up up and away to play with his Big Society.

Of course as PRDave often preaches just "do the right thing" and you will be cuddled and loved and whatever else they do in Witney on wet weekends. However if not doing the right thing beware,  as you might be visited by the kind of retribution that even Glen Hoddle might consider to be harsh. 

So, don't live in a council house, don't outgrow your "temporary accommodation", don't be on benefits, and whatever you do don't be disabled.

For a less jaundiced view go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12714313

It may be a mere detail to the Clegg but it's our NHS

The reorganisation- yes it's amazing how polite this writer can be- of the NHS is the major political issue of the moment.  Helpfully even the L**D**s at their spring conference in Sheffield,  protected in case  naughty students show their caring side, by £2m of police protection, are discussing a motion to reject Lansley's ideological back door privatisation manoeuvre. 

The Clegg dismisses it as just a matter of detail, however if , as seems likely, the motion is passed the Clegg will be in yet another embarrassing situation.  Hurrah!

More detail in today's Guardian at http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/mar/04/liberal-democrats-rebels-nick-clegg-nhs-reforms

Where is the Frontline?

Looking for the Frontline has become a national obsession.  Just try putting "frontline" into Google and see what you get.  Commentators and politicians can be see roaming the streets counting police officers on the beat, measuring and calculating  local council employees knocking on doors, totting up teachers in playgrounds, and peering through surgery windows for signs of nurses.  

Hospitals, schools, prisons and town halls have been subject to 6.30am raids to count up and classify  offices as either "middle" or "back", and the idling occupants have been obliged to be bar-coded so that their relative misdemeanor on the spectrum of non-jobs can be seen. 

So how should these unfortunates react? It is clear that this government is only counting those on the frontline as those  who can be seen. It has been reported that novelty shops and fancy dress outfitters have already seen a run on nurses uniforms, helmets and truncheons, and gowns and mortarboards. Perhaps more transparency is required.  To buildings in particular with coach tours provided so that everybody can be seen.

In the meantime, according to your individual experience and perspective  try the Tory-led government's own game of mesmerising twists and turns and have fun playing "Frontline".

Or if you are confused by the rules have a look at;
 http://www.oneinfourmag.org/index.php/just-where-is-the-frontline-in-mental-health/

Tory MP Stride joins the gentry

What exactly does our MP Mel Stride do other than hire himself out to Tory councillors who tip him off for endless photo opportunities?

Mr Stride seems to have decided to adopt a paternalistic approach to his constituents, He seeks to establish himself as the all round caring good egg who will without question attach himself to a local issue as long as it doesn’t dent his credentials as an ultra government loyalist and is totally uncontroversial.

In this way he is following in a grand Tory tradition, adopting the role of the local squire, who in the 19th and early 20^th centuries   would invariably have been the figurehead for any local good cause. The loan of whose name and face would be a sure-fire seal of approval.

Today we have the Devon Central MP Mel Stride, who has obviously done his rural homework, continuing in the style of, for example the Earl of Portsmouth or a Buller, by lending his name and face to whatever cause local Tory councillors consider has some resonance amongst the locals.

Perhaps Mr Stride feels that his photographic presence in local newspapers is reassuring, however together with his bland notes from Westminster that also appear in some sections of the local Devon press, his attitude   to the electorate can only be described as condescending.

Where is Mr Stride when it comes to real issues that affect local people: cuts in frontline policing and bus subsidies; the Crediton link road, youth unemployment, the scrapping of the EMA, the cost of fuel, the removal of security for many council house tenants on benefits, the reduction in forces pensions and cuts in children’s and young people’s services.

Perhaps he doesn’t see any photo opportunities attached to these issues, however comfortably seated behind Cameron on the government benches, he is probably more concerned to ensure his future call-up to a junior ministerial post.  

Shame on you if you have forgotten where you come from

Have a good look at this image published in today's Independent to illustrate an article celebrating 100 Years of the British Census. Just look at the title of the link and then  look into the eyes of the mother and her two children.

1921: This Woking family were reduced to living in a pig shed

Spend a little time exploring the image. Note the pieces of fabric loosely hung behind the bed in an attempt to create a home for the two children and what appears to be a picture hanging behind them, and the white sheet that has been stretched across the bed, and the obviously best clothes and neatened hair probably combed and brushed specially for the camera. Who are they looking at to the right of camera with their blank faces? 

Just think what it was to be that family in their pig shed home with the photographer and the lighting illuminating your poverty, a poverty that no matter how much you tried to make a home left you exhausted and without hope. It's 1921, so perhaps her husband was killed in the Great War that ended 2 years earlier, perhaps he's drunk, or holding the photographer's lighting or looking for work, or was never there anyway. 

And this is Woking, Surrey in the  Home Counties not the Black Country.   Woking, which in  May 2010 elected Tory Jonathan Lord with 26551 votes, followed by Rose Sharpley LibDem with 19744 votes and Thomas Miller Labour a distant third with 4246 votes.

And think forward to today, how the descendants of  the children in the photograph, perhaps reading the Daily Mail, driving their second hand Mercedes and BMWs, regarding at least one overseas holiday a year as a right,  owning homes,  following the value of their property week by week, while castigating the Labour Party and the Unions. 

Just imagine a country ruled by Old Etonians, with a monstrous gap between the poorest and the wealthy, a country with little or no welfare, a country that depends on low wages and a mass workforce with few rights, Unimaginable? Perhaps not.

At the end of the 19 century the Privy Council ordered an inquiry into the "Food of the Poorer Labouring Classes". In Dorset, the County closest to Devon, the typical menu was>

Breakfast: Water broth, bread, butter, tea and milk

Dinner: Husband has bread and cheese; family take tea besides

Supper: Hot fried bacon and cabbage or bead and cheese.

This was typical of the time, and apart from the tea, when earlier it would have been ale, this is a diet familiar to labouring families for generation upon generation. So where have we come from.? The following table is taken from a brilliant book called History of the Homeland by Henry Hamilton, published in 1947 as No 4 of Primers for the Age of Plenty.

  This analysis was made at the end of the 17th century, but look at the chasm between the income of the very few rich families at the top of the list and those with the lowest income. We in the 21st century are descendants of the families that made up this stratified and deeply unequal society.  It was only in the 20th century, that the curse of  inequality and injustice was systematically challenged by government and broadly acknowledged within society, a process spearheaded by the Labour Party and the Unions.  That's why the antics of neo-cons and their fellow travellers, the fake virtue of the  right and so-called centre  in government and those who believe and vote  as if they have a monopoly of moral superiority, and the right to make judgmental decisions on the welfare of the weakest  should make you feel ashamed of what is being done to this country.

Mervyn King the Governor of the Bank of England is getting pretty outspoken about the conduct of the banks, not only does he think people should be more angry but as Robert Preston comments he is now questioning their relationship with their customers. Strong stuff as the Bank of England is about to fulfil the role of financial regulator.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2011/03/is_entente_possible_between_go.html

How competent are the Tories and LibDems to govern?

This government is so determined to change  everything, especially anything that  Labour did, that they are tripping over themselves in their legislative haste.  Here are 24 coalition plans,so far, that didn’t make it. What next? High Speed rail, NHS reorganisation, defence cuts? Who knows but there will be plenty more u-turns to come.

 

1 Forcing ministers on to the Tory backbench 1922 committee. U-turn 24 May

2 Setting threshold for dissolution of  Parliament at only 55% 5 July

3 Giving anonymity to rape suspects 27 July

4 Scrapping free milk for under fives 8 August

5 Scrapping NHS Direct 8 September

6 Hiring a vanity photographer as a civil servant 17 November

7 Imposing cap on housing benefit for tenants in private rented housing     (postponed 9 months) 28 November

8 Automatic jail for knife crime 7 December

9 Cutting School Sports Partnership 20 December

10 Scrapping Bookstart scheme to give free books to children 26 December

11Scrapping Winter Flu Ad Campaign 30 December

12 Keeping Andy Coulson 21 January

13 Removing Protection for School Music budget 8 February

14 Ruling out extra bank levy 8 February

15 Giving prisoners the vote 10 February

16 Privatising search and rescue helicopters 8 February

17 Cutting funding for debt advice 12 February

18 Not getting a Downing St cat  15 February

19 Selling of the forests 16 February

20 Cutting housing benefit for those jobless for a year or more 17 February

21 Osborne ditches “green” ISAs

22 Cameron turns Middle East arms sales jaunt into peace plea

23 Plane hired to rescue Britons can’t take off

24 Navy ships heading for scrap yard diverted to rescue Britons