Some Thoughts on International Aid

At the time of year that I find myself bound for distant towns and cities to attend the biannual UNISON International Seminar, I realise that there are many things for which you can justifiably attack our government. They've run a sinking economy into the dirt, ostracised us from Europe and are still trying to introduce competition to the NHS so that they can create an insurance-based health system similar to the one in the US.

So yes, you can knock this coalition for many things, but on the matter of international aid, the coalition policy appears to remain steadfast. In fact, all three of the major political parties in the UK agree on at least one thing - namely, a firm commitment to meeting the United Nations target of 0.7% of each country's Gross National Product (GNP) being ringfenced for the purposes of international aid.

International aid, along with immigration, is one of those issues that makes policymakers twitchy. One cannot be too harsh on the subject without alienating the sections of one's electorate with personal and business connections abroad, but one also cannot be seen to be entirely in favour of aid without due cause, as this might risk losing the votes of those who don't understand why we appear to be gifting money to other nations - particularly when our own needy are growing needier by the day.

As international officers, how do we help people understand the necessity of international aid? Nationally, UNISON publishes the following advice to members. We know full well that our members in the UK are suffering greatly under the horrific mismanagement of our economy, but we also know that people join unions in a spirit of solidarity - when you need help most, all of us will stand behind you. Therefore members need to understand that while Britain is ailing from the effects of punishing and unnecessary austerity, workers in other nations are going through the same thing. It is only by building solidarity and cooperation that bypasses borders that we can hope to resist the massive neoliberal global attacks on our public services.

Let's establish a few facts. The actual amount that Britain spends annually is in the region of £8bn, or £137 per person per year. This equates to a little over 0.5% of our GNP, so if we are to meet our target, we'll have to find another few billion. It is worth mentioning that only a handful of Nordic and central European nations actually achieve the UN goal. The US, in comparison, gives a paltry 0.2% of its GNP in international aid each year.

What is aid used for? Ostensibly, the UN goal is that the money be redistributed from wealthy nations to poor ones in order to reduce poverty. That's a very noble goal, but also a very general one, and there are many better ways to use money than simply donating it to other nations. Just because we accept the notion that we should find this money and use it to alleviate suffering worldwide, there is still a debate about how that should best be done. We, as trade unionists, should be shaping the debate about how our money is spent.

We know better than most that the best use of a limited resource is to focus it in areas of great need. We know from experience that using the money within existing networks in local communities, asking them what they need and helping them to build their own organising capacity, is the most efficient model to use. To help us remember this, we use a time-honoured example: Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish, and he will feed himself for a lifetime.

Critics of international aid argue that DFID (The UK's Department For International Development) is not transparent and that giving money to foreign governments creates dependency. We must be careful, certainly, that we don't simply create duplicate networks to those already used by governments and NGOs to carry out functions that should be performed by governments. We should also be concerned at the ways in which the money reaches the beneficiaries. By routing 40% of our spend through organisations such as the World Bank and the OECD, we risk creating political conditions on the recipients of aid, and thus potentially spreading neoliberal tendancies further throughout the world.

However, the concept of tied money is not a new one - and while it is ideal to meet the target without imposing conditions, we must also consider that foreign aid budgets are easier to sell politically if we can show that there are benefits to the UK too. DFID contracts are still awarded overwhelmingly to UK firms, and while not all trade unionists will agree with me, I believe that we can still improve relations with other nations, assist them in ways such as improving their infrastructure and benefit from cheap goods in return.

One of my fellow attendees here at the International Seminar suggested that we stop referring to international aid as aid. He has a very good point, and one that had previously been unmentioned by anyone else up to that point. Part of shaping the debate is controlling the language that is used (if you want evidence of this, note how the proposed forthcoming changes to council tax legislation are referred to as the 'bedroom tax' by opponents on the left, and the 'spare room subsidy' by supporters on the right) and by taking away the notion of 'aid' and replacing it with something that recognises the true role that it plays.

He suggested the Global Responsibility Allowance - a term that recognises the need to move away from seeing this money as something we own and give away, and more as a commitment to assisting the developing world with their own self-improvement, if not for its own end, at least in return for access to their markets. Whether this could be sold to the general public may be another matter - but it certainly couldn't hurt to try.

Some 'Facts' about the EU

I read an article today about the YouGov poll which has shown that since 5 January 2013, outright support for a British withdrawal from the EU has reduced sharply from 51% to less than 42%, with a rising number now supporting Britain's place at the heart of Europe, at least dependent upon a renegotiation of our position in it.

The EU is one of those strange subjects - almost no-one knows anything about it, but everyone has an opinion on it. UKIP would supposedly pull us out of it, despite the fact that it's the only part of politics where they wield any genuine influence. Labour admit they were wrong about it, but don't seem to know where they currently stand on it. Dave and his backbenchers quarrel over it all the time, and the promised referendum on continued membership still looks about as likely to arrive as the Rapture.

The thing that annoys me most is that amongst all the intelligent debate, there are a number of people who will insist on presenting their opinion as fact. For your benefit (and not least my own), I have done a little bit of research on the opinions of one 'elsyd', who does just that on the article above. Hopefully, it will answer some of those nagging questions that you always see thrown around in Facebook debate.

CLAIM: Britain's net contribution to the EU is in excess of £50 million a day.

ANSWER: False. The enclosed graph from the BBC shows that the UK contributes a net 3.5bn Euros per year, or approximately 9.831m Euros a day. Still not chicken feed, but let's at least be accurate. To give the figures context, the UK receives approximately £550bn in tax revenue each year, meaning that net EU spending accounts for less than 0.63% of our national income annually - akin to a person on an above-average income buying a Starbucks coffee each day. Or to express it exactly, we are contributing approximately 16 Euro cents each day for each person living in the UK.

There are those who will argue the value of what we receive, but just some of the potential benefits we receive in return for our money are that we avoid having to pay potential trade tariffs on new trade agreements, there are no legal obstacles for those who wish to set up businesses in any EU country, we receive subsidies for farmers and fishermen (though many will question the appropriateness and value of these), and we also gain a political union that can stand up to China, USA, Russia, Brazil and India in the global war for resources. As part of a bigger power base, the UK is more likely to be globally influential.

CLAIM: Auditors have failed to sign off account EU spending for the last 18 years.

ANSWER: True. This article in the Telegraph shows that the EU had an overall error rate of 3.9% in 2011, which is too high for the European Court of Auditors to sign off. The European Commission nonetheless point out that the error rate does not mean the money is lost, because when fraud or irregularities are detected, the EU claims the money back from the member state.

CLAIM: Britain cannot control immigration from EU because of open border regulations.

ANSWER: EU citizens have the unrestricted right to live and work in the UK where non-EU citizens require authorisation before taking a job. This is a strange thing to make an issue of, as citizens from outside the EU can still live and work in the UK if they fulfill certain criteria. The jury is out on whether this is a good or bad thing. Immigration brings skills that UK workers do not have and increases the flexibility of the labour market, but it also puts greater pressure om infrastructure, such as the housing market and the NHS.

CLAIM: Apart from Belgium, Holland and Malta, Britain has the highest density population in the EU, and is rising dramatically due to immigration.

ANSWER: True, or at least according to Wikipedia. The enclosed page gives these statistics. However, the UK has the second highest population in the EU too, so perhaps this is not surprising. As a comparison, Greece has one of the lowest population densities, so it cannot be suggested that low population density in itself is something to aspire to. Nonetheless, all the main political parties seem to be in agreement that the level of immigration should be controlled somehow.

It should be mentioned that there are potential benefits to high population. Many immigrants are young people looking for work, and this article from the Guardian suggests that this could help avoid shortfalls in pension liabilities that will be experienced in other nations where the numbers of young people are falling.

CLAIM: In excess of 500,000 Polish migrants alone are known to be in the UK (2011 Census).

ANSWER: True. The BBC have released the following figures from the 2011 census, showing that an estimated 579,000 Poles live in the UK. Once again, it is difficult to see the significance of this figure, particularly given the previous articles about how the population in the UK is set to grow to approx 77m by 2060. I am privileged to know several Polish people who work alongside me in local government, and the following Wikipedia page lists many individuals of Polish descent who have made significant contributions to the UK - including Labour leader Ed Miliband, who was born to a Polish mother.

CLAIM: If we left the EU, many of these jobs would be available to the British unemployed. Where sufficient British skilled workers are currently not yet available, visas could be issued to EU workers, as is the case for non-EU migrants at present.

ANSWER: Potentially, it would be possible to set up an arrangement whereby every immigrant, wherever they were from, would require a visa to work in the UK. However, immediately leaving the EU would not guarantee that many of the current immigrant population were forced to leave the UK - many could expect to receive visas by virtue of successive generations living and working in the UK - and as 'elsyd' himself implies, this does not guarantee that UK workers could be found to fill the gaps.

The counter question I would ask is that if you have a worker in post, who is diligent, effective and contributes both to your culture and your economy, why would you seek the upheaval of replacing them en masse just because of their nationality? Then again, perhaps we could find jobs for them in the new, massive, bureaucratic visa service...

CLAIM: There is a serious housing shortage in the UK which requires building on swathes of Greenfield sites. If we were not in the EU, many existing homes would become available, thus protecting our countryside.

ANSWER: Once again, this seems to imply that as soon as we left the EU, we could force large numbers of people to become immediately homeless, necessitating their swift return to the country of their origin. Leaving aside how ridiculous this suggestion is, we could instead look to articles such as this one, which suggests that greenbelt policy has more to do with boosting house prices than protecting the countryside. Then there are BBC articles that suggest only around 10% of land in the UK is 'urban', and that even less than that is actually built on. The one fact we can agree on is that if the population really is going to jump by 17 million people in the next fifty years, they will need homes to live in, so someone had better start building them, pronto.

CLAIM: Uncontrolled numbers of Bulgarians, Romanians and Roma Gypsies will have freedom to come to Britain at the end of this year.

ANSWER: As those nations become part of the EU, they will gain the right to move and work anywhere within Europe, as any other EU citizen already has. Some are likely to come to Britain, with the positive and negative impacts that have already been discussed. The Independent may like to suggest that Romanians in London are either 'beggars, pickpockets and prostitutes', but this ignores the fact that as with Poles and many other races before them, most of those that come here will do so to work and offer their families a chance at a better life.

CLAIM: EU migrants have the same access to benefits as UK citizens – jobseekers, housing, etc.

ANSWER: Partly true. However, the implication here is that anyone can stroll out of the EU and demand a huge house and limitless benefits without ever having worked in the UK. This presentation to Islington council makes it clear that those who have never worked in the UK are likely to have 'no recourse to public funds' (i.e. they are not eligible to receive benefits) and that the UK already has the right to restrict access to the labour market in the UK under existing EU treaties. This means that the UK can freely decide to restrict people from working, and by default, restrict their access to benefits.

CLAIM: The tremendous pressures on our NHS, Schools and Transport would be considerably reduced, if we left the EU.

ANSWER: The answer to this is far more complex than a simple statement of this kind can address. If fewer people lived in the UK, there would be less need for infrastructure, but also fewer taxpayers paying for it, and if all the foreign nurses employed in the UK were asked to leave the UK immediately, this would leave the profession in crisis. You could respond with a similarly incongruous argument - namely that the NHS, schools and transport could all do more if they received more funding, so logically, we should automatically increase the tax rate to do this.

CLAIM: UK trade is declining with EU whilst exports are growing to emerging economies such as China and India.

ANSWER: Figures from UKTradeInfo suggest that for the last two years, UK imports and exports both inside and out of the EU have remained largely static - significantly, long term trend data is not easy to come by, so this is surely a generalisation. The sentiment that 'elsyd' is expressing - that it is advantageous for the UK to trade with emerging economies - should not be taken to suggest that we do not benefit from trade with EU markets.

CLAIM: The EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) has all but destroyed our own Fishing Industry. Free from EU rules we would be able to resurrect this great, renewable resource.

ANSWER: Short of sending out warships, it is hard to see exactly how we could protect our fishing waters. Regardless, it could be argued that the CFP has played a role in protecting future fish stocks through a number of policies which are explained in detail here. With many of our stocks already overfished, it is not as straightforward as simply leaving the UK and sending boats back out to sea.

However, there remain stories about boats dumping dead fish back into the sea, and CFP will retain its status as a contentious cornerstone issue of the UK's place in Europe.

CLAIM: As a member of the EU, we pay huge subsidies to French farmers. Is it not time we supported our own agricultural industry?

ANSWER: France receives farming subsidies, as does the UK. However, the figures show that like the UK, France is a net contributor to the EU.

CLAIM: Our country is virtually governed, not by British Law, but by EU regulations, including many of the idiotic rulings of the European Court of Human Rights. If we left, we would be free to keep the 'sensible' ones and create a 'UK Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.' Britain would then be free to legislate in the interests of its own people.

ANSWER: Ah, damn those human rights...if only we didn't have them, there'd be none of this nonsense requiring employers to pay a minimum wage, nothing obliging them to provide a safe and comfortable working environment and nothing preventing governments from installing whatever crazy laws they wanted, without anyone being able to do a thing about it.

Since EU law is created from a consensus based on member law (something that the UK contributes to), it is arguably more democratic than anything we have in the UK. Yes, it still makes silly mistakes, but those are inevitable in any legal system and a system external to the EU would not make the UK immune to this problem.

CLAIM: The EU is moving towards a Federal State of Europe, with ever greater fiscal and political integration. Britain’s ability to rule itself would disappear and we would be ruled by the bureaucrats in Brussels.

ANSWER: Those would be the same MEP bureaucrats that we...elect democratically on a regular basis, correct? Fiscal and financial integration does throw up some minefields (e.g the Euro, common interest rates) but these are not a cast iron argument against integration. You could argue, for example, that integration of members states hasn't worked out too badly for the US.

There are genuine questions to be answered about the UK's role in Europe, and we cannot afford to let our biased newspaper owners and editors to own the debate. I don't claim to have the answers, but I can at least frame the questions. For example, large numbers of us would apparently prefer a renegotiated relationship with the EU. What, then, should we be negotiating? It is perhaps ironic that Germany, the country traditionally viewed as the one that gets the most benefit from the EU, is its biggest contributor.

'Vote for Me, It's Like Losing Your Virginity'

Does anyone else remember 'Tarrant on TV'?  For those whose memories of Chris Tarrant only go back as far as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire or the tabloid pictures of him being kicked out of his mansion by his furious ex-wife for having it away with a youthful TV researcher, he used to have a show where risque TV adverts from around the world were shown for comedy effect.

Of course, away from the stiff upper lips of flaccid grey Britain, adverts full of innuendo are used for party political broadcast purposes.  In Russia, Vladimir Putin's ruling party have released the following video that compares a young female voter's decision to vote for Putin for the first time with her decision to lose her virginity.

Am I alone in finding this sort of thing slightly sinister? I suppose that people who complain that living in the digital world means that your children are sexualised before the appropriate age will now at least find that they become democratically inclined as well, even if the vote itself is less than democratic.

Still, there's a part of me that would respect an advert for the Conservative Party that ran with the honest slogan - 'Vote for David Cameron, he'll screw the NHS!'

Boobs, and the Health Privatisation That Causes Them

News has been spreading in recent weeks about potential health problems suffered by women who have received Poly Implant Prothèse (PIP) breast implants for health or augmentation purposes. The now defunct-French company is estimated to have produced two million implants over a twenty year period, with the company and its founder, Jean-Claude Mas, now at the heart of a worldwide public-health care scandal.

Governments have been quick to play down a link between leaking implants and cancer, but those with the implants have gone on record about hair loss, nausea and other symptoms. As well as risks associated with rupture and the necessary surgeries, it has emerged that the implants themselves may have been created using impure, industrial grade silicon rather than the higher grade required for medical use.

Plastic surgeon Kevin Hancock, of the Liverpool Women's Hospital, says there were concerns in the profession over a high rupture rate. "We are worried about the rupture risk because it is the rupture that brings the contents into direct contact with the body's tissues."

In the UK, we have seen a suggestion from some quarters that the risk of rupture of PIP implants is as high as 8% when compared to 1% for other implants. The French government has since taken the step of advising women with PIP implants to have them removed, despite the increased risks of further surgery. The British government has yet to take this stance, but the NHS has committed itself to covering the cost of similar operations for British women, even though 95% of patients who received the implants did so through private clinics.

Significantly, the company who supplied these products never sought to get the quality approved by independent health experts, meaning that no-one is too sure whether the products are toxic or not. Women worldwide now face an anxious wait to see if and how their health will be affected.

A statement published by the Department of Health said that it expected private firms to match the NHS offer on removal and replacement of the implants among those women with concerns. "We expect the private sector to do the same for their patients. We believe that private providers have a duty to take steps to provide appropriate after-care to patients they have treated."

Notice that the department's statement does not suggest whether this duty is a legal one (it is) or a moral one (it damn well should be). In this instance, we have seen the private sector making a fast buck at the taxpayer's expense (not to mention potentially endangering patient lives) while the public sector will once again be left to pick up the pieces.

Meanwhile, if anyone is ever looking for an example of where the use of private firms to deliver healthcare has resulted in boobs, they now have a ready made example.

You are the NHS

Some aspects of Wednesday's post about the NHS have surprised me by the reaction they have generated amongst readers. Some were sceptical that the NHS bill is actually going to make much difference from the patient perspective. After all, care is care, right? And anyway, others said, news stories like the recent one about the CQC inspection of hospitals show us that maybe the NHS could do with some assistance from the private sector to help raise standards.

I have a lot of friends who work directly and indirectly for the NHS. They include nurses, commissioners, analysts, care staff and more. On the basis that these people from their various disciplines will have a greater understanding of the trials and challenges facing the service than I do, I have decided to thoughtfully reflect on some of the comments they have made to me since my previous entry. I will also try to look at a few of the central tenets of the pro-bill argument, and do my best to analyse them in greater detail.

The NHS is already costing the UK more, year-on-year, as the general population increases and the baby-boomer generation approaches retirement.

Put simply, it will cost more to provide healthcare to a bigger population with a high elderly contingent. As the population grows, greater taxation will offset the effect somewhat, provided there are jobs available for the population to do. This process will self-regulate to some degree in a well-managed economy, as businesses are more likely to hire staff when labour costs are low, and pressure of increasing unemployment lowers labour costs for unskilled workers.

General government expenditure on the NHS as a % of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has risen year-on-year from 3% to nearly 9% since the early eighties. However, the figures shown here suggest that the bulk of that increase has ocurred since 2000 and thus part of the increase shown could be a reflection of the recent economic crisis on the UK's GDP.

The graphs also show that real-term % increases on NHS spending vary wildly and tend to be lower in years when growth is stagnant in the economy. This suggests that previous governments have reflected economic pressures in their spending decisions on healthcare.

Also, there are figures available that suggest that the US healthcare system we seem eager to emulate spends more per person on healthcare than practically anywhere else in the world, but continually ranks among the lowest in terms of quality care. The conclusion we can take from this is that how money is spent is as important as how much.

If a private provider can carry out NHS work for a lower price, doesn't it make sense to let them do so?

The question to ask is WHY a private provider can do this. If the reason is a genuine one - economies of scale, access to skills or equipment that the NHS does not have as standard, then all very well and I agree that this makes sense.

However, let us not forget that private companies also have to factor in profit margins, and therefore this is not a zero-sum equation. Private sector workers work longer hours for lower rewards, have worse working conditions, reduced access to pensions, collective bargaining and so on.

These conditions create low-skilled, low-motivation workforces where mistakes are commonplace, and we should not compromise on quality of service or workers' rights to deliver lower-cost procedures.

The choice agenda means that if people prefer to use in-house NHS services, they can stil do so.

I have to confess that I've never quite understood the choice agenda. In theory, care is free to all at the point of delivery, and assuming that every area shuld have equal access to the same healthcare, why would you even need a choice? We would all simply go to our nearest health centre and get treatment later the same day.

In practise, of course I realise that things are not this simple. If you needed heart surgery and had a choice of two hospitals, one of which had a 90% survival rate and one of which had a 10% survival rate, you wouldn't need to be Einstein to make the choice between the two.

The problem I have with this is that this decision requires us to apply rationalisations without ever exploring the underlying causes for the figures. To use the above (rather fatuous) example, rather than spending money on putting an infrastructure in place to allow me to make a decision informed by nothing more than a malleable statistic, why is the money not spent making the necessary improvements to the hospital with the 10% survival rate to increase it?

To sum up - I think it's a safe assumption that people will opt for quality of care as being more important than distance to travel and that while the patient isn't paying the cost, cost will therefore be an irrelevant factor. As long as the necessary standard of care can be provided, people will not care whether their provider is a private or a public sector organisation.

The NHS shouldn't be seen as sacred - it is a means by which the government dispenses healthcare responsibilities to UK residents, and nothing more.

Oh, danger. The NHS is a national institution and internationally renowned. There are some who see it as part of a greater national identity and that is why politicians talk of it as special.

There are an awful lot of people whose limited understanding of the proposals means that they will see any suggestion of changes to the NHS as a bad thing regardless of the rationale for doing so. Additionally, people will have seen on the television and in the media that the British Medical Association (BMA) is concerned about aspects of the changes. They will see stories about practises asking for money for procedures and start to fear that they will be asked to pay to see a doctor. They will worry, justifiably, about the over-reaching powers of the competition regulator, Monitor, and the unclarified role of the Secretary of State.

As a socialist, I am concerned by this government's frantic desire to push through NHS reform without clarifying or consulting with the electorate about what they want. They use terms like 'choice' and 'consultation' wihout giving anyone a choice about what happens or paying heed to consultation outcomes.

If there is scope for improving the NHS, this is something that can be debated on a national level and agreed changes can be phased in as appropriate. We are all aware of the supposed need for austerity. This could be used as a means to make people think about the economic realities of our situation and engage them in ways to make improvements. 'So Mrs Smith, do you want us to build more hospitals or to spend billions of pounds of public funds to bail out failing private banks?'

Finally, we are quick to criticise our healthcare staff but the thankless job they do in difficult circumstances is generally an excellent one. Politicians claim the headlines and put forward consultations, initiatives and more but it is dedicated NHS workers who make sense of the chaos imposed upon them on a daily basis. We should all be thankful that they do.

A Bad Day In Britain

It's a bad day to be living in modern Britain. As the unemployment figures reach their highest level for seventeen years, the House of Lords has rubber-stamped the Government's plan to tender the NHS to any willing provider. Let's hope you weren't planning to get ill any time soon, because frankly, none of us can afford it.

I'm not going to go into a right wing vs. left wing debate about the merits of publicly vs. privately provided services, especially when there is plenty of scope to do that underneath the comments on the Guardian website. I especially love the trolls who comment that anyone with a public-sector ethos doesn't live in the real world and thinks that money grows on trees. All I can say by way of slightly smug response is that you can get a lot of money in the short-term by selling a goose that lays golden eggs, but that doesn't necessarily make it a good idea.

For the benefit of the lobotomised, here's a quick summary. All else being equal, if a private sector company can deliver the services that the public sector would deliver to the same standard while funding the profit margin that the shareholders demand at the same or lower cost, then you should use the private company. Otherwise, public will out.

Simple, right? A calculation that any of us could do, surely. I have spent my career watching the private sector cherry pick public services and I know that as with most things, sometimes the private sector contracts work well and sometimes they fail. I also know that the failures tend to be expensive and spectacular, and for your convenience, I have enclosed links to news items on the Connaught and Southern Cross debacles which have both directly impacted on people living in Norwich.

What is often forgotten or ignored in the midst of howling rhetoric and hysterical political point-scoring is that the true cost of such failures goes well beyond the balance sheet. How can any accountant, however skilled, put a price on the anxiety of a private sector worker with no employment protection, or an elderly person who fears they may lose their home?

As George Osborne presides over a second risky round of quantitative easing in a desperate and forlorn attempt to kick-start the economy and inflation begins to spiral upwards, the ministers in charge of the government of these isles are spending their days debating cats rather than putting their noses to the grindstone and coming up with some new ideas for creating growth and social prospects.

At the head of the table, David Cameron dons his top hat, pours tea and spouts nonsense as his unelected minions ride roughshod over public opinion with all the social grace of Panzers in wartime Europe.

An amusing image it may be, but it could soon spell the end for a free health service envied worldwide but nonetheless soon to be sold off for private profit.

Can the Lords save the Health Service?

Lansley, greedy Andrew Lansley, tosser...sorry, where was I? Ah, after several weeks of novel writing and irreverence, I find myself back in my bread-and-butter world of political outrage. Like many unionistas, my current cause for concern is the NHS. Sure, the economy is still in freefall, but it's been like that for years now and it's only the poor and the vulnerable that are suffering. Meanwhile, our Health Minister dons the oven gloves of political shame and juggles his hot potato without even pausing to think about how his reforms will affect those that need the service the most. He may seem to have no grace, but then how many Conservative ministers have ever had a rap written about them? That's street, dog!

I's shoutin' out for ma possee in da Bullingdon, innit!

Once again while their paymasters discuss their plans in secret, the Lapdog Democrats shamelessly fawn for attention and fall on any scraps thrown to them by government. Norfolk's own Norman Lamb had threatened to quit his post as Nick Clegg's chief adviser in April over the NHS restructuring in England but is now backtracking furiously and advising others that the reforms will give the NHS 'certainty'. What would appear to be certain is that privatisation is top of the agenda, despite Nick Clegg having told the country that this would not happen under any circumstances. But then, these days Liberal Democrat U-turns happen about as often as cold days in Britain in June.

Public sector workers showed yesterday in Kings Lynn that Norman Lamb's sentiments are not shared by all of those that work in the service.

While the party members bristle uncomfortably and the MPs about-face every time they breathe, it falls to the Liberal Democrat peers to set up an effective opposition to Tory privatisation plans. Baroness Shirley Williams is a peer with a number of concerns about the revised reforms and chief among them is a legal doubt as to whether the secretary of state will any longer be bound to deliver a comprehensive health service for the people of the UK, free at the point of need. Removing this clause would effectively torpedo the central tenet at the heart of the NHS.

Williams makes the very good point that she is not against the notion that private elements in the NHS could improve core standards and bring new ideas. And of course, there is a temptation to simply provide a direct foil to the government's 'private good, public bad' mantra. Trade unionists are not against positive change, but we know full well that squeezing a profit margin into a financial transaction immediately introduces pressures elsewhere. Standards of care cannot and should not be made to suffer so that rich people grow richer.

Williams writes in the Observer, "Why have they tried to get away from the NHS as a public service, among the most efficient, least expensive and fairest anywhere in the world? Why have they been bewitched by a flawed US system that is unable to provide a universal service and is very expensive indeed?" The international companies that are being mooted as potential recipients for health service contracts by consultancy firm McKinsey have no interest in the well-being of UK residents, just of seeing a return on their investments.

It is to be hoped that the NHS, a cultural icon in the UK as significant as the Royal Family and more important than any other, a service set-up to provide free health care at the point of need to rich and poor alike, will be preserved by the close attention of dissenters in the House of Lords.

Discipline and Fear

Oh, I was doing so well. It's been a beautiful few days and I've been taking the opportunity to get outside, watch some sport, enjoy the sunshine and generally not get upset or offended by anything. Of course, then I happened to flick briefly through the liberal press, and at the risk of mixing my metaphors, I discovered a proverbial turd in the ointment.

Enter Oliver Letwin, Conservative MP for West Dorset. This craven Thatcherite relic, exposed by his regressive plans for local government as far back as 2001 when he occupied the position of Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, has already been a policy leader in the government's proposed breakup of the NHS. If that were not in itself a reason to despise him, he has now attacked those very workers who are responsible for ensuring that the country's most essential services are delivered for the benefit of those who need them the most.

The Guardian yesterday reported Mr Letwin as having said the following:

"You can't have room for innovation and the pressure for excellence without having some real discipline and some fear on the part of the providers that things may go wrong if they don't live up to the aims that society as a whole is demanding of them."

Firstly let us bear in mind that Mr Letwin is a banker, and by extension of his profession, can probably teach us all something about letting society down. We should also bear in mind that he went into hiding in 2001 as a result of his disastrous work on that year's Conservative election campaign. Yet, in a manner contrary to his own suggestion that failure should carry consequences, he has now risen phoenix-like to a position specially created for him in the Cabinet Office.

It is also worth mentioning that Mr Letwin's ill-advised comments were made at a report launch at the headquarters of KPMG, a private consultancy firm that has been among the first to benefit from tendered NHS contracts. In these times of cuts to health and social care budgets, I'm comforted to know that consultancy firms are still raking in hard-earned money from the taxpayer. As everyone familiar with consultancy firms knows, they rarely recommend that you waste less money on consultants.

I could go on and on about how Letwin is a figurehead in a government whose policies are in no way ameliorating the UK's perilous financial position, or that it is a truly horrible thing to expect fear of joblessness and resultant poverty to act as a motivator for excellence. The reason that this matters so much is that the changes proposed by this Tory-led government will have a massive effect on how the UK develops over the medium to long-term future. It may seem obvious to state, but many of the cuts being made by the coalition are resulting in real hardships for many and the services and expertise being lost are not easily replaceable.


Public sector workers will shake our heads and batten down the hatches. We are used to continual abuse - both from our paymasters and the public we serve. Tomorrow they will attack us again - threaten our conditions, our pay, our pensions, always spreading lies about how much better the service will be when it is being provided by a private firm with a profit margin and absolutely no duty of care. No doubt if he ever needs an ambulance, Mr Letwin would want his privately-paid paramedics to be highly focused on their jobs as a result of his proposed reign of terror. Let's just hope that they're not too scared to go to him in the first place.

Public sector workers - your doctors, nurses, taxmen, binmen, social carers - know that we deliver a great and improving service on a consistent basis, and it is only a flagrant and unforgivable lack of resources from central government that prevent us from improving further. No matter that we are already disciplined enough to put the needs of others above the opportunity to earn higher wages elsewhere. The public sector already feels the fear, and does it anyway.

March for the Alternative, 26th March 2011

I have a confession to make - despite my unerring belief in the cause promoted by yesterday's March for the Alternative in London, I didn't attend the event myself. Today, as I watch coverage of the event on the news and read the stories of those that marched, I realise that I have missed out on something very special and something that I had a great responsibility to be a part of.


As I know I have a few overseas readers, I realise that I may need to explain a little about yesterday's event. Put simply, the coalition government in Britain is utilising a number of questionable fiscal justifications to privatise institutions that are central to Britain's culture and living standards, such as the National Health Service. Rather than examine in detail the root causes of our financial crisis, they have sought to address the deficit issue at a breakneck speed, despite evidence suggesting that this is not the best way to support the fragile economic recovery. Using the deficit as an excuse, they have introduced policies that benefit the largest companies in Britain while penalising and marginalising the poorest and most vulnerable individuals.

Yesterday, finally, the government's plans were publicly opposed as more than half a million trade unionists, public sector workers, pro-peace groups and concerned individuals marched through the streets of London to a rally in the city's Hyde Park.

As anyone familiar with protests in modern Britain might have predicted, today's headlines are about the minority of violent thugs who descended upon Trafalgar Square well after the march had ended, and those members of protest group UKUncut who took direct action by occupying thirteen shops on Oxford Street that members believe are dodging corporation tax responsibilities. I cannot condone any of those actions and Trades Union Congress have publicly condemned those who have been involved in violent acts following the demonstration. Credit should go to Metropolitan Police Commander Bob Broadhurst, who was quick to state his belief that the destructive minority were not associated with the peaceful marchers who did so much yesterday to promote their genuine cause.

The march must be taken in context. Those on the route covered an entire spectrum of respectable society, including retired care workers, representatives of disability rights groups, middle class parents who purposely took their young children, and students burdened with debt as a result of the regressive policies of consecutive governments. More importantly, it represented the first genuine show of opposition to devastating coalition reforms. For me, it is a tremendous irony that opposition leader Ed Miliband did not make the march alongside the very people he will see as his natural supporters come the next general election.


The March for the Alternative was the largest march of its kind since the protest about Blair's war in Iraq. However, it alone will not be enough to derail a government who are gambling massively on economic growth paving the way to a stable future. Margaret Thatcher once famously stated that she was not for turning, and David Cameron will be keen to show that just because he does not have a mandate does not mean that he cannot seize an opportunity when one is presented to him.

It is a fact that strong opposition leads to stronger and more accountable government and this is the first evidence that the labour movement is stirring from its long slumber and preparing to face down the threat to its survival. 26th March 2011 will hopefully be remembered as a watershed for many reasons - it may be a day that prompted government supporters to consider the genuine consequences of their decisions, or a day which began a movement that successfully demonstrated the massively positive role that well-funded public services play in a healthy and vibrant society. Perhaps, most importantly of all, it will be remembered as the day that trade unions in Britain regained their pride.

A Hellish Epiphany

I've been suffering some computer problems lately so I apologise to those people who read my page that I've gone a week without blogging.

I was going to do a humourous comedy piece today to cleverly juxtapose the serious political issues that I discuss but I was in the newsagents an hour ago buying a Mars Bar and had an epiphany that I realised I needed to share.

Standing and waiting to pay for my chocolatey goodness, I scanned the newspapers at the counter in the idle way that I do. The Daily Mirror defied everything we know about mathematics to suggest that there is "a chance" that Posh Spice may give birth to a daughter, and the Sunday Sport was running a piece called "Kimberly Walsh in boob shock!" In short, it's a typical tabloid Saturday in Britain and all seemed well with the world.

I then reached the bottom of the rack to see a small column on the front of the Independent entitled, "My War on Multiculturalism". It is David Cameron's personal take on how Britain's ethnic minorities are failing the decent, God-fearing, Daily Mail readers of our country.

Now, I don't want this entry to descend into comment on a specific policy. The story itself will undoubtedly be unfair to minorities, contain conjecture stated as fact and to top it off, it will probably be entirely unrepresentative of how Cameron actually feels. This entry is not about minorities. Instead, it's about a moment of realisation that made me almost choke in shock.

With every single cut that this government makes and every socially-divisive piece that is written in its stead, I, my fellow union stewards and my politically-aware friends and coleagues have yelled, 'ideology!' but I confess until this moment, I didn't fully realise the implications of what I was saying. As part of this government's slash-and-burn policy, we have seen the NHS, local government and social care decimated, to mention just a few of the coalition changes. I have braced myself to oppose whatever the government suggests as an alternative to the current state of affairs - and here's the horror - they aren't suggesting an alternative. They are simply cutting in the belief that it is the only way to change our society.

David Cameron is not a tinkerman, simply looking to keep the system and replace one face with another. It is not even that he is looking to change the system. Instead, he has decided that the only way to change Britain for the better is to tear down everything that has been built and start again completely from scratch. Like God looking down before the Great Flood, he has seen, judged and deemed us all unworthy.

As I staggered, bleary-eyed, from the shop, I wondered frantically if everyone else sees this already. I wondered if I was the only blind one, or the only one who can see. It is simply this. If you are elderly, there will be no care. If you are disabled, there will be no support. You will accept the reduced terms of your pension scheme, or you will get no pension. If you are attacked in the street and the police are unable to direct resources to you, you will get no justice. Most tellingly of all, if you are sick, you will get better on your own, or you will die.

Even as I am writing this, I feel like the lowest of the conspiracy-theorists you see sometimes on American TV. I am miserable and cannot even look at my Mars Bar. But most of all, I understand now why I'm really involved in a campaign to derail this government's policies. I cannot stand and do nothing as Cameron pushes more people into poverty, promotes inequality, induces misery and adds to the suffering of millions of people around me. We all deserve better.