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.

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.