The unmissable Sarah Palin battle hymn
Sweet. Jesus.
(from Boing Boing, via @leohickman)
WikiLeaks, Swiss banks and the myth of protecting Jewish assets
Wikileaks has been handed confidential information by banker Rudolf Elmer, which threatens to reveal Swiss banking complicity in tax evasion and other criminal activity.
Accordingly, Elmer is to go on criminal trial for breaking Swiss bank secrecy laws.
One thing you can expect to hear around the build-up to this case is that Swiss banking secrecy was enacted to protect Jewish assets from the Nazis during the 1930s.
continue reading… »
Govt blowing everything up, say NHS execs
The Times newspaper today published a letter by healthcare professionals who say that the government is not heeding to “warnings” about key proposals.
The letter (published below) says that the reforms are “extremely risky” and “potentially disastrous”.
One of the co-signatories: Phil Gray, chief executive of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP), told Liberal Conspiracy today that the NHS was “not broken”.
These reforms have real potential to put patient care at risk and represent a massive gamble with the future of the NHS.
The government has no mandate for these reforms – it promised no top-down reform of the NHS and this cannot be sold as anything other than that.
The NHS is not broken. Waiting lists have been coming down and services are improving. Of course there is more to do but there has to be a better way than blowing everything up and starting again.
A recent survey by the Kings Fund and others show that the vast majority of GPs are sceptical or totally opposed to the reforms.
Though a minority of GPs are genuinely enthusiastic, most have signed up to the scheme so that they are not at the back of the queue for the changes being imposed because they will not want their patients to lose out.
The letter in the Times today
Dear Sir
Radical reform of the NHS in England is expected to come a major step closer this week, with publication of the Health and Social Care Bill. As unions and professional organisations representing the 1.3 million staff who make up the NHS, we are extremely concerned that the government is not heeding the warnings about key elements of the proposals. We recognise the need to provide NHS services more cost-effectively, but we believe this can and must be achieved without taking unnecessary risks and damaging care.
One of the major concerns, is the role that the NHS’ economic regulator, Monitor, will be given to ensure that any willing providers, including NHS and voluntary organisations, and commercial companies, are able to compete to provide all NHS services. In addition, the 2011/12 operating framework for the NHS, published last month, revealed that providers will be able to offer services to commissioners at less than the published mandatory tariff price.
There is clear evidence that price competition in healthcare is damaging. Research by economists at Imperial College shows that, following the introduction of competition in the NHS in the 1990s, under a system that allowed hospitals to negotiate prices, there was a fall in clinical quality. With scarce resources there is a serious danger that the focus will be on cost, not quality.
Enforced competition will also make it harder for NHS staff to work collaboratively in multi-disciplinary teams, across organisational boundaries, to create the integrated care pathways that patients want and need, and that will help make services more efficient.
Furthermore the sheer scale of the ambitious and costly reform programme, and the pace of change, whilst at the same time being tasked with making £20 billion of savings, is extremely risky and potentially disastrous.
Yours sincerely
Dr Hamish Meldrum, Chairman of Council, British Medical Association
Dr Peter Carter, Chief Executive and General Secretary, Royal College of Nursing
Karen Jennings, National Secretary Health, UNISON
Karen Reay, National Officer, Health, Unite the Union
Professor Cathy Warwick CBE, General Secretary, Royal College of Midwives
Phil Gray, Chief Executive, Chartered Society of Physiotherapy
Two weeks ago the Health Select Committee highlighted that the figures being quoted by the DH for what it will cost (1.7bn) is not the correct figure. In fact that was the figure provided by the previous government for the changes they were planning. The Health Select Committee say it will cost substantially more.
Does the Broken of Britain campaign need celebrity support?
contribution by David Mentiply
As Sue Marsh has pointed out, the consultation on Disability Living Allowance reform ends on 14th February 2011 – Valentines Day.
Though traditionally a day for love, many disabled people and their carers fear the findings could be very bleak. That is why the Broken of Britain campaign is important.
It is run by disabled people for disabled people and is determined to be heard above the cacophony of government rhetoric on the need to cut.
continue reading… »
Watch: When Cameron promised not to cut EMA
A vote in Parliament and protests across the country are planned this week in relation to the axing of the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMAs).
There was not previously going to be a vote as it came under departmental spending. But Labour is planning to force a motion through the Commons on Wednesday 19th January.
James Mills of the Save EMA campaign told Liberal Conspiracy:
The 19th January will be the time when we will know which MPs want to support his lie and those who want to stand up for the poorest teenagers in our country and Save EMA.
At a Cameron Direct event in January 2009, David Cameron responded to a question from Save EMA campaign director James Mills, says that he supports Educational Maintenance Allowances.
Watch
And when education secretary Michael Gove was interviewed by Education Guardian readers before the general election, he said:
Ed Balls keeps saying that we are committed to scrapping the EMA. I have never said this. We won’t.
But the Tory-led government is ending EMA and plans to cease all payments at the end of the academic year 2011.
A report by the independent Institute of Fiscal Studies late last year came out strongly against the government’s claims on EMA, arguing that:
1. Previous work by IFS researchers found that the EMA significantly increased participation rates in post-16 education among young adults who were eligible to receive it.
2. The costs of providing EMA were likely to be exceeded in the long run by the higher wages that its recipients would go to enjoy in future.
A local day of action across the country has been called for tomorrow.
A march on Parliament is also planned by Education Activist Network later in the day.
‘Progressive Majority’ – what does it even mean?
People are always quick to throw accusations of ‘triangulation’ at centre-left politicians without due consideration, I think.
Tony Blair and Bill Clinton definitely employed that strategy – because it involved deliberately picking fights with your own side in order to convince right-wing voters you weren’t as left-wing as they thought.
But that is starkly different to disagreeing with your own side and saying that when asked. Obama, for example, may have not moved fast enough on issues like DADT and legislation to deal with climate change, but he hasn’t gone out to pick fights with the left to placate right-wingers.
continue reading… »
Memo to Labour: no Royal Wedding strike
On Andrew Marr’s show yesterday, Labour leader Ed Miliband said:
I’m appalled by the idea that there are going to be strikes to disrupt the Royal Wedding. That’s absolutely the wrong thing for the trade unions to do.
I would totally condemn that and similarly in relation to the Olympics…
This was in response to a question by Andrew Marr, who raised the issue with Ed Miliband.
There is a simple response to the question: there are no strikes planned during the Royal Wedding.
The ASLEF union published this release a week ago:
ASLEF’s General Secretary Keith Norman said today that the question of possible industrial action on the day of the Royal Wedding has not even been discussed by the union’s executive.
The union’s London officer Steve Grant stressed that no ballot had been held and the union and the management were due to resume negotiations about compensation for all Bank Holiday working by London Underground tube drivers.
‘The story is premature to say the least,’ Keith added
Similarly, general secretary-elect of Unite Len McCluskey dismissed the possibility of British Airways cabin crew striking on the same day and over the Easter period.
And yet the BBC keeps perpetuating this myth, while Labour politicians keep feeding it.
Why do left activists keep pushing for confrontations with the police?
contribution by Jacob Bard-Rosenberg
We already know the story too well: mass protests in Parliament Square inevitably end up with everyone being kettled until 11pm, violent confrontations with the police in which activists get beaten up or more seriously hurt, and plenty of arrests to boot.
Every indication in the press has been that the reaction from the police and the state towards future student protests will be stronger and more violent than it has been. The left are not to blame for the brutal police tactics, they are not guilty of kettling anyone, and they are not responsible for arrests.
continue reading… »
Tory MEP makes ‘turn’ homosexuals remark
This was Tory MEP Roger Helmer a few hours ago on Twitter:
Why is it OK for a surgeon to perform a sex-change operation, but not OK for a psychiatrist to try to “turn” a consenting homosexual?
Several hundred people on Twitter have since condemned Helmer for his homophobia.
But Roger Helmer MEP has a long history of such nonsense.
A couple of years ago Helmer said that the word homophobia was a “propaganda device”. He wrote on his blog:
And while we’re mentioning semantic issues, let me point out that the neologism “homophobia” is not so much a word as a political agenda. In psychiatry, a phobia is defined as an irrational fear. I have yet to meet anyone who has an irrational fear of homosexuals, or of homosexuality. So to the extent that the word has any meaning at all, it describes something which simply does not exist.
“Homophobia” is merely a propaganda device designed to denigrate and stigmatise those holding conventional opinions, which have been held by most people through most of recorded history. It is frightening evidence of the way in which political correctness is threatening our freedom.
Mr Helmer is regularly allowed to spout his views on websites such as ConservativeHome.
Ed Miliband’s speech: the good bits and the bad bits
I’m not going to do some extended analysis on the speech yet, just going to categorise the bits I liked and disliked.
I’m simply quoting from Ed M’s speech and listing them as points.
continue reading… »
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» Revealed: govt to restrict abortion counselling despite Nadine Dorries vote
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» Violence in the office
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» The world is entering the third phase of the crisis, warns ILO
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