Did Labour councils deliberately cut frontline services?
Guest post by George W. Potter
I’ve been holding up the example of Lib Dem run Sheffield council vs Labour run Manchester council recently as an example of how councils aren’t forced to cut public services – they choose to. I’ve been challenged on this comparison so this is an article where I’m going to compare as much as possible between the two councils to try and settle the issue once and for all. continue reading… »
International concern for Libya must be regarded with scepticism
contribution by David Wearing
Now that Britain is engaged in military action over Libya, a particular responsibility falls upon us to understand what is happening there, to make sense of it as best we can, and to use the political freedoms we enjoy to place appropriate pressures on the British government where necessary.
This is not a responsibility that we can begin to discharge with any degree of seriousness if we simply assume the states engaged in this action to be agents of liberation and humanitarianism. continue reading… »
What place for the Church in the Big Society?
contribution by James Townsend.
David Cameron would have us believe that the ‘Big Society’ was his idea, or at least that of Nat Wei. In truth, this is an idea that dates back at least two thousand years. At essence it is encapsulated in the simple, pithy phrase of Christ: “Love thy neighbour.”
The Church of England is ideally positioned to take a lead in the Big Society – it holds a unique claim to have a presence in every community across our nation. But our Church is also facing a crisis of identity, ripping itself apart over theological debates, while watching its congregation grow old and die. continue reading… »
Tory MPs slam govt on NHS & Afghanistan
Two “rising stars” of the Conservative Party, elected in 2010, have gone public with criticisms of government policies in areas where they are experts.
Dr Sarah Wollaston, selected as a Tory candidate through an open primary, slammed David Cameron’s plans for the NHS as ‘dangerous’, describing the plans as a ‘Trojan Horse’, ‘the worst of both worlds’, and wrote in the Sunday Telegraph that:
“I cannot see that it makes sense to foot the bill for redundancies for the entire middle layer of NHS management only to be re-employing many of them within a couple of years. Commissioning consortia will be overwhelmed trying to adapt to their new roles. Someone needs to get a grip or we will continue to haemorrhage the best staff as a result of intolerable uncertainty and pointless morale-sapping denigration. It all risks going ‘belly up’ rather than ‘bottom up’.”
Meanwhile, Rory Stewart, writing in the London Review of Books, described himself as “traumatised by the failure to stop more troop deployments to Afghanistan”, and argued that “though I am in favour of the no-fly zone, it seems as though the real danger remains not despair but our irrepressible, almost hyperactive actions: that sense of moral obligation; those fears about rogue states, failed states, regions and our own credibility, which threaten to make this decade again a decade of over-intervention.”
Wollaston and Stewart are two of the brightest talents amongst the new Tory MPs. What does it tell us that in the areas where they are experts, they are “traumatised” by government policies, which they think are ‘dangerous’ and ‘risk going belly up’?
Can the Lib Dems save the NHS?
Lib Dem conference recently passed a motion which urged substantial changes to the government’s plans for the NHS. I think it is fair to say that there are a relatively small number of people who think that this will lead to any substantial changes, given the record of the Lib Dems in government to date. But it seems to me that the chance of saving the NHS from the Tories is a massive political opportunity for the Lib Dems. continue reading… »
What are your private sector horror stories?
Bloated. Inefficient. Wasteful. Pampered. Manned by the lazy and incompetent; administered by shameless fat cats with salaries that make the Prime Minister look like a pauper. All-expenses paid trips to exotic locations. Non-jobs like ‘Executive Officer to Protect Endangered Snakes’.
This is Britain’s public sector, if the relentless campaign of bile directed against it by the Conservative Party and their allies in the right-wing media is to be believed. In a political campaign with few parallels in modern times for either genius or audacity, this axis has transformed one of the greatest private sector disasters in human history into a crisis of public spending. continue reading… »
Watch: Spreading the word about 26 March
This is brilliant – our new hero Lorraine, a secretary in South London, spreads the word about the March for an Alternative on the 26th March.
Watch
Our international struggle
Internationalism is a word that we don?t often hear nowadays, at least not outside the parties of the far left.
But I think it’s about time we resurrected Internationalism – because it?s the only term that can describe what is going on all around the world today and over the past few months.
What happened in Tunisia has set off a chain-reaction that is spreading all over the world: not just the Arab world, but all over the planet. continue reading… »
Government “buries good news” about NHS
The government has been accused of “burying good news” about the NHS by refusing to publish research which shows that public satisfaction with the NHS is at record levels.
The Observer has learned that the polling organisation Ipsos MORI submitted the results last autumn to the Department of Health for inclusion in a government survey of public perceptions of the NHS. The data, commissioned by the department, shows that more members of the public than ever believe the NHS is doing a good job – a finding contrary to health secretary Andrew Lansley’s insistence that it is falling short and needs urgent change.
Separate research from the British Medical Journal also contradicts government claims that poor health outcomes are a reason for their planned reforms. The evidence shows UK health outcomes improving more rapidly than those in France, despite lower levels of spending, and big improvements on treatment for cancer.
The Labour government was rightly criticised for “burying bad news”. But this government is going even further, by “burying good news” which doesn’t fit with their dogmatic assault on public services.
Arguments against bombing Libya
The Arab Spring has given way to a cold snap: Tiananmen Square-style massacres of protesters in Yemen, the Saudi invasion of Bahrain and full-blown Western intervention in Libya.
Of course, it was never going to be easy. The Middle East is the most strategically important region on Earth, and also boasts the biggest concentration of brutal dictatorships: no coincidence, of course.
With United Nations approval, Western bombs are now raining down on Libya. I’m aware of all the arguments in favour of intervention. Even if you support this war, I think it’s important to at least be aware of some of the key arguments against. So, here they are. continue reading… »
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