What happened to your pledge not to close hospitals Mr Cameron?
The British love the NHS and in particular, they love hospitals. When I give a talk about the government’s NHS policy I often start by asking people to say what most embodies what they think is “the NHS”. It is not GPs; it is always hospitals.
Politicians know this and they are careful when it comes to suggesting that a hospital has to be downgraded or even closed. In some cases politicians even campaign against their own party’s Secretary of State. While in opposition, David Cameron was adamantly against closing them.
continue reading… »
Westminster shocked as Tory says Labour must listen to them
Tim Montgomerie of ConservativeHome is unfailingly polite in person and clearly a very good editor. I’m not convinced by his political nous though. After all, he was convinced the Conservatives failed to win a majority in 2010 because they didn’t push hard enough on immigration – a claim rejected by Lord Ashcroft himself rather convincingly.
Montgomerie writes in the Daily Mail today: ‘Ed Miliband is a disaster not just for Labour but for democracy‘. All very nuanced as I’m sure you can imagine.
continue reading… »
‘Chavs’ and the assault on the working class: A review
‘Chav’ is that rare beast, denoting a section in society which almost nobody would want to touch with a bargepole, but yet, or so according to Owen Jones, has a well-defined target, at least as far as the mainstream media is concerned, as the newly consumerised working classes – and even in some cases the lower class made good.
Though, rather than being a category worthy of collected denunciation, ‘chav-bashing’ is a concerted campaign against the working class itself.
The fact that many working class people would choose not to identify with the term is important in the way it has been used by many middle class people and self-appointed ‘neo-snobs’.
continue reading… »
New research: 17 NHS Trusts facing deep cuts
A report in the Financial Times today finds that 17 NHS Trusts are in danger of going bankrupt thanks to the spending squeeze, unless they impose deep cuts to services.
The impending financial meltdown at the trusts means local communities could lose their accident and emergency departments and maternity services, forcing patients to travel further for certain treatments.
In nearly all cases, the downsized hospitals will be taken over by other organisations and in some cases they may be run by the private sector as an NHS franchise.
Most controversially, struggling hospitals built under the private finance initiative threaten to undermine services at neighbouring institutions, which may have to shut to spare the PFI hospitals, thought to be too expensive to close.
Although the spending cuts play an important part, they aren’t the sole reason why some trusts are in financial trouble.
Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contracts are also to blame.
Over half of the 17, however, also have buildings funded through the private finance initiative, the annual payments for which often amount to more than 10 per cent of their turnover.
Nigel Edwards, departing chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “If you are one of these hospitals and you have a PFI, you really are in trouble. You are locked into a 25-year availability payment which means that even if you stop using space in the hospital, you are still paying for it.”
…
Trusts with unaffordable PFIs include South London, which embraces three hospitals in Bromley, Sidcup and Woolwich. It closed the A&E and maternity unit at one of the sites in December but is expected to have to go further to balance its books and meet PFI payments that are already more than 15 per cent of its income. That proportion will rise as it anticipates an 8 per cent fall in its annual income.
We’re in for a torrid time with the NHS ahead.
Tories wage war on ‘sexualisation’ of kids
David Cameron is to back a plan to stop retailers selling inappropriate clothes for pre-teens and shield children from sexualised imagery across all media, including selling “lads magazines” in brown covers and making the watchdog Ofcom more answerable to the views of parents.
…
The proposals come in a long-awaited report, leaked to the Guardian, on the commercialisation of childhood. It was commissioned by Cameron and is due to be published on Monday with strong support from Downing Street. Recommendations in the review, entitled Let children be children, include:
• The Advertising Standards Authority to discourage placement of billboards with sexualised imagery near schools and nurseries or other areas where children are likely to view it.
• A clampdown on sexualised and violent images shown before TV’s 9pm watershed and curbs and cinema-style age rating for music videos.
• A single website to be created, to act as “an interface between parents and the variety of regulators across the media, communications and retail industries”.
• Making it easier for parents to block age restricted material on the internet.
• Lads magazines to be moved to the top shelf in shops or sold in covers.
Redwood disowns his own NHS pamphlet!
Wow, this is a surprise.
This morning I published a pamphlet that John Redwood and Oliver Letwin had written for the CPS think-tank in 1982 on how the NHS could be privatised.
Do Redwood and Letwin still stand by their claims then?
It looks like they’ve been told to distance themselves from their radical pasts.
The Guardian’s NHS live-blog asked Redwood for a comment and he replied:
I co authored a pamphlet with Oliver Letwin in January 1988. It did not set out my own view of sensible reform then, but an agreed set of questions and ideas with Oliver. It most certainly does not represent my views today on the NHS, which I have set out over the intervening 23 years and have developed and adapted as I have gained new insights and in response to the public mood and the evolving achievements and problems of the NHS.
I support free health care at the point of use, a choice of provider or doctor where possible and the other health reforms that improve patient care set out in the current Bill before Parliament.
You can almost hear the sound of the back-tracking, probably ordered from the cabinet in case it turns into a big row.
Thanks to the Guardian for chasing this up.
Boris hands out £50k just for Olympics bunting
Did you know London Mayor Boris Johnson is handing out £50,000 just for Olympics related bunting?
According to the Mayor’s office, each London borough would receive the cash to pay for flags, banners and bunting, just so they could have a “uniform look for the streets of the capital” for the Olympics next year.
We must be rolling in money for London’s Mayor to think handing out £50,000 just for bunting is a great idea.
But one council had the good sense to question whether this was the right decision.
Richmond Council said it would be giving “careful consideration” to what would be appropriate for the borough, claiming £50,000 was “a considerable sum in these frugal times”.
Our borough will be in pristine condition come the Olympics and that will arguably be a better advertisement for our city than a few pieces of branded bunting hanging from lampposts across Richmond upon Thames.
Maybe the Mayor would like to consider offering us an additional £50,000 to spend in on additional street cleaning during the course of the games, in particular to those boroughs which host events such as the road races which may well generate extra rubbish on our streets, notwithstanding our best efforts.
Perhaps Boris should stop wasting Londoners’ money, as he did with the new Routemaster?
As ordinary people suffer, the super-rich keep reaping benefits
contribution by David Malone
A study by Boston Consulting Group on global wealth and who has it, reported by Bloomberg, under the headline ”World’s Wealthy Rose by 12% on Market Gains”. And there you have it, the truth of the last year encapsulated in 8 words.
According to Peter Damisch, head of the firm’s wealth-management practice in Zurich,
Wealth became more concentrated, with millionaire households controlling 39 percent of the world’s assets, up from 37 percent a year earlier…
The wealthiest increased their wealth by 2% in a single year.
continue reading… »
New Labour-left think tank launches
contribution by NTDSMK
A new left wing Labour think-tank launched yesterday.
GEER UK (Gender, Environment, Equality and Race UK) was unveiled at 1:00 PM in Portcullis House, Westminster. Characterising themselves as a “left wing think tank”, they come as close as any to a “Red Labour” response to Maurice Glasman’s Blue Labour.
The launch featured opening remarks by GEER chair Kelvin Hopkins MP, on his vision for where Labour’s economic policy must go next, as well as by Grahame Morris MP and founding member Dr. Éoin Clarke.
They argue that Labour’s lost support stems from falling out of touch with the core values upon which the Party was established.
The members of the think tank attempt to reinvent ‘Old Labour’ in a modern context, to incorporate the “values of socialism into policies for future government”.
GEER attempts to propagate a message of focusing on perceived fundamental pillars of Labour, which they feel that the party has lost in recent years.
Their website says:
GEER is all about putting the third way behind us, by renewing our focus on Gender, Environment, Equality and Race. We aim to develop policy and promote ideas that work towards helping secure a Labour future for Britain.
GEER argues for a return to the values that form the think tank’s acronym, in order to engage a wider spectrum of people in the political process and re-connect with Labour’s lost support.
Dr. Éoin Clarke summarised the aims as this:
Feminism, Environmentalism, true Equality and Racial harmony must be the goals of true socialists. Forging a common bond regardless of class, race or gender will be the founding ambition of GEER.
The GEER website can be found here.
Revealed: the pamphlet underpinning Tory plans to privatise the NHS
In 1988 two radical Conservatives wrote a pamphlet for the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank called ‘Britain’s Biggest Enterprise: ideas for radical reform of the NHS’.
It was written by John Redwood, who had just become an MP, and Oliver Letwin, then merely an acivist but now the Minister of State at the Cabinet Office.
Today we publish the paper for the first time online (a reader got hold of a copy and scanned it) because it offers the deepest insight yet into where health secretary Andrew Lansley wants to take the NHS, and how Conservatives regard this prized British institution.
continue reading… »
You can read articles through the front page, via Twitter or RSS feed. You can also get them by email and through our Facebook group.
» The real agenda behind Telegraph’s abortion investigation
» How Scotland Yard monitors prying bloggers and journalists
» When disabled people want to work – employers can hold the back
» Revealed: the reality behind Workfare and why it doesn’t work
» Job snob? No, I’ve got the T-shirt
» Why country-by-country reporting matters to our wellbeing
» If Unions want to become stronger, they need to modernise
» Why work “reforms” in Spain are a warning for workers across Europe
» Five things you need to know about the NHS bill
» Bigger. Fatter. Gypsier. More Racist.
» Laziness levels in Britain getting lazier, wails government
|
62 Comments 15 Comments 23 Comments 8 Comments 24 Comments 19 Comments 16 Comments 83 Comments 203 Comments 85 Comments |
|
LATEST COMMENTS » Chaise Guevara posted on Bigger. Fatter. Gypsier. More Racist. » pjt posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » the a&e charge nurse posted on The real agenda behind Telegraph's abortion investigation » the a&e charge nurse posted on The real agenda behind Telegraph's abortion investigation » Chaise Guevara posted on The real agenda behind Telegraph's abortion investigation » Chaise Guevara posted on The real agenda behind Telegraph's abortion investigation » Oliver posted on Job snob? No, I've got the T-shirt » Brummie Protestor posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » the a&e charge nurse posted on The real agenda behind Telegraph's abortion investigation » Hannah posted on The real agenda behind Telegraph's abortion investigation » mr_hopkinson posted on The real agenda behind Telegraph's abortion investigation » Amy Finlayson posted on The real agenda behind Telegraph's abortion investigation » the a&e charge nurse posted on The real agenda behind Telegraph's abortion investigation » pagar posted on The real agenda behind Telegraph's abortion investigation » Oliver Conner posted on The real agenda behind Telegraph's abortion investigation |
