Reactions to NHS privatisation Bill scream how bad it is. No comment from Starmer though
What a strange man Keir Starmer is. His name was on Labour’s amendment calling for the Health and Care Bill to go no further towards becoming an Act of Parliament – but, after it failed, he has nothing to say against the legislation.
This Writer has waited more than 24 hours for Starmer’s considered response to the progress of a Bill that will seriously harm the UK’s greatest institution – and his party’s greatest achievement. Not a dicky bird.
He seems to be almost entirely alone, though. Labour’s MPs had a ‘form’ tweet to send out:
Every day frontline NHS staff are forced to spend on top-down reorganisation is a day less to tackle waiting lists and cope with Covid.
Now is not the time to reorganise the NHS. pic.twitter.com/8sXY9omU8U
— Catherine West MP (@CatherineWest1) July 14, 2021
Every day frontline NHS staff are forced to spend on top-down reorganisation is a day less to tackle waiting lists and cope with Covid.
Now is not the time to reorganise the NHS.
I'll be voting against the #HealthandCareBill pic.twitter.com/KQ8JaLPtbt
— Bill Esterson (@Bill_Esterson) July 14, 2021
Others had more to say:
Forget the spin – new English NHS bill is all about cutting our right to healthcarehttps://t.co/xrsFmjcMnV
— Rachael Swindon (@Rachael_Swindon) July 14, 2021
The Open Democracy article states that, considering the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the government has two choices: it can either support the NHS to meet its legal obligations to provide us with the healthcare we need for the years ahead – or it can reduce those obligations; reduce our rights to access healthcare.
It says the Health and Care Bill proposes reducing the government’s obligations to secure NHS care for us all, further than the Tories have gone already – and cutting our ability to get that care. This fits with the conclusions previously put forward by This Site.
Labour’s Jon Trickett highlighted something the Bill doesn’t address:
Inflation is now 2.4% which is more than double the so called pay rise the Tories are offering our nurses.
Today’s inflation figure reinforces the need for a proper pay rise for our NHS workers
— Jon Trickett MP (@jon_trickett) July 14, 2021
Well, I did say the Bill would not make it possible to employ a single extra nurse or treat a single extra patient. Perhaps I should have emphasized that medical staff who are already employed by the NHS would find it hard to survive on the meagre pay it provides in the future.
Trickett makes other good points:
• 125 A&E Wards [types 1-3] have been closed by the Tories since 2010.
• The Tory ‘integrated care’ plan could leave 90%+ constituencies without a major hospital.
We must all fight this.
— Jon Trickett MP (@jon_trickett) July 13, 2021
Of course, Jeremy Corbyn warned us about the Tory threat to the NHS in the run-up to the 2019 general election, as Cornish Damo reminds us:
The media were more interested in how he got this leaked document than what was in it. Now we look set to pay the price with the #NHSprivatisation Bill going through, which will remove rights to healthcare. It's vile, its dangerous & we've sleepwalked into this. #SaveTheNHS pic.twitter.com/QBVK4d2qPa
— Damien Willey 🟢 🔴 (@KernowDamo) July 14, 2021
How curious that Keir Starmer hasn’t thought to remind anybody of that!
Perhaps he’d rather not be associated with anything said by his immediate forerunner – even though Mr Corbyn was right.
Then again, perhaps there’s a more vulgar explanation:
Is this why the Labour Party are not screaming loudly about the Health and Social Care Bill @Keir_Starmer? Can't bite the hand that feeds you? How much better it was under Corbyn who had enough money just from real Labour members. https://t.co/0sYr8y03Kf
— Frances Naggs (@FrancesNaggs) July 14, 2021
Is this the answer, then?
Will access to the National Health Service in England be restricted by the Tories – at the demand of their paymasters in private industries that profit from illness and injury – with only token opposition from Labour because Starmer’s paymasters are also in private industries that profit from illness and injury?
Is that why we haven’t heard a word from him about it?
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This is what happens when the Tories have an 80+ seat majority.
Since when did a government majority prevent an opposition leader from speaking out, particularly on such an important issue as the NHS?
Or is his silence due to being heavily funded by a private healthcare lobbyist (as noted above), among other corporate donors?
Seeing as how Labour are becoming ever more reliant on corporate funding, it simply wouldn’t do to rock the boat, now would it?
The trouble is, if you lie down with dogs you end up with fleas.
Given
To them by stammer the spammer who isnt a Labour but Tory man in a Labour red tie but hay ho those who allowed this to happen will rue the day