Andrew Neil, Ava Santina and Laurence Fox: if you want to know why Mr Neil is in this image, read on.
I wasn’t going to comment about this until it turned out there was a genuine public-interest side to it.
You may be aware that has-been actor and failed politician Laurence Fox has been suspended by right-wing channel GB News over comments he made about Politics Joe journalist Ava Santina (also known as Ava Evans).
What’s strange to me, as a reporter myself, is the media coyness about what she said to trigger his rant.
It was prompted by a discussion about comments she made about men’s mental health during an appearance on BBC Politics Live, discussing whether there should be a minister for men.
Here’s the relevant segment:
For clarity, Ms Santina said: “I think it feeds into the culture war a little bit, this minister for men argument. [Mental illness] is a crisis that’s endemic throughout the country, not specific to men. And I think a lot of ministers bandy this about to – I’m sorry – make an enemy out of women.”
Afterwards, she admitted: “I was a little rash on my anti-minister for men comments which I do regret and am actually very interested in a brief for a minister on young men’s mental health.”
I’m not convinced by this retraction. If she said it, she meant it. This afterthought suggests that she has realised she misjudged the national mood and wants to ingratiate herself with the public again.
Still, knowing the above, take a look at Fox’s outburst. I’ll use the link from Ms Santina’s ‘X’ account:
What does a journalist’s physical attractiveness have to do with whether men’s mental ill-health might justify them having their own dedicated Cabinet minister?
It is entirely inappropriate to denigrate another’s personal characteristics during a discussion of such a topic, just because their politics and yours don’t correspond.
To make a similar – and appropriate – comparison, we might refer to the original chairman of GB News itself, who left the BBC to set up the channel that provided a platform for this rant, and who therefore seems more likely to be up Mr Fox’s political alley.
Would Laurence Fox shag Andrew Neil?
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Forming a positive baseline (left-right): Craig, Barney and Steve, training for their run at Cosford on September 30.
A friend of This Writer is joining a 24-hour running challenge to raise funding for a charity that helps UK armed forces personnel cope with mental ill-health.
Craig Chihuri, who lives here in Mid Wales, will join Barney Tierney, Steve Dowd and Dr Rebecca Cam to run 74 miles in 24 hours at RAF Cosford Athletic track, starting at midday next Saturday (September 30, 2023).
The group is raising funds to develop a holistic and positive seven-day retreat for anyone who has served, and is still serving, in any branch of the UK military, who wishes to improve their mindset and outlook.
The retreat will be run by Head Up – Mental Health awareness for UK Armed Forces. The charity was created by four veterans to help forces personnel build a positive mindset and improve their mental resilience.
“There have been a lot of ex-Army people who have been struggling with their mental health,” said Craig, “so if we can raise awareness, and raise a bit of money, it will be great.
“Head Up charity is great – it’s smaller, it’s coming up, so there’s more focus on raising that awareness.”
“Both myself and Craig, over the last four or five years, have done different events for Mind,” added Barney. “Over the past 18 months or so, I have worked at RAF Cosford, so I wanted to relate it to where I work and find a mental health charity within the military.
“We’ve done bike rides from Birmingham to Aberystwyth, then we ran from Birmingham to Aberystwyth, and then we went up and down Snowdon nine times.
“I feel like this one could potentially be up there with the hardest,” he said. “It’s purely 24 hours through the night. We’ve never done anything where you haven’t got a rest through the whole 24 hours. It’s 74 miles in 24 hours and we’ve never done anything on that scale before.”
These runners are relying on your support, so please dig out some pennies and give them a boost. Barney is running a JustGiving page so please make your donation here.
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At breaking point: the UK’s National Health Service.
Following on from This Site’s earlier article on how Suella Braverman has recruited fewer than half the police officers the UK needs, here’s some more Tory ‘less is more’ policy information – on NHS beds, diagnostic centres and jobs:
• Tories announce 5,000 new NHS Beds. They shut 22,000.
• Tories announce 19 new NHS Diagnostic Centres. They shut 140 Walk In Centres.
• Tories announce 15 yr NHS staffing plan. They are responsible for 100,000 + unfilled NHS jobs.
They cut the numbers of a government-funded resource (in this case, the NHS) far below what is needed to provide an adequate service. Then they increase the numbers – but not by enough. And then they hit us with an outrageous lie that the boost is enormous.
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The denial machine: puppet Steve Barclay (front) doesn’t have a brain of his own and can only repeat the nonsense he’s been told by Tory HQ, with his boss Rishi Sunak behind him, pulling his strings.
The absolute state of this.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay squirms as the BBC’s Sally Nugent points out that the Home Office was informed on August 7 that the prison barge for asylum-seekers, Bibby Stockholm, was infected with legionella.
People were sent on board the following day. It wasn’t until August 10 that the decision was made to clear the vessel of human inhabitants and decontaminate it.
Steve Barclay is a lying bastard.
Dorset council told a Home Office contractor about Legionella on Monday.
They continued to board people until Thursday.
Nobody should have been on board until safety checks were completed.
Don’t you love the nervous tic that gives Barclay away – his repetition of the word “precaution” or “precautionary”. It’s likely to have been part of a speech he’d been told to rehearse beforehand, and when he was pressed on the subject he had nothing else to say.
As Ms Nugent said, he’s the Health Secretary; he should know how dangerous legionella is and how important it is to act urgently if it is discovered.
Ms Nugent has also won praise after she “eviscerated” the Tory Health Secretary for lying about waiting lists:
Steve Barclay, "Four times as many in Wales waiting over a year for treatment"
Sally Nugent, "English and Welsh figures are collated in a different way, so it's not relevant. Long waiting times have actually halved"
The politician replied: ‘What really matters is patients waiting for treatment. Commitment to getting waiting times down. We’re making big progress on the longest waits. In England we’ve virtually eliminated waits of over 18 months, whereas in Wales for example, there’s over 70,000 waiting more than 18 months.
‘In fact, many of your listeners will be surprised to learn that there’s four times as many patients waiting over a year for treatment in Wales compared to in England, and that’s despite Keir Starmer saying that Wales is the blueprint for what we would do in England.’
However, as the politician was finishing what he was saying, Sally interjected, stressing that the figures comparing waiting times in England and Wales required further context.
‘Can I just stop you there, because actually those… – can I please just stop you there for a moment, because the figures are actually collated in a different way, so that’s not particularly relevant. We also know that long waiting times are falling every month in Wales. They’ve actually more than halved in the last year,’ she stated.
However, the MP disagreed, adding: ‘No, people waiting more than 18 months in Wales is over 70,000 there. There’s over 30,000 waiting more than two years.’
Yet again, Sally pointed out the difference in the statistics’ relevance, telling the programme’s guest and their viewers: ‘They include more referrals in their statistics than England does, so they’re not really comparable figures, are they?’
The news provider also published reactions from the social media, with one person describing the interview as a “metaphorical evisceration” and another saying Ms Nugent “skewered him”.
But you wouldn’t know that from the propaganda clip put out by the Conservatives’ press office, that just regurgitates the lies and cuts out all of Ms Nugent’s contradictions – her only comment in the Tory clip is, “Yes”. Take a look if you can stomach it:
Under the Labour-run NHS in Wales, patients are four times more likely to wait over a year for treatment than in England.
Keir Starmer says Wales is his “blueprint” for a Labour government.
And how sad that there are people who will swallow this pigswill gratefully.
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Of course, if you watch it and just click on to something else – even if you enjoy it, then you’re supporting the destruction of the NHS, the ruination of your health and everybody else’s and ultimately, the early ending of your life.
I’m just mentioning that in passing, to encourage you to share this, at the very least.
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Steve Barclay: if there is a problem with cancer in the English NHS, he is the tumour that needs to be removed.
How will Rishi Sunak be able to complain about the Welsh NHS now?
And is this just a shabby bid to boost private cancer treatments?
The Tory government reckons it is being advised by clinicians and cancer charities to scrap six out of nine treatment targets – but two such charities have objected to the plan, just in the BBC’s article announcing it!
The head of the Radiotherapy UK charity said she is “deeply worried”.
Pat Price, who is also an oncologist and visiting professor at Imperial College London, said… “the clear and simple truth is that we are not investing enough in cancer treatment capacity”.
Naser Turabi, Cancer Research UK’s director of evidence and implementation, said… “Despite the best efforts of NHS staff, it’s incredibly worrying that cancer waiting times in England are once again amongst the worst on record.”
He blamed the missed targets on “years of underinvestment” by the government and called for more cancer staff and a clear strategy.
“Without bold action, more people will miss out on lifesaving services,” he said.
We have seen recently that restrictions on NHS services – such as those that are likely to be imposed if treatment targets are scrapped – tend to “nudge”* people into taking private treatment, even if they can’t afford it.
Personally, This Writer thinks Barclay is simply putting more patients between a rock and a hard place: what difference is there between waiting for help that may not arrive in time and putting up with a private ‘specialist’ dancing around you, waving his beads and rattles?
*Remember the Tory “nudge unit” that was attached to 10 Downing Street under David Cameron before it was privatised, and recommended ways of… shall we say “persuading”?… people to do things they would not consider in the normal scheme of things? Clearly, making it impossible for patients to get life-saving treatment in time is a way of “persuading” people to fork out extra cash for private treatment that they would not otherwise have considered and should not need.
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Matt Hancock: this may have been the look on his face when he received the adjudication.
A failed health sec and cheating husband who broke lockdown rules he wrote and helped enrich his mates via a VIP PPE lane has lost in a bid to have that description ruled inaccurate.
Matt Hancock complained to press regulator IPSO over several articles published by the Daily Mirror.
They’re very festive, so This Writer will just repeat them here in full (because I can):
Hancock complained over the following pieces:
“No stranger to ridicule or reinvention” (2 November 2022)
“Shameful record of blunders” (2 November 2022)
“He’s no jungle hero… lying Hancock threw us all to the wolves” (11 November 2022)
“SOLIDARITY IS EMOTIONAL” (3 December 2022)
The articles included allegations that Hancock:
“presided over PPE contracts being handed out to acquaintances of ministers and officials, including his ex-pub landlord” during the Covid-19 pandemic
“broke ministerial code by failing to declare he held shares in a family firm that won an NHS contract”
was “a failed health secretary and cheating husband who broke the lockdown rules he wrote, doubled down on the lies he told, helped enrich his mates via the infamous VIP PPE lane, and couldn’t resist monetising the infamy he acquired as a result of his ineptitude at managing the pandemic”.
The complaints under Clause 1 of the Editors’ Code (accuracy) were all rejected.
The decision means we’re all free to use the same language about Hancock, and some have beaten This Writer to it:
Note to journalists.
Henceforth it will be obligatory to preface any mention of ‘failed health secretary and cheating husband' Matt Hancock with ‘failed health secretary and cheating husband'https://t.co/QuphKJpF2S
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The puppets: in fact, with today’s information, this image needs to be updated to show a Saudi politician or a private health boss with his hand up Blair.
Labour sinks its candidates’ chances in today’s three by-elections
The UK’s main parties seem to have given their candidates in the three by-elections taking place today (Thursday, July 20, 2023) a shot… in the foot. An entire volley, in the case of the STP (Substitute Tory Party – formerly Labour). In fact, metaphorically-speaking, it would probably be accurate to say that those candidates no longer have any legs to stand on.
Here’s former party leader candidate Liz Kendall showing why members made the right choice by avoiding her like a nasty disease. In defending her leader’s decision to condemn 55 per cent of families with three children and a massive 80 per cent of those with four to poverty, she resorted to the “fiscal responsibility” argument that simply doesn’t ring true:
Here's @leicesterliz responding to being told that 55% of families with at least 3 kids and 80% of families with at least 4 will be in poverty by invoking Liz Truss as to why Labour can't scrap the two child cap, and suggesting that parents of these kids need "better paid jobs". pic.twitter.com/qGpd7KlkvH
The simple fact is that fiscal rules may sound good to the public but all they really do is straitjacket political parties into courses that can harm us all in the long term. There’s no need for them.
Nor is there any justification in saying that (Labour) can’t make promises about where the money for a change will be sourced. The simple fact is that the Conservatives have spent 13 years cutting taxes for the richest people in the UK. The opposition party should be looking at the amount of money these policies have denied to the treasury and making its plans accordingly. Instead, the plan is to leave these tax breaks in place – boosting the rich still further while punishing the poor yet again.
The claim that parents should get better jobs is risible. Even if such employment was available in an economy where pay has been pushed through the floor, how are parents supposed to take them when the massive cost of childcare ties them to their home, looking after their children?
(And please, let’s not engage in the tired old argument that people should not have had more than two children in the first place: you don’t know the circumstances behind those situations, and in any case the UK’s economy requires a larger indigenous population, now that so many workers from abroad have been scared away.)
Elsewhere, Tony Blair has demanded that a future ‘Labour’ government should inflict austerity on the UK:
So, Tiny Blair says what his mate Keir Starmer won’t, which is that austerity is now Labour’s true agenda – even if it sinks our public services, the welfare state and the economy whilst failing to meet public demand. We’re all going to be doomed by this stupidity. https://t.co/H3DFS8bLv9
"Providing you're not forcing people to pay for basic healthcare, I don't think it matters that you have a partnership between public & private sector"
Basic healthcare free at the point of use. Anything else, you've got to pay. Not a problem for the vastly wealthy, of course. pic.twitter.com/H3xz571Nez
We know from the nauseating spectacle of Blair discussing policy with Keir Stürmer in public that the opposition party leader is a Blairite and wants to follow the desires of his ideological leader as much as possible.
Blair is saying he wants austerity, and he wants increased privatisation in the NHS. Only “basic” healthcare should be free at the point of use, he said. Other services would cost money. These are not Labour Party policies, of course – and nobody claiming to represent Labour who supports them, and/or the leaders who spout them, should be allowed into Parliament.
What we’re looking at is “policy capture” – and the organisation behind Tony Blair should be avoided at all costs because it is owned by foreign governments, it seems:
Yesterday we saw, in real time, policy capture of the likely next government & PM by a shadowy organisation with 850 staff which has received millions from overseas. It’s called the Tony Blair Institute @InstituteGC.
So candidates in today’s by-elections – by the words of leading party members – are not going to help working and working-class people but may well be following the demands of foreign governments instead, with plans including making us pay for anything more than “basic” healthcare.
Would you vote for that?
Grant Shapps shows why Tories should not be allowed near power
While leading members of the STP (Substitute Tory Party – formerly Labour) have been hobbling their by-election candidates, Grant Shapps has been doing the same for the real Tory Party’s credibility.
He has written to Keir Stürmer, demanding that the STP pay for damage caused by Just Stop Oil protests, on the grounds that the STP is the political wing of Just Stop Oil:
I’ve written to @Keir_Starmer to request he pays for the criminal damage the Just Stop Oil attacks on the Energy Security Department caused this morning
As the political wing of Just Stop Oil, it is the Labour Party not the taxpayer that should be paying the bill pic.twitter.com/UAPT6gWUEK
— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) July 19, 2023
This is boneheaded stupidity. In doing so, Shapps is publicly acknowledging that any politician or political organisation that takes money from a donor will do what that donor demands in the future.
If Stürmer’s STP had said that, we could point to the donations its members receive from Trevor Chinn and say this is an admission that that party is now a sockpuppet of the so-called Israel Lobby (amongst others).
But because a Conservative has said it, we can rifle through all the donations that party and its MPs receive instead. Obviously Shapps is admitting that the Tories are all in thrall to private health firms (for example), and that’s why the NHS is being increasingly privatised.
He has opened the door for us to tell the world that the Conservative Party – and more importantly the Conservative government – does not work for the people of the United Kingdom, despite taking huge amounts of our cash.
Instead, it works for those shadowy donors, despite all the claims over the years that it did not, which we are now free to conclude are lies.
And that means any Tories elected in today’s (Thursday, July 20, 2023) by-elections will do the same and should therefore be blocked from ever entering Parliament.
Nice one, Shapps!
Rishi Sunak blames striking junior doctors for his own government’s health service blunders
Here’s another Tory failure that should cut into that party’s vote in today’s by-elections: Rishi Sunak’s attempts to blame striking junior doctors for weaknesses in the National Health Service.
I’ll let Peter Stefanovic explain:
The Prime Minister blaming Junior doctors for hospital waiting lists is one of the most despicable things he’s said
& for the record he’s offered them a crappy real terms pay cut
If like me you stand with the junior doctors who sacrificed so much to keep us safe RT this widely pic.twitter.com/hv8JLS5d0N
As a result of Tory pay cuts since 2010, you are £11,000 a year worse-off than you would otherwise have been, and Sunak wants you to take further pay cuts (not just just junior doctors). Meanwhile, average pay for MPs, once their multiple other jobs are taking into account, is more than £200 per hour.
The “Independent” Pay Review Body is nothing of the sort. Its members are all employed by the government and are told how much money the government is willing to pay public sector workers before making any decisions. Those decisions are then made to fit in with what the government tells them to do, rather than with what public sector employees need.
Daily Express fails at basic maths. Just because inflation has fallen, that doesn’t mean prices are dropping
Carol Vorderman explains basic mathematics to the writers of a national newspaper.
It seems the Daily Express and its employees don’t understand that a fall in the rate of inflation does not mean that prices have dropped – despite the fact that it has been drilled into all of us over many months that such a fall really means the rate at which prices increase is slowing down.
So the following headline betrays a lack of economic credibility:
Tory Daily Express failing primary school maths test this morning!
Inflation has fallen to 7.9% which means that 'prices' have gone UP. They continue to go UP just slightly less quickly. Food inflation is 14.9% Maybe my online maths lessons https://t.co/EO8lwRzGs7 could help? pic.twitter.com/vyp57n9C9v
This Writer understands that we still don’t know who won the contract to provide these barges, that have been modified to accommodate 500 people rather than 240, meaning less space is available for each of them.
And we don’t know whether there was a proper tendering process, with multiple interested parties invited to bid for the contract, or if it was just handed over to a Tory crony via the illegal “VIP lane” or any successor route.
It’s another point for voters in today’s three by-elections to consider.
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The standard technique of privatisation: we’ve had years of defunding (don’t let Steve Barclay’s lies convince you otherwise) and things aren’t working. Now the agitators are trying to make you angry, and you should be – at them.
It had to happen: the NHS turned 75 so the insurance scammers and privatisation propogators have leapt up to demand that it can’t last much longer and needs to change – words that ignore the fact that they wouldn’t be able to say this if 13 years of Tory de-funding and privatisation hadn’t already changed it for the worse.
And they haven’t been subtle about it, which is a good thing because it allows us to see comments like the following:
In the recently released document,
"The rational policy-makers guide to the NHS"
there is an interesting summary table of an international comparative performance of health systems produced by the Commonwealth Fund from 2014, on page 44.
This clearly shows the UK's…
— Hector Wetherell McNeill (@HectorWMcNeill) July 7, 2023
Let’s have a case study: Kate Andrews, currently of The Spectator but formerly of think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Adam Smith Institute and Republicans Overseas UK. You can see what these organisations want to do to the NHS here:
This is from 2016 where the BBC presented Kate Andrews merely as a ‘US woman’ who was against Obama’s proposals for gun regulation. She’d been with the IEA five years. The BBC are complicit in promoting Andrews & all her hard right libertarian nonsense.https://t.co/8Tdv4Za2Rbhttps://t.co/xQmHkl6hPy
She was on the BBC’s Question Time last Thursday (July 6, 2023), because the BBC gives her a lot of hot air time. She’s also on Politics Live whenever she can manage it. You can see what she had to say in the clip below.
But it isn’t just her words that create trouble for the health service; it’s what she enables other people to say – like Bella Wallersteiner here. Phil Gould provides an opposing voice:
My Austrian friend lived in the US for 20 years, always had insurance. Developed a heart condition which became serious. After a year the ins company refused to pay for treatments. He left the US with medical debts in excess of $120,000.
(And let’s remember that the model for the NHS is insurance-based: National Insurance.)
Let’s remember, Ms Andrews speak with forked tongue. The following is an imperfect comparison but it makes the point: in 2017 she was peddling what we now know to be snake oil – a claim that Brexit would make the UK richer. We all know, now, that this was patently untrue.
And now she is saying the NHS is not the wonderful creation that UK citizens mythologise it as being:
2023 Kate Andrews: The NHS is not the envy of the world
Maybe it’s not the envy of the world any more – but that is clearly due to the constant Tory tinkering to make it vulnerable to privatisation.
Go back to the Hector Wetherell McNeill tweet above:
There is an interesting summary table of an international comparative performance of health systems produced by the Commonwealth Fund from 2014, on page 44.
This clearly shows the UK’s nationalised NHS to be the world leader on the basis of most criteria.
The US private system comes out as being one of the worst and costing almost 1.45x that of UK.
It is clear that the UK system placed the US system along with the US med corporations and insurance companies in an embarrassing position so there was a need to undermine the UK system to have any chance for their marketing success.
The Conservative government clearly made this their mission by under-funding the service over the last 13 years so as to create the “case” for privatisation.
And then people like Ms Andrews turn up to put that “case” to the public.
Bearing all the above in mind, one is led to agree with Dale Vince, who was also on that edition of Question Time:
Dale Vince: "The magazine you (Kate Andrews) work for.. was owned by that Barclay fellow who lives in Jersey and doesn't pay tax here.. it poisons our national conversation to have these people that don't live here or pay tax here having such a powerful voice" 👏👏 pic.twitter.com/olNue6RW3A
(If only it were true that social media gives a voice to everybody. It used to – but then the firms running the main platforms introduced aggressive algorithms to push posts by anybody who could not afford their advertising rates down people’s newsfeeds so they couldn’t be seen. If you’re wondering where Vox Political has been until you saw this article, it hasn’t gone anywhere – you were just denied the chance to read it.)
Rishi Sunak wants you to believe that he has a plan to restore the NHS – but just listen to the analysis of Sunak’s work (and that of the Tory governments since 2010) by Sir Michael Marmot, who has led research groups on health inequalities for nearly 50 years:
You’re just putting a temporary plaster on one of the thousand cuts you’ve inflicted: Sir Michael Marmot says that all the scientific evidence is consistent with government trying to destroy the NHS. Retention of staff requires decent pay – tell Barclay. pic.twitter.com/ISiJ5KHCZJhttps://t.co/VBdhA36o5v
Experience tells us that Sir Michael is probably right. After all, this is a Tory government that (we’re told) issued tens of billions of pounds worth of Covid-19-related health contracts to their personal friends who were incapable of honouring those contracts – and then claimed the cost was part of the NHS annual budget.
So tens of billions of pounds was paid out to Tory friends and donors – and absolutely nothing was gained as a result:
Your regular reminder that the U.K. govt issued 10s of billions of pounds of Covid contracts to their mates, donors and chums, then added those contracts to the NHS annual budget, and now claim “record NHS funding”. They think we are all thick as mince!
Why hasn’t all this money been recovered and put to better use?
Carol Vorderman says she could go on, and so could This Writer.
With the record of Sunak’s government laid bare for all to see, it is clear that “sharks” like Kate Andrews are not presenting their case fairly and therefore they should be ignored.
The NHS is not failing because its founding principles don’t work; it is failing because the Tories are deliberately forcing it to fail.
Oh, and they don’t care if your relatives have suffered needlessly or died as a result of their ideologically-motivated selfishness.
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Labour in denial as Starmer and his allies purge the left
Former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has accused current Labour leader Keir Starmer and his allies of purging left-wingers from the party.
It’s a claim that is hotly denied by Starmer’s cronies – Jonathan Ashworth on Politics Live once again raised the hoary old banner of anti-Semitism and claimed this was what Starmer was fighting.
But is that really all Starmer is doing? And is it on the level?
Here’s the debate:
And here are some of the other attacks on Labour members Starmer’s mob have been carrying out:
Thanks Ben. The whole thing has been Kafkaesque. But the Al Jazeera investigation unit revealed to me who was behind the complaint. In a fair and independent system Labour would have identified this as a continuation of the harassment I was subjected to over the past 7 years. https://t.co/48DkRylMvr
— Pamela Fitzpatrick (@PamelaFitzPJP) July 3, 2023
The Labour Party NEC deem life-long anti-racists, such as Jeremy Corbyn, as unfit to represent the party.
Yet, consider Tom Dewey, an individual investigated for, & now charged with making & possessing extreme pornographic images of children as fit.
Will the NHS reach its centenary – and how can that happen?
The 75th anniversary of the NHS was marked with not one but two debates on the BBC’s Politics Live – the first on how it can survive in a changing United Kingdom.
Should government prioritise prevention, improving the nation’s health generally, as championed by Lord Bethell? Should it adopt a European-style health insurance model, according to Melanie Phillips? Should it increase the pay, and widen the membership, of its workforce, as Baroness Kennedy claims? Or should social care be expanded to remove some of the pressure, in line with Ella Whelan’s beliefs?
Should private health firms be allowed to do more NHS work?
The second of the two Politics Live debates on the NHS’s 75th anniversary focused on claims that radical change is needed to safeguard its future.
Some of those claims attack the fundamental principle that the health service should be free at the point of use, with Tony Blair saying some NHS patients should go private and pay for procedures if they’re waiting too long.
But wouldn’t this put the UK on a slippery slope towards a privatised – and highly expensive – health service?
SNP’s Mhairi Black shows that Tory and Labour both want more NHS privatisation
On the 75th anniversary of the UK’s National Health Service, SNP deputy leader Mhairi Black demonstrated that it is in danger from both the Conservative and Labour parties.
Reading out two quotations from politicians calling for more privatisation, she asked – well, watch the clip and you’ll see.
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