Tag Archives: service

Has Tory Jake Berry embarked on a new career as a political irritant?

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Irritant: Jake Berry.

Former Conservative Party chairman Jake Berry seems to have embarked on a new career course – as an irritant.

Watch him in his appearance on the BBC’s Politics Live, where he came out with a series of falsehoods, overtalked other guests, and tried to start argument after argument.

I was live-tweeting at the time and tried to comment on as many of his shenanigans as possible. Feel free to comment down below on his words, my observations and anything I missed.

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Tory chairman apologises to civil service for ‘activist blob’ email. Why not Braverman?

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Greg Hands: I’d forgotten I had this duff graphic that approximates his image. I suits what he’s done here, though.

Suella Braverman said she wouldn’t apologise to civil servants for saying they blocked her bid to stop Channel migrants coming to the UK in an email to Tory supporters – and she hasn’t.

It was left to party chairman Greg Hands to do it instead.

The email, in Braverman’s name, sent by Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) to party members, said the following:

“We tried to stop the small boats crossings without changing our laws.

“But an activist blob of left wing lawyers, civil servants and the Labour Party blocked us.”

Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA Union, which represents civil servants, stated in a letter to prime minister Rishi Sunak that it was “a direct attack on the integrity and impartiality of the thousands of civil servants who loyally serve the home secretary, doing some of the most complex and difficult work in government”.

Penman also said Braverman may have broken the ministerial code, which says ministers must “uphold the impartiality of the civil service”.

Braverman disowned the email, despite the fact that it went out under her name.

She told Robert Peston: “I didn’t write that email, I didn’t see it and it was an error that it was sent out in my name.”

Nevertheless, her name was attached to it and for that reason alone, she had an apology to make. She should have been paying attention to what was being said in her name. She didn’t.

Instead, we hear that the head of the civil service, Simon Case, has written to the PCS union to say that Hands has apologised for the “error”:

“He assured me that he has already taken action to change procedures in CCHQ to make sure that there is not a repeat of this incident,” the head of the civil service said.

Hands has also “provided his assurance that attacks on the civil service are not part of any standard CCHQ lines”, Case added.

It’s not enough, is it? It’s just a proxy apology from a civil servant to a civil service union. Where’s the full and frank apology and explanation from the Home Secretary?

Source: Simon Case: Conservative Party chair has apologised for ‘activist civil servants’ email

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Channel migrants: Braverman won’t apologise for comment on ‘activist blob’ of ‘left-wing’ civil servants

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Suella Braverman doesn’t think before broadcasting: she’s pictured in a committee where she claimed there were legal routes for refugees to enter the UK. Challenged on it, she couldn’t name even one.

Once again, for Tories, “sorry” seems to be the hardest word.

An email in Suella Braverman’s name, sent by Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) to party members, said the following:

“We tried to stop the small boats crossings without changing our laws.

“But an activist blob of left wing lawyers, civil servants and the Labour Party blocked us.”

See for yourself. I’m using an image posted by a journalist on Twitter because it clearly shows Braverman’s name:

The message has been savaged by Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA Union, which represents civil servants.

He stated in a letter to prime minister Rishi Sunak that it was “a direct attack on the integrity and impartiality of the thousands of civil servants who loyally serve the home secretary, doing some of the most complex and difficult work in government”.

Penman also said Braverman may have broken the ministerial code, which says ministers must “uphold the impartiality of the civil service”. Here’s the relevant part:

Braverman was challenged over this scandal by Robert Peston on his ITV show – and denied having anything to do with the email. Take note of Clare Hepworth’s comment prefacing the video below:

But it was sent out in Braverman’s name. From This Writer’s point of view, it is inconceivable that any government minister – or anyone at all – would allow a message to be sent out (in this case to many people at once) without having seen it or approved its contents.

So I think Ms Hepworth may be right that we may discover something different, some time in the future.

Mr Penman had already stated that, whether or not Braverman had approved the message that went out in her name, she should apologise for it:

As you have seen in the Peston video, above, Braverman has not apologised.

I wonder what the other members of the “activist blob” – the “left wing” lawyers and the Labour Party – have to say about the way they were mentioned. I would certainly expect Keir Starmer to object at Labour being described as “left wing”.

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If you aren’t worried about NHS privatisation, you need to watch this

Our National Health Service is being taken away from us while the government and the mass media pull the wool over our eyes.

The new Integrated Care Services are based on an American model, but with a slight name change.

The American system is the most expensive and least efficient that the NHS could possibly morph into – but you’re not being told that.

If you don’t think our biggest national treasure is being perverted into a parody of a system that profits from pain, then you need to watch this:

And don’t think Labour will be in better hands with Keir “Labour’s greatest achievement is Nato” Starmer!

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NHS doctor & campaigner demolishes Keir Starmer’s public/private NHS partnership

Dr Bob Gill is a leading campaigner for the restoration of the National Health Service to its former position as an entirely publicly-owned organisation serving the health of the people of the UK and not the profits of a few corporate shareholders.

On Not The Andrew Marr Show, he destroyed Keir Starmer’s claim that a future Labour government would be dedicated to “improving the NHS” by expanding private sector involvement in it.

“If Starmer was a doctor, he fails to examine the patient, fails to come up with an accurate diagnosis, but has a prescription for a medicine which is going to kill the patient,” he said.

“Where is this idle workforce in the private sector that is going to help us? Why is it necessary that we have to use private sector capacity?

“Starmer, New Labour and the Tories have all engineered a collapse of NHS services so they can present the private sector as coming to our rescue.

“The solution Starmer is prescribing for us is the same old New Labour pro-privatisation nonsense.”

He said: “Public-private partnership is a mechanism to conceal corruption… Money we pay in taxes is being siphoned off for other uses – for corporate profit, for shareholders.

“Starmer and Wes Streeting have indicated time and time again that they have no desire to restore the NHS.

“The prescription he should be writing for the NHS is a re-nationalisation Bill… That is definitely not what a Starmer-led Labour Party is going to deliver.”

He challenged our friends in the mainstream news media to get Starmer to name a single public/private partnership that has not enriched the shareholders and CEOs of the private company.

“Public/private partnership is a con trick,” he warned.

Here’s the full interview:

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Zara Aleena probation failings not political says Tory boy Bowie – but they are

UK prime minister Rishi Sunak was under pressure over the murder of Zara Aleena in Ilford – so one of his mouthpieces rushed in to claim there was no political element to the case.

Ms Aleena was murdered by Jordan McSweeney, who had been wrongly assessed as a “medium risk” offender, when in fact the violent, woman-hating racist should have been classed “high risk” and recalled to prison after missing probation appointments.

A Ministry of Justice review has found that probation officers were under mounting pressure at the time of McSweeney’s assessment, with staffing shortages and an increasingly-heavy workload.

These are both symptoms of government funding cuts – and, indeed, during PMQs, Keir Starmer raised a “botched, then reversed” attempt to privatise the service, and a decade of underinvestment.

And Ms Aleena’s family’s spokeswoman, her aunt Faraz Naz, made it perfectly clear that “Government bears responsibility too, it is not just the probation service. They have blood on their hands.”

But Tory MP Andrew Bowie, discussing the case on the BBC’s Politics Live, falsely claimed this had not been said – after trying to say that the failings of the Probation Service were not political:

Of course they were.

They were the result of political decisions to starve the service of staff and resources.

A Conservative MP was responsible. But once again, it seems, we are not likely to see anybody take responsibility.

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NHS strikes: at last people are talking about the elephant in the room

Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham has at last given voice to what could be the real reason the government is not talking about pay with the unions responsible for strikes in the National Health Service.

It’s a simple reason, too:

The Conservatives are planning to privatise the NHS outright.

This Site has made the point already; private health companies are more likely to snap up elements of the service if payroll costs are low.

Here’s the discussion between Ms Graham and Sky’s Sophie Ridge:

It’s good, also, to see someone making it plain that the government has been lying – about ambulance drivers endangering lives and about pay discussions.

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NHS leaders making contingency plans as biggest walkout in its history looms | Sky News

At breaking point: the UK’s National Health Service.

Ambulance workers and nurses are both set to go on strike on 6 February – the first time they’ve taken industrial action simultaneously. There are fears it could pose a “significant challenge” for the NHS.

Saffron Cordery, the interim chief executive of NHS Providers, has said the proposed walkouts are a “huge concern”.

She said: “Trusts have been warning for months that coordinated strikes were a possibility if the government and unions failed to reach an early agreement on this year’s pay award.”

Ms Cordery urged ministers to “get round the table with the unions urgently to deal with the key issue of pay for this financial year, otherwise there is no light at the end of the tunnel”.

Source: NHS leaders making contingency plans as biggest walkout in its history looms | UK News | Sky News

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Steve Barclay can wag his jaws all he wants but the Tories are still preparing the NHS for privatisation

The big takeout from this clip is around eight minutes in. I’ll copy it below:

“Not that it’s just underfunding that [the Conservatives in government] use to stop the NHS from functioning properly.

“They broke up the NHS into smaller, less efficient parts, unconnected parts; they’ve put people with private healthcare interests in charge of NHS budget decisions in the NHS trusts, they’ve allowed hospital buildings to fall into disrepair, they’ve systematically lowered people’s standard of living – making illness and injury more likely in the population to increase the burden on the health service, they’ve reduced the number of [staff] employed in the service; this collapse of the NHS isn’t sudden… it’s been happening for years.

“Before Covid we had at least two years’ of reports of patients being left in corridors – not always even on a trolley.”

At least three years, in fact. Here‘s an article from This Site in January 2017. Bear in mind, that is now six years ago.

“This has been going on for a very long time indeed, across five different Tory prime ministers, now.”

Additionally:

“To a Tory, ‘efficiency’ doesn’t mean what it does to you or I. It doesn’t mean ‘doing more with your resources’… it means having fewer resources. It means cutting the resources – and just hoping that the productivity stays the same.

“The Tory meaning of efficiency is always – always, 100 per cent of the time – job cuts.

“[Their angle] will be: ‘You can have better pay; we will pay you more – if that comes as a result of sharing out the salaries of staff leaving the service, and you do their work on top of your own. We don’t even try to recruit replacements. You do the extra work.

“That’s what it will mean.”

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NHS dentists: Is Rishi Sunak trying to usurp Boris Johnson’s reputation for lying?

Rishi Sunak: rebuilding public DIStrust of the Conservative government.

UK prime minister Rishi Sunak has been caught out telling a falsehood to his fellow MPs.

Didn’t he claim he was going to rebuild public trust in the government, when he became PM last year?

This isn’t going to achieve that aim.

During Prime Minister’s Questions on January 11 – the first PMQs of the year, he claimed:

  • There are more NHS dentists across the UK.
  • There is more funding for NHS dentists.
  • This means people are getting the treatment they need.

It seems none of these claims are true.

Cat Smith, Labour MP for Lancaster and Fleetwood, who highlighted concerns that people are unable to get an NHS dental appointment, has written to Sunak, calling on him to correct the record:

She wrote: “The British Dental Association (BDA) has said that not one of these claims are accurate, and described this as a ‘wholesale misrepresentation’ of the crisis facing NHS dentistry.”

She continued: “The Chair of the BDA, Eddie Crouch, has said ‘The Prime Minister has offered a grotesque misrepresentation of a crisis facing millions. Our patients are living with the reality. The facts are there are no new dentists, no new contract and no new money. All we’ve seen are tweaks at the margins. We need honesty, ambition and investment to save a service on its last legs.”

And she urged him to correct the record.

At the time of writing, he has yet to do so.

ADDITIONAL: The British Dental Association has also urged Sunak to correct the record after Labour/Co-operative MP Simon Lightwood raised the same issue:

And Peter Stefanovic has made this short clip to show Sunak how to do it:

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