From David Harney on the Think Left Facebook site this morning:
The Gov`t sell-off of our NHS took another sickening turn yesterday, with Virgin signing a £500m contract to take over Surrey NHS. Also SERCO & Virgin have aquired East Anglia Mental Health Care. Further, Virgin are on the brink of buying Community Care from North Norfolk NHS. Sorry to bare such bad news at this time of the morning, but thought we all should know. Terribly sad day for our National Health Service!
Indeed.
You didn't think you'd see the end of the NHS. But now it's happening right under your noses.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Don’t worry, Richard, don’t you know that Monitor will sort it all out. After all, that paragon of virtue, Shirley Williams, and all those lovely Lib Dems, like Simon Hughes, who are keeping the Tories from returning to their natural state (the nasty party) have told us repeatedly it’ll be so. Never mind that key positions at Monitor (and elsewhere in the Department for Health) are populated by ex and/or seconded staff from McKinsey, we can be assured that the writ of Lib Dems runs so wide that the natural instincts of these people (who have been so instrumental over so many years at working behind the scenes to break up the NHS) will be curtailed. Indeed, I fully expect to see Saint Shirley personally intervening should they stray from the path of compromise negotiated by the Lib Dems.
Oh yes, I should add that I think I might win the lottery this week – even though I don’t play it!!
Ps. A good piece from Polly Toynbee today on charity giving. She cites your work.
Ivan
Even you’re getting cynical
Things are bad!
Richard
To be honest with you Richard, on this issue it’s impossible not to be. I for one shall NEVER forget any Lib Dem MP or Lord whose been involved in this utterly unforgiveable policy disaster.
Yes, I recall the lovely Shirley Williams doing her damndest (and unfortunately succeeding) to pass a motion at the Lib Dem conference to strongly water down resistance to the Health & Social Care Bill. I suppose its all you could expect from a traitor who stabbed the Labour party in the back suring the 1980’s when the party was at one of its lowest ebbs!
Of course, the Lib Dem MPs, despite all their sound and fury at the Lib Dem Conference, dutifully trooped in to vote the Lansley bill through.
I hope the Lib Dems are preparing themselves to be driven down to the level of the Monster Raving Looney Party in the next general election.
It is more than they deserve!
It’s amazing that this isn’t all over the front pages…
There is a good reason for this not being on the front pages. All the fuss over the Osborne budget – pasties, granny tax and philanthropy – is merely distracting most people from what the Coalition is really doing – destroying the NHS and rewarding the corporates. Perhaps after all Osborne is stiil the ‘master’ strategist, but we have not quite realised this yet.
This is all reversible given enough political will. If cost is a problem, tax the privatised health companies via land tax, (hospitals need lots of valuable land which cannot be moved off shore).
The privatisation could be declared illegal due to lack of a mandate when the legislation was pushed through and protests and petitons were ignored. There must be a way – and Labour have promised to reverse it, if they win the nest general election – Hopefully they will win and do it.
It would have and still would strengthen resistance to this if more attention was paid to the international trade agenda rather than just parochial outrage re a national phenomomen.
There is a global push for transnational finance to access all government spending – the term is public procurement. Public services are part of public procurement.
Tomorrow there is a meeting of the Global Services Forum – thats a financial services talkfest to figure out how to push this global agenda forward faster and harder. Im sure a glass will be raised over dinner to the UK Health and Social Services Bill .
Not only is the City of London the main global parking place for transnational financial services but the UK is also an important global model for liberalisation. The NHS is just perfect – a demonstration of how a universal social provision health service can be transformed into a ready- made cash cow for transnational capital.
The ugly fact is that our domestic policy is a pawn in this global strategy for which the City of London Corporation is a front.
In the important sphere of international trade agreements which create straightjackets for irreversible liberalisation, there is a Global Procurement Agreement. The signatories are countries which like our own have gladly unilaterally liberalised, though we probably take the prize in this.
With this plurilateral agreement (within the multilateral WTO) those countries commit to no reversals on their liberalisations. Thus ‘backsliding’ as they call it, is legally prohibited.
This is the case whether their populations are aware of what is goin on or not. Clearly in the UK , the population is not aware.
Another aim of the GPA is to coerce other countreies into joining, thus securing commitments on the liberalisation of their government procurement and transnational access to it. India and China are main targets.
So unless people in this country wake up real fast and react really strongly – it will be extremely difficult to reverse these privatisations/ liberalisations because the commitments will be subject to international law, way beyond, for instance, EU directives.
And by the way – we – or the EU for us- is introducing ‘investor protection’ whereby not only a country can raise a trade dispute if another country tries to go into reverse on a trade commitment, but megacorps can sue the ‘offending’ govt directly.