This video of Allyson Pollock at a Tedx event is brilliant. Please watch it:
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A complex scam has been set up to extract exorbitant sums from the taxpayer that will result in a less efficient and worse service. Universal coverage will end. Death panels will operate in secret. Costs will sky rocket. In short will end up with evil “Mini Me” of the US system.
This is a clear delineation of disaster and many personal tragedies. health care will now mirror inequality: constantly improved care for the wealthy and worsening care for those on low incomes. This is the case in America where thousands die for lack of access to the doctor. It is, in effect, a form of ‘market eugenics’.
The politicians’ responsibility to our citizens diminishes while the size of the state increases in its responsibility to global finance.
Many thanks for sharing this. There is a fundamental systemic corruption of our so called democracy. Even financial markets are hugely inefficient at pricing risk. We are destroying so much that is good. Our leadership and their awful ethics are constantly failing us. The latest news on media hacking and political influence are another nail in the coffin.
What is there to add, Richard, that Allyson doesn’t cover or hasn’t been said on this blog over the past year or so.
The only thing that does strike me – is the extent to which the LidDems were complicit in this deceit, and Shirley Williams in particular. That alone warrants their destruction at the next election.
Powerful language Ivan
But because of their commitment to a very nasty form of liberalism, I think entirely justified
By the way, on a related note, did you read Ian Jack’s column in The Guardian on Saturday? (Britain took more out of India than it put in – could China do the same to us?). An example he uses in the piece is the way the UK government and investors exploited an investment scheme in Indian railways during the 19th and early 20th century that guaranteed a 5% return even if the railway made no profit. And as it didn’t for years Indian taxpayers ended up footing the bill.
Jack goes on to note that the English economist, William Thomas Thornton, who was secretary of public works at the India Office ‘described the guaranteed scheme in a phrase that became well known. It was, he said, “private enterprise at public risk”.
It may have been a well known phrase at the time but I’d never heard it it. Nevertheless, if just about sums up what’s happening in the NHS and across public services more generally, of course.
I also learned that as part of the very recent trade agreement between China and the UK, China will now build and operate the new high speed rail line. Interesting that our wealthy Tory politicians have no qualms about outsourcing strategic assets to people they regards as fellow citizens of the 1%.
This appears to be being replicated in the UK now
I have just learned at least some schools have to earn a rate of return on capital
I wonder who gets that return?
Ivan and Richard – and let’s not forget also the pusillanimous, brown-nosing behaviour of the BBC, which COMPLETELY failed in its duty to inform the public about the true nature of the Government’s poisonous Health Care legislation.
But then, if the BBC can ignore reporting on a crowd of 50,000 in Parliament Square, protesting against the failed (not just failed, but positively injurious) policy of austerity, why should we be surprised. Welcome to the “Ministry of Truth”, (which, of course, Orwell actually based on his experiences of working with the BBC in the War!)
So, the Government Coalition of crooks (Coulson) and Mafiosi (IDS) grinds on, demolishing everything in its way.
But I even think many, possibly even most of the Lib Dem rank and file members (I am not a member)were not in agreement.
The book NHS SOS (to which Allyson contributed) also shows the extent of the failure to oppose of the medical establishment. Many medical people wanted their associations to raise objections on their behalf and they were fobbed off. The cynical might say they were too worried about their knighthoods. Of course, this is just a speculation!
“The only thing that does strike me — is the extent to which the LidDems were complicit in this deceit, and Shirley Williams in particular.”
Yes. It isn’t the first time that the odious Shirley Williams has stabbed working people in the back, but her support in favour of the creeping privatisation of the NHS is particularly odious!
The LibDems deserve to lose their deposit at the general election in 2015.
While we are hammering the Lib Dems (justifiably) let’s not forget that labour advanced this process with gusto and in my view deserve to be electorally punished even more (although traditional Labour voters seem to still vote for them out of sentimental allegiance). Dr. Alan Sked, who was a founder of UKIP in the 90’s and has now condemned them as racist and anti-intellectual, is hoping to start a party that he call’s the ‘New Deal’ Party -any hope there? (He has at least referred to the bedroom Tax as ‘iniquitous’ which is the language Labour should have used).
Yet we have an electorate which seems not to care as long as they have the world Cup, sink TV, a mobile phone brain destroyer (how many students have you nearly run over because they are seem biologically attached to a mobile phone ??). A colleague of mine (we work in the NHS) today said “I know how the NHS will end up-like dental care is now”, I think he was right. What the hell can we do??
You are probably right
Support the NHA party or the Green party which appear to be the only ones concerned about the NHS and the effect the TTIP will have on the NHS.