No Sign of the Liberal Democrat Revival

The Liberal Democrats are not having a good election. Bullish coming off the back of a steadily increasing tally of councillors picked up from local authority by-elections, buoyed by a yellow wave of new members that has taken them to over 100,000 members, and their triumph in Richmond, everyone was expecting great things. Well, better things. Then came the local elections, which saw a net loss of council seats (substantially more than a year's worth of by-election gains) and, despite a local vote tally projected around the 18% mark, their polling numbers are stubbornly low. It might be that Labour are squeezing their vote as the more progressive-minded LibDem voters who returned to the Liberals over the course of the last year have doubled back. This means the notion they're going to recover loads of seats lost in 2015 is, at the moment, looking fanciful.

Whatever is going on, the LibDems are in trouble. And this is the context in which their manifesto launched this evening. In its treatment by the media, the document has been trailed as a young-oriented programme with promises to sort apprenticeships out, dicker with the housing market through help-to-rent and rent-to-buy initiatives, and the like. On pay and particularly low pay, which young people disproportionately are on the sharp end of, all we get is a commitment to set up a review that would consult on the level of the living wage. Helpful. What has particularly caught the eye is a promise to reintroduce grants for students in Higher Education. Yet there isn't anything I could glean about 16-18 education, and so no promise to restore EMA payments. Which, you may recall, were taken away by the LibDems and Tories when they shared a bed. Still, not to worry, the decriminalisation of cannabis is sure to get the young voters in.

Let's have a look at their NHS section. Here, there is nothing too objectionable. A penny on each of the tax bands isn't something anyone is going to complain too much about. Their idea of developing a workforce strategy, working toward a more joined up health service, taking mental health very seriously by starting to match resources to need and what have you is absolutely fine. Though there are two big problems here. Rightly, they attack the Tories for their funding crisis and take a lazy sideswipe at Labour for not having the solutions to deal with it. But Labour does have a solution, and it directly involves a key Liberal Democrat "achievement": repealing the 2012 Health and Social Care Act. Yes, the NHS is underfunded. It also wastes billions on the added costs of a thoroughly marketised health economy underpinned by the taxpayer. Apparently, tinkering here and there would sort the NHS out while the glaring structural flaw remains invisible to their eyes. Another, not unrelated, problem is the proposal for a dedicated health and care tax. This, if you will remember, was a wheeze conjured up by George Osborne. His thinking was that specifying a NHS tax as part of PAYE would encourage a desire among tax payers to see that tax reduced, giving the Tories a further hook to run it down even further. I'm not suggesting the LibDem proposal comes from a similar place, though they too are neoliberal taliban when it comes to such things, yet it's a hostage the Tories would gladly seize down the line.

Other things? How about this on page 93: "Strengthen trade union members’ political freedoms by letting them choose which political party they wish to support through the political levy." Um, no. You can take that one back. Trade unions are organisations of working people, so why should a party of business - which the LibDems are, albeit a singularly unsuccessful one - have the right to say what voluntary organisations can and can't do with their political funds? If a union wants to open its political funds to other parties, that's a matter purely for them. Though don't be too surprised if this one is nabbed for the much-delayed Tory manifesto.

Speaking of the Tories, they've picked up a trick from them. Or, more specifically, the Scottish Conservatives. We're seeing how Theresa May is using personal branding to overcome brand toxicity and build a vote, in exactly the same way Ruth Davidson did in Scotland. The LibDems, in their introduction, are asking people to vote for them in order to provide an effective opposition. Just like Ruth Davidson did in Scotland. Unhappily for them, the same trick is not going to repeat.

Is any of this going to be help? It's not looking likely. The problem is pitching yourselves as hard remainers in local (and parliamentary) by-elections is one thing. You can easily mobilise a vote motivated by this issue to pull off stunning wins on low turn outs. In a general election when the Tories are explicitly pitching as the guardians of Brexit against the "wreckers" and other such stupidity, that hardcore remain vote is spread too thinly to make a difference in all but a very small number of seats. And with that, the LibDem revival, much hyped, much vaunted, looks all set to come to nothing on 8th June.

Surrey, They Haven't a Clue

Local government finance isn't the sexiest subject in politics, but it should be right up there. Councils provide the services and maintain the infrastructure all our communities, whether heavily urbanised or scattered across the countryside, depend on. And the demented cuts the government have foisted on councils have stripped services to the bone, and most noticeably precipitated an adult social care crisis that has seen the displacement of vulnerable people who should be managed by social services into hospital wards reeling under the impact of staffing and resource shortages.

Under the late and unlamented Dave, local government was in Tory sights from the off. The appointment of the execrable Eric Pickles to the Department for Communities and Local Government saw him hailed as the first minister determined to make his portfolio obsolete. Rather than straight funding cuts to the block local government grant, they went down the route of fiddling with the formula that determined monies to be dispensed. It shifted from a formula that allocated resource with an appreciation of different levels of need per locality to a scheme that funded authorities by head of the population. On paper, it looked like the Tory/LibDem plans offered a "fairer" settlement as grants were shared out per head. In the real world it saw authorities covering some of the most deprived areas of the country, such as Stoke, lose money while some wealthy areas in the South saw an increase in their grant. All in it together?

The overall Tory objective was and remains to make local authorities entirely self-sufficient. They want to abolish the grant completely and see it replaced by a mix of council tax, business rates and council housing rent receipts. The Darwinian dream is for councils to fight it out to offer low council tax and rates to attract residents and businesses. It's sink or swim, with areas with high deprivation and correspondingly smaller private sectors disadvantaged from the outset. But because these were the Tories, and because Osborne's much-hyped but missing-in-action political genius couldn't resist, the government introduced council tax caps to prevent big rises to make up the shortfall. Initially this was through one-off bribes to keep rises down that were not guaranteed from year to year, followed by a rule change whereby councils would be required by law to hold local council tax referendums if they wanted to levy more than whatever that year's arbitrarily-determined threshold was. This, Osborne and Pickles reasoned, would wallop Labour councils. They had pressing financial needs, and win or lose they could be singled out by ministers as more proof of Labour profligacy.

Funny how things turn out.

Because of the pressing crisis in adult social care, Dave allowed for bigger rises in council tax: up to 2.99% for general revenue and a further 2% on top to go to adult social care. It was a belated recognition that social services were left badly damaged by years of unrelenting cuts, but was also an amount that fell well short of the monies required to make things good.

This is where Tory-run Surrey County Council enters the picture. Like many county authorities, the government are expecting them to make big cuts. For the financial year 2017/18, they were budgeting for savings of £93m. To help pull this otherwise wealthy county out of the mire, the council had approved a 15% rise in council tax and were all set to put it to a referendum as per the Osborne/Pickles trap. In the words of council leader David Hodge, the council simply couldn't cope with cuts of this scale without the shortfall getting made up from somewhere else.

Everything in place and then, boom, to everyone's surprise the referendum was off. The tax rise had been scaled back to the permitted 4.99% after much singing and dancing. Also interesting to see the sudden disappearance from the council's website of criticisms of centrally-imposed cuts. Hmmmm, what had happened? All was unveiled in a zinger of a Prime Minister's Questions. Texts accidentally sent to Newcastle's council leader from Hodge showed a deal had been hatched with Whitehall. No details, but it meant the referendum would go away. According to Channel 4 News this evening, it looks like Surrey was "coincidentally" selected as a pilot area for a new scheme aiming to integrate health and social care. How handy.

The government, clearly, had no choice but to cave. They were about to be caught in a trap of their own making. Seeing a Tory council ramp up council tax by such an amount would have damaged the party's claim to fiscal responsibility and cost them votes in a county area playing host to senior ministers, like our friends Jeremy Hunt and "call me" Philip Hammond. Secondly, win or lose it would have drawn media attention to an area of policy the Tories would rather not speak about. In short, it lays bare the inadequacy of present funding arrangements. By making the referendum disappear, the crisis can be swept under the rug for a little longer. It might be left to Jeremy Corbyn to raise it at PMQs but, they reason, few pay attention to what he has to say anyway. And thirdly, if this can be headed off now it might, with a stroke of luck, be a Labour council next time who puts a referendum to its people, allowing the government to jump in with both feet and make the cheapest of political points.

In all, this is one of the most tawdry spectacles this government has put on. That even now, despite the shared society idiocy and, more importantly, the full blown crisis in A&E and winter beds they are quite prepared to shilly shally around with political games than provide the support the situation demands. Even if everything else was tickety-boo, this alone damns them. But with everything else going on, their lazy attacks on doctors and their stated preference for Wrexit, this should - and they deserve to be - damned all the way to oblivion.

Untangling Theresa May's Attack on GPs

It's not like the perennially slow and ultra-cautious Theresa May to take a risk. After all, her plodding leadership makes Gordon Brown look like Flashman. But that is what she's doing with her attack on GPs in response to the NHS crisis. It seems rash as government confrontations with medical professionals never end well for said government, so it's worth pausing for a moment to consider what's going on. Is this panic stations by a PM desperate to wriggle off the NHS hook, or something more calculating?

1. Theresa May is lucky at the moment. Her image as a grown up, calm professional politician remains the case for large numbers of people. She's not in control, her government is beset by crisis and paralysis, and those backbenchers retain their potential for trouble, but appearances assume a reality of their own if cultivated by enough outlets. May, understandably, would like to extend her honeymoon period indefinitely. Apart from the weekly drubbing at Prime Minister's Questions, the polls consistently show she hasn't got too much to worry about at the moment but she's been in the game long enough to know things can change, and however implausible it might seem presently Labour will close in on the government eventually. The NHS crisis has that potential to erode the Tory lead. Time and again, hospital winter beds crises follows Conservative governments as night follows day, and as they don't see it as a problem to be solved but rather managed. After all, taking the health service to the edge of crisis makes to argument that we can no longer afford to fully fund appear that bit more plausible.

2. May's announcement that the GPs will be expected to stay open for longer is entirely in this mould. Rather than release more money or undo the market mechanisms strangling the NHS, the Tories are looking for a way out, something or someone apart from themselves that are to blame. We know from repeat research, press reports and the like that the proximate cause of the problems is demand. Demand driven by the cutting of adult care services, the closure of GP surgeries thanks to an ongoing recruitment deficit, and the shutting down of NHS Walk-in centres. The Tories know this very well: their refusal to act on it isn't a matter of ignorance. Indeed, for them the fact that somehow the entire system hasn't collapsed and is treating record numbers is something to be celebrated. Nevertheless, singling out the GPs is about deflecting blame. The BMA are entirely correct that the government is casting around for a scapegoat.

3. Political ideas and arguments are powerful if they chime with enough people's experiences. The singling out of GP's services is no accident. Everyone knows, thanks to targets introduced under the blessed Blair that getting a doctor's appointment is bloody difficult. How many people have waited until the moment a surgery opens to try and blag an emergency consultation? It's not so much GP services are overstretched, but the rules by which they operate reduce the efficiency of the service and make for worse, more stressful experiences for patients. Because of this, lengthening opening hours appears to make sense. Dialing in to beat the engaged tone would become a thing of the past if only services were available for longer, and you wouldn't have to nip along to A&E. It therefore follows that GPs are the ones to blame for the NHS crisis because they're not doing their jobs properly. The political logic from the Tories' point of view is sound, because their argument might rub against a kernel of some patients' experiences. But we know this isn't a serious solution to a serious problem because the directive comes without the release of any extra money to fund the new opening hours, and that means reduced services, albeit available throughout the day.

It's almost as if the Tories are willing to run down the NHS further to avoid embarrassing headlines.

The Idiocy of Jeremy Hunt

The arrogance and incompetence of the government was always going to catch them out. And in the unnecessary fight they picked with the British Medical Association, the Tories find their cruel cluelessness paraded in headlines and news bulletins. The decision by Jeremy Hunt, the sometime health secretary and full-time gimp, to impose a new contract on junior doctors is probably the most stupid thing he could have done. Stupid and utterly reckless. Accused by Heidi Alexander in the House of being a recruiter for the Australian health service, on C4 News this evening Hunt himself more or less admitted that no contingency plans exist should significant numbers of doctors leave the NHS because of his "deal".

In all, it's been an awful 24 hours in the bunker. As previously, yesterday's strike was solidly observed. Public backing for actions short of all-out strike remains unwavering, and in general balanced broadcast coverage is the norm and that has tended to favour the BMA's case. Then came today's round-robin letter which appeared to give the backing of 20 health trust bosses to the deal proposed by Hunt, only for them to backtrack once our dim friend announced its imposition. As the stunt publicly unravelled as the day wore on the government finds itself weaker that it was this morning.

Having watched but not commented on the dispute it's appeared to me that the government's position has been precarious, and when Hunt threatened to impose terms after the last round of strikes he exposed his weakness. This clumsy declaration only hardened doctors' attitudes, which was already stiff thanks to his repeated lies and for suggesting the BMA are pulling the wool over its members' eyes. Having only graduated from nursery-level education at the Thatcherite school of industrial relations, what Hunt cannot understand is that a 98% backing on a 76% industrial ballot turnout indicates there's no gap to drive a wedge into. The junior doctors are the BMA. The BMA are the junior doctors.

The fact of the matter is the Tories were ill-prepared for stubborn opposition. Having, against expectations, won a general election they feel emboldened by their sliver of a majority and think they can do as they please, particularly as they've convinced themselves the party opposite is no longer an "effective opposition". However, not having been in direct dispute with a group of workers before Hunt and Dave and Osborne, for they are all in this together, have forgotten that Thatcher meticulously prepared the ground for her set piece attack on the miners. Likewise, when New Labour - to its shame - attacked workers in the postal service, it was careful not to provoke an all-out dispute. It was an attrition struggle where management were given carte blanche to isolate and take out groups of workers in depots here, in depots there, while all the time flooding the service with agency and part-time workers, and allowing private postal companies to piggy back off Royal Mail's delivery infrastructure. Hunt has made no similar preparations, and given how strategic junior doctors are to the running of the NHS, it's difficult to see how he could - which only underlines the Tories' stupidity to provoke a strike.

The question then turns to why this is happening. We know that Hunt's weekend deaths claim is a load of over-inflated claptrap that has nothing to do with the state of junior doctors' contracts. Those and others who are pointing to privatisation are correct. The Tories remain committed to keeping the NHS "free" at the point of use (i.e. funded through taxation and National Insurance). They know the introduction of charging as a matter of course would be like washing a bottle of cyanide down with strychnine for the Tories' future electoral hopes. But what the NHS represents is a market guaranteed by the taxpayer for pharmaceutical and other private health interests. Quite apart from the Tories who stand to gain personally from further private involvement, and companies with financial links to the party bidding for and running NHS services, in an economic environment that - despite hype about the "jobs miracle" and other nonsense - is weak and uncertain, the NHS offers business a profitable opportunity when they're thin on the ground. And to make it more attractive, the Tories have resolved to intensify the working week and reduce the wage bill so private contractors can swoop in and make a fast buck. Patients? No, pound signs.

Unfortunately for the Tories, not only are they ill-prepared for the junior doctors, they've overlooked the fact that, generally speaking, the public trust their judgement and can see for themselves the effects of overwork and stress when they go and see them. Provided the doctors remain firm and refuse en masse to sign the new contracts, the Tories' scheme to shake the workers, the patients, the NHS, and the taxpayers down for their friends would be scuppered and show that resistance is not only not futile, but that it can win.

Quick Notes on Lord Warner's Resignation

Baron Norman Warner. Who he? I can't be the only politico who scratched their head as news came through that Lord Warner resigned the Labour whip in the Lords this evening. So here are some very quick notes about a resignation few are likely to notice.

1. Lord Warner was ennobled under His Royal Blairness in 1998 after years as a career civil servant. He served in the Department of Health between 2003 and 2007, and was one of those charming Labour people who took Dave's shilling to look at social care funding for the elderly. In 2013 Warner broke the party whip and voted with the Tories and LibDems to open up the NHS market to practically any willing provider. And in March last year, Warner called for the introduction of some NHS charges. With views like these, why has his resignation been so long coming?

2. Dave and co. are facing up to their most difficult week since their fear-mongering won them the general election. The collapse of the steel industry while the government sit on their hands. Awkward questions of the Chinese state visit. Cuts to working tax credits. Opportunities aplenty exist to put them on the back foot, so excuse me for adopting a conspiratorial turn of mind as an unknown peer resigns at the very moment the Tories could desperately do with a bit of a distraction.

George Osborne's Car Crash Interview

If a confrontation with Paxo or Brillo is like going ten rounds with a grizzly bear, spending time on Andrew Marr's sofa is the political equivalent of a smooch by a pound puppy. Yet this giver of the most gentle of interviews had George Osborne on the ropes in seconds.



Of course, if you ask Dan Hodges this is all part of a master plan. We're told there's a genius essence at work beneath the appearance of dogmatism and rank incompetence.

In fact, the Tories' rare foray out of the gutter again underlines a campaign that is deeply dysfunctional. The pledge to squash inheritance tax on homes worth up to £1m isn't exactly an original idea. It featured in their 2010 manifesto but was one of the policies traded in for LibDem support. It's not really an eye-catcher either, with the ever-helpful IFS pouring scorn on the proposal. However, as far as the Tories are concerned they can't be picky. Taking a leaf out of Nigel Farage's core vote shoring up operation during the leaders' debate, Conservatives are trying desperately to woo back Daily Mail types obsessed with property values. Bugger the floating voter, Dave and Osborne are hoping enough of their current and former support will vote and push them over the line so the implicit centre left alliance don't get chance to lock them out of power. This is the alleged political genius of the chancellor at work.

A naked electoral gimmick it is, at least it's doable. At least the Tories have placed their costings of the proposal before media and public scrutiny. The same cannot be said for the £8bn extra for the NHS. Panicked by Labour's non-dom proposals, and now the £7.5bn crackdown on tax dodging they needed another dead cat to throw at 24 hour rolling news and quick. And like Fallon's ill-received attack on Ed Miliband, the superficially attractive spending commitment has misfired spectacularly. As Osbo found out, saying there's a magic money tree due to blossom over the coming years doesn't wash. This is particularly stupid as one of their main lines of attack is Labour profligacy. However, while the opposition have been scrupulous in ensuring all its pledges are costed and paid for, the Tories have forgot to check their own sins before casting their hail of stones.

What a sorry, pathetic spectacle.

The Double Edge of British Values

I think there is evidence sufficient to justify an inquiry into the alleged infiltration of several Birmingham schools. It might be The Telegraph, but Andrew Gilligan makes a compelling case. All that matters now is that investigations proceed in due course. It is entirely unhelpful and downright opportunist for various papers and the Tories to scrabble for lurid headlines and knee jerk policy announcements, none of which has anything to do with the rise of UKIP and the need to shore up one’s core vote.

While I’m not going to write about the Trojan Horse allegations as such (if only more people kept schtum about things which they know little), our beloved Prime Minister has said something interesting for once. As our Secretary of State for Education has demanded schools teach something called ‘British values’, Dave has had a stab at defining this most vexatious and slippery of terms.

I would say freedom, tolerance, respect for the rule of law, belief in personal and social responsibility and respect for British institutions - those are the sorts of things that I would hope would be inculcated into the curriculum in any school in Britain whether it was a private school, state school, faith-based school, free school, academy or anything else.

All very common denominator stuff. All that’s missing is fair play, afternoon tea and cricket. No, to give Dave his dues, this is pretty much what anyone would come up with. You might easily suppose a Pole might say the same about Polishness, a Frenchwoman about Frenchness, and so on. But such is the conceit of each and every national identity.

The one bit I'm going to latch on to is this "respect for British institutions". What does this mean? Knowing Dave and how desperate the Conservatives are, this is a clause allowing them to label certain things as un-British. So, someone like me, a life-long republican, is by default 'un-British' because I do not "respect" the absurd pomp and anti-democratic reserve powers of the monarchy. You can say the same for anyone favouring progressive and socialist policies.

Respect, however, is super slippery. It wouldn't take much to describe everyone who doesn't vote, or has criticised Parliament as a sack of shit as un-British. Or those many millions of motorists who didn't "show respect" to the British car industry and went for something sleek and foreign instead. Or even those Londoners who've downloaded Uber, do they not "respect" the "institution" of the cockney cabbie and their hallowed knowledge?

Everyday folk are un-British, by Dave's definition. Yet even more damning than that is the Conservative Party itself, an organisation that has time and again set itself against the institutions Britain has built up over generations. Let's just keep to the last four years. Say what you like, but I don't think flogging off Royal Mail to the government's city mates on the cheap is the best of British values, let alone respecting a well-loved facet of national life. Speaking of which, there's the NHS too. Since 2010, the NHS has effectively ceased to exist as an entity. What we have instead is a market of state-owned and private health providers competing for the tax payer dollar to provide free (mostly) at the point of need healthcare. This has driven bureaucracy up along with waiting times. Is that "respect for a British institution"?

National identity is a slippery subject, and in this instance it can be turned as a political weapon against near absolutely everyone. If we want to turn this potent brew of ideas, nostrums and sentiments against the Tories, we have to actively fight for it.

What's Really Driving NHS Costs?

Let's get one thing straight from the off. The idea of charging a £10/month NHS "membership fee" is bloody stupid. Not just because it violates the principle that health provision should be free at the point of need, but for a whole host of other practical reasons. But let's glide Lord Warner's suggestion into a lay-by for the moment and deal with the concern he aims to address: that the NHS budget is spiralling out of control and something has to be done to arrest it.

Well, no. The NHS is not "unsustainable". The UK consistently ranks as a mid-table spender on health. But costs are increasing, and when you're talking billions of pounds here, billions of pounds there overall spending can look very scary indeed. Which is precisely why those on the right, including Warner, frame it as they do. By making it appear unaffordable they're breaking the ideological ground for yet marketisation, yet more shakedowns of the taxpayer by private health interests.

What are driving costs upwards though? Here are three key drivers.

The first of these is the outcome of what health watchers like to call the "epidemiological transition". That is back in the day, in the NHS's infant years a great effort was made to eradicate the causes of infectious diseases. Slum clearances, sanitation works, better nutrition, immunisation programmes worked together in a sequence of virtuous feedback that improved health and mortality rates right across the board. It's only now with the ominous spectre of drug-resistant TB and other nasties that infectious disease is becoming a public health concern. For most of the NHS's life, costs have been driven by the preponderance of chronic health problems. Partly associated with improved life expectancy, the care demands of broken, worn, aged bodies put pressures on health services. Quite apart from the rising demand for carers, the older you are the more you will need to see a doctor, take drugs, and go in and out of hospital. Particularly with present pensioners, the majority of whom would have had manual occupations of one sort or another, the wear and tear of working life can sneak up on you as you age.

Perhaps in the costs of chronic illness in the future will come down as the jobs of post-industrial Britain tend to be less physically demanding. But on the other hand, mental health problems are on the increase. The NHS may be left coping less with damaged bodies and more with broken minds.

The second are NHS supply arrangements - the servicing of PFI debts, procurement, and - increasingly - the growing costs of new medicines and medical technologies. Though gene screening and therapy, stem cell research, nanotechnology and exotic cocktails of wonder drugs promise a great deal, pharmaceutical companies are having to sink greater and greater quantities of capital into research with gradually diminishing returns. To recoup costs and, of course, make a profit new drugs and new treatments are very expensive. The NHS, however, can act like a captive market for many of these products. In fact, it might make sense to regard our health system as a manifestation of socialism for the rich. Big pharma takes a risk investing in a particular line of research, but mitigating it somewhat is the knowledge there's a guaranteed buyer already lined up. This allows drugs companies a great degree of latitude when it comes to determining a price and, of course, as profit maximisers they're going to ask for the highest price possible. Naturally, as their costs go up so does their charges.

Lastly, there is the bitter fruit of successive waves of marketisation, of which the Tory and LibDem Health and Social Care Act 2012 is the latest manifestation. While health care is free at the point of need in the majority of cases, the NHS is no longer an institution. What it is now is a label, under which wriggles public and private health providers all competing for commissioning contracts to deliver services. It's a complex, abstract business - which is why the government were able to force it through with comparatively little fuss. Strangely, ironically you might say, markets have been introduced into the NHS to drive costs down and strengthen efficiencies. As we know, there are too many politicians who believe the profit motive equals cheaper, better service. In the NHS, as it is in the HE sector too, reams of managers and accountants have to be kept on the payroll to put in bids for services, monitor market signals and, ludicrously, charm, schmooze and lobby funding bodies (Clinical Commissioning Groups) for contracts. Far from eliminating red tape, the market is building new layers of public bureaucracies. It's eating up resources that could be better spent elsewhere.

If one was truly concerned about the NHS bill, might I suggest these be looked at first? But returning to the £10 plan it is, once again, a mark of stupid empiricism - proving the Tories don't have a monopoly on this degenerate, decadent form of political thinking. There are two problems that immediately leap out. The first thing is the charge will strengthen the consumerist tendency among a layer of patients, fuelling a sense of service entitlement that could push up the demand for more GP visits, more drugs, more hospital appointments, and so on. The second and more serious issue is that a system of costs doesn't come for free - how much of the fee would be top sliced by local authorities (Warner supposes it would be collected via council tax)? How much would end up in NHS budgets? How much bureaucracy would be added to the NHS administering the charges system? It's a ridiculous idea, and had it appeared tomorrow it would be dismissed as the foolish larks of an obscure member of the upper house.

Ed Miliband's Reshuffle

"Ed Miliband backs down and gives Len McCluskey his dream team!!!" screams Conservative Central Office as if people outside the Tories' increasingly fevered (and depleted) ranks gives a monkey's. Meanwhile, back on planet Earth Ed's shadcab reshuffle is being dissected by friend and foe alike. As with any leader, the appointment of ministers and shadow ministers is never just a matter of ability - it's about the internal politics of party management and how the party looks to the electorate. With these factors in mind, these choices are smart politics. Bring on the Kremlinology.

Firstly, I was heartened to see Andy Burnham retained his place at the health brief. Like many others in the party, I feel Andy has grown into a formidable attack dog and principled champion of the NHS since his leadership bid three years ago. While as wonky as the leader himself, Andy's working class background, policy agenda and obvious passion for the job makes him horribly effective. Which is why the Tories fear him, smear him, and are now apologising to him. Those whose ears catch the idle chatter from the more indiscreet members of Ed's office have let drop that the leader was reportedly "furious" with Andy for raising not-so-oblique criticisms of the 'hush now' approach to party policy, and he could face the chop. And yet he's still there. On 'ability to do the job' there's a big tick. On internal politics, a good many party activists would have been disappointed had he gone - with a difficult 18 months ahead the party needs every pair of hands it can muster. And out there in realworldswingland; passion, competency and a rough plan to implement a national care service to complement the NHS goes down very well indeed. Losing Andy would have been a very serious error of judgement,

I know some readers will be wanting me to say a few things about my ex-boss, Tristram Hunt, who's been promoted to shadow education minister. There's very little to add to what I've already said on Twitter. Tristram will be very effective in pinning down Gove and putting forward Labour's alternative. He also cares deeply about improving schools and ensuring that education produces well-rounded people, not drones for assembly lines with the nonsensical capacity to recite England's kings and queens. And unlike his predecessor, who I believe never really *got* his brief, Tristram has his own ideas about what needs to be done. Internally, it's difficult for the likes of Dan Hodges to maintain there's been a cull of the Blairites when Tristram is one of the directors of Progress. There's also the small matters of promotions for Emma Reynolds and Gloria De Piero, and Wee Dougie keeping shadow foreign secretary and getting joint campaign chair too. Then again it's never the done thing to let facts get in the way of spun narratives.

But is there some truth to the cull hypothesis? A smidgen. It is under-performing Blairites who've had the push, not under-performers normally identified as Ed's people. Was Stephen Twigg effective as shadow education? As nice a bloke he is, I'm afraid not. His barely-concealed support for free schools as Labour policy was at odds with the common view among the PLP and the wider party. He had to go. Same with Liam Byrne. Actually, weirdly, strangely, I've warmed to Liam of late. He's very capable and is an extremely hard-working MP. He has to be - his constituency caseload is reputed to be the heaviest in Parliament. But I think he's too much of the old 'new' school. It's not that he personally believes in being beastly to people who subsist on social security, but is prepared to be so in the name of triangulation. Unfortunately for him, as Labour positions itself as a real social democratic alternative to the Tories, 'conviction politics' are again on trend. Triangulation is subordinate now to politics, not the other way round. Lastly, Jim Murphy who is perhaps the one bruiser the Blairites had left has gone to international development. Jim has been credited with improving Labour's appeal to the armed forces, be they veterans or serving personnel. Whatever one thinks of those efforts, he has nevertheless made real inroads. Jim's problem, however, is not that he is incompetent - rather it was his position over Syria that did for him. It's hardly news that Jim was of a hawkish bent when the matter was still being mulled over by the leadership a month or so ago. His mistake however was to publicly emote and allude to his displeasure with the Labour-led opposition victory against missile strikes. While you could say Andy Burnham was as equally out of order for trying to bounce the leadership on policy, pledges around care are one thing in politics, questions of war and peace are quite another. It meant that for Jim the writing was on the wall.

Yet what of Jack Dromey? I thought he was very effective in housing. Like Andy and now Tristram, he genuinely relished that role. Though the thinking seems to be he's on for some senior role with the shadow home office team.

So here we have Labour's 'Team 2015'. The new line up can be viewed in its entirety here. Not the communist combat squad haunting the limited imaginations of the Tory party faithful, but a collective that can put forward Labour's alternative with passion, rigour and clarity.

NHS Commissioning: Why You Should Care

One of the reasons the government have had an easy ride over its plans for the systematic looting of the NHS by Tory-friendly private health companies is the sheer complexity of their restructuring. Unlike, say, the Department for Work and Pensions, where there is a single bureaucracy responsible for administering a particular public service and a clear line of accountability stretching from the job centre complaint form to the Secretary of State. It's not a perfect set up by any means, far from it. But to use a well-trodden phrase, you know where you stand. The NHS on the other hand was transformed into a patchwork of semi-autonomous, competitive trusts and hospitals under the Blair/Brown governments. As of the beginning of the month, matters have taken an even more retrograde step. The trusts have gone and in their stead are hundreds of GP-led Clinical Commissioning Groups. It is the role of these organisations to buy in (commission) NHS services from any number of public and private providers. So, while treatment is free at the point of need in the vast majority of cases - for the moment - a new health market underpinned by the taxpayer is the mechanism for its delivery.

The idea on paper isn't entirely without merit. As a socialist who would like to see more democratic decision-making in the NHS led by patients and staff, the devolution of budgetary responsibility to CCGs theoretically brings resource allocation closer to the public. And more opportunities exist to link NHS spend to the public health strategies of local authorities to address the particular needs of their areas. But that's as far as the commendation goes. Because in North Staffordshire we have seen where letting the market in could leave NHS services, and it isn't pretty.

I doubt many readers will have heard of Turning Point. They are a self-described social enterprise run by Lord Victor Adebowale, who was gonged in 2000 and ennobled the following year for his work among the unemployed and the homeless. Reflecting his record, Turning Point, which he has led for the last 12 years, specialises in assisting recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, the mentally ill, and vulnerable people with complex needs. Exactly the sort of worthy-sounding not-for-profit I think most people, whether they like the CCG commissioning model or not, would be relaxed about providing NHS services.

Unfortunately, amid the beaming faces and success stories plastered all over their website a reader will find nothing on today's strike action by their Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire employees, nor the bitter dispute it has foisted in its 2,600 staff. Under the previous system of commissioning, Turning Point were contracted to run residential services for patients with severe learning difficulties and other complex needs. But, as John Gray notes, Turning Point are determined to make sure the workers they "inherited" from the NHS are re-engaged on far worse terms and conditions. The employer seems determined to trample all over transfer of undertaking (TUPE) protections, including redundancy rights. They are refusing to negotiate with their nominated representatives from Unison, despite their role being one of the protections backed by the law via TUPE. I have also been told the original decision by the dearly departed commissioning body awarded Turning Point the contract on the understanding existing provisions would be honoured.

The terms Turning Point want to impose include cuts to overtime pay, out-of-office payments (sleep-ins, on-calls), the removal of enhanced redundancy terms, end to unsociable hours’ payments and the disregarding of existing pay agreements and incremental structures. In sum, a number of workers could be out of pocket to the tune of £10,000/year. Quite how a charity with a 50 year track record of helping the most vulnerable thinks it can deliver a responsive, sensitive and professional service by treating its staff so despicably is beyond me.

Without a clutch of shareholders to satisfy and a very healthy turnover (£70m in 2010), you have to ask why a charity is hell-bent on bulldozing workers' rights? It is worth noting last year Lord Adebowale was paid £165,000, and his three assistants shared between them £473,000. For some, charity really does begin at home. What's going on? Is Turning Point accumulating capital so it can splurge on CCG contracts? The truth will out.

While this contract was granted before the Tory reforms, the proliferation of CCGs means the exponential multiplication of disputes of this kind. Collectively, hundreds of thousands of workers presently employed by NHS organisations could see their pay and job security peeled back. You don't need me to spell out what this could do to staff morale, patient care, service quality and workers' collective spending power. And, of course, taxpayers' money released from providers chopping into staff this way will not be returned to the CCG - it will go into the service provider's pockets. It's horrifying.

On the upside, the government will be able to pretend it's created more private sector jobs.

If Turning Point get away with raiding their staff this way, other providers will follow suit with all the consequences that entails. They must be stopped.

Messages of support can be sent to situ@unisonwmc.org.uk. There is also a video from today's Turning Point strike rally at their Manchester HQ here.

Zero Hour Contracts

From today's Sentinel. Given how pernicious zero hour contracts are, I'm glad to see a mainstream Labour figure has taken up the issue.

SPARE a thought for Caverswall-based Begbies Traynor. The corporate rescue and recovery firm was planning on an upturn in insolvencies during the recession. But, despite the high-profile bankruptcies of HMV and Jessops, our economic downturn has not seen a spike in company liquidations. Begbies Traynor's share price has suffered as a result.

Because the current state of the British economy has left many experts scratching their heads. Some call it a 'Zombie economy'. On the one hand, there are some clear and consistent drags on growth. Consumer spending has been curtailed as inflation outstrips wage growth, investment has been held back by a bank-lending system unfit for purpose, and exporters have had to contend with weak global demand, particularly in the embattled Eurozone.

Yet what has got economists baffled is how, in such conditions, employment statistics are holding up – even improving marginally. There are a number of possible explanations, including weakening productivity, stagnant wages and underemployment – where people are forced to take part-time jobs instead of full-time work.

Certainly, these play a part. But the worrying growth of another phenomenon is also having an impact. Because recent reports show that here in Stoke on Trent and across the country the number of so-called zero-hour contracts is rising rapidly. According to the trade union UNISON, in the private-care sector up to 41 per cent of homecare workers are on zero-hour contracts, while a survey from the Industrial Relations Service suggests that 23 per cent of employers now include them as part of their employment mix.

Zero-hour contracts are an agreement under which an employer does not guarantee the employee a fixed number of hours a week. The employee only receives payment for the specific number of hours worked. This means that they accrue none of the rights enjoyed by contracted employees, such as unfair dismissal, sick leave, maternity leave or redundancy rights.

These contracts first became popular in the late 1980s and 1990s as a way of improving labour market flexibility and reducing business costs. However, there were many reports of workers being asked to remain physically present on the premises, available to work, if their services were required – in work, but unpaid unless a job came available.

The last Labour government outlawed this form of abuse as part of the National Minimum Wage Act in 1998. But the mental pressure of always being on call remains. Especially for workers raising families or caring for dependents. With no guarantee of regular income meeting bills or planning for the future becomes next to impossible, with disastrous implications for overall consumer confidence. And they can also lead to complications with in-work benefits such as tax credits.

Traditionally such contracts have been the preserve of low-paid sectors where flexibility is vital to the success of the business, like catering or security. McDonald's employs the vast majority of its 87,500 UK staff on these terms.

Yet while they can be an attractive arrangement for both parties, this relies on the relationship being a balance of expectations. Just as the employer need not guarantee work, the employee needs to be able to turn down shifts without fear of pressure or future reprisals. In tough times this equality becomes far less commonplace.

Furthermore, there is widespread evidence that employers are using zero-hour contracts as a way of avoiding proper employment regulations. Professional personnel services routinely offer businesses advice on how to prevent zero-hour workers from acquiring employee status. And since temporary and agency workers acquired full employment rights in 2010, it is estimated that over half of all companies that used them have switched to zero-hour contracts.

However, perhaps most distressing of all is the rise of zero-hour contracts in the NHS. The NHS has often used these contracts for cleaners. But now trusts are using them to cover frontline staff, including physiotherapy, psychiatric therapy, and even cardiac services. One of the dangers of zero-hour contracts is when employers underestimate demand – it was precisely that situation that led to the G4S Olympic fiasco. With the Francis Report on Stafford Hospital still being digested, the consequences of doing this in the NHS do not bear thinking about. Is a McDonald's model of employment really appropriate for delivering the best clinical care?

Unfortunately, zero-hour contracts now seem an inescapable feature of a competitive, flexible labour market. And they do have some limited applications. But their growth is no cause for celebration. If this expansion of exploitation continues we urgently need a review to see if there is scope for offering workers more protection.

Alternatives to Austerity

I've lost count of the underpopulated trade union-organised meetings I've attended over the last 10 years. But thankfully, Tuesday evening's event organised under the banner of 'For a Fairer North Staffordshire?' by North Staffs TUC, the local PCS and Pensioners' Convention turned out to be a public meeting the public wanted to be at. Around a 150 people attended to hear what a panel of speakers on the government's ideologically-blinkered austerity drive, and what we - the labour movement - should do about it.

The first speaker was inveterate activist Dot Gibson in her capacity as National Pensioners' Convention veep. Her contribution focused on the post-war settlement, which, she argued, was an outcome of the mass radicalisation that swept over a devastated Europe. Leading Labour Party figures were left in no doubt about the mood of the armed forces when they ventured out into the field. Likewise, Churchill and Keynes were packed off to Washington to ensure cash was readily available after the war to meet the rising demands of a working class unwilling to return to the miserable conditions of pre-war Britain. And so a bargain of sorts were struck - the Labour Party established the foundations of a fairer society in the hope it would buy social peace.

The Thatcherite 80s put paid to that. And yet, despite the crisis, the economy remains in hock to finance capital. The arguments about debt and deficit are ruses to justify a project that would see bits of the welfare state sold off, and what remains cut to bits. As working people and pensioners who will come to depend on it at some point in our lives, we are "all in it together", but not in the sense Dave understands it.

Simon Harris from Hanley Citizen's Advice Bureau went into the depressing facts of what the government are trying to do. He began with the observation that cuts to welfare will depress the local economy by £105M per year. When Stoke-on-Trent is hardly the northern Midlands' answer to Abu Dhabi, it does not have the strength to absorb such a shattering blow. He moved onto the Employment and Support Allowance benefit, which he characterised as "not providing either". Simon also went into the introduction of 'Personal Independent Payments', the benefit designed to replace Disability Living Allowance with a higher threshold and 80% of the present budget, and, of course, the much-trailed changes to housing benefit for the Under-25s. He also mentioned the move to Universal Credit, the benefit being steered through the DWP by IDS, which will see the collapsing of a number of individual means-tested benefits into one payment. Not only will this see tougher conditions and sanctions attached, it can only be applied for online - straight away cutting out those without internet access and basic computer literacy.

Jenny Harvey of Unison's North Staffs Community Health Branch tackled the effect the Tories are having on the NHS. Far from "protecting" it, their budget freeze is forcing through very real cuts in patient care and provision. And despite having some criticisms of Labour's management of the NHS, the expensive and unnecessary reorganisation is threatening to undo all the improvements made over 13 years of government. For Tories a hospital isn't a place for treating people: it's a cash cow to be raided by their wealthy backers in the private medical industry.

Roger Seifert gave a political answer to the problems set out by the preceding speakers. He argued we needed to diagnose the cause before we can apply the cure. The ills, he suggested, lie in Britain's imperial past and the ways being a hub of a global empire distorted and bent our economy in a particular way, tilting it toward dominance by finance capital. The relative openness of the British economy saw it significantly penetrated by American capital throughout the post-war period and beyond, leading to Britain being tied by a thousand and one strings to US foreign policy. This can be broken by an independent foreign policy, but economic sovereignty depends on nationalising the banks, heavily investing in industry, building homes and raising wages and pensions. These measures will out money in people's pockets and in turn drive further economic regeneration. Ultimately the state will have to be smarter about tax, dump costly projects like Trident (which, in Roger's view, is a means of funnelling tax payers' cash into American arms contractors anyway), turn our back on the EU and trade more with the emerging economies of the East and Latin America. I have to say I'd never heard the Communist Party of Britain's programme so eloquently put.

The evening's last speaker was PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka. Rather diplomatically, he suggested the weakness of the Labour Party was a problem, so it falls to the trade unions to provide leadership in the struggle against austerity. He noted the fiver year pay freeze on PCS members' wages had seen their purchasing power, and therefore standard of living cut by 20% since the crisis broke. He also mentioned the 1,800 NHS workers due to lose their jobs by 2015, the refusal to properly invest in infrastructure and, most scandalously, a £30bn cut to the welfare bill to provide for £30bn worth of tax cuts for the rich. Turning this around requires the implementation of many measures advocated by Roger, but an immediate aim would be the estimated £123bn in taxes that avoids the Treasury every year.

Moving on to Labour, he said he wished the party would provide an opposition, that they have to differ from the Tories and offer hope to the four million or so voters the party lost during the last government, and who didn't switch their support to others. Immediately, the best thing Labour can do is repudiate the public sector pay freeze. But if Labour doesn't move, the unions should. Mark called for a strong turn out for the October 20th demo in London, but also for it to be followed up with a series of strikes. If the labour movement meet the government with united opposition, it might be enough to move Labour on to ground similar to that it occupied in 1945.

There followed the customary questions and answers with the audience. We heard arguments against moves to regional pay in the NHS and elsewhere, the changing nature and status of care jobs, Tory lies over the deficit, the potential for cross-generational alliances (of which this meeting was an example), and the baleful role played by the LibDems in this most right wing of governments. Surprisingly, there wasn't too much in the way of Labour Council bashing (which is something of a past time in the local press). There was a little bit of silliness when former local Labour leader Mick Salih prefaced his comments on Community Asset Transfer by saying he was kicked out of Labour "for being too much of a socialist". The historical record remembers otherwise.

Nevertheless, the overwhelming message taken from the meeting was the need for the labour movement to stick together. The links forged in the organisation of this meeting certainly bode well for the future. But the elephant in the room was the political question of the Labour Party. As the one organisation in Britain that commands the affiliation of most trade unions, labour movement activists, and working class people in general, it is the place where a politically united movement against austerity can best be felt - and this is despite a programme that accepts some cuts and is administering them at the local authority level. The means are there for a politics that speaks to our people if it is grasped with sufficient vigour.

Fancy a Neoliberal Mortgage?

Imagine receiving this from your bank.

Dear Sir/Madam

I'm writing to offer you a once in a lifetime mortgage opportunity.

With the shortage of suitable properties and prohibitive prices preventing many people from getting on the housing ladder, we are prepared to offer you one of our very special products. Because we value your custom, we will build you a bespoke house without a prior credit check or proof of income. It requires no deposit or down payment. And you can move in immediately.

All we require is you take out a mortgage repayable over 20, 30 or 40 years. The total monies you will pay will be approximately six times the value of the build. We think this is a reasonable deal, and no doubt you will too.

Don't hesitate to get in touch!

Tempted?

Such an offer was made to NHS bosses up and down the land in New Labour's early years. And it was an offer they could not refuse. Given the choice between taking out a rip-off mortgage for a new hospital, or muddling through with leaky, crumbling buildings from a century ago, few could blame them for taking the first choice.

I know many party members are proud of Labour's hospital-building programme. But would they have been had they'd known the mechanics of Private Finance Initiatives?

Still, it is annoying the great PFI rip off has only become national news only now. From the beginning the left has called PFI for what it is: a means of transferring public funds to private coffers. One can speculate why the BBC have only just "discovered" this. Perhaps bosses think buying into the Tories' 'Labour's legacy' narrative will protect their positions from the axe. Note how supine the BBC has been reporting public sector cuts elsewhere. They wring hands while hammering home how painful but necessary it all is. Even Pravda during the period of high Stalinism showed more editorial independence.

But the NHS PFI scandal is only the tip of the iceberg. Blair and Brown insisted new school, community, public and council buildings be built under the same scheme (and some roads!). In their attempt to make New Labour the preferred party of British capital they saddled the public sector with mortgages a house buyer would be insane to take out. One wonders how many more billions will pour into construction company profits for the next 40 years?

Daniel Hannan, the NHS and Twitter

Engels once remarked that parties more or less express the political interests of classes and class fractions. Similarly political science argues parties are aggregates of certain interests that simultaneously bridge the divide between the concerns of everyday folk and those who occupy the highest echelons of political office. This is known as the 'linkage' function.

In recent years there have been a number of arguments about the declining "quality" of democracy in this country. These have found voice in arguments over falling turn out at elections, the rise of the far right and the creeping authoritarianism of the state. Academics and activists alike point to the falling memberships of mainstream political parties as another symptom of a brewing crisis in liberal democracy, a crisis of legitimacy that recently found vocal mass expression in the outcry over MPs' expenses.

One of the stark features of this political landscape is the position in which the Labour party finds itself. Organised labour was sent into a tailspin by the onslaught unleashed upon it by the Tories in the 1980s. Compounded by election defeat after election defeat the (right-wing) Labour tops increasingly believed the only way to win was to shamelessly steal the Tories' clothes and dump anything that could remotely be linked to socialist politics. It is a strategy that appeared to work for three elections, but one that has exacted a terrible price. Membership has tumbled. Long-standing and experienced activists have torn up their party cards. The traditional base of the party feels betrayed and many have taken to abstentionism. And to aggravate matters, increased managerialism and centralisation has expunged Labour of any effective avenue whereby the leadership can be called to account by the members.

The hollowing out of the Labour party has resulted in a diminution of its linkage function. As the party has withered the leadership have turned to means other than the declining quality of information being transferred up the party from members for feedback on policy ideas and their impacts. Famously, policy under Blair was driven by focus groups. But even more so, the media - especially the Mail, Express and Sun were seen as the authentic mouthpieces of the constituencies New Labour needed to win over if it was going to carry on winning elections. Hence the obsession with spin and the very public courting of these titles by Blair and Brown alike. While it is true neither the Tories or Liberal Democrats party organisations have suffered to the same extent, they have adapted to the media environment New Labour helped create.

What has all this got to do with the Daniel Hannan/NHS/Twitter furore? Quite a lot.

Obama's moves to implement basic health care provision has brought out the ugliest the American hard right has to offer. Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and Lyndon LaRouche are all united (with the power of the Murdoch media and insurance giants behind them) in defending the "choice" poor Americans have between paying for medical care, or choosing to suffer and/or die unnecessarily (see here). As has been widely reported, that swivel-eyed evangelist of Tory economic "libertarianism", Daniel Hannan MEP (pictured) has been spending his summer zipping around the States feeding Republican wingnuts a bellyful of lies and misinformation about the National Health Service. The willful ignorance married to Hannan's behaviour has enraged many on this side of the Atlantic, who have hit back with the #welovetheNHS hash tag on Twitter.

For readers not au fait with Twitter, hash tags are used to generate a trend, which gathers all subsequent tweets (i.e. updates) that carry that tag. According to this site over Wednesday and Thursday, some 20,000 tweets were sent with this hash tag. And when a certain volume of tweets with the hash tag are reached they appear in the top ten trending topics, viewable to an audience of hundreds of thousands at any one time.

Typically the #welovetheNHS tweets have mostly carried positive stories in defence of the NHS. A significant minority have used it to attack Hannan and his unsavoury American friends. But all of them have combined to embarrass David Cameron who has been at pains to stress how safe the NHS would be under the Tories, forcing him to now disown Hannan's comments.

This embarrassment for the Tories illustrates how Westminster is mainly anchored to the outside world through its relationship to the media. Even if we control for the effects of the silly season (where news media are desperate for stories in the absence of parliamentary reportage), if say a petition of over 20,000 names had been handed in to Downing Street over the government's determination to chop up and privatise Royal Mail, chances are there would be no movement whatsoever. Had 20,000 tweets been sent on the same issue, picked up on and amplified by the news media, the outcome would be quite different. Again, this is because for all the party leaders the media has a more immediate impact on their day to day activity than any grumbles ongoing in their party structures.

This is not to suggest we are a heartbeat away from Twitter-led governance. After all it costs Cameron very little to take Hannan aside and tell him to shut up. But it impacts on media management and strategy and might under some circumstances force governments and oppositions to rethink their positions. It is the potential Twitter has for forcing items onto the news agenda and the faith mainstream politicians have in it as some sort of people's voice that will see Twitter give them more headaches in the future, and it is a potential we on the left should seek to use.

Bolshevist Blogger Knocked Out By Flu!

Oh the indignity! From Tuesday on your commentator has been laid low by microscopic counter-revolutionaries. Their weapons of sniffles, coughs, sore throats, headaches and fever have sapped the energy of the BC household. This wouldn't be too bad if we hadn't much on, but over the last three days we attended a funeral, had to do our Christmas shopping and, yesterday, were out yet again to inter the ashes. But we didn't get to see it.

I felt slightly better yesterday morning while we were hurtling toward Derby on the train. History and Class Consciousness was out (two new posts on that coming soon), and the flu seemed content to take the back burner. Then, when we got to the station, I had what I can only describe as a funny turn. The symptoms passed, I had something to eat, and just put it down to being hungry. We jumped on to the train over to Nottingham and it wasn't long before I started feeling funny again. I told CBC my vision was darkening and the next thing I knew I was being slapped around the face by the guard! I was pouring with sweat. I was radiating ludicrous amounts of heat. And yes, I felt like absolute crap! (I was out for about a minute - good job it wasn't standing room only!)

The guard and CBC helped me on to the platform where I quickly cooled down and then aided by my mother-in-law and the station's first-aider they shepherded me into the waiting room. It wasn't long before the ambulance turned up and off I was whisked to casualty at Queen's. So what was going to be a very simple and dignified ceremony turned into a five hour drama under hospital lights. I got poked and prodded every which way and had myself a drip fitted (I've never "drank" a litre of water through my arm before!). At the end of it all it turned out the cause of my swoon was ... dehydration. Duh.

The NHS comes in for a lot of stick, but I could not fault my experience of it as a visitor these last few weeks and a (very) short stay patient.

I'm still full of the flu, unfortunately, but I feel well enough now to resume blogging, so watch out!

Birmingham: NHS Day of Action

Around this time last March the University Hospital of North Staffordshire announced 1,100 job losses, encompassing porters, office staff, nurses, doctors, consultants and research scientists. In response Stoke SP called for and built a successful public meeting at very short notice, out of which emerged the North Staffs NHS SOS campaign. At the beginning activists from the SP, SWP, Greens, Unison, Royal College of Nursing and those of no fixed political abode managed to work together, often fractiously but quite effectively, and their hard work bore fruit in the 2,500-strong demo that marched from UHNS to Hanley. Unfortunately since then the unions have done nothing. Both refused to countenance the idea of building anything bigger than local opposition, and both boycotted a regional demo in Birmingham last summer to oppose the cuts.

What has happened in Stoke has been repeated elsewhere. Cuts are announced, a local demo of staff and patients called by the health service unions/union-backed campaign group takes place, and then nothing.

Today’s day of action organised under the aegis of NHS Together has then been a long time coming. but the whole thing was marked by union leadership's (particularly Unison’s leadership) to keep the incipient movement firmly under their control. Instead of one united demo our strength has been dissipated among several regional mobilisations. This just isn't good enough. It really makes you wonder, who does the Unison leadership value more; the interests of the government, or the interests of the members being attacked by this self-same government?

Despite the half-arsed nature of the union initiative, SP members from around the country mobilised to critically support the action and use the opportunity to make the case for a national demonstration backed by industrial action against the cuts. In the West Midlands we are particularly fortuitous to have been an integral part of the movement from the beginning, and this was reflected with the warmth and friendliness with which we were received on the Birmingham rally. We had comrades down from Coventry, Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Worcester, Stoke and, of course, Brum itself, and our intervention was very successful (350-plus papers, hundreds of pounds raised, a good number of contacts). But aside from success in the conventional sense of papers and money, more important were the discussions we had with the assembled health staff. Of the dozens I spoke to virtually all were in agreement with our proposals on how to take the movement forward. No one thought the union leadership were up to the task, and even fewer held out the belief that things would be any better under Gordon Brown.

Two events stood out from the rally. First was the lack of direction offered by the trade union worthies and bureaucrats who spoke – pretty appalling considering Dave Prentis was one of them! As if to compound their bankruptcy they refused to allow a speaker from People United to Save Hospitals to say a few words from the stage, who instead addressed the rally from a megaphone after the speechifying was over. The second was the decision of around 50 health workers to go on an impromptu march around Birmingham, seeing as the unions couldn’t even bring themselves to organise a demo. Sticking my neck out, I think this shows a section of workers are alienated by Unison’s deliberate do-nothing stance and are increasingly willing to take matters into their own hands.

For the more sectarian AVPS readers out there, the WestMids left were all there. Keen spotters like me and Larry Cain of Cov observed comrades from Workers’ Power, Permanent Revolution, AWL, ISG, the Morning Star’s CPB and the tankie-dominated Campaign against Euro-Federalism(!). The SWP were there too with a normal party stall and one for Respect. Comrades more inclined toward a spot of sect-Kremlinology will be interested to learn Salma Yaqoob was nowhere to be seen. But the main thing that struck me was how disorientated non-SP comrades seemed. It was as if comrades used to campaigning on issues like the war in Iraq and other related concerns were left all at sea when it came to engaging with a bread and butter issue like NHS cuts, an observation backed up by many a comrade in the pub afterwards.

In summary can the day be regarded as a success? In a way, yes. Despite NHS Together’s bungling (and I mean serious bungling, the 52 seater coach from UHNS for instance, only carried nine down because of a lack of a campaign in the hospital to fill it!) there were about 500 health workers present. As I’ve already said there were encouraging signs among these workers too concerning the direction the movement needs to go in and a healthy willingness to take what the bureaucrats say with a pinch of salt. On the other hand all this could have been accomplished eight or nine months ago if the unions had been more interested in protecting their members rather than the government. Their failure to do so condemns them and also means the anti-cuts movement still has a long way to go.

Branch Meeting: NHS and Conference Resolution

Not the snappiest of titles but that about sums up tonights meeting. In reverse order of the items on the agenda, we talked about the resolution I submitted last week. This was inspired by some musings I had on constitutional issues not too long ago. In all essentials it boils down to noting a constitutional crisis is looking likely if the SNP gets a majority after the Scottish parliamentary elections. As this is a UK-wide issue it is likely to impinge on politics in England too, and is one the right (Tories, UKIP'ers) will seek to run with. What the resolution calls for is more development of our existing positions and publicity in party publications. A put forward a number of proposed changes to the resolution that were adopted unanimously, which in my opinion strengthen the overall position.

Before this it was the NHS. This came up because our branch has earned a ban from the University Hospital of North Staffordshire. Our heinous crime was to gather petition signatures against the cuts hospital management are ramming through, invite passers by to cast votes in our consultative ballot over a proposed 4-day week for central outpatients and of course, sell papers.

For reasons best known to themselves the letter they sent to us was also copied to Stoke's local rag, The Sentinel. Lo and behold, on page 7 of Tuesday's paper we have an article where Julia Bridgewater, the new chief executive hatchet-woman (and apparently, a practising a Christian) claims the measure is "for the protection of patients who are often distressed and vulnerable". How very touching. Perhaps she'd like to be reminded of these words next time she refuses to replace staff, cuts doctors and nurses' numbers and rents out capacity to patients who can afford to pay.

Another point that made my blood boil about this sorry piece is Pat Powell of UHNS Unison lining up with the bosses, for purely sectarian reasons. In all my years of activity I have never come across someone who's so wilfully taken it on themselves to sabotage and limit a campaign. She says (on the collection of money), "Unison is fully funding the campaign". I'm scratching my head here, because since last April's demo there has been *no* campaign in the hospital. I've spoken to dozens of workers and the answer is more or less the same - if there is a campaign going on, they know nothing about it.

Then there is this classic: "SOS [NHS Save Our Staff] has continued to put out false information and that could undermine our campaign to save jobs". This is a charge she's made before, and she doesn't make herself look any less stupid for repeating it. First, Powell has never bothered to point out where the information the campaign and the party uses is wrong. And second the local information both use for stall material ... comes from Pat Powell's pronouncements in The Sentinel! In effect, she's accusing herself of putting out misinformation! Not for the first time, eh Pat?

In response some comrades (including yours truly) have sent letters to the paper, some responding to developments, others to charges made in the article. Other actions are up our sleeves but I'll keep them close to my chest for now.