The NHS ship is sinking fast @ No 10

As if there haven't been enough crass stories this summer by various members of the Coalition - another one hits the headlines that makes the others fade into insignificance. And what can this be, do I hear you ask. Is 'Apple Schnapps' Shapps up to his tricks again? Is Bagpuss Pickles still causing havoc? Is the Weasel man ferreting around? No! None of these. It's the most slippery one of the lot - the old Silver Fox himself who is causing mayhem - once again.

It is the NHS Health Reform Bill that is setting hearts a fluttering and pulses a jumping. It seems the Baroness Shirley Williams can no longer keep silent - Thank goodness for that - She has exposed the real truth behind the so-called 1000 changes to the original Bill.

You will recall that in an earlier post (The Name of the Game @ No 10) - Arturo and I showed the ridiculous changes that had been made. They were not REAL CHANGES but NAME CHANGES!

Now on the Guardian web site, Toby Helm, the Observer's Political Editor, has written about the revelations that will be in Sunday's Observer newspaper. Secret emails show that some 10 - 20 hospitals will be run by overseas companies, after they have submitted their tenders - if this Bill gets through Parliament. Don't recall hearing the Old Fox Lansley telling us about that! Do you?

Also, Baroness Shirley Williams has expressed her great concern about something that has always been at the very core of the NHS - since its inception : that the secretary of state is bound to deliver "a comprehensive health service for the people of England, free at the point of need". Baroness Williams thinks that the reforms could possibly undermine this! Don't recall hearing the Old Fox Lansley telling us about that! Do you?

Now - Baroness Williams is a Liberal Democrat Peer. She has always stood behind their leader Nick Clegg - known to readers of this Blog as 'Wailing Lad' Clegg because of his constant miseries! Well, this 'Wailing Lad' may well have given everybody else good reason to wail now. Recently, he repeated his mantra :

"Yes to reform of the NHS, but no to the privatisation of the NHS."

Now - it seems that the new Health Bill is nothing more nor less than privatisation by stealth. The emails that Baroness Williams will reveal in tomorrow's Observer quite clearly show the duplicity of both 'Boy David' Cameron and the Old Fox Lansley and quite possibly of 'Wailing Lad' Clegg - unless of course, he was kept out in the cold and neither saw nor heard the evil that was being perpetrated.

Understandably the Unions are not happy at the prospect of international companies scheming to get their hands on 10 - 20 of the NHS hospitals. A spokesman for the public service union Unison said:

Regardless of what Cameron and Clegg say in public, it is clear that behind the scenes the government is planning to privatise the NHS. Private companies will only run hospitals if they see a profit in it. This, together with lifting the cap off the number of private patients NHS hospitals can treat, will completely change the culture of the NHS. It will be profits before patients. We demand that the government come clean on their plans. If this is true, patient choice is a complete sham. The move to any qualified provider is clearly about creating a market for private companies. Any MP who votes for the health and social care bill is voting for the end of the NHS.

Now those of you with a long memory will recall that Shirley Williams - as she then was - was a staunch and campaigning Labour MP - before leaving the Party. She is not able to shrug off her old, strongly held Labour principles. She said, in her article:

The remarkable vision of the 1945 Attlee government, of a public service free at the point of need for all the people of England, should not be allowed to die.

Now - I'm only an under stairs cat, as you know! But what I've seen, heard and smelt under the Downing Street stairs has been, as Arturo says 'Somethin' awful!'. This, however, makes even the rotting rat-hole under the front door smell sweet! Why can't the Coalition be honest and say:

** We want to privatise the NHS.

** We want to allow competition to run services to be opened up to International companies who are purely interested in making loads of dosh.

** We want private companies, wishing to tender, to be able to do so when local GP commissioners, renamed Clinical Care Groups (CCGs), find they cannot deal effectively - under the new constraints - with a particular service.

** We want to remove the cap on private beds in NHS hospitals - often these are wealthy foreign patients - thus again - opening up the NHS to private companies who want to maximise profits.

Why didn't the Old Fox and the fresh faced 'Boy David' say these things? It's obvious! They'd never have been voted in! The British - be they English, Welsh, Scots or Irish - love their NHS and they would tear limb from limb any party that said it would put it into the hands of private companies.

Whatever else 'Boy David' and the Old Fox are - they are both PR men to the tips of their fingers. They both love smarming down their hair, donning their fake tans, walking the walk and talking the talk! And Boy Oh Boy - do they know how to do it!! They'd be a great vaudeville act :

"I say, I say, I say, Prime Minister! How do we destroy the NHS and bring in those lovely private companies?"

"I don't know. How do we destroy the NHS and bring in those lovely private companies, Secretary of State?"

"By just doing it and not telling anyone! The people will never notice!"

And that, my friends, is the truth of it. The MPs have not had the time to scrutinise the 1000 phoney amendments. The rest of the people have been lulled into a stupor.

Arturo and I are just glad we're a couple of cats who stay at the great facilities of the the RSPCA and The Blue Cross - we don't need no NHS! But I don't give much for the chances of the average Brit - in the years to come!

'Bye'