Friday 31 August 2012

Butchery of the NHS @ No 10

Arturo is still recovering from watching the Olympics and the start of the Paralympics! He's in training for the Catalympics, he says!

As for me, I'm still monitoring the news, even though the corridors of power here in Downing Street are devoid of hide and hair belonging to 'Boy David' Cameron and 'Georgy' Osborne. However, their policies march on regardless.

For instance, the NHS is still in the process of being butchered, whether they are here or on the Costa Brava! On Monday, the Telegraph featured the headline:A global NHS? What a shameful idea: It is wrong-headed for NHS hospitals to market their skills internationally. The piece, written by Max Pemberton, critically analysed the idea that the NHS should be marketed abroad.

Pemberton wrote:
It is a recipe for disaster to expect hospitals to behave like fast-food chains or clothing stores. Hospitals should be focusing every shred of their attention on improving their services for patients, here, in this country. Hospitals are not businesses; they are places that are funded by us, for us, when we become unwell. The proposals miss the whole point of the NHS and what makes it a system for delivering healthcare worthy of attention.

Like the grubby men in string vests and gold sovereign rings who sit outside brothels beckoning gullible tourists, the Government is attempting to pimp out the NHS to foreigners by promising something that it cannot deliver. The NHS it is selling is a perverse pastiche of the NHS that we have in this country, stripped of the essence of what makes it valuable to us.

It’s not the NHS as a product that is revolutionary and worthy of export, it’s the NHS as a concept. The main appeal of the NHS to people around the world is the fact that it is a cheap, effective and equitable way of delivering healthcare. It is the notion of a system that is free at the point of delivery, regardless of ability to pay, that makes it valuable. The great irony of all this is that if we wanted to export the real ethos of the NHS, as opposed to what might be represented by some bland, meaningless logo, then we would be going around encouraging foreign governments to reject market principles and develop a socialised model of healthcare. And this isn’t going to happen.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/9499177/A-global-NHS-What-a-shameful-idea.html

According to Arturo, the present Coalition really would like the NHS to 'behave like fast-food chains or clothing stores'. In fact, he says it's already happening and the Coalition are more than happy about it!

Also on Monday, Allyson Pollock writing in the Guardian stated:
NHS franchising: the toxic world of globalised healthcare is upon us: Staff wages and benefits eroded through privatisation is nothing compared to what is in store for patients


Ah ha! Now there's the rub! It isn't just the other countries who are going to 'pay through the nose' for the care - it's the poor suckers whose taxes have actually paid for the NHS, as well!

Allyson Pollock wrote:
Under the government's franchise plan for the NHS, shareholders and equity investors will use the service's logo as a Trojan horse to prise open the budgets of other countries' health systems and to front up their unethical, fraudulent and inequitable activities.

The article continued:
NHS hospitals and services are being sold off or incorporated; land and buildings are being turned over to bankers and equity investors. RBS, Assura, Serco and Carillion, to name but a few, are raking in billions in taxpayer funds for leasing out and part-operating PFI hospitals, community clinics and GP surgeries that we once owned.

Strangled by PFI debts and funding cuts, NHS foundation trusts compound their problems by entering into joint ventures. The great NHS divestiture, which began in 1990 with the introduction of the internal market and accelerated under the PFI programme, now takes the form of franchising, management buyout and corporate takeovers of our public hospitals. Virgin has been awarded £630m to provide services to vulnerable people and children in Surrey and Devon. Circle has been given the franchise for NHS hospital Hinchingbrooke and is now struggling to contain its debts. London teaching hospitals are merging to give them greater leverage for borrowing and cuts.

Can things get any worse? Well ... read on:
Loss of public control means higher cost and fewer services, as we have learned from the toxic record of the US corporations which are now part of England's new healthcare market and helped design it. Billing, invoicing, marketing and advertising will add between 30% and 50% to costs compared with 6% in the former NHS bureaucracy.

Patient charges will become commonplace. Fraudulent billing and embezzlement will become endemic. Take HCA, one of the largest and most profitable US chains and controlled by private equity firms including Mitt Romney's Bain Capital. In 2006 HCA International described its first joint venture with the NHS, the PFI University College London Hospital (UCLH), as "the establishment of Harley Street at UCLH".

HCA-UCLH provides cancer treatment to those who can pay from the 15th floor of the hospital. But currently some of HCA's American hospitals are under investigation for refusing care and performing unnecessary investigations and treatment, including cardiac surgery.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/27/nhs-privatisation-toxic-world-healthcare

So, I'd suggest one of two things to anyone in the UK reading this:
1. Don't get sick!
2. Start saving your pennies in a contingency piggy-bank!

'Boy David' Cameron and his smart-arsed sidekick 'Georgy' Osborne maybe out-of-town but their policies are rolling on. As Arturo said:
Here at No 10 and No 11 there's a massacre of the NHS taking place and it's worthy of Custer's Last Stand!

Arturo and I are so glad we're cats! We still have the RSPCA and the PDSA to pick up the pieces when one of our nine lives goes down the plughole!

'Bye'






Saturday 18 August 2012

Pussyfooting, pussy riot - whatever - @ No 10

The word 'pussy' in the nicest possible way, you understand, is in vogue. Arturo was not amused! He thought it made fun of us pussys! I disagree. Any news about a pussy is good news as far as I'm concerned. Take for instance, the use of 'pussyfooting' by the Mop-Head Johnson.
Stop 'pussyfooting' and build London a new airport, Boris Johnson tells David Cameron:Mayor demands action after Games boosts his popularity, and hints he may run for Parliament
That was the bold headline in the Independent. The article by Nigel Morris must have sent shivers down the spine of 'Boy David' Cameron! How he secretly must have wished that the London Mayor was still dangling in mid-air from the zip-wire! Maybe he even hoped that the wire had snapped and catapulted the 'Mop-Head' into outer space!

The article continued:
The Mayor hit out over the delay of consultation into the expansion of airport capacity. He insisted that South-East England needed a new airport to meet rapidly growing demand, arguing that building a third runway at Heathrow would not be sufficient.

"The Government needs to stop pussy-footing around. I don't think you can rely on Heathrow," he told the London Evening Standard. "Even if the Government was so mad and wrong to try to do the third runway or mixed-mode [having take-offs and landings on the same runway], those solutions would rapidly run out of usefulness and time."

Mop-Head Johnson
mischievously suggested that there was a rift between Chancellor 'Georgy' Osborne and the beloved PM over the new airport. Perish the thought! Nothing daunted our impetuous 'Mop-Head' continued - murdering the English language in the process:
"The attempt to try and long-grass it for three years into the other side of the election is just not realistic. Totally mad and it won't work."

Now, I ask you - when did the verb 'to long-grass' come into being? I long-grass, you long-grass, he/she/it long-grasses!! Doesn't work, does it? But Mop-Head Johnson is not one for niceties when he's out for blood. And he is out for the scalp of 'Boy David' Cameron. Or - to be more correct, it's not exactly the scalp he wants - after all he has a mop of hair and poor old 'Boy David' is rather thinning on top. No - what has been suggested is that he has set his sights on No 10 itself!

The article by Morris went on:
Mr Johnson, who is favourite to succeed Mr Cameron despite not being an MP, remained opaque about his future ambitions. He said it was "nonsense" that he would seek a parliamentary seat while still Mayor. But asked if he could try to return to the Commons afterwards, he said: "I honestly don't know the answer to that question."

The impact the Games has had on Mr Johnson's public profile was underlined yesterday by an Ipsos MORI opinion poll which found that 61 per cent of people had a more positive view of him that they did before London 2012. He scored significantly more highly than Mr Cameron, who scored 43 per cent.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/stop-pussyfooting-and-build-london-a-new-airport-boris-johnson-tells-david-cameron-8050594.html

And now for the 'pussy riot'! The Russian punk feminist band is in trouble! After their trial, the sentence was announced - two years in a penal colony! Shades of 'A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch' or what? It seems, however, that the Russian Orthodox church are now requesting clemency. Whatever that means, in such a context!

According to Miriam Elder in the Observer:
Pussy Riot trial gives Russia 'the image of a medieval dictatorship': Even some of Putin's supporters are aghast at the penal term handed out to the feminist punks. Amid a global storm of protest, signs have emerged that they might be released early – but a deep national rift remains

The article stated:
A Moscow judge rejected the defence's argument that the band's performance of an anti-Vladimir Putin "punk prayer" was a form of political protest and found that it was motivated by hatred for Russian Orthodoxy.

Amnesty International called the verdict a "travesty". "[It] shows that the Russian authorities will stop at no end to suppress dissent and stifle civil society," Michelle Ringuette, of Amnesty, said in a statement.

"Each step in the case has been an affront to human rights," she said, calling the verdict "a bitter blow to freedom in Russia".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/18/pussy-riot-russia-global-protest?newsfeed=true

So pussys - (or should that be pussies - sticking to rules of plurality!) are very much in the news. Be they 'footing' or 'rioting', the cats certainly know how to get a bit of publicity.

As for this cat - I'm off to collect some sardine heads for poor old Arturo who is in a state of agitation over the whole 'pussy' business!

'Bye'




Wednesday 8 August 2012

What a difference a week makes @ No 10

"And it was all going so nicely!" Arturo tutted.

I wasn't sure whether he meant just the Olympics but when I saw the cut-out scraps of newsprint with snippets about 'Wailing Lad' Clegg, 'Boy David' Cameron and then Louise 'Chick-Lit' Mensch - I knew he meant a good deal more.

'Boy David' Cameron has been basking in the reflected glory of the Olympics, as if he had personally won gold himself. Admittedly, the reflection was coming via the golden haired 'Mop-Head' Johnson. But, hey! Glory is glory however it comes!

Then, 'Boy David' Cameron's plans started to go badly awry! On 6 August, 'Wailing Lad' Clegg declared the Coalition "contract is broken”. Wow! After all the lovey-dovey scenes in the rose garden and behind the railway shed! It's really a case of 'if you won't play ball with me, I won't play ball with you!'

Just what was the 'ball' in question, do I hear you ask? A little case of the shelving of 'Wailing Lad' Clegg's prize policy: Lords Reform! Clegg's dilemma was highlighted in an article in the Telegraph written by Robert Winnett and Rowena Mason. They wrote that Clegg had made the comment that:
... the Conservatives have defied the Coalition agreement by trying to “pick and choose” which items of Government policy they support.

The article continued:
Mr Clegg also revealed the Conservatives rejected his suggestion of a "last ditch" compromise to save both policies.

“Clearly I cannot permit a situation where Conservative rebels can pick and choose the parts of the contract they like, while Liberal Democrat MPs are bound to the entire agreement," he said.

“Coalition works on mutual respect; it is a reciprocal arrangement, a two-way street. So I have told the Prime Minister that when, in due course, parliament votes on boundary changes for the 2015 election I will be instructing my party to oppose them.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9456720/Nick-Clegg-the-Coalition-contract-is-broken-over-Lords-and-boundary-reform.html

So there! No Lords Reform - no co-operation over boundary changes! What it is to be in a Coalition! Two parties - each one only interested in itself! In the meantime, the UK economy is falling apart!

Then, as if this wasn't bad enough - 'Chick-Lit' Mensch had decided she had had enough of the House of Commons! She was off to pastures new! Brand new conquests are out there waiting to be made! As if being on the Commons Culture Media and Sport Select Committee was not enough for any MP, let alone a mother of three young children, this celeb-in-waiting was off to New York. Ostensibly, the move is to spend more time with her family! Where have we heard that before?

In the Daily Mail, Sandra Parsons wrote:
Louise Mensch’s decision to quit politics follows the launch of her social networking site, which she hopes will rival Twitter, of which she’s a prodigious user, with 100,000 followers.

All of which makes me want to send her the message that the point about a career in politics is not the celebrity media opportunities it affords.

No, becoming a Member of Parliament, to represent and improve the lives of countless ordinary Britons, is a great privilege. Perhaps the greatest we can bestow.

With Louise Mensch, it was hard to know whether she was serving her constituents, or they were serving her.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2185169/Louise-Mensch-sorry-trend-celebrity-politicians.html

'Boy David' Cameron is said to be deeply upset by her departure. He is losing a pretty woman, more at home in front of the TV cameras and photographers' lens than when she was sitting on the back-benches of Parliament. Maybe - if 'Boy David' Cameron had given her a Cabinet post - she might have been able to cope with family life!

Hey Ho! So it goes! You win some - you lose some! Sadly, at the moment, thanks to Clegg and Cameron, the UK is losing all the time!

Arturo and I are going to watch the Olympics finale!

'Bye'