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Eastleigh reminds us all that all the Conservatives need to do is lose
Eastleigh was a remarkable by-election. It reminded us that, for Labour to win the General Election, all the Conservatives need to do is lose.
It cannot be considered fatal to ‘One Nation’ that Ed Miliband failed to win a seat which was 285th on his list of targets. What is remarkable is that the voters of Eastleigh did not give a “bloody nose” to the sitting incumbents, who include the Liberal Democrats. Despite a maelstrom of accusations and counter-accusations regarding Chris Huhne and Chris Rennard, local voters, albeit in fewer numbers, decided to give their vote to the Liberal Democrats. Even more strikingly, they did not “blame” the Liberal Democrats for policy failures for their senior partners. The Conservatives failed to win this seat, not simply because they failed to produce an ‘attractive offer’ to the British electorate, but also some voters are beginning to blame them for noteworthy policy mistakes. There is a huge repertoire of policy mistakes to choose from, but it is remarkable that former Conservatives who have voted for UKIP appear to have done so for two particular reasons. Firstly, they don’t give a damn about David Cameron’s “caste iron” guarantees about Europe. Secondly, they do BLAME George Osborne for snatching a triple-dip recession from the jaws of a fragile recovery bequeathed to them in May 2010.
“If at first you don’t succeed, blame Labour” has become an all-too familiar mantra, but people are increasingly unconvinced by the mouthpieces who have told them this. The BBC, plagued by an obsession over horsemeat and Jimmy Savile, have failed to report the massive outsourcing and privatisation implications of recent legislation over the NHS. Many in the public are sick-to-death of the tribal partisan line on the economy, which refuses to concede that there was an emergency bailout by the previous administration of the banking sector which led the deficit to explode. They are cognisant, through the social media, that the deficit has not gone down by a quarter, and, as anyone who has been lied to, they feel cheated.
Above all, it is tragic given that the Conservatives have many junior MPs within them that their party currently lacks direction and identity. The economy is a mess, many through Twitter knows the NHS is being auctioned-off to the highest corporate bidder, and disabled citizens are hopeful that they will see their benefits re-awarded on appeal. The fact that people would rather vote UKIP than Conservatives means that the Liberal Democrats votes could stay solid, particularly if Tory-LibDem marginal seat voters don’t blame them for having been forced into a corner on policy decisions. And yet, if the Liberal Democrats win similar seats in the 2015 general election, the Conservatives could be deprived of a working majority.
Contrary to what the BBC would have you believe, the Conservatives failed to win a majority last time. And support for LibDems in traditional LibDem areas is strong, because local activism of LibDem councillors and MPs is impressive. However, Labour find themselves in dangerous territory. They cannot afford to ‘take it easy’, thinking that their economic reputation will be restored if the economy screws up. There is a remote chance that, despite a prolonged experience of austerity-lite, the economy will slowly begin to recover. The truth, whether Labour likes it or not, is that the general public does not trust them with economic prowess; some people even still blame Ed Balls for making somewhat anti-immigration noises at the last election. So why doesn’t Labour campaign on a much stronger card of the NHS? There has become an increasing perception that Labour does not need to shore up their reputation in this regard, as they are ‘the party of the NHS’. This may be hard to sustain as their policy of NHS Foundation Trusts, and insidious marketisation of the NHS with a growing number of Trusts and departments going into an insolvency regime, is shredded to pieces. As a party supposedly representing social justice issues, Sadiq Khan MP, the Shadow Lord Chancellor, has all but resigned himself to the sweeping cuts in legal aid enshrined in the Legal Aid and Sentencing and Punishing of Offenders Act (2012), and parliament has generally been useless due to the arithmetic compared to moves afoot elsewhere, for example Lord Willy Bach’s “fatal motion”. The official Opposition part of HM Parliament seems powerless to stop unelected legislation at the moment, as another “fatal motion”, this time in the Lords from fellow Labour peer Lord Hunt, is one of the only mechanisms possible to stop the new statutory instrument on NHS procurement (SI 2012/057).
As outgoing Bank of England Governor, Sir Mervyn King, previously declared, this parliament was a ‘poisoned challice’. In a way, it is quite good for Labour that they have been given a few years to regroup their forces, and have had the Conservatives do some of their ‘dirty work’, in coping with a moribund economy, inflicting legal aid cuts, and accelerating the marketisation of the NHS. However, Labour has now a fighting chance of producing the arithmetic for a working majority in June 2015, but there is as yet no sense that Ed Miliband will be elected on a landslide. However, one very good thing to have emerged from Eastleigh is that the Conservatives seem to have retained their rather infamous ‘self-destruct’ characteristic, and all that needs to happen, for Labour to succeed in June 2015, is for the Conservatives to lose.
Eastleigh reminds us that all the Conservatives need to do is lose
Eastleigh was a remarkable by-election. It reminded us that, for Labour to win the General Election, all the Conservatives need to do is lose.
It cannot be considered fatal to ‘One Nation’ that Ed Miliband failed to win a seat which was 285th on his list of targets. What is remarkable is that the voters of Eastleigh did not give a “bloody nose” to the sitting incumbents, who include the Liberal Democrats. Despite a maelstrom of accusations and counter-accusations regarding Chris Huhne and Chris Rennard, local voters, albeit in fewer numbers, decided to give their vote to the Liberal Democrats. Even more strikingly, they did not “blame” the Liberal Democrats for policy failures for their senior partners. The Conservatives failed to win this seat, not simply because they failed to produce an ‘attractive offer’ to the British electorate, but also some voters are beginning to blame them for noteworthy policy mistakes. There is a huge repertoire of policy mistakes to choose from, but it is remarkable that former Conservatives who have voted for UKIP appear to have done so for two particular reasons. Firstly, they don’t give a damn about David Cameron’s “caste iron” guarantees about Europe. Secondly, they do BLAME George Osborne for snatching a triple-dip recession from the jaws of a fragile recovery bequeathed to them in May 2010.
“If at first you don’t succeed, blame Labour” has become an all-too familiar mantra, but people are increasingly unconvinced by the mouthpieces who have told them this. The BBC, plagued by an obsession over horsemeat and Jimmy Savile, have failed to report the massive outsourcing and privatisation implications of recent legislation over the NHS. Many in the public are sick-to-death of the tribal partisan line on the economy, which refuses to concede that there was an emergency bailout by the previous administration of the banking sector which led the deficit to explode. They are cognisant, through the social media, that the deficit has not gone down by a quarter, and, as anyone who has been lied to, they feel cheated.
Above all, it is tragic given that the Conservatives have many junior MPs within them that their party currently lacks direction and identity. The economy is a mess, many through Twitter knows the NHS is being auctioned-off to the highest corporate bidder, and disabled citizens are hopeful that they will see their benefits re-awarded on appeal. The fact that people would rather vote UKIP than Conservatives means that the Liberal Democrats votes could stay solid, particularly if Tory-LibDem marginal seat voters don’t blame them for having been forced into a corner on policy decisions. And yet, if the Liberal Democrats win similar seats in the 2015 general election, the Conservatives could be deprived of a working majority.
Contrary to what the BBC would have you believe, the Conservatives failed to win a majority last time. And support for LibDems in traditional LibDem areas is strong, because local activism of LibDem councillors and MPs is impressive. However, Labour find themselves in dangerous territory. They cannot afford to ‘take it easy’, thinking that their economic reputation will be restored if the economy screws up. There is a remote chance that, despite a prolonged experience of austerity-lite, the economy will slowly begin to recover. The truth, whether Labour likes it or not, is that the general public does not trust them with economic prowess; some people even still blame Ed Balls for making somewhat anti-immigration noises at the last election. So why doesn’t Labour campaign on a much stronger card of the NHS? There has become an increasing perception that Labour does not need to shore up their reputation in this regard, as they are ‘the party of the NHS’. This may be hard to sustain as their policy of NHS Foundation Trusts, and insidious marketisation of the NHS with a growing number of Trusts and departments going into an insolvency regime, is shredded to pieces. As a party supposedly representing social justice issues, Sadiq Khan MP, the Shadow Lord Chancellor, has all but resigned himself to the sweeping cuts in legal aid enshrined in the Legal Aid and Sentencing and Punishing of Offenders Act (2012), and parliament has generally been useless due to the arithmetic compared to moves afoot elsewhere, for example Lord Willy Bach’s “fatal motion”. The official Opposition part of HM Parliament seems powerless to stop unelected legislation at the moment, as another “fatal motion”, this time in the Lords from fellow Labour peer Lord Hunt, is one of the only mechanisms possible to stop the new statutory instrument on NHS procurement (SI 2012/057).
As outgoing Bank of England Governor, Sir Mervyn King, previously declared, this parliament was a ‘poisoned challice’. In a way, it is quite good for Labour that they have been given a few years to regroup their forces, and have had the Conservatives do some of their ‘dirty work’, in coping with a moribund economy, inflicting legal aid cuts, and accelerating the marketisation of the NHS. However, Labour has now a fighting chance of producing the arithmetic for a working majority in June 2015, but there is as yet no sense that Ed Miliband will be elected on a landslide. However, one very good thing to have emerged from Eastleigh is that the Conservatives seem to have retained their rather infamous ‘self-destruct’ characteristic, and all that needs to happen, for Labour to succeed in June 2015, is for the Conservatives to lose.
Lord Owen's NHS (amended duties and powers) Bill: an eight-clause Bill to restore a comprehensive NHS accountable to parliament
As of early this morning (Tuesday 29 January 2013), the NHA Party and the UK Labour Party seem set to support Lord Owen’s NHS (amended duties and powers) Bill (“the Bill”), as described by Lord Owen himself here, yesterday.
The Health and Social Care Act (2012) ended the Secretary of State’s duty to secure or provide health services throughout the country, a duty that had been in force since 1948. Furthermore, the Act breaks up the universal system that has been effective over sixty years, and provides the NHS trademark for services outsourced to the private sector to maximise the shareholder dividend of those companies.
A major focus of Lord Owen’s Bill is undoubtedly its emphasis, as Lord Owen provides, to “secure a comprehensive, integrated health service”. The Bill in fact contains references to “comprehensive” in clauses 1,5 and 6. The definition of “comprehensive” in the Oxford English Dictionary is indeed a useful starting point, essentially described as “including or dealing with all or nearly all elements or aspects of something“. “Comprehensive” therefore means for most people “all” or “nearly all”, and it’s a matter of interpretation what “nearly” is. This “nearly” aspect has been a slow-burn in policy, for example: “Labour’s national policy forum will debate a draft document on the NHS which contains references to a “largely” comprehensive and “overwhelmingly” free service.”
In March 2011, the NHS published its NHS Constitution, and a leading guiding principle is:
The NHS provides a comprehensive service, available to all irrespective of gender, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief
This non-discriminatory aspect of provision of healthcare therefore emphasises equality.
Colin Leys in the Guardian has previously highlighted the effect of the Health and Social Care Act (2012) in deteriorating the comprehensiveness of the service:
Under the bill the range of what is available for free seems certain to contract further. Commissioning groups will have fixed budgets. The for-profit “support organisations” that are being lined up to do most of the commissioning for them will have a strong incentive to limit costs, and therefore the treatments to be paid for. CCGs also look likely to be free to decide that some treatments recommended by hospital specialists are “unreasonably” expensive, and refuse to pay for them, as health maintenance organisations do in the US.
A core of free NHS services will remain, but they will be of declining quality, because for-profit providers will cherry-pick the most profitable services. NHS hospitals will be left with the more costly work, so staffing levels and standards of care will be forced down and waiting times will get longer. To be sure of getting good healthcare people will increasingly take out private insurance, if they can afford it. At first most people will take out the cheaper insurance plans now on offer that cover just what is no longer free from the NHS, but gradually insurance for most forms of care will become normal. The poor will be left with a limited package of free services of lower quality.
What is available on the NHS should be determined nationally, in a transparent and democratic way, not by unelected local bodies. The bill will allow the secretary of state to deny responsibility when good, comprehensive, free care has become a thing of the past.
There are indications that services are being “scaled back”. For example, there have latterly been reports of impact on hearing services, for example:
NHS hearing services are being scaled back in England, an investigation by campaigners suggests.
Data obtained by Action on Hearing Loss from 128 hospitals found more than 40% had seen cuts in the past 18 months.
In particular, the study found evidence of rises in waiting times and reductions in follow-up care.
The report is the latest in a growing number to have suggested front-line care is being rationed as the health service struggles with finances.
The NHS is in the middle of a £20bn five-year savings drive.
The real question is of course how viable is it to have a totally NHS, which is “comprehensive” and “free-at-the-point-of-use”.
Even in the course of yesterday evening, this tweet of mine received 32 retweets, while most of my thread were (quite rightly) pre-occupied about the BBC Panorama documentary on disabled citizens and employment opportunities.
Prof Allyson Pollock and David Price explain the rationale for this urgent Bill as follows (see QMUL press release):
The Abolition of the democratic and legal basis for the NHS in England
The democratic and legal basis for the NHS in England was abolished by the Health and Social Care Act 2012. The impact of this fundamental change is already being felt, ahead of the shift to the new market system in April 2013.
The Act ended the Secretary of State’s duty to secure or provide health services throughout the country, a duty that had been in force since 1948.
A minister may only be held to account legally for services that he or she is responsible for by law. In future, if we can’t get the health care we need, ministers won’t have to worry about being taken to court on this count, and there will be no Primary Care Trust to put pressure on. This means fewer rights for people in England to get the health care we need – at a time of unprecedented cuts and closures.
The Act breaks up the universal system that has served us for over sixty years, and reduces the NHS to a stream of taxpayer funds and a logo for the use of a range of public and corporate providers of services.
A House of Lords’ bill published this week will reinstate the Secretary of State’s legal duty to provide the NHS in England and the right of all of us in England to comprehensive and integrated health care.
By restoring the legal and democratic basis, the new National Health Service (Amended Duties and Powers) Bill will ensure basic questions about citizens’ rights will continue to be determined democratically, as they should be.
This briefing explains what the government is doing and why an urgent bill to reinstate the NHS in England is required.
What does the government’s Act mean for me?
Cutting free NHS services
When the 2012 Act is implemented, the government will no longer be responsible for providing for our health care needs free of charge. The system of health care which has served all people throughout England for over sixty years is being dismantled and broken up. Instead a range of bodies, including for-profit companies, will decide which services will be freely available and who will receive them.
Currently many NHS services are being transferred to local authorities. They can bring in commercial companies to run them and the 2012 Act provides new charging powers. During the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill last year these services included[1]:
- immunization, cancer and cardiovascular screening
- mental health care
- dental public health
- public health
- sexual health services
- management of drug and alcohol addiction
- emergency planning and health protection service
- child health services.
Concerns were repeatedly raised during the passage of the Bill that some services would no longer required by law to be provided free of charge. These services included: [2]
- Services and facilities for pregnant women, women who are breast-feeding
- Services for both younger and older children
- Services for the prevention of illness
- Care of persons suffering from illness and their after-care
- Ambulance services
- Services for people with mental illness
- Dental public health services
- Sexual health services
Putting commercial companies in control
The Act also promotes more marketisation. More and more NHS services are being put out to tender to for-profit companies and taxpayer funds are being given to commercial corporations whilst publicly run health facilities are closed down.
As the 2012 Act is being implemented, corporations will have more say in determining our entitlement to free health services. In future, no single organisation will be responsible in our area for ensuring all our care. And it will no longer be clear who should be held accountable when things go wrong.
Our relationship with our doctor will change when for-profit companies run more services. As a patient we will no longer necessarily come first: how can we feel confident that our doctor is putting us first when he or she is a for-profit company employee?
Privatisation and marketization has increased in advance of the Act.
Some services, including those for the most vulnerable people in society, were last year contracted out to for-profit companies such as Virgin and Serco, which have little or no experience in delivering care. These include services for children with mental health problems and physical disabilities in Devon[3], and community nursing and health visitor services in Surrey[4] and Suffolk[5].
Many NHS hospitals are owned and operated under the expensive private finance initiative, creating serious financial problems for them and putting neighbouring hospitals and services at risk. For-profit companies and investors now control GP practices and other local health services. According to the Financial Times, Virgin already earns around £200 million a year by running more than 100 NHS services nationwide, including GP surgeries.[6] A private company registered in the Virgin Islands now manages the local hospital in Huntingdon, Hinchingbrooke NHS Trust.
The government is manufacturing a financial crisis in the NHS.
It is clear that the government is manufacturing a crisis, reducing the level of services and their quality, and shaking public confidence in the NHS. We are being encouraged to accept the principle that we will in future have to pay privately for services that were once free.
But claims that we can no longer afford the NHS are untrue.
The NHS is not over budget. Last year the NHS budget was underspent and £2 billion was returned to the Treasury.[7] Headline stories about hospital and other health service deficits only mean that resources are unfairly distributed not that the NHS is unaffordable overall.
Government claims that it is protecting the NHS budget are also untrue.
According to the official watchdog, the Statistics Authority: “expenditure on the NHS in real terms was lower in 2011-12 than it was in 2009-10.”[8]
The NHS is being run as if it is in a financial crisis but this crisis is of the government’s making. Current plans for cutting NHS budgets, hospital beds and sacking thousands of vital NHS staff are based on documents drawn up by management consultancy firms including the US company, McKinsey & Co. The policy will lead to closure and hollowing out of public services and the creation of opportunities for an expanded market for private provision and the introduction of user charges.
The policy is fuelling cuts, closures and mergers on a scale that is unparalleled. There is no evidence to support change on this scale nor the unfair distribution of funds[9].
Cuts and closures
- In North West London the government plans to cut 25% of beds, and throughout London at least 7 accident and emergency departments will close[10], with further departments under threat. Up to 5600 jobs in North West London will be lost by 2015[11]. Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals NHS Trust is cutting 208 posts.[12]
- In Merseyside, 4000 NHS jobs will go by 2014[13]
- In South Yorkshire, Rotherham Hospital is set to lose 750 staff by 2015[14]
- In West Suffolk, Serco is planning to cut 137 Community Healthcare jobs.[15]
- In Devon and Exeter, the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust plans to cut 1115 full-time equivalent posts between 2011 and 2014.[16]
- In Greater Manchester, there are plans to downgrade Trafford General Hospital’s A&E to urgent care and cuts to intensive care, acute surgery and children’s services. [17] Maternity services have already closed.[18] Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust plans to cut 750 full-time posts by 2013. [19] Bolton NHS trust is making 500 redundancies.[20]
- In Warwickshire, the George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust plans to cut the equivalent of 257 full-time staff between 2010 and 2014.[21]
- In Cornwall, Royal Hospital Truro proposed to cut 400 jobs in 2011.[22]
- In Portsmouth, Queen Alexandra Hospital cut 700 jobs and shut 3 wards in 2011[23].
- Across England, twenty four out of thirty NHS Direct call centres will close[24]
- 6000 nursing posts have been cut since the coalition came to power in 2010.[25]
Mergers
Hospital mergers reduce services and increase waiting times and travel distances.
- Merger with North Tees was followed by closure of A & E in Hartlepool in August 2011[26]
- Merger of South London trust is followed by recommendation of closure of Lewisham hospital A&E. [27]
- Merger of Queen Mary’s Sidcup NHS Trust (QMS), Queen Elizabeth Hospital NHS Trust (QEH) and Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust (BHT) to create a single hospital on several sites in 2009 was followed by closure of Queen Mary’s A&E and labour unit in 2010.[28]
- Merger of Norfolk and Waveney and Suffolk mental health trusts was followed by cuts in beds for acute mental illness and community mental health teams[29]
- Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals NHS trust currently plans a merger which is likely to result in closure of A&E, maternity and paediatric services [30].
- Merger resulted in closure of Trafford General Maternity Unit in 2010[31] and A&E is threatened.[32]
- Merger with Blackburn Hyndburn and Ribble Valley (BHRV) NHS Trust in 2003 was followed by closure of Burnley A&E in 2008[33] and the paediatric inpatient ward in 2010[34].
- Merger resulted in closure of Rochdale Infirmary, Greater Manchester A&E in 2011[35].
Why a Bill is needed to reverse the worst aspects of the Act?
The Health and Social Care Act 2012 must be changed because it removes the democratic and legal basis of the NHS at a time when services are being cut and reconfigured on an unprecedented scale.
The NHS was created in 1948 by a law requiring the secretary of state to fund and provide all medical, dental and nursing care to the whole population on an equitable basis throughout the country. This duty has been abolished.
The government has no mandate for this Act. We did not vote for the abolition of our NHS. Neither was it a part of the coalition agreement. Unlike England, citizens of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland will continue to have a NHS.
The purpose and limitations of the urgent Bill
The proposed legislation restores the legal and democratic basis of the NHS and the citizens’ rights ultimately to hold the Secretary of State to account. It will restore the Secretary of State’s duty to provide the NHS in England and gives him or her ministerial powers of direction and planning in order that the duty can be properly discharged.
Specifically, the Bill will:
- reinstate the secretary of state’s duty to provide health services that was formerly contained within sections 1 and 3 of the NHS Act 2006;
- subject all NHS bodies and bodies providing services for the NHS to ministerial direction;
- repeal the duty of autonomy and restore sufficient ministerial control over provision consistent with the secretary of state’s overarching duty to provide health services to the whole of England; and
- give Monitor an objective, so that its purpose is to help deliver the NHS.
The Bill will not require further reorganization when it is passed.
Allyson M Pollock (Professor of Public health research and policy,
David Price (Senior Research Fellow)
Global health, policy and innovation unit
Centre for Primary Care and Public Health
Queen Mary, University of London
58 Turner St, London E1 2AB and R
[1] Pollock AM, Price, DP, Roderick, P. How the Health and Social care Bill2011 would end entitlement to comprehensive health care in England
January 26, 2012 DOI:10.1016/S0140- 6736(12)60119-6
[2] Pollock AM, Price D, Roderick P. Health an social care Bill 2011: a legal basis for charging and providing fewer health services to people in England. BMJ 2012;344:1729- 82
[4] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9176733/NHS-patients-to-be-treated-by-Virgin-Care-in-500m-deal.html
[7] Department of Health: Securing the future financial sustainability of the NHS, Sixteenth Report of Session 2012–13, House of Commons, Committee of Public Accounts http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmpubacc/389/389.pdf
[8] Andrew Dilnot, (Chair of the UK Statistics Authority) Letter to Right Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, dated 4th December 2012, http://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk
[9] ‘Can governments do it better? Merger mania and hospital outcomes in the English NHS’, M Gaynor, M Laudicella and C Propper, CMPO working paper 12/281 http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/publications/papers/2012/wp281.pdf
[10] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2200339/NHS-Cuts–Savage-consequences-revealed-pensioner-waits-6-hours-ambulance.html
[11] http://www.healthemergency.org.uk/breakingnews.php Tuesday 23rd October 2012
[12] http://www.enfield-today.co.uk/News.cfm?id=43000&headline=Alarm%20over%20job%20cuts%20at%20hospital
[13] http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2012/01/19/exclusive-merseyside-nhs-staff-cuts-to-see-4-001-jobs-go-by-2014-99623-30150190
[15] http://www.nursingtimes.net/nursing-practice/clinical-zones/district-and-community-nursing/serco-plans-to-cut-137-community-posts-in-suffolk/5052039.article
[22] http://www.truropeople.co.uk/groups/trurohealth/400-Jobs-Cut-Truro-Royal-Cornwall-Hospital/story-10908019-detail/story.html
[24] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2230584/NHS-Direct-close-24-30-centres-claims-union.html
[25] http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/fears-for-patient-safety-as-60000-nhs-jobs-face-the-axe-8307270.html
[27] http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/debtridden-nhs-trust-to-be-scrapped-8231436.html
[28] http://www.hsj.co.uk/acute-care/nhs-london-revives-queen-marys-sidcup-closure-plans-amid-patient-safety-concerns/5019638.article
[30] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8756245/Government-to-merge-Chase-Farm-Hospital-which-David-Cameron-vowed-to-save.html
[32] http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/health/trafford-health-trust-to-merge-with-neighbours-866605
[33] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2207274/A-E-closures-Secret-report-reveals-lives-risk-sweeping-plans-close-25-casualty-units.html
[34]http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/burnley/9016530.Burnley_s_children_ward_to_stay_in_Blackburn/
[35] http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/local-news/last-chance-to-save-rochdale-infirmary-679318
Lord Owen’s Bill is proposed as below
National Health Service (Amended Duties and Powers) Bill
A
BILL
TO
Re-establish the Secretary of State’s legal duty as to the National Health Service in England, QUANGOS and related bodies.
BE IT ENACTED by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present
Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
1 Secretary of State’s duties to promote and provide a comprehensive and integrated health service
For section 1 of the National Health Service Act 2006 (Secretary of State’s duty to promote comprehensive health service) substitute:
“1 Secretary of State’s duty as to the health service
(1) It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to promote in England a comprehensive and integrated health service designed to secure improvement –
(a) in the physical and mental health of the people of England, and
(b) in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illness,
and for that purpose to provide or secure the effective provision of services in accordance with this Act.
(2) The services so provided must be free of charge except in so far as the making and recovery of charges is expressly provided for by or under any enactment, whenever passed.
(3) The services provided pursuant to this Act and to the Health and Social Care Act 2012, howsoever or by whomsoever provided, secured or arranged, shall be deemed to be provided in furtherance of the duty to provide or secure effective provision of services under subsection (1).”
2 Abolition of the duties of autonomy
Section 1D and section 13F of the National Health Service Act 2006 (duties as to promoting autonomy) are repealed.
3 Concurrent duty of and commissioning by the NHS Commissioning Board
(1) Section 1H(2) of the National Health Service Act 2006 is repealed.
(2) In section 1H(3) of that Act, for “For the purpose of discharging that duty,” substitute “For the purpose of furthering the duty of the Secretary of State under section 1(1),”.
4 Secretary of State’s duty as to provision of certain services
(1) Section 3 of the National Health Service Act 2006 is amended as follows.
(2) Before subsection (1) insert—
“(Z1) The Secretary of State must provide or secure the effective provision
throughout England, to such extent as he considers necessary to meet all reasonable requirements, the accommodation, services and facilities set out in subsection (1)(a)-(f).”
(3) In subsection (1), before “A”, insert “For that purpose,”.
5 Power of directions to QUANGOs and other bodies
(1) The Secretary of State may direct any of the bodies mentioned in subsection (2) to exercise any of his functions relating to the health service which are specified in the directions, and may also give directions to any such body about its exercise of any functions or about its provision of services under arrangements referred to in subsection 2(h).
(2) The bodies are—
(a) the National Health Service Commissioning Board
(b) a clinical commissioning group,
(c) a Special Health Authority,
(d) an NHS trust,
(e) an NHS foundation trust,
(f) the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence,
(g) the Health and Social Care Information Centre, and
(h) any other body or person providing services in pursuance of arrangements made—
(i) by the Secretary of State under section 12,
(ii) by the Board or a clinical commissioning group under section 3, 3A, 3B or 4 or Schedule 1,
(iii) by a local authority for the purpose of the exercise of its functions under or by virtue of section 2B or 6C(1) or Schedule 1, or
(iv) by the Board, a clinical commissioning group or a local authority by virtue of section 7A of the National Health Service Act 2006.
(3) In exercising his power under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must have regard to the desirability, so far as consistent with the interests of the health service and relevant to the exercise of the power in all the circumstances—
(a) of protecting and promoting the health of patients and the public;
(b) of any of the bodies mentioned in subsection (2) being free, in exercising its functions or providing services in accordance with its duties and powers, to do so in the manner that it considers best calculated to promote the comprehensive and integrated service referred to in section 1(1) of the National Health Service Act 2006; and
(c) of ensuring cooperation between the bodies mentioned in subsection (2) in the exercise of their functions or provision of services.
(4) If, in having regard to the desirability of the matters referred to in subsection (3) the Secretary of State considers that there is a conflict between those matters and the discharge of his duties under section 1 of the National Health Service Act 2006, he must give priority to the duties under that section.
6 Monitor
(1) The Health and Social Care Act 2012 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 61 insert—
“61A Monitor’s objective
(1) The objective of Monitor is to contribute to the achievement of a comprehensive and integrated health service in England through the exercise of its functions.
(2) In exercising its main duty and other functions Monitor must act in accordance with that objective and in a manner consistent with the performance by the Secretary of State of his duties contained in sections 1 and 3 of the National Health Service Act 2006.”
(3) Section 62(9) is repealed.”
7 Interpretation
Expressions used in this Act which are also used in the National Health Service Act 2006 and in the Health and Social Care Act 2012 shall have the same meanings as the meanings given to those expressions under those Acts.
8 Short title, commencement and extent
(1) This Act may be cited as the National Health Service (Amended Duties and Powers) Act 2013.
(2) This Act shall come into force on the day on which it is passed.
(3) This Act extends to England.
Cameron won't get as far as holding a referendum in 2017, as he'll have been shown the door long before then.
The reply “The Tories just feel like crap managers” was in response to my recent question, “Do you think people are excited about politics?” Suzanne Moore instead suggested, “Yes but not the political system or way it is represented.” Olivia simply replied, “If people were excited about politics wouldn’t more people vote? The fact that so few actually bother to vote, suggests that people are far from excited about politics.”
Unusually, somebody in her 60s last week told me that she and her husband were determined to vote in the General Election anticipated around June 2015. Vicky and John are not impressed by the current incumbents but feel passionately that any party is better than ‘this lot’. Returning to the answer, “The Tories are just crap managers”, there is an overwhelming feeling amongst my friends in real life, my 3000 friends on Facebook and 7000 followers on Twitter amongst both my accounts that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are playing for time. They offer no leadership, and are sub-standard managers.
They have bungled the forests issue, raised tuition fees, scrapped Building Schools for the Future, scrapped education support allowance, killed a growing economy from 2010, told Europe that they only wish to be in Europe on their own terms, unilaterally decided to scrap GCSEs, outsourced the NHS on the way to privatising it, produced a shambolic budget last year with numerous U-turns, and shut libraries.
The £3bn re-organisation of the NHS, which nobody voted for, was probably the pièce de resistance. The Conservatives have done a disgraceful job of explaining what these reforms mean, and the BBC have made no effort in explaining what is clearly a very significant issue of public interest. The public are none-the-wiser that NHS services have been completely thrown open to the private sector, such that you can walk into a walk-in centre with it having NHS branding but being run to maximise shareholder dividend for a private company. The medical Royal Colleges all opposed it, as did the BMA and the Royal College of Nursing. The marketisation of the NHS means that the service cannot be guaranteed to be anywhere near comprehensive, and already evidence is accruing of definite examples of rationing (e.g. in cataract surgery).
A similar disenfranchisement of key professionals was seen in the high street with the Government, the Conservatives enabled by the Liberal Democrats, ramraiding through the ‘Legal Aid and Sentencing of Offenders Act’ which has seen destruction of legal aid on the high street, killing off access-to-justice for social justice fields such as housing, immigration and asylum, welfare benefits and employment. The marketisation of law on the high-street means that the public are left with an incomplete fragmented service, and again these ‘reforms’ were officially opposed by the Law Society and the Bar Council.
A third disgrace has been the “reform” of GCSEs. Michael Gove barged through processes which meant that even examining in last year’s GCSE English ended up being a shambles, and had to go for judicial review in the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court. The teachers, notably the National Union of Teachers, were not consulted about the changes to the GCSE system, a completely ludicrous state of affairs that there are GCSE courses presently in progress.
The “political process” is the third arm of the long-awaited policy review of the UK Labour Party. Whilst millions will have been spent cumulatively on the Scotland referendum, and the AV referendum, and on the introduction of Police Commissioners, there is no doubt that the political process is broken. David Cameron’s talk of holding a referendum in 2017 shows complete contempt that he has disconnected him and his party from major areas of society. The list goes on – disabled citizens are sick of the welfare reforms in progress, with the disastrous introduction of the ‘Personal Independent Payment’ following fast after the pitiful administration of Work Capacity Benefits by the Department of Work and Pensions.
Cameron won’t get as far as holding a referendum in 2017, as he’ll have been shown the door long before then.
The legal case for "the living wage"
It’s actually very bold, and fits in completely with the “One Nation” philosophy of Ed Miliband and Labour. It could even be one of the first Acts to be proposed by a Labour government in 2015/6, and has profound implications.
The “living wage” has a focus on the wage rate that is necessary to provide workers and their families with a basic but acceptable standard of living. It is an hourly rate set independently and updated annually, and calculated according to the basic cost of living in the UK. Employers currently can choose to pay the Living Wage on a voluntary basis; the UK Living Wage is calculated by the Centre for Research in Social Policy, but the London Living Wage is calculated by the Greater London Authority. This minimum standard of living is socially defined (and therefore varies by place and time) and is often explicitly linked to other social goals such as the fulfilment of caring responsibilities.
Uniquely for opposition policies, the Living Wage enjoys cross-party support, with public backing from the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. That said, the main beneficiary of the living wage is the Treasury, and this is obviously critical for it to be implemented at a time of austerity (but so was the £2bn NHS reorganisation). Financial gains from the living wage will arise from higher income tax payments, higher national insurance contributions and reduced spending on in-work benefits. This has a number of important implications.
On a visit to Islington in north London last year to discuss how Labour councils across Britain have succeeded in implementing the living wage, Ed Miliband described the living wage as an idea “whose time has come”. “The next step is to help more people, including workers in the private sector, have the dignity of earning a living wage. This is one way we can begin building a One Nation economy where prosperity is fairly shared, because it is only by coming together that we can succeed as a country.”
Background
The concept of the “living wage” has roots in various cultural, religious and philiosophical traditions. The modern UK Living Wage Campaign was launched by members of London Citizens in 2001. The founders were parents in the East End of London, who wanted to remain in work, but found that despite working two minimum wage jobs they were struggling to make ends meet and were left with no time for family and community life. In 2005, following a series of successful Living Wage campaigns and growing interest from employers, the Greater London Authority established the Living Wage Unit to calculate the London Living Wage. The Living Wage campaign has since grown into a “national movement”, and Ed Miliband has often talked about how he wishes Labour to be seen as a movement and not just a political party. Local campaigns began emerging across the UK offering the opportunity to involve many more employers and lift many more thousands of families out of working poverty. In 2008 the Centre for Research in Social Policy funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation began calculating a UK wide Minimum Income Standard (MIS) figure. In 2011 Citizens UK brought together grass roots campaigners and leading employers from across the UK, working closely with colleagues on the Scottish Living Wage Campaign inparticular, to agree a standard model, for setting the UK Living Wage outside of London. At the same time, following consultation with campaigners, employers who support the Living Wage and HR specialists, Citizens UK launched the Living Wage Foundation and Living Wage Employer mark. Since 2001 the campaign has impacted over 45,000 employees and put over £210 million into the pockets of some of the lowest paid workers in the UK.
The rationale for the living wage clearly merits scrutiny. It has much popular support, and thus, as far as Labour and the Unions are concerned, consitute a clear “vote winner”. In a recent article in the Telegraph, a newspaper not known for its significant Labour sympathies, Jeremy Warner described that, “the potential negatives from such a policy are almost too numerous to list – surging inflation, higher immigration, rising unemployment, a growing black economy, and so on. These alone might appear to kill the idea stone dead. Yet all these adverse consequences could quite easily be countered, and it is a fact that the great bulk of internationally competitive business in Britain already pays living wages. It is in the low-skilled, service areas of the economy that the problem largely lies.” Interestingly, Heller Clain (2007) (J Labor Res (2008) 29:205–218) had previously argued that living wage legislation produces statistically significant differences in poverty outcomes (but that minimum wage legislation does not), with empirical evidence, and provided a clear argument concerning costs and demand how this is most likely to have arisen.
“Beyond the bottom line: the challenges and opportunities of a living wage” (IPPR)
A critical development has been the publication of “Beyond the bottom line: The challenges and opportunities of a living wage” by the IPPR, authors Matthew Pennycook and Kate Lawton (20 January 2013). This provided much detail, with The Living Wage Foundation having already established three critical functions of theirs. It offers accreditation to employers that pay the living wage, or those committed to an agreed timetable of implementation, by awarding the ‘Living Wage Employer’ mark. It also provides advice and support to employers implementing the Living Wage including best practice guides; case studies from leading employers; model procurement frameworks; access to specialist legal and HR advice. Finally, it provides a forum for leading employers to publicly back the Living Wage. We work with Principal Partners who bring financial and strategic support to the work.
Does it need an Act of parliament?
The National Minimum Wage Act 1998 created a minimum wage across the United Kingdom. It was a flagship policy of the Labour Party in the UK during its 1997 election campaign, and is still pronounced today in Labour Party circulars as an outstanding gain for ‘at least 1.5 million people’. The policy was opposed by the Conservative party at the time of implementation, who argued that it would create extra costs for businesses and would cause unemployment. The Conservative party’s current leader (and Prime Minister), David Cameron, said at the time that the minimum wage “would send unemployment straight back up”. However, in 2005, Cameron stated that “I think the minimum wage has been a success, yes. It turned out much better than many people expected, including the CBI.” It is now Conservative Party policy to support the minimum wage.
Indeed, “the living wage” has some prominent supporters.
The IPPR indeed argue that are clear reasons not to legislate for a statutory living wage including the fact that the living wage should not be seen as a replacement for the minimum wage. It there is argued that the minimum wage is based on an empirical judgment about employment effects and is agreed through a social partnership model, allowing a mandatory, statutory approach. However, the living wage reflects standards of living and prices and does not take account of employment effects. Advancing the living wage therefore requires an incremental approach, which can also bring wider benefits by mobilising low-paid workers who lack traditional forms of representation. The question for policymakers is the extent to which the state can support a campaign rooted in civil society.
The IPPR instead recommended that government amends the UK corporate governance code to require listed companies to publish the proportion and number of their staff paid below the living wage, and legislate for this if necessary. This indeed is a very sensible idea, if Ed Miliband and Labour include it as part of a raft of measures in corporate governance which could encourage ‘responsible capitalism’, which thus far has been lacking regulatory teeth. It’s possible that “the living wage” is in fact a practical mechanism of delivering “predistribution“, the thesis articulated elegantly by Professor Joseph Hacker but which people dare not mention in polite public. As part of Labour’s policy review, the party is considering ways to make the rate, which is more than £1 higher than the legal adult minimum wage, the new norm. Listed companies who do not pay the living wage could be “named and shamed” through new corporate governance proposals, and Whitehall contracts could be limited to firms that pay their workers at the new hourly rate. This would be entirely in keeping of the description of a “moral economy” advanced by Jon Cruddas discussing rebuilding Britain, a “new Jerusalem“: “Markets require reciprocity for efficiency and productivity. Together they establish trust, relationships and a sense of stewardship at the heart of transactions. It is a moral economy that can be expressed through co-operative and mutual forms of ownership, and internalised in the culture of business through employee involvement in the governance of firms. In return for their commitment to the company, employees can have a voice on salary levels, improving productivity and business strategy.”
There are though, some might say, good reasons why living wage legislation should enter the statute books in some form, corresponding to the passing of any laws in our jurisdiction. These are namely to protect an individual from harm including employment exploitation, to contribute towards a framework of the rules needed for a society to live and work together, to ensure an enforceable mechanism through which justice can been served, to “punish” people as necessary, and to maintain social order (such as prevention of poverty). It is obviously important that any laws we introduce are not incompatible with European laws, and the current indications are that the “minimum wage is (not) always incompatible with EU procurement rules. There are however obligations to treat all bidders equally, fairly and transparently and in a non-discriminatory way in any procurement process.” Specifically, the European Commission has provided clarification on the issue in 2009, stating that living wage conditions “must concern only the employees involved in the execution of the relevant contract, and may not be extended to the other employees of the contractor”. However, this perspective is to treat law as an administrative process, free from social values and judgments, as discussed by LJ Laws for example in the context of human rights. By enacting a formal law on the living wage could be a strong signal that the law is not merely an error-corrective mechanism for market values, what Prof Michael Sandel at Harvard calls ‘markets mitigating governance’ as a technocratic process done through cost benefit analyses, but that the law is in fact designed ‘for the public good’, encouraging citizenship, civic values and solidarity. Sandel conceptualises this striving for the public good as a necessary reaction to the approaches of Thatcher, Reagan and indeed New Labour, which had generated a sense of ‘market triumphalism’, but points out readily that under such administrations this had had a destructive effect on rich and poor people living further apart in society. This indeed can be easily seen in the UK with the rich becoming even richer.
One Nation Economy
Trade unions are still a significant part of the culture of UK, not least because they serve to protect workers and employees against scrupulous employers. In the trade union movement, UNISON has had noteworthy success in offering practical advice about how citizens can “win the winning wage”. Ed Miliband has made it no secret that he does not wish to see a divide between ‘private sector’ and ‘public sector’, in that we all contribute to one unitary UK economy. This has been reflected in how Miliband has provided hints about trying to make trade unions also relevant to the public sector. Encouraging a ‘living wage’ could be a way of getting more people involved in the Union movement, which Miliband has openly warned should not be seen as the “evil uncle” of Labour. The IPPR report indeed cites: “The greatest successes in securing the living wage have been made through bottom-up processes of organising and campaigning. These processes have sought to involve low-paid workers directly in the struggle to improve their own wages, as well as building broader alliances with a diverse mix of unions, faith organisations and community groups.”
As the forerunner to a ‘one nation economy’, local and regional initiatives have consolidated a number of improvements in pay for nearly 45,000 low-paid workers. In addition to the nine local authorities that have been formally accredited as living wage employers, a growing number of private sector employers have introduced living wage agreements including Barclays, KPMG, Deloitte, Linklaters and Lloyd’s of London. More widely, living wage initiatives have reshaped social norms around wages and in-work poverty and have refocused attention on the role that decent pay above the national minimum can play in raising living standards, alongside remedial redistribution through tax credits and in-work benefits. This, alongside the fact that a national minimum wage has already been acted in the UK, is significant when noted with an observation from Heller Clain 2012 (Atl Econ J (2012) 40:315–327) about how experiences of implementation of the “living wage” in the US: “Ceteris paribus, the strength of the community sentiment in support of living wage legislation may be lessened, where the state government has already adopted policies aimed at raising the incomes of the working poor. For example, there may be less motivation to enact living wage legislation where the state has already enacted a statewide minimum wage higher than the federal level.”
There are clear benefits which have been experienced by adopters of “the living wage”. An independent study of the business benefits of implementing a Living Wage policy in London found that more than 80% of employers believe that the Living Wage had enhanced the quality of the work of their staff, while absenteeism had fallen by approximately 25%. A major economic rationale is that paying UK workers a “living wage” would save the Treasury more than £2bn a year by boosting income tax receipts and reducing welfare spending, according to a joint research by the Resolution Foundation and the Institute for Public Policy Research. They found gross earnings would rise by £6.5bn if employees were paid a living wage – an estimate, above the statutory minimum hourly rate, of what workers must earn to meet basic needs. There is, additionally, a much wider elegant narrative at play here. It has been recognised by anyone other than George Osborne and his colleagues that ‘underconsumption’ has been a major factor in why the UK economy has been failing latterly (parallel with decreased levels of tax receipts, even predating the current financial crash). Indeed, starting with Malthus and Ricardo in the nineteenth century, economists had long debated the viability of ‘underconsumption’ as a cause of cyclical depressions. This is now recognised in the economic press, for example “the increasing attention to consumer demand among businessmen merged with a related trend in economics: the rise of institutional economics … A key element, though, was the conviction that economists needed detailed, quantitative, empirical studies of consumer behavior (sic) and existing markets, encompassing everything from focused psychological or sociological analyses to expansive, aggregative surveys of household income, prices, and family expenditures.” (Stapleford, Labor History, Vol. 49, No. 1, February 2008, 1–22)
The IPPR are mindful that many small and medium-sized firms are likely to struggle with the costs of implementing the living wage if a significant proportion of their staff are low paid. They recommend the government should explore using the architecture of City Deals to create ‘living wage city deals’, drawing forward future tax and benefit savings from paying local government workers the living wage and devolving this money to support private sector businesses in transitioning to the living wage. So far, two thirds of employers reported a significant impact on recruitment and retention within their organisation. 70% of employers felt that the Living Wage had increased consumer awareness of their organisation’s commitment to be an ethical employer.
One Nation Society
It’s clear that the arguments for “the living wage” are not just economic, as discussed above, but also are profoundly relevant to a sense of soldiarity and “civic duty” inherent in a “one nation society”, Living wage initiatives grounded in forms of community organising seek to increase the bargaining power of workers who lack access to more traditional forms of representation such as through trade union structures. It furthermore can easily be argued that, beyond their ability to lift wages and living standards, living wage initiatives have the potential to empower low-paid workers, many of whom lack voice and power in the workplace and in wider society. Many living wage initiatives, both in the US and UK, have sought to mobilise low earners directly rather than campaigning on their behalf, by organising workers and communities through a process described as ‘community organising’ or ‘community unionism’. Indeed, here in the UK, the Living Wage campaign was launched in 2001 by parents in East London, who were frustrated that working two minimum wage jobs left no time for family life. The causes of poverty are complex and in order to improve lives there should be a package of solutions across policy areas. The Living Wage can be part of the solution. Over 45,000 families have been lifted out of working poverty as a direct result of the Living Wage.
This is fundamentally a point to do with “cohesion” of our society. It has been patently obvious that New Labour failed monumentally on “inequality”. in its quest for market triumphalism, described above. There is a sense of Ed Miliband ‘righting a wrong’ here, in addressing the societal problem of inequality, and if Miliband can achieve this he will have succeeded in a crucial area where Blair had failed.
Conclusion
Boris Johnson appears superficially laid the groundwork for “the living wage” in London, but credit that the overall Conservative-led admininstration has led the way on employment justice can only massively dampened for a number of diverse reasons. The cross-party support is described above, but it is conceded that, in the US, “a larger population and greater local support for Democratic presidential candidates are significantly linked to a greater likelihood of adopting living wage legislation and a greater speed in adopting living wage legislation.” (Heller Clain, 2012) And yet, the “living wage” may not be necessarily partisan, although one has no idea what the Liberal Democrats wish to advance following June 2015, and would nicely fit into the framework which Ed Miliband has already provided. I expect it will be a major, if not the, major campaigning issue for Labour in 2015, and could be one of the first things an incoming Labour government would legislate for in some form. The monumental research of IPPR, the Living Wage Foundation, numerous corporates and the trade unions will have contributed greatly to the success of this initiative, as will have Ed Miliband of course.
The "everyday" "stack-em-high" culture clearly doesn't work for all of the NHS
Right-wing commentators always attack the NHS by saying that it mustn’t be treated as a “sacred cow”, like a “national religion”. The public don’t wish to see it as a business either. It is not surprising that the Royal College of Surgeons as a College are in favour of the “reforms” increasing the scope for private provision, but most surgeons were indeed also trained by the NHS.
So, if it’s not a business, why are they such pains to keep the NHS branding and logo then? The lettering (even the font, size, colour and slant) is known on the national trademarks register, so is the exact Pantone colour. Why are Virgin and Circle not keen to get rid of the NHS branding and do all their NHS services in their own brand? This is simple. It’s because the NHS brand is incredibly strong, so much so that successive governments have wished to export it.
Tesco everyday burgers contain “no artificial preservatives, flavours or colours”, except some contained horsemeat apparently. Not being able to see inside the box with the benefit of a DNA reader is possibly to blame, but which corporate supplier is providing your hernia operation in future may not be so easy to tell in future either.
One thing is absolutely certain about the NHS “reforms”. It is most definitely a “top-down reorganisation”, it will not address the numerous concerns of the Francis Report, and it gives a clear green light to outsourcing a far greater number of contracts to private sector suppliers who are very slick at producing bids. Even the most unintelligent of spokespeople for the Conservatives’ policy, both official and unofficial, openly concede that it is hard to provide a service that is comprehensive and bitty through this route.
That’s why it best for the profitability of shareholders that the product is delivered in a short-sharp-shock, like an abdominal hernia repair, or a Tesco “everyday burger” containing horsemeat. They choose what offerings they wish to produce. Whilst the Ed Miliband conference speech on ‘predators and producers’ was on-the-whole “panned”, the new healthcare market is perfect for private equity investors. Their freedom to operate in a “liberalised market” is only constrained by the legal and regulatory constraints placed upon them. You can argue “til the cows come” home whether the abolition of the Foods Standards Authority created a climate for such cutting corners to occur – or maybe that should be “til the horses come home”.
While it’s well known that some high street firms have struggled, it’s noticeable that “value brands”, including Tesco everyday value items and Aldi, and “luxury” brands have withstood the recession quite well. There is of course no real market in healthcare, of people “shopping around”, with a customer not paying directly to the supplier of the healthcare product, the supplier using the NHS branding away, and dodgy metrics to judge the ‘quality’ of a healthcare intervention largely dreamt up by a busybody who has never set foot on a busy NHS ward.
However, that the NHS could offer its equivalent of “value” products, but not to enhance shareholder dividend, but for the benefit of treating as many people as possible efficiently to the highest of rigorous medical and nursing standards is a worthy cause. An unfortunate effect of the reaction to the Tesco “horsemeat” saga is that rather demeaning judgements about people who buy “everyday” products have entered through the back door. However, many people are desperately keen to avoid an emergence of a “two tier” service in healthcare where access-to-medical-treatment becomes dependent upon an ability-to-pay.
It’s possible that at the “everyday” end of the NHS, it might be possible to go for the “stack them high” approach which is pervading education and healthcare, which is perfect for private equity investors. However, this system is clearly not ideal for all, and this is clear not a market led by the “end-consumer”. Characteristics of markets where there is poor competition due to lack of participants include an inability of customers to lower prices and an ability for suppliers to increase prices, while providing the essentially the same product. This is what has happened in a whole string of privatised industries, including gas, electricity, water and railways, and the (relatively) “simple” hernia operation is going to be no different. Whose going to benefit from offering a contracted core NHS service? Of course, the corporates whom I don’t dare to name because of their legal teams. Will the patient benefit compared to a NHS ideal of “comprehensive” and “free-at-the-point-of-use”? Absolutely not.
How one lie led to another – we'll be clearing up the economic mess Clegg left
Nick Clegg falsified the story, thereby rewriting history. He then got himself into Government, and then ruined the country.
It is easy to see the magnitude of Clegg’s failure when you refer back to the Budget debate for 24 March 2010, prior to the 2010 General Election (as recorded in Hansard). The context is some quibbling over the growth figures in David Cameron’s response:
This is in fact what has happened since May 2010. In April 2012, new figures revealed that Britain had plunged into the first double-dip recession since 1975 and is enduring its longest economic slump for a century. This was in fact the first double dip for 37 years and a nightmare scenario for Chancellor George Osborne, who predicted a rapid return to growth when he embarked on his austerity programme, and Mr Cameron, who had previously declared Britain ‘out of the danger zone’.
Source: tradingeconomics.com
It suited Nick Clegg and Vince Cable to defer as much blame onto Gordon Brown for the recession, rather than to blame global factors.
Indeed, Cable, Clegg and Osborne have been wishing for the Eurozone to implode much more than it has, in the same way that they have always hoped for the GDP figures to be ‘revised upwards’. Northern Rock, indeed in 2007, was one of many banks throughout the world to take on risky investments. Many of the assets that these banks had on their balance sheets started to lose their value (like ‘loans gone bad’ or securities derived from mortgages and other loans). The Bank of England became the last resort for the British banks as liquidity froze throughout the global market due to a lack of confidence. The global crash was predicted by Roubini (2010) who said: ‘As homeowners defaulted on their mortgages, the entire global financial system would shudder to a halt as trillions of dollars’ worth of mortgage-backed securities started to unravel’ but the United States and the United Kingdom refused to acknowledge sub-prime mortgages as a threat to the economy’ (N. Roubini and S. Mihm (2010), Crisis Economics: A crash course in the future of finance, Allen Lane, United Kingdom, 2010, p.15). At the time, Nick Clegg criticised the Labour government for not having done anything about getting banks to lend:
However, Clegg is being utterly disingenious about the UK government’s ability to lend money given the overall international climate. Firstly, banks are affected by Basel Capital rules that financiers keep complaining about; subtle reforms on, say, liquidity coverage ratios are also “biting hard”. This overall, it is argued, makes banks far more conservative about lending money and fearful about how they manage their balance sheets. Gillian Tett in the Financial Times in October 2011 gave a very elegant overview of the situation, as it was then. Nick Clegg appears now to have some sort of weird amnesia what had caused the deficit to balloon, but he was very clear about the bail-out at that time.
Clearly then, the “deficit” story is the one to base the entire credibility of the raison-d’être of the current Coalition, but the facts clearly state that prior to the global financial crash the deficit being run by Labour was comparable to that run by Norman Lamont and Ken Clarke, as clearly shown here:
Therefore, it is perfectly clear that David Cameron and Nick Clegg have hugely misled the UK on the situation it is currently in, and ‘one lie leads to another’ unfortunately. The Conservatives, Andrew Neil and the Spectator, have been fixated on whether or not Ed Balls knew there was a structural deficit in 2008, whereas English law fundamentally relies on there being a presumption of innocence. Ed Balls is convinced that he, and the Bank of England, did not realise there was a structural deficit in 2008, and indeed the more relevant situation is what to do now. For example, in its twice-yearly fiscal monitor, the IMF said that for countries including the UK: “If growth should fall significantly below current projections, countries with room for manoeuvre should smooth their planned adjustment over 2013 and beyond.” This represents conditional support for Mr Osborne’s deficit reduction plan so long as growth does not disappoint again. Indeed, Andrew Neil and colleagues then curiously perseverate on how much Ed Balls knew then, whilst being completely obvious to any of the arguments about why the GDP remains stagnant now, why the banks fail to lend, and how a failure in securitised mortgages caused a global recession.
“To summarise, both governments presided over a fiscal strengthening in their first three years in office followed by a weakening over the following eight. But we should note that Labour has used more of its borrowing to finance capital investment rather than current spending than the Conservatives did. Under the Conservatives, the structural budget deficit continued to deteriorate until year 14 (1992–93). It remains to be seen when it will reach its trough under Labour.”
This rather begs the question: what was Mervyn King actually worried about in 2008? King in a speech at a dinner hosted by the IoD South West and the CBI at the Ashton Gate Stadium, Bristol in 2008 provided the following:
“The low level of national saving is apparent from the current account deficit – our new net borrowing from overseas – which in the third quarter of last year was, relative to GDP, the biggest in the past fifty years and the largest in the G7. It is possible to run a current account deficit for a considerable period. Australia, for example, has done so in every year since 1974. But our own position is becoming more difficult. For some years we have been able to finance current account deficits by borrowing, often through banks, at unusually low interest rates on world capital markets.”
In other words, he appeared to be confident about our “paying off our deficit” due to “low interest rates on world capital markets”. Of course, one lie leads to another, and we’ll now be clearing up the mess that Clegg left in 2015. Clegg will probably defend successfully his seat in 2015, but, as the Liberal Democrat Party implodes, there’ll be nothing left for him to defend, and he will better off in the House of Lords or Europe. Meanwhile, it is quite likely that some sort of austerity plan will be mid-way until 2018, and the disappearance of our AAA coveted credit rating (as warned by Fitch recently) will have been a direct pack of lies we have been fed for the last few years.
Labour must indicate what its 'red line' issues are before 2015
Like it or not, there is now a sense that ‘anything goes’ in general elections. It could be that the arithmetic returns a Coalition government, where the Conservatives can only be in government with support of UKIP, or Labour can only govern with the support of the Liberal Democrats. Of course, the most preferred option for Labour members would be for a Labour government to be returned with a landslide.
The current coalition is what can only be described as a ‘miserable compromise’. As a result of the Conservatives continuing to be in denial that the explosion in the deficit had been caused by injecting money into the banks as an emergency measure in the global financial crisis, Labour still have difficult in making the case for safe management of the ‘nation’s finances’. This is of course extremely frustrating for Labour, since the facts are that Labour ran a deficit comparable to the tenure of Norman Lamont and Ken Clarke otherwise, and George Osborne, assisted by the Liberal Democrats, has managed to reverse a fragile economy into a double-dip, and now possibly a triple-dip recession, only saved by some creative accounting over the Olympics and the 4G receipts, as revealed by George Eaton.
In civil litigation, all parties are supposed to adopt a “cards on the table approach”, and given what has happened in the past, all parties should make clear, I feel, what are “red line issues” for them; in other words, what is unnegotiable. Labour might definitely wish to repeal the NHS act and to reverse Part 6 of the Act, UKIP might wish to withdraw from Europe, and the Liberal Democrats might wish to [insert a reasonable choice here]. The combined total of Conservative and UKIP polling figures suggests an alliance would significantly narrow the difference of popularity between the two parties. David Cameron has, in fact, promised the Conservatives will fight the 2015 general election as an anti-Europe party in a bid to see off the threat of UKIP. The Prime Minister delighted Conservative MPs last night when he pledged he will fight for his first overall majority from a ‘clear Eurosceptic position’. However, the chance of UKIP gaining a significant number of seats is still small. They are also dependent upon the continuation of the Eurozone crisis in order to maintain their popularity.
However, we can only really draw conclusions from by-elections, albeit they may fall under the ‘mid-term protest vote’ umbrella. According to Andrew Sparrow’s “live blog”, Nigel Farage is quoted as saying the following:
“It’s a big advance. It’s our best every byelection result. I said at Corby two weeks ago that Rotherham would move us on further. We’ve got a good, active local branch here. We fight local elections here. We are well known. The fostering row didn’t hurt our vote. But I rather agree [that] whilst people were very upset and outraged by it, not that many people changed their vote purely on that issue.”
No prime minister has improved his party’s vote share since October 1974, which is a bit of a special case anyway. The election of February 1974 had produced a hung parliament. Harold Wilson went back to the country soon afterwards to ask for a stronger mandate, repeating a tactic he had pulled off in the 1960s. The Liberal Democrats’ decision to frustrate boundary changes which Conservative high command regarded as vital to their chances of victory at the next election still is troublesome. Indeed, not all Conservatives have given up hope of getting the boundary changes through the Commons. Senior Tories have vowed to press on with changes to constituency boundaries, saddling taxpayers with a bill for £12 million, even though the Liberal Democrats have vowed to stop them going ahead. However, the Liberal Democrats have reason to wish their heels in. Tom Clark, also in the Guardian, provided a comprehensive overview of why the AV referendum was lost, with this as the no. 1 reason:
“1. If the lack of a hate figure was the gaping hole for the yes side, Nick Clegg provided an unbeatable one for the noes. The man himself recognised that voters wanted to poke him in the eye, and he dutifully kept a fairly low profile in the campaign that was by far the most visible single concession that he obtained from the Conservatives. Shrewd as it was for him to go to ground, it could not prevent the noes from warning that “President Clegg” would be kept forever in power by everybody’s second preferences. He had a horrendous hand to play last year, but he made things worse for himself by appearing to the country as a head boy thrilled at being unexpectedly tasked with helping to run the school. When the headteacher and his staff meted out their long-planned litany of horrors, it was not they but Clegg who felt the force of the pupils’ revolt. Having once dismissed Gordon Brown’s pre-election promise of an AV referendum as doomed by association with him, there is a bitter irony here. It is not association with Brown but association with Clegg that has now sunk the electoral reform he was so desperate to achieve.”
Richard Reeves, the Lib Dem leader’s senior strategist and speechwriter, has now left. Reeves, the ultimate in tong-term strategists, had personally worked out the three-step programme to see the leader through to 2015. First, the Liberal Democrats would share the spoils of a recovering economy, “after the mess that Labour had left”. Then they would move into the “differentiation” phase. Finally, they would set out their own agenda prior to a smooth disconnect at the election. The first phase is perceived to have gone well by loyal Liberal Democrats and Nick Clegg, though Labour members still think that much legislation from the Conservatives has only been enabled through Liberal Democrat votes on the NHS, education support allowance, legal aid reforms, to name but a few. Few people in Labour have sympathy with Sarah Teather, who was sacked as minister for families in September, appears to have found some reservations.
“But she also makes no bones about the fact that, for her, the cuts and caps already agreed by the coalition are unacceptable and wrong. Brent, she points out, is an area with high rents where many people are already living in appallingly crowded conditions. She is in favour of that part of government policy which encourages people off benefits into work but not when it seeks to erode sympathy and support for the poor. “Having an incentive in the benefits system to encourage people to work is a good thing,” she says. “It is a good thing because it encourages people to participate in society. But having a system which is so punitive in its regime that it effectively takes people entirely outside society, so they have no chance of participating, crosses a moral line for me.””
However, such late confessions may not be sufficient for her seat to be saved ultimately. As regards “the economy stupid”, the Bank of England now thinks it is likely the UK economy will contract in the fourth quarter of 2012, with governor Sir Mervyn King predicting a “zig-zag” road to recovery thereafter. It recently downgraded its forecast for gross domestic product (GDP) in 2013 to around 1 per cent, while the UK government’s tax and spending watchdog is not much more optimistic, at 1.2 per cent.
So, quite unbelievably, Ed Miliband and Labour might be able to win the 2015 general election in some form or other, and as per usual the policy review is still under way. However, Labour could reap much political capital by saying what it definitely will not do, given that most of the most damaging actions of this Government were not set out in front of the electorate prior to May 2010 (the £2bn NHS restructuring for example). The danger is that, if Labour actually does win a landslide in 2015, it will not use this as an opportunity to reshape a definition of the UK, away from misguided marketisation of “New Labour”, but towards a society where citizens can aspire to be fully employed in salaried work and where the genuinely vulnerable are not troubled by securities over the health and social care for example. Nick Clegg’s pathological hatred for Gordon Brown and Labour may be ‘water-under-the-bridge’ if Labour does need to work with the Liberal Democrats, but it could be that Ed Miliband states that one red line he does not wish to cross is to work with Nick Clegg.
David Cameron's PMQs are nothing short of a disaster, but provides useful clues about Tory Britain
I went to Lady Thatcher’s last ever Prime Minister’s Questions in 1990. I remember the experience well, and of course I didn’t actually know it was her last ever PMQs at the time. The thing that struck me was the House of Commons debating chamber is like a TV studio, or film set, or at least seems that way from the public gallery. In a sense it is, as it is a set-piece spectacle for the media, almost as firm a ritual as Coronation St. or EastEnders. That it is supposed to hold the Government to account is not really what most of us are interested in. It’s a barometer of the important issue of the day, whether Ed Miliband can deliver an effective punch, and whether David Cameron will be ‘on the ropes’ or respond with a counter-hook of his own.
From the perspective of the media managers such as Craig Oliver and Nick Robinson, a concern will be how the exchange will be reported on the 6 o’clock news or the 10 o’clock news. There will have been some of us who witness the ex change live, and we will happily provide instantaneous feedback with our hashtag #PMQs. Media commentators will usually give a decisive result, such as “Miliband triumphant” or, rarely these days, “Cameron floored that”. For all his quips about how Ed Miliband “practises” in front of a mirror – and David, the one olds aren’t really your best – Cameron is neurotic that his Party comes across well in the whole performance. Conservatives are, it is reported, even sent memoranda reminding them of the need for barracking and heckling the opposition.
The advantage of Prime Minister’s Questions is of course that questions can be asked of the Prime Minister under parliamentary privilege. Lord Neuberger, former Master of the Rolls and President-Elect of the Supreme Court, and Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice, are rightly keen that parliamentary privilege is not abused in the House of Commons. However, it is perhaps worth noting that the content of the answers often are poor in comparison to the question being asked. For example, Debbie Abrahams in her question asks simply, “Can the Prime Minister explain the relationship between Virgin Care donations to the Tory party, the number of Virgin Care shareholders on clinical commissioning group boards and the number of NHS contracts that have been awarded to Virgin Care?” In science, there is often no relationship. That is indeed the null hypothesis for all experiments ever conducted in scientific research, so, strictly speaking, all that David Cameron had to do was provide that there wasn’t significant evidence that there wasn’t no link to support his thesis (if you pardon the double negative). Ian Lavery MP’s question provides another interesting example.
You will notice the sombre mood of the House, as is indeed fitting as this precise theoretically could have happened to any sitting MP of the House of Commons. This is where it is more fitting to think of ‘grading’ PMQs not as a “knockout boxing match”, but a Finals exam script. The default option is a II.1, unless a really good answer merits a First, and a really appalling answer merits a Third. Cameron’s answers are normally in the safe II.1/II.2 category, although he sometimes fails to answer the question altogether. Here the answer is a II.2 really in all honesty, because, while he uses the opportunity to praise a policy which is on the ropes, i.e. the large number of benefit claimants having their original (adverse) decisions overturned on appeal, he in no way addresses the main point. The issue is, of course, put in a strong way that, “austerity kills”, as serious academics address the point in peer-reviewed medical journals whether the austerity agenda of countries including the UK has had an adverse effect on citizens. Take for example this excellent paper from Prof Martin McKee’s laboratory here in London on the “failed experiment” of austerity, in the peer-reviewed ‘Clinical Medicine’, the official journal of the Royal College of Physicians.
Unfortunately, we have all become accustomed to the non-answers given by the Prime Minister during PMQs, but this, in all fairness, is not drastically different from other Prime Ministers in the past, arguably. If the answers do not provide much detail about fine detail, they can possibly throw some light onto the operational smoothness of the running of the Government, and the degree to which they have insight into how seriously the public take their policies seriously. The “Big Society” has had more relaunches than most PR people would like to contemplate, and here is David Cameron trying to shoehorn the relevance and importance of the Big Society into the Tory Britain of David Cameron.
Whilst in no doubt well intentioned, the problem with this answer encapsulates the whole thrust of the main criticism of the Big Society. People have discussed how the Big Society is merely “a cover for cuts”, and it exposes in all its glory how David Cameron has simply has no answer for the failure of market economics. Ed Miliband wishes to advance the notion of a ‘responsible State’ working for the greater ‘public good’, so is able to provide a rebuttal of Cameron’s answer mocking how voluntereeism is not a solution for child malnutrition. This of course plays right into the hands of Labour MPs, and many Labour activists, who feel that Cameron’s Tory Britain has seen a return to Victorian values, in extreme painted as a picture of workhouses and poverty. The implementation of workfare has lent some support to the idea of people being taken advantage of, and the subtext here is that there are some people who have drawn substantial benefit from this culture of ‘using’ labour. The problem with David Cameron’s “something for nothing” jibe is that it can be easily answered with the chaos over workfare, and reports of issues such as George Osborne’s paddock. That large corporates have more of a say in David Cameron’s Britain is a picture which is easy to paint without any effort, such as McKinsey’s being chief “players” in the NHS restructuring (ahead of the BMA, RCN or medical Royal Colleges, for example), or Serco “winning big” for the National Citizen Service contracts. The idea of ‘flexible labour’, i.e. a workforce where job security is nil, could go a long way to explain the record levels of people seemingly in employment (and a equally comparable record number of people with little job security). The problem is that, when Cameron makes another gaffe, legions of Labour activists respond by saying on Twitter, “that’s what he really meant”.
That was the natural conclusion, for example, of this gaffe:
We do not get much of a chance to enter the mindset of David Cameron and his Tory-led Cabinet, and we equally do not have an accurate picture of what is reported from the Tory-led BBC and others, many believe. However, hearing certain things ‘from the horses mouth’ is indeed revealing. If David Cameron had answered his final scripts in the Final Honour School of Philosophy, Psychology and Economics for Brasenose College Oxford, he would have erred into II.2 territory, not because of his lack of preparation and well-researched material, but his simple failure to answer the question. The answers, however, do offer clues for me as to how he thinks about what sort of Society he wants, and what sort of people he values in Society.
Spoonies: the demonization of the disabled class
A ‘spoonie’ is possibly as well known a term as ‘chav’. A spoonie is someone living with a chronic illness. The word is apparently derived from The Spoon Theory written by Christine Miserandino. And why demonisation? Well, whilst not in the terms of reference of the Leveson Report published tomorrow, we can all think of examples of how parts of the media have embraced the ‘scrounger’ rhetoric when referring to any disabled citizen, and the tragic spike in hate crimes in the UK. Owen Jones’ ‘Chavs: the demonization of the working class’, most agree, is a remarkable piece of work, and the treatment of people with chronic illnesses in UK society is for me an interesting one. I only became physically disabled in my adult life, due to acute bacterial meningitis, having spent six weeks in a coma on the ITU of a London Foundation Trust. I have therefore witnessed simple changes in attitudes to me as a person, having been both physically able and physically disabled in my early adult life. I was aghast last Friday that, despite satisfying the legal definition of disability in the UK, I was denied disability living allowance, having in fact received the highest rate for my visible mobility difficulties. I was more aghast, however, that the DWP summary of my disability bore absolutely no relation to my account of it, nor the independent account provided by my own General Practitioner.
There are, apparently, over 6.9 million disabled people of working age which represents 19% of the working population. There are over 10 million disabled people in Britain, of whom 5 million are over state pension age, and there are two million people with sight problems in the UK. The work capability assessment (WCA) tests for the DWP are not cheap – they cost more than £100m of public money each year. However, after several years with the test in place, it is clear that the experience of some of those tested is yet another example of an omnishambles. Most people agree that we need to focus not on what disabled people can’t do but what they can do. That’s why the idea of a WCA is one most people support, and it’s why Labour introduced it in Government. It is undoubtedly important that sickness benefit claimants be assessed to demonstrate whether or not they can work, and the benefits of work are clear too, not just to the individual’s health, social and family life, but for wider society as well.
Sue Marsh – a well known disability campaigner who has severe Crohn’s disease – once received a letter confirming she was no longer eligible for Disability Living Allowance(DLA), a payment which enables her to meet the considerable costs of care and of getting around. The whole benefits system is not fit for purpose any more. Well documented storeies include one man who suffered from heart failure and died 39 days after being declared fit for work. Stephen Hill was sent to his first Work Capability Assessment in 2010 when he gave up his job as a sandwich delivery man after being referred for tests on his heart. His wife Denise, who was with him at the assessment, said: “She checked him out. She did his blood pressure and his heart and said to see a doctor as soon as possible.” Despite the assessor telling Mr Hill to seek urgent medical advice, he was still found fit for work. In the meantime doctors had diagnosed him with heart failure. He won his appeal but he was ordered to attend another assessment. “He got a letter for another medical and I couldn’t believe it,” said Mrs Hill. “He’d got to go for a medical when he was waiting for a heart operation.” Yet he was again declared fit for work, with the assessor declaring: “Significant disability due to cardiovascular problems seems unlikely.” Mr Hill died of a heart attack five weeks later.
So what has gone wrong in the UK? Whereas the narrative for ‘Chavs’ can turn to the sequelae of the Thatcher administration, it is hard to identify a Miners’ Strike (or Oregreave) moment in the 80s for the disabled community. Britain and America are actually two countries that, in recent years, have led the world in attempting to give disabled people rights and equality. During his presidency, George Bush Senior was proud to sign the Americans with Disabilities Act while the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act has gradually transformed the lives of disabled people in the UK. It may appear on the surface that the UK and USA have nothing in common with Nazi Germany, a regime that is estimated to have killed 200,000 disabled people and forcibly sterilised twice that number. And yet something has clearly gone very wrong indeed. Liam Byrne, Shadow for the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, indeed, after most concede has been a slow start for Labour, recently erupted to say:
“The nasty party is well and truly back. Lord Freud is a former investment banker and now a minister of the crown. For him of all people to compare people on benefits to corpses and likening their lives to a funeral is quite frankly disgusting. Before the summer his boss Iain Duncan Smith had the temerity to call Remploy workers idlers who did nothing better than sit around drinking coffee. He sacked over 1,000 of them and only 35 have managed to find work again. He is quite clearly a man in total denial about the pain his policies are about to cause. Shelter have begged the government to consider the ‘terrifying reality’ of the damage they are doing. Scope talk of disabled people facing a tipping point, risking poverty, debt and isolation. This government is next year about to take out billions from disability help and housing. All to pay for their catastrophic failure to get Britain back to work, and a 3 billion tax giveaway to Britain’s richest citizens. This government’s so-called welfare revolution is collapsing around its ears. The work programme isn’t working. Universal Credit has become universal chaos. Yet Lord Freud’s response is to kick people when they are down and not even pretend to offer a helping hand.
Byrne in fact mounted a passionate response to the demonisation of the disabled citizen community in the UK with Andrew Neil on ‘The Sunday Politics’, in a recent ‘Sunday interview’. When a country’s economy is not performing well, due to abject failures of that country’s economic policies, a right-wing government will tend to blame those people whom they perceive not to contribute to the wealth of this country. The fallacy of this argument is of course that bankers in the City of London are more to blame for the economic woes of the UK than working disabled citizens. (There is, of course, a minority of impressive citizens, who are disabled, working in the City in the finance and law sectors, for example.) There are currently 1.3 million disabled people in the UK who are available for and want to work. However, only half of disabled people of working age are in work (50%), compared with 80% of non disabled people, and 23% of disabled people have no qualifications compared to 9% of non disabled people. Nearly one in five people of working age (7 million, or 18.6%) in Great Britain have a disability.
Whatever the precise arguments are about the ‘economic power’ of spoonies are (and I am a spoonie), there is no doubt, strengthened in principle by the Equalities Act (2010), one of the last statutory instruments to be enacted by Labour, disabled citizens have a powerful role to play in society, even if they remain somewhat under-represented. For example, how many disabled GPs, doctors or lawyers do you know? The bitter pill which the Coalition has to swallow is, that despite all their efforts into espousing ‘happiness’, many disabled citizens are distinctly unhappy with their demonisation in recent yesars. They do have enormous political power, and even polling evidence suggests that while most individuals do not support welfare payments for people patently ‘freeloading’ off the State, they do simultaneously believe that disabled citizens should be supported for their mobility and living in a fair society. That is the problem David Cameron and Nick Clegg have to face in the short term. Iain Duncan-Smith is not a well liked person by many disabled citizens, and, if he is insistent on producing what is a complicated change in culture and functions of the benefits system, the project is definitely doomed to outright failure, due to the weakness in follower support. Whether the Coalition listen to this in the short term is a political choice, of course, but they will have absolutely no choice but to listen in June 2015. Labour has a powerful opportunity to reframe and rearticulate the debate concerning the Welfare State, and it is extremely likely that Beveridge would have been vehemently opposed to any demonisation of the disabled class.
