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A triumph of optimism defeats cynicism as the Darlo Mums arrive in Trafalgar Square
The stench of sleaze from the backdoor lobbying culminating in the Health and Social Care Act (2012) was unable to overcome the sheer sense of euphoria and triumph of optimism defeating cynicism yesterday. Yesterday was history in the making, as all political parties were put on notice:
“Whose NHS is it? It’s our NHS”.
Whilst numerous governments have elaborated at length about the politics of ownership of public services, the message from the crowd of five thousand or so, within hearing distance of the Houses of Parliament, was loud and clear.
Many famous Labour members of parliament could be seen watching proceedings as the afternoon progressed, including Diane Abbot, Clive Efford, Jeremy Corbyn, Sadiq Khan, as pictured here.
It was a very sunny day here in Central London. There was a charged sense of energy, optimism and solidarity as about five thousand people attended a pro-NHS rally in Trafalgar Square, the culmination of a 300-mile march organised by a group of mothers from County Durham.
The group from Darlington, the Darlo Mums, are opposingthe privatisation of the NHS. It was very emotional when Rehana Azam announced the names of the Darlo Mums, “the most amazing people I’ve just spent the last three weeks with.”
The warmth of the #999CallfortheNHS campaign was evident throughout the whole afternoon. The event was immaculately organised, and was a thoroughly enjoyable event for all.
About 30 people had taken three weeks to march the full 300 miles from Jarrow in South Tyneside, organisers said.
Darlo Mums founder Joanna Adams said: “It’s been magic really. You only have to look over there [at the protesters gathered] to see people are behind the NHS and support what we’re saying. Joanna Adams described the mums as “ordinary”, but I beg to differ – they are entirely extraordinary in my opinion.
Andy Burnham MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Health, broke off all prior arrangements to attend, emphasising the indecency that would have occurred had he not come to represent the political party which had legislated for the birth of the NHS in 1945. Burnham’s speech was equally positive and optimistic about the future, speaking of the need to remedy public over privatisation, integration over fragmentation, people before profit, and collaboration over competition. Again, as is usual for Burnham who has great political gravitas, there was a sense of the current Government simply treading water in office until a person with substantial experience resumes office once again.
Burnham emphasised yet again that an incoming Labour government will repeal the Health and Social Care Act (2012) in its first Queen Speech, and said that it would then negotiate the UK out of TTIP, the transatlantic US-EU free trade treaty. Currently discussions are held in secret.
Sadiq Khan MP said the #Darlomums were the best England have had since 1966. As the MP for Tooting, Khan has been an ideal position to witness the effect the NHS changes have had on the nation’s capital.
Clive Efford MP described his Private Member’s Bill to repeal the damaging competition rules that the Tory-led Government inflicted on the NHS in its Health and Social Care Act 2012. The speech was very well received.
Even Dr Clive Peedell, Co-Chair of the NHS Action Party, called Andy Burnham’s speech “great”, having run 66 km himself to be there. It was announced that Dr Louise Irvine, an inner city GP and BMA council member, would be standing against Jeremy Hunt MP in the South West Surrey seat. Dr Peedell has of course seen at first hand the impact his specialty (oncology) has had on national politics, in the case of Aysha King.
And in the court of public opinion, according to the Daily Mirror last night, Dr Irvine was significantly more popular than Jeremy Hunt. We do know, of course, that the Daily Mirror do not comprise natural friends of Jeremy Hunt.
‘We keep on being told the NHS is unaffordable. THAT IS A LIE.”, said Rufus Hound. This lie has of course been one of the most powerful tools of the media who have called the consistent underfunding of services “unsustainable”.
Billy Bragg warned against blaming all cynicism on what one read in the media, saying that much cynicism was in people’s hearts – and this remained an obstacle for change.
Rehana Azam, as one of the marchers, NHS campaigner and leading light in GMB, and working mum, was one of the stars of yesterday’s event, explaining the necessary steps to get the NHS back on track.
Andy Slaughter, MP for Hammersmith and Fulham, recounted the demolition of his local NHS services, whilst Grahame Morris gave his account, as MP for Easington, of the fight against the Tories to protect the NHS. Andy Slaughter of course has a huge following in West London, and one of the key organisers of yesterday’s event Jos Bell was obviously pleased with the success of the event together with Andy Slaughter.
And finally, Question Musiq explained how he owes his life to the fast action of the Lewisham Hospital A&E in diagnosing his burst appendix, and performed his catchy rap song. Proceeds go to the Lewisham campaign.
A huge well done to everyone! A truly inspiring and memorable event.
Photos from the event
Burnham is aware of the influence of the NHA Party. Policy-wise it could be a kick in the goolies.
“I’m gonna find the man who’s selling the NHS and kick him in the goonies” – what @RufusHound‘s son said to him ahead of our euro launch.
— NHA Party (@NHAparty) April 27, 2014
Clearly this should have read ‘goolies’ ideally, but part of the joke might have been that the remark was made by a six-year old (Rufus Hound’s son).
No offence therefore to any Arsenal fans!
In as much the NHAP has a ‘poster boy’, it is Aneurin Bevan.
Numerous offerings from the NHAP have elaborated on a theme of how good it would be if the ‘fight for the NHS’ , which no-one really expected, could pay due respects to the origins of the NHS and the “spirit of ’45”.
The NHAP had its launch for the European elections this morning at the Roxy Bar and Restaurant, Borough High Street, London SE1.
Previously, in the campaign trail, there had been eyebrows raised at something which came from the NHA Party’s direction.
Rufus Hound, a confirmed atheist, is without doubt a compelling force to be reckoned with.
Hound, who announced his desire to stand for the NHA Party on the BBC “Jonathan Ross Show” at the end of January 2014, had made in parody the remark, “David and Jeremy love your children so much they could just die, squealing in ecstasy”.
Even candidate Louise Irvine had been asked about the general area of comment by Andrew Neil.
But Irvine gave an explanation for the comment, and Neil was clearly going through the motions in political discourse.
Here is Louise Irvine’s pitch from today.
Hound explained beyond any reasonable doubt that the comment had been meant as a joke, making a passing reference to Toby Young of ‘free schools fame’, and son of the very influential Labour peer Lord Young.
One of the biggest bits of news of the day was that Marcus Chown, @marcuschown, author of “What a wonderful world: one man’s attempt to explain the big stuff” and other hugely popular science books, announced his intention to stand in the European elections. This is a major coup for the NHA Party as Chown has a remarkable social media presence.
A recurrent theme, unsurprisingly for the European elections, was how the transatlantic trade treaty between the EU-US could, unless properly negotiated, give excessive negotiating power to multinational corporates.
This is now a significant issue in the way the NHS is run, as it potentially takes away too social, economic and political sovereignty through what is technically known as the ‘investor protection clauses’.
It has been frustrating for many that there has been thus far little discussion of this matter in the traditional media, though the people I spoke to this morning, quite unrepresentative of the usual general public, were extremely well informed about the issue.
Dr Clive Peedell MRCP, one of the Co-Leaders of the NHA Party, is a Consultant Oncologist (Physician) in the NHS, with insights into how marketisation in the NHS has gone catastrophically wrong.
He kicked off with the issue this morning:
And resuming the football theme, Hound likened the NHS to a “political football” which was “gradually becoming deflated due to all the kicking by all the major political parties.”
It is inconceivable that the NHA Party will form the next Westminster government on their own, but they have never had public aspirations for that. Because of the way that the European elections work through proportional representation, they have a chance to make an impact in the European elections, though heavily disadvantaged by lack of interest from the mainstream media.
But these are issues which resonate with many.
For example, many people are concerned in the stranglehold that the private finance initiative, criticised recently by Margaret Hodge MP in the influential Public Accounts Committee, has had on NHS policy.
Various frontline nurses explained to me their concerns about unsafe staffing, in not being able to deliver the care that they would like to deliver.
One candidate has even been a registered nurse for 35 years, now specialising in the tricky area of pain management.
The unanimity in the ‘efficiency savings’ in national policy weighs heavily against them.
The analogy to football may not be the right one.
Rugby may be more suitable. It’s possible that an incoming Labour government might have to pick up the ball on May 8th 2015, and issues such as the notorious efficiency savings, PFI and even TTIP might have to be settled by the Chancellor of the Exchequer rather than the Secretary of State for Health at the time.
So continuing the sporting analogies, the ball might end up out of Burnham’s court, and this would indeed be very disappointing for many grassroots activists in the meantime.
But, notwithstanding, the NHA Party, whatever their ultimate fate as individuals, are clearly a bunch of plucky determined individuals who feel they’ve made the correct diagnosis, and do not wish to step back and do nothing. They should be given enormous credit for that, at least.
Will Clive Peedell reply to Andy Burnham’s tweet?
It’s fairly well known that Ed Miliband is firmly fixed on the general election in the UK, to be held on May 7th 2015.
But, of course, he is aware of the impact that the European Elections can have, which can act as a useful barometer of the level of unpopularity at the current political incumbents.
On 29 December 2013, Andy Burnham MP tweeted at the NHA Party to ‘RT if you agree‘ if there needed to be a “broad campaign against market forces”:
It received 454 RTs.
But it did come across Clive Peedell’s RADAR. Clive is the co-chair of the National Health Action Party.
It was shared by Clive the same day in fact.
It received 20 RTs.
Clive has 12.1K followers.
Andy has 54.9 K followers.
To my knowledge, I don’t think the NHA Party or Clive ever took up Andy on the offer or replied to the tweet (but I could be wrong.)
But here, Louise Irvine, MEP candidate for the European Elections, who was the lead for the Save Lewisham campaign against Jeremy Hunt in the High Court and the Court of Appeal clearly has many of the same reservations as Labour and Andy Burnham.
Irvine is critical of how clause 118 (now clause 119), a legislative step would allow ‘unaccountable bureaucrats’ to make decisions about NHS reconfigurations, and an “acceleration of privatisation”.
She is also highly critical of the EU-US ‘free trade agreement’, which will ‘lock in privatisation, whereby ‘private companies could sue the British government”.
“Labour is in a muddle. It is a partly committed to the NHS, but feels it can flirt with privatisation.”
But Andy Burnham MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Health, recently rocked up at the Bermondsey Village Hall in 12th April 2014.
Burnham argued that “we need MEPs to protect the NHS from the EU-US free trade treaty.”
Burnham made special reference to the Lewisham campaign, mentioning a key campaigner in his speech, calling it a ‘famous victory… which was a message to an arrogant government.”
He also spoke of ‘unprecedented pressure in A&E’ in London, due to “massive cuts in primary care”.
And 8 mins 4 secs in, Burnham began a massive tirade on the aspects of the EU-US free trade treaty which he argued would damage our interests in the NHS:
“I have said that, before, even I think we let the market in too far into the NHS.”
“We can’t carry on letting this happen, or if – we do – it will devour the NHS and everything that is precious about it.”
“That’s why I am absolutely clear that the NHS has to be seen as a ‘preferred provider’. We repeal the Health and Social Care Act (2012).”
“Labour proudly stands for a public NHS again. That’s where we should be, and there’s where I want you to be too, fighting the privatisation.”
“That’s important for the European elections too. If we don’t get the European Parliament with our MEPs in it, the threat goes up to an whole different level.”
“Why? Our ability to protect the NHS moves to fall out of our hands. Why? – it’s because of this trade treaty that is being negotiated in Brussels right now; it’s between the EU and US which has some positive aims but, if it stays at it is, it could have the effect of opening up the NHS to US corporate entities.”
In the second Farage-Clegg debate on the BBC, Farage was vehemently anti-multinational corporations, but Burnham later remarks that UKIP have said previously the NHS should be ‘put out to tender’.
Burnham continues, “The issue – it’s the combination of the two entitires. The Health and Social Care Act having exposed the NHS to the full glare of the EU competition law, and then the US-EU free trade treaty, and then we are in a totally different world, and our ability, as I say, to protect the NHS has gone. It’s that serious.”
Burnham then talks about his ‘good hearing’ to argue for an exemption for the NHS from this legislation.
“They’ve said that the NHS should be in the scope of the EU-US free trade treaty. The LibDems have said nothing.”
The National Health Action Party appears to have blamed Labour too for contributing to the privatisation of the NHS.
However, it is currently unclear whether the Party as a whole is grandstanding as a protest vote in a ‘plague on all your houses’ way, or is offering constructive solutions to move things forward.
Clive Peedell has often spoken about his shared vision of Bevan for a public NHS.
Many of us in Labour like Clive much, so it will be interesting how things progress from here.
Review: A film by Peter Bach called “Sell off: the abolition of your NHS”
For health reasons, I don’t drink. After a six week coma due to meningitis at the Royal Free, which left me disabled, I have a massively personal reason why I am grateful to the NHS.
This one event taught me that anything can happen at any time. Last night, I went along to a private viewing of “Sell-off: The abolition of your NHS” at the BAFTA in Piccadilly. Not having drunk for alcohol for seven years, I don’t feel any particular urge to drink. In fact, I quite liked the atmosphere of their bar in the complete absence of alcohol. I quite like diet Coke.
The bar made me think of New York in fact in a brief period of escapism from a wet and miserable evening in March in Central London.
While I was sat thinking about how unusual it was for me to go to bars these days, I heard a voice I recognised. Then I suddenly twigged who it was – Tamasin Cave, Director of Spinwatch, was talking with someone about the “Lobbying Tour”. I said as politely as I could to her that the YouTube video of her tour is very famous.
“Famous for a certain group of people perhaps!”, she replied.
Peter Bach’s film, which is currently in an uncut stage, is exquisitely done. It covers all the points you’d expect in a documentary about a piece of legislation which was railroaded in without meaningful discussion. The frames of those people interviewed flow nicely, and the resulting narrative is coherent. I know this particular narrative extremely well, but there were some points for seasoned viewers like me too.
The views on the NHS captured in Bach’s film impressively don’t sound like one spiteful rant, though, which is the really clever aspect of the film. The film is possibly best described as a clear fly-on-the-wall documentary where patients and doctors clearly feel utterly disenfranchised from the NHS. This is of course in total contrast to the humanistic foundations of the NHS in the 1940s.
Peter Bach, the filmmaker, talks about how he went to a basement in Earls Court, to say how “he was bombarded by a litany of complaints” from a group of people concerned about the running of the NHS. Whilst Max Keiser argues in his interview with Peter Bach ‘you can’t put a price tag on the NHS’ (see below), you unfortunately can put a price tag on the costs to make this film. If you’d like to support this very important initiative of public interest, please go to this ‘StartJoin’ website for crowdfunding.
If the film set out to achieve a fascinating overview of the issues engulfing the NHS, it certainly did that. The concern, of course, is that this film ends up ‘preaching to the converted’, and it contains still a mystery why the mainstream media seem reluctant to discuss the running of the NHS. Supporters of NHS privatisation have argued that it doesn’t matter who runs the NHS as long as it’s run well and free at the point of use. Supporters of the NHS privatisation therefore tend to argue that the public do not want to have this debate. Conversely, people who support a NHS which is state-run obviously argue, instead, that this debate does matter; and the film indeed posits very good clear arguments why the market does not work in the NHS. The film clearly states that competition doesn’t work effectively for the NHS; measuring all the activity in the NHS itself wastes resources (going up from about 2% of the budget to 30%). The youthful and inspiring Dr Clive Peedell was spitting bullets at the encroachment of the market – and of course is right.
The film flows effortlessly, for example, from an excellent description bogus nature of running the finances of a hospital, compared to a household budget, by Dr Bob Gill to a mention of indexation in the private finance initiative (PFI) by Prof Allyson Pollock. Pollock is clearly somebody who should have been listened to much earlier. At least Pollock is completely vindicated. Whilst politicians of all shades have argued the beneficial effects of PFI, the concerns are brilliantly enuniciated by Pollock. An on-running theme of this film evidently is that it’s not the case that this is a fait accompli of the corporatisation of the NHS, though time is running out now. Something can be done about PFI contracts (and may require attention due to the repercussions of PFI on freedom of information requests concerning safe staffing). It might be late in the day, but it wouldn’t be too late for a candid repentance. Likewise, the public lawyer states correctly the Health and Social Care Act (2012), which led to the £2.4 million ‘reforms’, can be repealed. And it would take one Bill to restore of the duty of the Secretary of State for Health in running the NHS.
Both Dr Jacky Davis and Dr Louise Irvine speak brilliantly in the film on the issues of the ‘democratic deficit’. Given that the mainstream media have continued to ignore the changes in the NHS traditionally, their opinions are clearly a polite (not desperate) plea for members of the general public to become involved. Meanwhile, in the film itself, Dr Lucy Reynolds, who clearly has many interesting insights about cross-jurisdictional aspects of healthcare systems, describes how she left a U.K. where the N.H.S. was respected to one where the N.H.S. was pilloried on a daily basis. I also had a nice chance to chat with Dr Davis and Dr Irvine before the film, and with Dr Jonathon Tomlinson afterwards.
As I left the theatre and the BAFTA building, I caught sight of Lord Owen. On seeing Owen, I was reminded of an interview by the late Tony Benn. Benn’s remarks about how the SDP had been partly launched as a reaction to the inadequacy of Labour still irritate some. In that particular interview these remarks preceded a diatribe also by Benn about how it wasn’t the Left’s fault that Labour had been unelectable. Bach’s film brilliantly doesn’t shovel the blame at the doorstep of any one political party, though clearly no Government (especially this one) comes out of it particularly well.
Many seasoned commentators have learnt that there is a consistent pattern of unsafe practice, where people have not been empowered to speak out safely. I am very glad that Bach’s film approached this intelligently, in a constructive and altogether non-vindictive manner. Peter Brambleby talks with much dignity about how his concerns well known elsewhere fell on deaf ears. Dr Kim Holt also talks about the well known phenomenon of how whistleblowers are first ostracised before being silenced and finally excluded.
The argument that Foundation Trusts, such as Mid Staffs, allegedly made staff cuts endangering patient safety in the rush to meet financial targets to gain Foundation Trust status is elegantly made. Meanwhile, the 6Cs, and indeed lack of minimum staffing, many believe, do not protect against the basic threat of unsafe staffing on the delivery of NHS care.
In a weird way, the film is as iconic as the best of them such as “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, despite being in a completely different genre. I think it’s inevitable that this film will connect with people in a way which reflects the subject-matter being more significant than the usual party-politics. If the problem was explaining the complex narrative of the failures of NHS policy in a succinct, understandable manner, Bach has just achieved a First with Distinction. It’s a remarkable piece of work, which, whether you are particularly interested in the NHS or not, deserves to be widely seen; and indeed deserves the highest official praise.
