Friday, 5 September 2014
More on TTIP
Jeane Freeman putting the case very eloquently, on what the NHS in Scotland is facing despite the best efforts of Andrew Neil to patronise her.
Thursday, 4 September 2014
TTIP - the Final Piece in the Privatisation Jigsaw
If a week is a long time in politics, then four years must be an eternity. I wrote this post in May 2010, just after the Lib Dems sold their soul to the Conservatives for cabinet seats and chauffeured cars. I predicted the end of the Union coming, and four years on, unless our canvassing on the ground is very wrong, that is precisely what is about to happen. I'm going to make another prediction and I do it with a very heavy heart - I now predict the end of the English NHS. And that is because of a trade deal that is being negotiated right now called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP for short.
The purpose of this treaty is effectively to set up a common market between America and the EU. It is to free up the trade of goods and services and remove current barriers. It would also allow American companies to bid for contracts in the EU. So far, so good. But what distinguishes this trade deal is an instrument called investor state dispute settlement or ISDS for short. This allows a foreign company to bring a case against the government for deprivation of trade. This covers a wide range of possibilities. For example, if a government in a fit of environmental friendliness, decided to put a green tax on electricity or gas, that company might sue the government for loss of profit. Then again, the government might raise the minimum wage, or bring in new health and safety regulations - any of these might be a trigger for this. The cases are heard in arbitration courts and there is no real comeback for a government, because once it has signed one of these agreements, commerical law is the battleground on which it is fought, not any other. It is the subversion of a country's sovereign powers by commercial interests and it's coming to a country near you.
So what has this to do with health? Well, health contracts are included. Yep, all those ones being tendered out now to private companies. In the TTIP, there is scope to exclude health, provided that your health service is publicly run. But that is now not the case for the English NHS and even if Cameron wanted to do this (which he doesn't ) he can't.
Now, you might think that this is one of these moments when all the devolved countries in this sceptred isle sit back in a superior manner in the safety of their public run health services. But actually we can't. Because under TTIP, the UK is the member state and Scotland, Wales and Ireland are regions of the UK. Which means that our health services are under threat as well and that all our efforts to keep the privateers out will have been for nothing; they will be able to bid for our contracts whether we like it or not. The English NHS was taken over by stealth; ours will be taken over by brute force.
Over the past few weeks in Scotland, this threat to the NHS is filtering through the broadsheets into the tabloids and is doing the rounds of social media now. Labour have been an absolute total disgrace, saying that there is no threat to the NHS in Scotland while simultaneously saying down in Westminster that there is. Because there's one very obvious escape route to this and that would be for Scotland to vote yes in the referendum. And that would give Scotland the status of a country and the ability to say 'Naw' to neoliberalism. The alternative is to rely on a Labour victory at the next election (aye right) or for BoJo and Nigel to suddenly convert into social democrats overnight. As over 200 parliamentarians down in Westminster now have connections to private health companies and Labour's resident numpty/scapegoat Alistair Darling has been called out on having a nice wee dinner with Cinven and paid £10000 for opening his gub at it, the odds are not good. Scotland is getting ready to bail out and to leave the English to try and sort out the sorry mess that is Westminster.
It's not without regrets. I remember the Britain I grew up in; of free university education, public utilities, the Royal Mail, the NHS. I wish I could bring it back. I can't. I see a long dark road ahead for English politics and hard times for the English people.
Scotland is about to find its voice. It is the people of England who have not spoken yet. You need to speak now. Loudly.
The purpose of this treaty is effectively to set up a common market between America and the EU. It is to free up the trade of goods and services and remove current barriers. It would also allow American companies to bid for contracts in the EU. So far, so good. But what distinguishes this trade deal is an instrument called investor state dispute settlement or ISDS for short. This allows a foreign company to bring a case against the government for deprivation of trade. This covers a wide range of possibilities. For example, if a government in a fit of environmental friendliness, decided to put a green tax on electricity or gas, that company might sue the government for loss of profit. Then again, the government might raise the minimum wage, or bring in new health and safety regulations - any of these might be a trigger for this. The cases are heard in arbitration courts and there is no real comeback for a government, because once it has signed one of these agreements, commerical law is the battleground on which it is fought, not any other. It is the subversion of a country's sovereign powers by commercial interests and it's coming to a country near you.
So what has this to do with health? Well, health contracts are included. Yep, all those ones being tendered out now to private companies. In the TTIP, there is scope to exclude health, provided that your health service is publicly run. But that is now not the case for the English NHS and even if Cameron wanted to do this (which he doesn't ) he can't.
Now, you might think that this is one of these moments when all the devolved countries in this sceptred isle sit back in a superior manner in the safety of their public run health services. But actually we can't. Because under TTIP, the UK is the member state and Scotland, Wales and Ireland are regions of the UK. Which means that our health services are under threat as well and that all our efforts to keep the privateers out will have been for nothing; they will be able to bid for our contracts whether we like it or not. The English NHS was taken over by stealth; ours will be taken over by brute force.
Over the past few weeks in Scotland, this threat to the NHS is filtering through the broadsheets into the tabloids and is doing the rounds of social media now. Labour have been an absolute total disgrace, saying that there is no threat to the NHS in Scotland while simultaneously saying down in Westminster that there is. Because there's one very obvious escape route to this and that would be for Scotland to vote yes in the referendum. And that would give Scotland the status of a country and the ability to say 'Naw' to neoliberalism. The alternative is to rely on a Labour victory at the next election (aye right) or for BoJo and Nigel to suddenly convert into social democrats overnight. As over 200 parliamentarians down in Westminster now have connections to private health companies and Labour's resident numpty/scapegoat Alistair Darling has been called out on having a nice wee dinner with Cinven and paid £10000 for opening his gub at it, the odds are not good. Scotland is getting ready to bail out and to leave the English to try and sort out the sorry mess that is Westminster.
It's not without regrets. I remember the Britain I grew up in; of free university education, public utilities, the Royal Mail, the NHS. I wish I could bring it back. I can't. I see a long dark road ahead for English politics and hard times for the English people.
Scotland is about to find its voice. It is the people of England who have not spoken yet. You need to speak now. Loudly.
Tuesday, 8 July 2014
It Might be Debt, It Might be Small Boys - Tim Fortescue
"If we could get a chap out of trouble, he'd do as we ask forever more.."
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Friday, 27 June 2014
Dr Phillipa Whiteford - Vote Yes for the NHS
Whether you are yes or whether you are no, watch this video by Dr Phillipa Whiteford. This is a masterful summary of the steady unravelling of the English NHS and the dangers that the Scottish NHS is facing from Westminster.
Sunday, 11 May 2014
21st Century Britain and Foodbanks - All That's Changed is the Date
This video is one of the most uncomfortable and compelling 10 minutes I have experienced in a while. Watch it and weep.
Friday, 21 February 2014
Medical Mystery
Name me a medical condition that affects 2% of the UK population, that has no NICE or SIGN guidance, that only offers only a partial screen and bloods on the NHS, that has only one medicine approved for treatment for the RCP, (which was never formally trialled, but was 'grandfathered by the FDA) and where doctors who attempt to give their patients other medications that work for them are reported by other doctors to the GMC.
Stuck? Watch this video or if you don't have time, here's the transcript.
Can anyone explain this?
Chocolate Survival Rate on Wards
It's always amused me that in the Harry Potter books, the cure for depression caused by Dementors (horrible creatures that suck all the happiness out of you) is chocolate. A group of doctors have taken this a step further and conducted a study on the median survival rate of a chocolate on a ward, whether Quality Street was preferable to Roses and who were the biggest guzzlers. I'll leave you to find out the answers here.
Now where did I put that Tunnock's teacake?
Now where did I put that Tunnock's teacake?
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