Part and parcel of the politically calculated undermining of the NHS in England is the introduction of cheaper staff. As has become the pattern of late, it is a process conducted by stealth. In this bog I look at what is happening in the primary care sector. It serves as a rider to my recent… Read More »
I have long adopted Chomsky’s formula: capital buys power to make policy. I was interested therefore to read a new report ‘Politics for Sale: Analysing Twenty-One years of UK Political Donations’ by Tom Mills and colleagues. The report draws on official data from the Electoral Commission plus data from Companies House, Wikidata and the Parliamentary… Read More »
The other day I purchased a slim volume entitled ‘John Berger: The Undergound Sea’, edited by Tom Overton and Matthew Harle, on the miners and the miners’ strike. The bulk of the book was given over to Berger quotes and atmospheric – or fuzzy, depending on your mood – photos of miners at work and… Read More »
In my forthcoming Healthy Societies: Policy, Practice and Obstacles, I pick up on the longstanding notion that radical change in the United Kingdom in general and England in particular is more than unlikely to be accomplished via parliament. As Ralph Miliband noted many years ago, what we have is a ‘capitalism democracy’; that is, a… Read More »
I confess that into my 70s my stamina occasionally falters. I find myself pausing, not only unsure how to proceed with what but short of the energy required to proceed per se. This blog eschews further self-analysis in favour of a discussion of alternate ways of committing my time and limited resources. As it happens,… Read More »
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX 8 July 2022 Dear Dr XXXXXXX I am writing to you in the form of constructive feedback, not criticism. I am only too aware of the harsh constraints under which GPs and their colleagues in primary care are currently working and of the wider causes of this, of… Read More »
I have on various occasions lauded the merits of what I call ‘permanent reform’, the idea being that pushing relentlessly for a mix of ‘attainable’ and ‘aspirational’ reforms might well be the optimum route to an extra-parliamentary collective mobilisation for social change of a more durable and transformatory kind. This idea is contained in my… Read More »
I have often of late been tempted – and given way to temptation in the privacy of my home – to spew hatred at the ego-fixated narcissist Johnson and his wooden ventriloquist’s dummy Starmer. It feels like a fully warranted but somehow demeaning emotion. But is it? I am reading China Mieville’s excellent A Spectre,… Read More »
In what amounts to a fairly prolific series of blogs condemning the Conservative assault on the English National health Service (NHS), I have bemoaned their clandestine advance planning, their ideological subversion, the calculated politics of austerity from 2010-2020, and the two Health and Social Care Acts of 2012 and 2022 (the first of which left… Read More »
Two themes that have run through my blogs over many years have been: (i) the Tories have long been intent on killing off the NHS and bringing in private providers, and (ii) Lansley’s wordy and often misunderstood Health and Social Care Act of 2012 opened the door for later moves to this end. COVID provided… Read More »