Save the NHS

As the NHS is opened up to a tsunami of privatisation, the first alarming revelations about the potential disaster it will cause have already been revealed, in a number of articles in the Guardian over the last week — one dealing with “an assessment by the Faculty of Public Health (FPH) of the risks involved […]

With the failure of the last challenge to Andrew Lansley’s wretched NHS reform bill in the House of Commons, where Labour’s emergency debate was defeated by 328 votes to 246, I have to ask: how is it possible, in a so-called democracy, for a government without a mandate to ignore the complaints of healthcare professionals, […]

Despite high hopes that members of the House of Lords would recognise their place in the history books on the side of the people, rather than on the side of David Cameron, Andrew Lansley, their Lib Dem stooges and the corporations who plan to make a killing out of the privatisation of the NHS, the […]

How did we end up in this mess? A majority of those who work for the NHS, at every level, and a majority of the public, believe that Andrew Lansley’s wretched NHS reform bill — technically, the Health and Social Care Bill, but more colloquially, and accurately, known as the NHS privatisation bill — should […]

Is this really necessary? On Saturday afternoon, during a peaceful protest by several hundred people who had braved the poor weather to campaign outside the Department of Health on Whitehall against the Tory-led coalition government’s despised NHS reform bill, armed police — with machine-guns — turned up, and members of the notorious Territorial Support Group […]

Time is running out. As I have been explaining throughout this week, it would be great if there was a huge turnout at Saturday’s protest against the Tory-led coalition’s butchering of the NHS. which may be on the statute books by Tuesday without further concerted effort. So please, if you’re in London, or can make […]

In the US, because of that country’s notorious fetishization of self-reliance, it has been appallingly easy for would-be exploiters to portray anything cooperative as being Communist, with the result that the gulf between the rich and the poor is horrendous, healthcare is a privilege and not a right, and it is possible for weird, self-defeating […]

With just a week to go until the NHS as we know it may be consigned to history, the time for concerted action is more important than ever. Last week, as I noted here in a round-up of recent events, shadow health secretary Andy Burnham secured a debate on the Health and Social Care Bill […]

Last week appeared to be another good week for those opposing the Tory-led coalition government’s disastrous and entirely unwanted NHS reform bill, although no one should be fooled, as the government is still determined to press ahead with its terrible plans, even though wrecking the NHS will almost certainly cost them the next election. First […]

So much for promises. David Cameron and his government are notorious, to those who are awake and paying attention, for implementing policies that they never mentioned on the election trail two years ago, and for not having a mandate for their swingeing cuts to the British state that are disproportionately affecting students, the working poor, […]