Who, you ask yourself, will get the best nurses, the most competent doctors, the best equipment; and who will have their rooms cleaned to a professional standard by the best cleaners? If there is an emergency, who will get the defibrillator first? I'll give you a guess. It won't be people in the 53% [always assuming that the Tories don't up it to 50% or 60% private, and that the hospitals themselves don't cheat on their figures.]
No. Don't worry. There will be a regulator... and we all know how incredibly useful they have been at stemming the greed of the phone companies [especially the mobile ones], gas and electricity companies, bus companies, and in England, the water companies.
Up until now Lansley has promised that care will remain, as it has been for 60 years, free at the point of delivery.
But today we discover this story about a walk-in centre operated for NHS Sheffield by One Medicare on a contact until 2016, where they charge patients £25 for treatments for whiplash.
Now, that's not free at the point of delivery by anyone's standards? And is whiplash the thin end of the wedge? If so what's next?
But what does worry me a little is that in the vote in the Commons on the English NHS, I am told that 37 SCOTTISH Labour MPs voted with the Tory/Liberal government.
I'm not sure what they were doing voting on an all-English matter, but, that aside, if 37 Scottish MPs voted for a semi-privatised NHS, I must assume that the policy of Scottish Labour is to sell off the health service. Why otherwise would they support it in England?
Anyone who is not extremely rich or incredibly healthy and contemplating voting Labour in the future would do well to find out for certain what their intentions are for the future of the NHS. Their life might depend upon it.
This would be the SAME N.H.S. that Tammy wants to keep. She appears in to Bitter Together video about 1 min 40 secs in.
ReplyDeleteGive me the SCOTTISH N.H.S. over the English N.H.S. ANY day of the week!
Oh and don't worry about OneMedicare losing out. They may charge patients £25.00 a time but no doubt they'll be charging the English N.H.S. around £250.00
Anon: D'ye know I wasn't actually worrying too much about them losing out.
ReplyDeleteYes, your point is good. The gullible can be told to say things like that about the NHS on a video and they will without thinking, and the terminally stupid will listen and say... oh yeah, we better stay with England otherwise they might privatise the health service
Duh...
Worrying though to see Labour so keen to embrace that for other people.
How do you feel about that Niko?
tris
ReplyDeletether are no just English or indeed scottish matters for UK MPs to suggest different is deeply racist and xenophobic.
wot the Torys do in England today the snp would(if allowed but we Labour will stop them) do in Scotland tommorow even worse..Salmond is on the record saying he admired thatchers policys.
as for trusting nicola you are having a laugh arent you??
tris
ReplyDeleteas general principle never trust a woman with a 1950s soldiers basin hair cut
The nhs created by the Labour Party as was the rest of the welfare state.
ReplyDeleteAfter the second world war during which the Scottish Nationalists supported the Germans and the nazi party
"During a long conversation, Donaldson gave great praise to Germany saying that England would be completely crushed by the early spring; the Government would leave the country and that England's position would be absolutely hopeless, as poverty and famine would be their only reward for declaring war on Germany. Scotland on the other hand had great possibilities. We must, he declared, be able to show the German Government that we are organised and that we have a clear cut policy for the betterment of Scotland; that we have tried our best to persuade the English Government that we want Scottish Independence and that we are not in with them in this war. If we can do that you can be sure that Germany will give us every possible assistance in our early struggle. The time is not yet ripe for us to start a virile campaign against England, but when fire and confusion is at its height in England, we can start in earnest. He then went on to tell them that he had an idea in his mind for fixing up a wireless transmitting set in a thickly populated district in Glasgow or Edinburgh, in order to give broadcasts to the public. At the moment he is working very hard in an endeavour to combine all the Nationalists together as a unit, whereby they can strike out with great force when the time comes. He is naming this combined body “The National Aid Society”. If any questions are asked, he said, you can say it is to help the dependents of young men who have been called to the Services. Actually it is to help members who have refused to fight and are at present in hiding. He mentioned that he had a number of places that could be used as hide-outs.
No I realise that there are no matters that Scottish MPs cannot vote upon in the London parliament.
ReplyDeleteBut your own Tam Dalyell pointed out how wrong it was for Scottish MPs to vote on England-only matters, when their English counterparts had no right to vote on the equivalent matters in the Scottish parliament.
He pointed out that this was a way to cause resentment in the English, by giving Scots rights they did not have. Racism maybe.
MPs are, or should be, first and foremost there to represent their constituents. Now I realise that they are mostly there to represent themselves and do service for their parties, but the reason that they are paid out of OUR funds (not their parities') is that they are there to represent their constituents.
So I was wondering what possible interest most Scots would have in the privatisation and commercialisation of the health service in England, unless of course they all own healthcare companies?.
To call it racist or xenophobic is ridiculous.
Now the second part of what you said is that what the Tories are doing in England today, the SNP would do tomorrow in Scotland. The only reason that the SNP could not, you said, is that Labour would stop them.
So:
1. If the SNP wanted to introduce a bill into parliament to privatise health, why have they not done so?
2. Supposing they did, just what COULD the Labour party do about it, given the disparity between the respective numbers?
3 Again supposing such a bill were introduced and Labour voted against it, would not they all look slightly foolish having voted FOR the move in England, thus endangering the lives of the less well off English people?
4 Would that not be considered some form of racism: the wiping out of the poor and old English for want of equitable care, whilst ensuring that the Scottish working classes' old and ill because would thrive because of the excellent social healthcare?
Hmmm yes. High time Nicola had a new hairdo.
Thank you Anon for your contribution. Although you may have contributed before, your name makes it difficult for me to know whether I should be welcoming you, or welcoming you back!
ReplyDeleteAfter the second world war the Labour party was a rather different organisation from the one that exists now. Likewise the SNP, which I believe at the time were called the 'Tartan Tories' and comprised a few oddballs and little else.
Both organisations have changed dramatically and beyond recognition.
I suspect that that SNP would not have cared for social medicine back then; nor would it have built council houses; supported bus passes for the old and made up the shortfalls of an English decision to rebalance the economy by reducing the council tax benefit for the sick and unemployed.
At the same time, the Labour party has travelled in the opposite direction.
It was, back then, surely, a god send to working class people, desperately needed in a country in which the poor had been laid even lower by years of war and privations.
It's almost unimaginable what would have happened in Britain after the war, had the Labour party not won power and brought about real social change.
I think perhaps revolution as men back from fighting for their green and pleasant land discovered that nothing had changed. It was only green and pleasant for those who didn't go hungry or die of easily curable diseases, work 60 hours a week for just enough money to live in dangerous conditions, and live in tumbled down bombed out houses, 5 or 6 to a room.
How the people who fought for workers' rights and for decent housing and working conditions, a health service and the many other things that completely changed the lives of the generations to follow must despair of the Blairite nuclear warmongering lickspittles, sucking up to banks, the City, big business and of course, American presidents, even ones of the most extreme right wing ones, all the while taking from the poor... not that to which they are not entitled (we know there are cheats), but taking away benefits that keep them alive. The Tories are blamed for the horrors of the welfare changes, but it was Labour that brought them in (and the SNP which is trying to ameliorate them in Scotland)
How incredibly sad for Britain that it now appears to have three Conservative parties largely comprised of self serving money grubbing scum.
The power of big money!
Tris, I think you missed the bill the SNP tried to force through Holyrood just 2 weeks ago. Yes, the right-wing tartan tories proposed privatising the NHS, scrapping free prescriptions, tearing up pensioner's free bus passes (with an optional amendment to just chuck them under the bus and be done with it), pushing kids up chimneys (after closing all state schools), doing away with free education and re-opening workhouses for the unemployed.
ReplyDeleteIt was only the valiant efforts of Lamont and the rest of the labour opposition who, despite their inferior numbers, somehow managed to beat the numbers and out voted the SNP. After all, we all know how much labour support free prescriptions and free medical treatment, oppose student fees and the exploitation of the unemployed, now, don't we?
Okay, hands up. But if Niko is allowed to post fantasy nonsense, we all should be allowed to!
Labour voters for Scottish Independence
ReplyDeleteThe train has left the station as members of all parties have now set up FB pages on the inevitable journey to independence.
Forte
ReplyDelete'valiant efforts of Lamont and the rest of the labour opposition'
Why thank you kind sir! soon after Alex Salmonds snp referendum humiliation and his dispatch to The undiscovered country.
Labour will return to its rightful place as the true political heart and soul blood and bone of the Scottish peoples.
The Scottish way
ReplyDeleteScottish Labour hate the snp
Scottish Labour hate the Scottish
conservatives
Scottish Labour hate the scottish lib dems
the Scottish conservatives hate the snp.
the Scottish conservatives hate the lib dems
the Scottish conservatives hate Scottish Labour
The snp hate all the other party's and everyone in them votes for them or supports them
cant be bothered with the lib dems
there is so much hate in Scottish political life and throughout civil Scotland.
The idea of a Scottish way is just a sad joke.
And Alex Salmonds snp the Haters in chief of Sotland pretence to speak on behalf of 'ALL THE PEOPLES OF SCOTLAND' when they would stab most of them in back is the biggest sickest joke of them all.
Forteanjo
ReplyDeleteDamn, yes. I forgot about that. Well, you would, wouldn't you.
Next week I believe they intend dropping the minimum wage to £2.50 an hour, and setting up camps for the unemployed.
Thank goodness for Brave Misses Lamont and Davidson who will come to the rescue of the "ordinary" person and join forces like two Amazons to beat off the wicked SNP.
Oh, I do enjoy a good horror story, don't you?
ch
ReplyDeleteremind us Just how many snp member are against Independence 28% and growing at the last count.
And what would you lot do to any snp
members who set up a Facebook for voting to remain in the UK????
snp member against separation after Ch talks to him
LOL brilliant CH. Let's hope they get a good membership.
ReplyDelete"Labour will return to its rightful place as the true political heart and soul blood and bone of the Scottish peoples."
ReplyDeleteNiko they are not going about it the right way by bringing back the war criminal Blair. What a mad move. People may have forgotten a lot of stuff, but they haven't forgotten the illegal war and the hundreds of thousands of people that we murdered thanks to him... or indeed that it puts us all (but London in particular) in terrible risk.
After all, if Iraq had bombed the hell out of Edinburgh, wouldn't we look for some revenge?
Not quite sure I agree there Niko. I don't hate you, or even begin to dislike you. I rather thought you didn't hate me.
ReplyDeleteThere are a few nutty extremists (on both sides) who hate. And one of the most bitter people I can remember is Johann Lamont. She can't even bring herself to be pleased when something good happens to Scotland under the SNP government, and she seems to positively gloat when something bad happens.
Someone needs to tell her that that doesn't work.
But your right. The Scottish Liberals have ceased to be worth paying any attention to, specially as the bloke that they have as leader is just a mouth piece for Clegg, who in turn is Mr Cameron's fag boy.
Oh, and Niko. I think you do Scots down. We are a more socialist (in the real sense of the word) people than the Anglo Saxons.
ReplyDeleteWe had a health service before them; we retain control of things they have sold off with disastrous consequences, we have free care for the old, free education, are helping people out with money that London is taking away from them. I'm not saying Scots are perfect, nor that the English are hard and uncaring, because that's not true, but on the whole we are far less right wing than they are (note 1 Tory MP!)
tris
ReplyDelete'Johann Lamont. She can't even bring herself to be pleased when something good happens to Scotland under the SNP government, and she seems to positively gloat when something bad happens.'
Now thats out of order and you know it but thats what I mean perhaps its to far gone.
And with the real probability of Alex salmonds snp losing(I dont think there will be referendum).
Things may get worst much worst
me i got a baseball bat under me bed and Taz at the top of me stairs
You will soon be able to cross the border and get paid for your blood Niko that should suit the right wing party you support. When is your first march by the way?
ReplyDeleteNiko.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that many SNP MEMBERS are against independence, although clearly some people who voted SNP are.
It may well be 28% but as you didn't give a link I can't say.
And I don't think I have gone too far over what I say about Lamont. It's clear that she enjoys being able to haul the FM over the coals (or try to) when she perceives of something that is bad that follows from his administration. She never seems to show the same feelings for things that have been caused by the Tories.
At least the SNP was elected by the Scottish people, where as the Tories have 1/59 of the representation in Scotland.
Yes CH. Goodbye to the NHS in England.
ReplyDeleteSoon you'll be able to sell your liver or kidneys, and probably your dead body.
There's money to be made in bits, and the Tories are going to enjoy making it.
How many of the Tory Lords are on health care companies' boards... and wasn't Lansley's election campaign funded by donations from these companies?
Wouldn't like to be ill in England.
In fact I think, even with my EU card, I'm going to skip travelling through England in future. It is becoming a fly over state for me.