Since the time of the 18th century enlightenment every decade has seen some form of social revolution in the UK be it the ending of slavery, stopping children working in mines and mills, safe water and sanitation, public education, the security of an old age pension, trade union rights, universal suffrage, health care and universal welfare until we come to the late 20th Century when Tory government after Tory Government (including Blair's New Labour) commenced dismantling the social reforms and protections introduced over the previous two centuries.
Some of it has been quite insidious such as trade union laws while the attacks on health and welfare have been excessive and destructive to whole nature of the 1944 White Paper on which the post war UK was going to be based.
In 1948 we saw access to universal health care at the point of delivery for the first time in the UK's history. The impact of the NHS and the treatment it made available saw the rapid drop off in many diseases which had been common killers of children and adults such as TB, diphtheria, whooping cough, polio, measles, septic blood poisoning and lock jaw. By 1960 the idea that any child in the UK would die from any of these previously common causes of death had become intolerable. In just the first ten years of the NHS the impact on the general UK population was to improve general health, reduce post partum deaths of mothers and babies and post operative deaths in general to levels that astounded the world and saw the rest of the so called developed world introduce general population inoculation programmes which mirrored those first begun in the NHS. The recent occasional scare about the dangers of inoculations is routinely accompanied by a rise in the levels of deaths and severe disabilities amongst children, as seen in the tide of under 5 year old deaths during the 1980's UK whooping cough outbreak and more recently with a measles epidemic (leaving a large cohort of UK children unnecessarily deaf, blind, sterile, with mangled adult dentition's ) all within a year of the drop off in uptake of the particular vaccination.
It seems to me that many politicians who play the 'we can not afford the NHS' card are completely unaware of the massive and positive impact the NHS has and continues to have on the lives or their constituents nor the costs to their beloved capitalists the NHS saves in lost days, training replacements and reduced effectiveness. It seems the capitalists have also forgotten the reason why most large businesses had some form of community health and sickness fund, prior to 1948, available to their work forces and their families. The GPO's health fund, alone, was worth some £5 million in 1947 and not only paid for treatment but also convalescence, rehabilitation and care homes for GPO employees.
Capitalists have forgotten how much providing health care actually cost them as part of their employment packages. In 1948 many capitalists understood the new NI component saved them money. The evidence from NHS England's increasing reliance on private companies providing NHS dental care is none too smart. The impact of the poor standards of care being provided is seen in the numbers of dentists employed by these companies being hauled before the General Dental Council to account for their actions. The companies themselves fail to attract UK graduates in any number so are reliant on recruiting from Eastern Europe where some of the countries training standards would embarrass a third UK dental student, in terms of the science, materials and technique, in their ineptitude. Yet this is the Tory vision for all of NHS England's service provision, public money delivering capitalist profit at an ever lower standard of care.
The worry remains just how long can the SNP continue to rob a number of Scottish funded Peters to fund the NHS Scotland Paul in the face of the defacto sell off of NHS England and the resulting impact on Barnet consequentials?
Just how will Corbyn make a real difference with the New Labour MP albatross hanging heavily around his neck, constantly screaming its going to peck his eyes out, just see if it doesn't?
Cameron and his cohorts have little understanding of why social change happened in the UK. Welfare had little to do with improving the quality of life for the 'oiks' but preventing revolution against the British Establishment by its own people. The British Establishment's greatest fear is the people of the UK waking up to the ride they are being taken for and this ploy of heading off revolt with mild reforms worked well until Mrs Thatcher lost the plot in the mid 1980's and every government since has carried on creating an ever increasing divide between the people of the UK and the British Establishment, the biggest since the late 18th Century.
The Scots, in effect, stated in May 2015 that enough was enough as they near wiped out the British Establishment parties in Scotland. On current voting intentions for Holyrood the same establishment parties are about to get another kicking from the Scottish people in May 2016. I have the ex Sun editor's Kelvin MacKenzie's next Scotophobic headline for May 2016, "The Scots Are Truly Revolting". He and the rest of the British Establishment, his views represent, are just going to have to suck it up as long as they continue to pretend it does not matter, it will just blow over, stupid wee Scotland - we know better and the rest of their ignorant views.
There are stirrings within the outer edges of the British Establishment who are warning the status quo is already collapsing and the British Establishment and its tame political parties are playing a dangerous game turning a deaf ear to Scotland's requests for home rule as Scotland is now at a tipping point which increasingly makes the end of the UK political union ever more certain. The list of British Establishment shibboleths which will tip Scotland over to independence include Trident, an out EU vote, failure to meet Smith Commission commitments in full especially on health and welfare or simply yet another Tory Government in 2020.
Cameron is a 'do nothing' Prime Minister who hopes 'doing nothing' will cause his problems to go away, forget #piggate - the man is just an ignorant swine.
Some of it has been quite insidious such as trade union laws while the attacks on health and welfare have been excessive and destructive to whole nature of the 1944 White Paper on which the post war UK was going to be based.
In 1948 we saw access to universal health care at the point of delivery for the first time in the UK's history. The impact of the NHS and the treatment it made available saw the rapid drop off in many diseases which had been common killers of children and adults such as TB, diphtheria, whooping cough, polio, measles, septic blood poisoning and lock jaw. By 1960 the idea that any child in the UK would die from any of these previously common causes of death had become intolerable. In just the first ten years of the NHS the impact on the general UK population was to improve general health, reduce post partum deaths of mothers and babies and post operative deaths in general to levels that astounded the world and saw the rest of the so called developed world introduce general population inoculation programmes which mirrored those first begun in the NHS. The recent occasional scare about the dangers of inoculations is routinely accompanied by a rise in the levels of deaths and severe disabilities amongst children, as seen in the tide of under 5 year old deaths during the 1980's UK whooping cough outbreak and more recently with a measles epidemic (leaving a large cohort of UK children unnecessarily deaf, blind, sterile, with mangled adult dentition's ) all within a year of the drop off in uptake of the particular vaccination.
It seems to me that many politicians who play the 'we can not afford the NHS' card are completely unaware of the massive and positive impact the NHS has and continues to have on the lives or their constituents nor the costs to their beloved capitalists the NHS saves in lost days, training replacements and reduced effectiveness. It seems the capitalists have also forgotten the reason why most large businesses had some form of community health and sickness fund, prior to 1948, available to their work forces and their families. The GPO's health fund, alone, was worth some £5 million in 1947 and not only paid for treatment but also convalescence, rehabilitation and care homes for GPO employees.
Capitalists have forgotten how much providing health care actually cost them as part of their employment packages. In 1948 many capitalists understood the new NI component saved them money. The evidence from NHS England's increasing reliance on private companies providing NHS dental care is none too smart. The impact of the poor standards of care being provided is seen in the numbers of dentists employed by these companies being hauled before the General Dental Council to account for their actions. The companies themselves fail to attract UK graduates in any number so are reliant on recruiting from Eastern Europe where some of the countries training standards would embarrass a third UK dental student, in terms of the science, materials and technique, in their ineptitude. Yet this is the Tory vision for all of NHS England's service provision, public money delivering capitalist profit at an ever lower standard of care.
The worry remains just how long can the SNP continue to rob a number of Scottish funded Peters to fund the NHS Scotland Paul in the face of the defacto sell off of NHS England and the resulting impact on Barnet consequentials?
Just how will Corbyn make a real difference with the New Labour MP albatross hanging heavily around his neck, constantly screaming its going to peck his eyes out, just see if it doesn't?
Cameron and his cohorts have little understanding of why social change happened in the UK. Welfare had little to do with improving the quality of life for the 'oiks' but preventing revolution against the British Establishment by its own people. The British Establishment's greatest fear is the people of the UK waking up to the ride they are being taken for and this ploy of heading off revolt with mild reforms worked well until Mrs Thatcher lost the plot in the mid 1980's and every government since has carried on creating an ever increasing divide between the people of the UK and the British Establishment, the biggest since the late 18th Century.
The Scots, in effect, stated in May 2015 that enough was enough as they near wiped out the British Establishment parties in Scotland. On current voting intentions for Holyrood the same establishment parties are about to get another kicking from the Scottish people in May 2016. I have the ex Sun editor's Kelvin MacKenzie's next Scotophobic headline for May 2016, "The Scots Are Truly Revolting". He and the rest of the British Establishment, his views represent, are just going to have to suck it up as long as they continue to pretend it does not matter, it will just blow over, stupid wee Scotland - we know better and the rest of their ignorant views.
There are stirrings within the outer edges of the British Establishment who are warning the status quo is already collapsing and the British Establishment and its tame political parties are playing a dangerous game turning a deaf ear to Scotland's requests for home rule as Scotland is now at a tipping point which increasingly makes the end of the UK political union ever more certain. The list of British Establishment shibboleths which will tip Scotland over to independence include Trident, an out EU vote, failure to meet Smith Commission commitments in full especially on health and welfare or simply yet another Tory Government in 2020.
Cameron is a 'do nothing' Prime Minister who hopes 'doing nothing' will cause his problems to go away, forget #piggate - the man is just an ignorant swine.
Aye, spot on sir, excellent post thanks. Talking about measles I remember nursing a wee lad who had a bout when he was five, after which he was classed as an imbecile, sorry but that was the awful diagnosis at the time. The sad fact is people today don't realize how bad these diseases were.
ReplyDeleteExcellent Article, those who voted for the Tories on a wave of Xenophobia, having been convinced that England would be ruled by Labour and the SNP, are now the very ones who have had 'Working Tax Credits' withdrawn and those who Voted in the Belief they would have their Savings protected, are the same Folk now having to dip in to those Savings to survive!!
ReplyDeleteIt is the same with all Fascist Parties, they always end up Eating their Own Children!