Salisbury Democracy Alliance

Tag: NHS

  • Democracy Cafe: November

    November 2022

    We had two lively discussions at our meeting on 12 November 2022 and it was good to see a higher level of participants again following the dip in numbers after Lockdown. The first topic was around the Stop Oil protests who had caused disruption to the M25 recently. The question was around protest and breaking the law. The proposer of the question said there were two main responses: those who were sympathetic or empathetic to the cause (and one assumes the protest) contrasted with those who didn’t who thought they were pathetic people and ‘snowflakes’.

    The discussion started off with a debate about climate change itself and the statement that ‘feelings are not facts’. Gas was essential, it was claimed, for the production of fertilizer, the lack of which would result in the deaths of millions for want of food.

    We returned to the issue at hand and the fact that if we feel those in power are not listening then we are entitled to take action. However, it was argued, we have to accept the penalty for any civil disobedience involved. In response to the charge about ‘feelings not being facts’, we operate on an emotional level as well as factual and that this was a legitimate part of our response.

    Civil disobedience was the cornerstone of our democracy. The series of bills the government was currently pushing through parliament for example the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill, represented it was claimed an attempt by government to curtail such protest. The act when it becomes law will mean lawyers and teachers for example, taking part in demonstrations, risked losing their jobs should they be arrested. One person thought that we were slowly moving towards a totalitarian state especially when the new Justice and Courts act has made challenging government decisions a lot more difficult. There were many restrictions in place around Westminster which further prevented the show of dissent.

    The point was made that the media are particularly bad at reporting peaceful protests. It was also pointed out that whereas there was considerable coverage of the highly visible M25 protests, the daily ‘under the radar’ lobbying by corporations which takes place in parliament – but which was extremely effective in securing for them advantageous treatment of one kind or another – was seldom reported. Another example of peaceful protest was a visit to the local MP by a group of local Amnesty members to raise concerns about the collection of bills which will have the effect of curtailing or inhibiting protests. It was doubtful if this had much of an effect. The role of the media was stressed because only if they were concerned did the public become aware of the problem.

    It was noted that the suffragists formed in the 1866 with the specific aim of campaigning for votes for women peacefully or ‘respectfully’ as they expressed it. Their campaigns yielded nothing and in 1903, the suffragettes were formed who campaigned, sometimes violently, to get them and this was agreed in 1928.

    Back to global warming and it was claimed that people concerned about this were not able to come up with the relevant facts. To claim that ‘scientists say’ was not convincing since many of them depended on commercial funding of one kind or another which called into question their impartiality. It was also pointed out that it will be the poorest in the world who will pay the price not the affluent West. Claims of climate disaster of one kind or another have been made for many years it was said but they seldom happened. An example was that Manhattan would be under water by the year 2000.

    The role of economic ideology was suggested as a reason for a reluctance to act on things like climate reforms. The prevailing ideology was neoliberal, and protests were seen as a cost to doing business and thus damaged the economy. It was claimed that our local MP, Mr John Glen, as a treasury minister, was dictated to by commercial interests. It was pointed out however that he was the MP for all his constituents.

    Finally, the ‘straw man’ argument was noted namely, M25 protests preventing ambulances getting through. This was often claimed but protesters specifically allowed emergency vehicles to pass.

    These highly visible protests raise great passions and many are angry at the disruption caused to daily life. People wanted protests to be other than disruptive. The problem was that they then became invisible and the media would take no notice. Since government was in hoc to business and commercial interests and lobbyists, was this the only way to make the voice of protest heard? Demonstrations were not welcome by the current government hence the slew of legislation designed to outlaw any form of protest seen as a nuisance or an inconvenience.

    Our second topic was whether the idealism of post war in connection with the NHS and education been overtaken by capitalist thinking? Education for many decades after the war was free but in recent years it has been replaced by fees certainly at the university level. Free education for adults has gone. Chunks of the NHS are being privatised. It was claimed that these services were being ‘contaminated’ by the profit motive.

    Why do we have education (for the masses) at all it was asked? The answer, it was claimed, was because the industrial and commercial world needed people for its workforce. This was part of the answer it was true although the push for better education came sometime after the height of the industrial revolution. Increased concerns about superior education – particularly technical – in Germany and USA was also of concern to governments of the day. Another factor was the after-effects of the Great War and the depression. There was a wave of social welfare reforms after WWII with the creation of the health service following the Beveridge Report and the 1944 Butler Act (Education). While it was true there was a fear of civil disturbance by government, there was a number of research and other reports published concerned with how people could lead better lives and fulfil their potential. It did seem that there was a degree of idealism in those post war years.

    The debate moved on following a challenge that the premise of the question implied that capitalism was a bad word. The problem was not that capitalism was bad per se but that it was focused on the profit motive. Money dictates what happens someone said. The problems arose if profit became the sole driving force. There was the neoliberalism belief that the private sector was superior to the public and this has led, in education, to the academy movement. It was the profit motive which made them superior it was claimed. The proposition was difficult to test however since few statistics or analyses were available. Academies did not have to follow the national curriculum so comparison was difficult. Nor did academies have to employ qualified teachers.

    Britain’s education system was once admired around the world which was not the case today. Finland was mentioned as having an excellent and much-admired system. There were no private schools there and all teachers were highly qualified.

    The problems of capitalism was highlighted by the privatisation of the water companies. Little investment had taken place and instead high dividends had been paid out. Rivers had become polluted by sewage discharges and vast quantities were poured into the sea. But, many of those self-same dividends went to pension funds etc so we all profited to an extent. Unfortunately, the activities of a few rogue enterprises tainted the whole sector – not all firms behaved like the water companies. There was a spectrum of companies from the ‘toxic’ to the ordinary firms.

    It did seem to be agreed that something had been lost. The idealism of the post war years has been replaced by a focus on private firms and commercial interests whose pursuit of profit was not always for the benefit of the citizen. There was, in a sense, a link to the first debate and the influence corporations have in the parliamentary process. Private firms had been able to influence policy across a range of areas. People were becoming more and more concerned at the lack of progress on climate change and there was also considerable disquiet at the state the NHS was now in. Was the introduction of laws to inhibit and criminalise protest because government was beginning to realise that corporate led policies were no longer working nor popular? A debate for another time perhaps.

    Peter Curbishley

    Books of interest relevant to the discussion:

    Taking Rights Seriously, Ronald Dworkin, 1997, Bloomsbury

    23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism, Ha-Joon Chang, 2011, Penguin

    NOTE 1. One of the proposed questions we did not debate was the claim that Pfizer did not test its Covid vaccine before release. This was apparently based on a European Commission hearing on 11 October involving the firm. The claim is misleading it appears and readers may like to read this report by Full Fact which explains the context.

    NOTE 2. We may be changing venue in the future but our next meeting on 10 December will be in Brown Street at 10:00 as usual. Details in due course.

  • Will our politics change?

    A debate is starting about whether there will be a change in the way politics is done in Britain as a result of the Covid-19 crisis. Will it be a ‘never again’ moment and force some fundamental improvements? I don’t think it will and in this blog I will argue why change will not happen except at the margin.

    It is true that major events such as war or a outbreak of a serious disease does bring about change. I am writing this in English not in some form of French. That change came about because of plague which killed off a lot of the French speaking people at the top of our society and allowed in rough English speaking yocals into positions of power. The war brought about a significant improvement in housing provision.

    The drivers of change

    For change to happen, there has to be a groundswell of opinion – however ill-formed – for things to be done differently in future. People have to feel angry, affronted, or resentful at a political process and its leaders which contributed to the crisis. They argue vehemently for change. They may riot or march or do something physical to express their anger. There has to be anger in the air.

    Another thing which might contribute to this anger is a flow of information which explains what has gone wrong. There also have to be polemics which set out how change for the better can take place. There is little sign of this happening either.

    Ultimately, this anger has to find a voice. Almost certainly via a political party: someone has to set our a vision for a better world and a better run world. A world in which there is more equality of opportunity and where the benefits of our prosperity are spread more evenly. This has to be articulated into cogent arguments, and then simple phrases produced which encapsulate these ideas into ‘soundbites’.

    Will it happen?

    I don’t think this will happen for several reasons. Firstly, the nature and control of our media. That our print media is largely right wing and owned by foreign based oligarchs is well known. They are in a position to control the narrative and stifle unwelcome challenges to their hegemony. Readers of these titles will, for example, be largely unaware of the Paradise Papers and other major stories about the scale of tax avoidance carried out by the elite in our society. By contrast, they can run endless stories about scroungers and benefit cheats – who do exist of course – but are tiny in scale by comparison with the billions funnelled out of the country by the top 1%.

    The broadcast media have been little better. The nightly No 10 press conference is a case in point. Various journalists are given the opportunity to question the minister and the advisers. It is of course difficult to do this properly across a video link. But their questions are over-long and, instead of asking one insightful question, they ask two and sometimes three. The minister artfully – and I suspect they are trained to do this – repeats the question at length, says how important it is, waffles around it and fails to answer the point. The journalist is then invited to respond and bafflingly, then proceeds to ask another, different, question which is also unanswered. The result is that egregious failures of policy and delays in responses to the crisis largely go unchallenged.

    Such investigations which do take place – such as the BBC’s Panorama for example – have minimal viewing figures and are quickly slapped down by ministerial threats and newspaper allegations of bias.

    Another crucial point is that this argument has largely been about facts, numbers and statistics. But none of the journalists or any of the ministers have science or mathematical backgrounds. It is like watching two people who cannot even open the bonnet of a car, arguing about how they might change a clutch. As soon as a statistic becomes uncomfortable, it disappears. So the death toll in comparison with other countries is no longer presented for example.

    Finally, because of the pandemic, parliament is not properly sitting. In one sense that seems to be working for Keir Starmer who is operating in simulacrum of a court room, which suits his background. Early exchanges has enabled him to expose the emptiness of the prime minister. But the theatre has gone which means the exchanges are rather dull and forensic. Consequently, they do not get much airtime. The media wants conflict, anger, shouting and general excitement, not reasoned rational debate.

    Why have we come to this?

    The fundamental issues which have led us to our lack of preparedness and made us the worst in Europe are the neoliberal policies which have informed our politics for a generation. These are a set of beliefs which have dictated policy across a range of areas. Simply put, these are a belief in small government; that low taxes are best to enable people to spend their money how they wish; low regulation because this stifles innovation; that the private sector is superior to the public because they are inherently more efficient, and the best way to allocate resources is through competition. These are deep rooted and show little sign of disappearing.

    Recent events have forced the conservatives to do the opposite. Government is bigger and more intrusive, regulations have increased, money has poured into the private sector to find a cure, competition has fallen away in favour of ministerial patronage and taxes will inevitably have to rise. There are reported to be great tensions in the party as a consequence of this. The right wing, free market and Brexit wing are quiet at present because during a national emergency people ‘rally to the flag’. This will end soon but importantly, it will be an internal conservative party argument which will not affect the state of our politics nationally.

    These neoliberal beliefs have led to increased privatisation being introduced into the health service and the market led ideas introduced by Ken Clarke when he was health minister. Austerity was the cover which enabled Osborne to reduce funding for the service and the Lansley reforms also did more damage (what philosophy was behind those is a mystery, perhaps even to Lansley himself).

    All told, the public sector, including local authorities, were seen as inefficient, cumbersome and of little value. They could be cut with impunity because nobody cared. They were helped by near silence from them as well. How often, even today, when the issue of what LAs are doing and the role they play in tackling the pandemic, do you see a local authority person interviewed? Rarely. They almost never appear on programmes like Question Time. Despite their size and significance, they can be cut, lampooned and denigrated to politicians’ heart content.

    There is no groundswell of anger of people looking for fundamental change. Such anger as there is is about whether people can go out or not or how many people they can meet. The Labour party has to tread carefully because if they criticise the government too hard, they will be called disloyal. So far, there has been no sign of arguments about fundamental change from their people.

    This is why I suggest there will be no fundamental changes. Sure the medics will get a pay rise – even the current crop of boneheads would risk denying them that. But inequality will continue to get worse. The super rich will continue to avoid their taxes. The six or seven posh schools will continue to provide a disproportionate supply of politicians, journalists, media folk, judges et al. Privatisation of the NHS and other areas of public life will continue however corrupt or incompetent the suppliers are. Power will still reside in Westminster and any kind of regionalisation will not happen.

    Covid-19 will not change the fundamental flaws in our society.

    Peter Curbishley