A vacuous bunch of liars, ne’er-do-wells and silly little boys.

So, Parliament has risen for the first time since the election this week. Labour MP’s go home as the opposition and Tory and Lib Dems return to their constituencies for the summer, leaving the Government side of the house empty. However this does not mean, thankfully, an end to politics for the summer. The Labour Leadership contest is still going on, and more political chatter has been ignited by Cameron’s India trip, where he demonstrated his new “frank” foreign policy, and the BBC documentary ‘Five days that changed Britain’.

Many welcomed Cameron and Hague’s plan, revealed this week, to establish a new special relationship with India. He was to take a huge delegation of Cabinet Ministers and business leaders to India in order to impress, but also to flatter the Indians into thinking Britain cared immensely about our country’s historic, cultural, and of course economic ties, which of course we should do. Many, including Labour supporters, decry the fact that the Labour Government did not show more effort in engaging with India. Once the Jewel in the Crown of the British Empire, India is now a crown all on its own. Its rising global prominence is not to be ignored. Rapidly developing global powerhouses like India, or in fact Brazil, should no longer be considered as the second rung of the global political economic strata, or pretenders to the throne, but rather countries whose international importance cannot be questioned.

It is not this tactic of engagement that I deplore, but the “frank” approach which Cameron now seems, in a moment of panic and cover-up, to have labelled his foreign policy strategy. First visiting Turkey, Cameron made the first of his mistakes in sucking up to his host and insult their enemies with snooty nosed dismissal. It is as yet unknown whether Cameron intended to go to Turkey and employ the ‘cushion method’ of international relations, or if it just happened. No one, and certainly not I, would disagree with the sentiment of Gaza being a prison camp, and Israel’s lack of scruples when it comes to the blockade. However there are ways of saying things, and standing in Turkey and insulting Israel is never one of the best.

On to India, and Cameron goes on to accuse Pakistan of “looking both ways” in relation to the prevention of terrorism and relations with India, and accusation quickly rebuked in a rare move for Pakistan. All this came after claiming in the US that the UK was very much the junior partner in the much cherished “special relationship”. (Much as it had been in 1940. And there was me thinking Eton was regarded as a high class institution…who teaches History?)

While our beloved leader was on his tour of the world, we were treated here to the leader of the Liberal Democrats (yes, remember them) Nick Clegg, making the king of gaffes in Parliament. Firstly he contradicted the Foreign Secretary William Hague about the pull out date from Afghanistan and was quickly corrected. Then after Jack Straw re-stated that he would answer for his damaging decisions in this coalition at the ballot box, Clegg, clearly lacking a response, came back with the assertion that Jack Straw would have to answer for his involvement in the “illegal Iraq war”.

Oh the box of worms that has now been opened. It was soon affirmed by the speaker that contrary to the Government’s statement that Clegg’s comments were his own, in fact comments made at the dispatch box were and would be taken to be, that of the government. Oops Clegg.

The series of mistakes made by one Mr Gove is well publicised. Now I am informed that he is seeking a new departmental assistant…another one might be able to get it right. I can’t see a rush for that job though, can you? Across the Cabinet table sits Vince Cable, until now he has largely escaped public criticism. Until now. His new proposal of a graduate tax was a surprise. Not only does it go back on Lib Dem (yes that bunch again) proposals on student finance before the election; it wasn’t even Conservative policy, but completely new. It doesn’t matter though; already it looks as abandoned as the principles the Liberals left behind when they chose coalition with Cameron.

Furthermore, yes there’s more, Dr Fox the Secretary of State for Defence has been put on the naughty step and today publicly rebuked by Chancellor Osborne over his pleadings for Trident not be included in the defence budget, but paid for separately. “No”, came the response.

And then there’s the rest. Andrew Lansley is proposing to restructure the NHS at a cost of up to £5-6 Billion, for no apparent reason. Theresa May following in the same vein, proposes a restructure of the police force and the creation of elected Commissioners, again a plan which will take money away from the front line to pay for pointless changes with no proof of rising standards. Jeremy Hunt at the Department for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport is under pressure for making heavy hints at reduction of the BBC licence fee, and taking away the Olympic contingency fund. Eric Pickles, Communities and Local Government Minister helped Cameron launch the ‘Big Society’ campaign, or as I like to call it ‘Cover for Cuts’ campaign. And Ken Clarke has lost the key to his red box at the cricket.

It seems to me that the way forward for Labour is clear. Attacking the Lib Dems should no longer be a priority. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun, but after watching the BBC’s ‘Five days that changed Britain’ documentary I was struck by two things. One, is this the fastest an event has been made into history by being made into a documentary, and two, why didn’t I see it before! The truth is this coalition is so natural for Clegg that I don’t understand what took me so long to realise. I’ve never like Nick Clegg, from when he became on MP, then became leader of the Liberal Democrats. You see, have a guilty secret. In my days as a young, carefree teenager, I regarded myself as a Liberal Democrat. I know. The shock, the horror, the shaaaame! Don’t get me wrong, my ideology was the same, I believed then what I believe now. But then, you see, had this misguided belief that the Liberal Democrats were a centre left party. My mistake I know, it has now come to my attention that they are nothing more than rag-tag bunch of assorted discontents that never had the courage to admit they were either a conservative, or a socialist. In Nick Clegg’s case he has proven himself to be a liar, a cheat, and a conservative.

‘The Big Society’, another name for ‘the great abandonment’

David Cameron launched, or re-launched, his Big Society policy today. It pledges, as the name suggests, a new involvement of communities, culture of volunteerism, an age of utopian living, in which we all help, support and care for each other instead of relying on the state. A wonderful thought, but at its base, a lie. The Big Society is little more than a nice name for the impending great abandonment.

Conservative ideology about the size of the state is well known. Thatcher rolled back the state in the 80’s in an attempt to reduce the responsibility government had towards its citizens. Now, under the auspices of deficit reduction, Cameron is aiming to go even further. In just a couple of months a new education policy of ‘free schools’ has taken the place of Labour’s policy to rebuild and renew secondary education. The Building Schools for the Future programme aimed to do what it said on the tin, rebuild shattered, derelict schools which were falling down around pupils struggling to learn. This scheme was halted with the onset of the coalition government. The new Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, announced that the scheme would be scrapped. Let’s be clear, the scheme was the biggest ever school buildings investment programme announced by a government, and promised to make every one of the 3500 secondary schools in the country fit for teachers to teach in, and pupils to learn in. It aimed to rid England of the crumbling schools which were the signature of the last Conservative government. That is what the Secretary of State was stopping (once he could get the list right). Instead, he would spend that money, as well as money from the free school meals budget, on the introduction of the new free schools and academies policy. At best, it is a shameless introduction of the private sector into the state education system, and at worst, the dismantling of state education as we know it.

Next for the shopping block, the NHS. Andrew Lansley has announced “The biggest shakeup of the NHS since its inception”. I don’t know if it was just me, but this statement filled me with terror, maybe the same terror the Prime Minister feels at the prospect of sending his children into the state schooling system, poor kiddie Cameroons, having to learn like normal people. I have posted an earlier blog (below) on the NHS white paper introduced by the new Secretary of State for Health. In the same short evaluation has above about schools, I can sum up the changes in a sentence. At best, shocking introductions of the private sector into the public health sector, at worst, the break up and privatisation of the NHS.

In Liverpool Cameron has announced how he sees the future of the public sector. The Big Society, as I have long warned friends, should not be batted away or ignored as a gimmick. This is serious. As a Labour member and supporter, I am all for the idea of greater community action, more involvement of local people in local services. Much as state retrenchment is the ideology of those on the right, so greater social cohesion and sense of community is of my own social democratic views. But beware, this is not BSF, and it is not what it says on the tin.

The Big Society is little more than a relabeling of Thatcher’s “Rolling back the frontiers of the state”. It is, at its core, and abandonment of local services, people, charities. A friend of mine, also a Labour supporter, has worked tirelessly as a volunteer for years in her local community. She welcomes any attempt by government for more funding and responsibility locally. But she laments this new policy. It is, unfortunately, asking local services to fill the hole left by conservative retrenchment with less funding. All under the guise of furthering the brilliant volunteers, dedicated local service providers and sense of community already alive around us, this government is hiding its true ambition, small state, reduced responsibility, centralised government.

As per, we have seen uncomfortable Liberal Democrat faces, yet they remain next to gleeful conservatives grins. It, once again, falls to the Labour party in opposition, to defend the most vulnerable, protect the poor, and guard the defenceless. Clegg has proved himself to be the wolf in sheep’s clothing any suspected him to be, the Conservative’s take the role of the woodcutter wielding the axe, while the vulnerable Little Red Riding hood, the public, remains blissfully unaware if just how damaging this new alliance will prove to be.

No spoon full of sugar will help this medicine go down!

We are still only a few weeks into the coalition, and yet so much has been done. Some may laud the coalition for their swift action; however we should also be afraid of the terrible speed at which the government is bringing forward their policies.

This week the Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, introduced the government White Paper on the health service. Equity and excellence: Liberating the NHS is a near 60 page long document setting out the changes the coalition wants to make to the NHS, as well as some unbearably sloppy language which tries to convince the reader how much the government cares etc.. I skipped this part, no one needs to be told how much the Tories care about the NHS, we know exactly how they feel. Moreover, when I read the important parts of the White Paper, it becomes clear to all that the same old Tory thinking on the NHS is still alive and kicking.

Let me start in my analysis of the White Paper where the White Paper starts with the NHS, by praising it. It is one of the most loved institutions this country has. A Health Service which cares for all, is paid for through general taxation, and is free at the point of use. It provides the people of Britain, and indeed visitors to the UK with the same service, a service that we would struggle to find elsewhere in the world, and one that we are lost without. There has been plenty of criticism of the NHS recently, mainly from conservatives in the US, (and here, thank you Daniel Hannan), following US Health Care Reform promised by President Obama. Because of this, and also because of the global financial crisis and the need to reduce the deficit, we have also seen an extraordinary defense of our National Health Service, and rightly so.

I have used it, as have many others, and so can appreciate it in ways that those who have not, cannot. Many in this country view the health insurance system prevalent in the US, and other countries, with horror. Fortunately, they think quietly, we have our NHS. But, and I hate to be alarmist, that maybe on shaky ground. The White Paper purports to merely cut waste and bureaucracy from the system. But look slightly closer, and it becomes more and more concerning. Privatisation springs to mind immediately, and it worries me.

The document promises that the government will make the NHS accountable to patients, get rid of bureaucracy, and increase spending in real terms year on year. It can’t only be me who doesn’t believe this at first glance from this government. Patients will also be in charge of decisions about their care, via a new pledge No decision about me, without me. Lovely little rhyme there, that should make us all feel better. It simply takes ‘the customer is always right’ to a new level. As a customer I will admit freely now, I am not always right, especially when it comes to making medical decisions, and the best way I should be treated. I doubt that this will actually happen. Doctors will make the decision, but now we have a lovely new rhyming policy to make us all feel more involved, which is nice, isn’t it?

The government also promised to abolish targets. Let me be clear. This is a mistake. Getting rid of the A&E four hour waiting time is madness, and will take us back to the days when patients waited on trolleys for hours, and days to be see a doctor or be treated. Instead, the government will assess the NHS by looking at improvement of survival rates from cancer and strokes etc. (sound like reaching for targets to you?). It may also be worth reminding the government, that while, yes, England has one of the lowest five-year survival rates in Europe, according to the office of national statistics, survival has actually improved in the last decade from the decade before. (see here)

“Customers” will also be able to rate their surgery, or the hospital department they have been in, depending on how satisfied they are with their service, with more choice about who cares for them, which doctors, and where. Are we supposed to accept that all this will save money? HealthWatch will be established, a new agency (yes, they did say they were going to cut them), it will take on the work the Care Quality Commission currently does in regulating and inspecting hospitals. CQC will remain in place (so now there is two NDPB’s where before there was one) it will simply be less useful. Keep an eye out; there are plenty of examples for these foolishly hypocritical moves.

These plans will apparently save £20 Billion in ‘efficiencies’ by 2014. They will also reduce management costs by the staggering figure of 45%. Even they can’t believe that, surely. They will ‘radically’ (yes, a conservative white paper uses the word ‘radically’) reduce the Department of Health’s own functions, and abolish Quango’s, such as the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and theMedicine and Healthcare Regulatory Association (MHRA). I’ve been told they are making worrying noises about NICE ( The national institute for health and clinical excellence, which is mentioned numerous times in the document). Vaccination and screening services have also been yanked away from the Health Service, to be incorporated into a new Public Health Service which will be legislated for soon.

In the biggest change to the current system, Primary Care Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities are to be abolished. Before, the Department of Health would fund PCT’s directly, while SHA’s had the job of managing and monitoring healthcare and PCT’s within their area. Primary care included GP Practices, Walk-in centres, dentists and ophthalmic services. While Secondary care encompasses Ambulance trusts, Emergency care, NHS, Mental health and Care trusts. Not any more. To satisfy Liberal Democrats who wanted elections to PCT’s to make them more democratic, some powers are to be transferred to local authorities, a paltry gesture designed to save face more than anything. Other powers will go to a new Director or Public Health, working within the remit of the Public Health Service mentioned above, who will manage NHS budgets. A new commission will be appointed (yes, another one, we haven’t got enough) to assess long term care funding. It will report within a year, possibly suggesting an end to state funding and the start of a voluntary insurance scheme.

I won’t need to remind anyone that PCT’s and SHA’s were set up after full consultation. But what will replace the PCT’s and 28 SHA’s when they are abolished? Well, we all know about the new GP consortia, a new plan which has come from little or no consultation. It’s a brilliant idea (can you sense my sarcasm?). It gives healthcare professionals, who struggle to run a practice on their own especially where I live, management and financial responsibilities. As if they haven’t got enough to do? Here’s how it will work. Follow closely, or I’ll lose you in the maze. New GP consortia, bands of GP practices, will now commission a great deal NHS services for patients. They will not, however, commission the services GP’s themselves provide, rather tell hospitals what to do. They will not commission dental, pharmacy or ophthalmic services. This will be done instead by a new NHS Commissioning Board (yes, new, again, replacing a perfectly good old). In news last night (13^th July) two soon to be ex-heads of SHA’s have been poached by the Health Secretary. The Head of the North East SHA, Iain Dalton, and his counterpart at the West Midlands SHA, Dame Barbara Hakin, will be given cushy new jobs at the heart of the department’s policy, retaining their £200,000 per year salary. (See here) So much for new politics and getting rid of top heavy, large salaried management…

In other funding news, the document says that the government will increase NHS funding in real terms year on year. But, contrastingly, also says, and I quote, “In the next five years the NHS will only be able to increase quality of care by implementing best practice and increasing productivity”. I could almost add ‘because you won’t be getting any help from us’ to that, and shockingly, I wouldn’t be joking. The NHS will have to make massive efficiencies to deal with the huge cuts it will suffer.

The new system means that Parliament will have to approve money to the Department of Health, which will in turn then give it to the Commissioning Board, Monitor and the Care Quality Commission. The Commissioning Board will then give money to GP consortia, who will acquire services from providers, and local authorities, which will fund HealthWatch. Accountability will go in the opposite direction. But this new complicated system means that Andrew Lansley has rid himself of any blame if anything goes wrong, and if something does go wrong, it has happened so far from Parliament that regulating it is near impossible! The job not made any easier by the assertion that “All health and social care regulation will be reviewed and reduced”. And what happens if the consortia don’t work and funding is made a mess of? Nothing. The government will wash its hands and walk away. It has refused to bail out any failed group; instead, Monitor will be given that responsibility.

To cap it all, hospitals have been asked to make up 25% of their own funding by taking on increased private work to mirror that of the Royal Marsden in Kensington. What the Tories have failed to realise is that Kensington, London is not Walton or Fazakerley, in Liverpool, or even Hull, and cities like this cannot be expected to meet this expectation. (See here)

In conclusion, these health changes are not simply a cost cutting exercise. They are not even aimed at improving the health care the NHS can provide, but simply a new way of deconstructing the normal cohesion of the NHS, breaking it down into small blocks, giving the private sector more influence and opportunity, at the cost of reducing the role of the public sector massively. As this article in the Guardian says, the most critical risk of this White Paper is that the NHS won’t survive the shock of what many see an appalling, ideological, dogmatic ambush on the NHS.

For Privacy, for Love…for Shame.

The Telegraph has claimed another scalp in their seemingly never ending hunt for wrong doing MP’s. On the 28^th of May the paper declared that David Laws, the newly installed Chief Secretary to the Treasury, senior Liberal Democrat, the minister responsible for massive cuts imposed by the new coalition, Nick Clegg’s right hand guy, coalition negotiator, and all round well liked politician, was not as whiter than white as first assumed.

He had claimed £40,000 of taxpayers’ money to pay rent to his landlord, James Lundie, who owned the house where he kept a room in London. This should not have caused much stir, plenty of MP’s did it, and it was perfectly within the rules. What was not allowed however was paying money to a spouse, or a person treated as such. Much to the consternation of the Telegraph, that was indeed what Mr Lundie was to Mr Laws. They had, by his own later admission, been partners since 2001. In 2006 the parliamentary rules changed to disallow rent payments to a partner, but Mr Laws continued to claim the money until 2009, when he began renting a flat elsewhere.

The facts of the case are well known. It was the briefest cabinet stint in history. After just over two weeks after the election, one of the brightest stars in the new government and the Liberal Democrat Party has resigned his prominent cabinet post. There was no other alternative. However much sympathy one has with David Laws’ position, the fact remains that he broke the rules, even if they are simply pathetic rules which need rewriting so as not to be so open to interpretation, and wrongfully claimed over what an average family earns in a year.

Liberal Democrat friends of mine jumped to his defence. “He could have claimed a lot more than that”, “It was only £40,000, it’s not like he profited that much, what if he’d have claimed for a mortgage?”. While Conservative friends, shockingly, took up the David Laws cause with almost the same enthusiasm. “The poor guy,” one bemoaned, “He was so good, and he shouldn’t have to resign”.

I was fiercely angry at them. In fact, I was outraged. How dare these people change their minds so quickly? A few weeks ago they were baying for the heads of Jacqui Smith and Tony McNulty, while David Cameron was severely punishing his party and blaming the expenses scandal on Gordon Brown (yes they will blame anything on him), and Nick Clegg was swaggering around saying how his party was so good and proper. Now they were defending the same kind of wrong doing, in fact, in some cases, worse. Only £40,000 I repeated in my head until it exploded out of me. “ONLY £40,000?!!?!” I raged, “Do you know how much money that is! That’s more than the annual salary of an average family in this country! That’s over double the average wage! It’s not ONLY £40,000, or JUST £40,000, it’s a hell of a lot of money!”

I quickly regained control of myself to put my case forward. David Laws broke the rules. Clearly and most definitely, he broke the rules. He must go. At the time, I didn’t think he would. I thought he’d cling onto his cabinet post despite what I thought, but then, the next day I read a tweet from a friend. “David Laws’ resigns” it said. Plain, simple, and to the point. Well there you go, I thought, Over.

How wrong I was. Over the next couple of days I was horrified by what was happening in the media and in the attitudes of my friends. (Some of them…I must stress). Not only that, but the comments of some prominent gay MP’s and charities. Ben Bradshaw, the Labour MP for Exeter, expressed dismay and confusion as to why David Laws’ might want to keep his sexuality secret.

“Why should anyone in Britain today feel ashamed to acknowledge they’re gay” he tweeted.

I replied.

“Should and do are two very different things. Fear and shame are commonplace. I understand completely why he wanted privacy”

And I do. Ben Bradshaw may have a remarkable life in which no one cares that he is gay or not. Maybe he does not encounter bullies, thugs, homophobes, skinheads and the like. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t understand that there are vast swathes of this country that are still homophobic, and anti gay rights, whether they openly admit to it or not. Being gay is still a massively big issue for many people, gay or straight, and in many walks of life, including education, entertainment, sport, and indeed, politics.

Stonewall were no better. In an article in the Guardian it denounced David Laws for not coming out earlier and setting an example to others to do the same. How dare he stay in the closet, value his privacy, or even have the brazen cheek to maybe be scared of what the reaction may be if he admitted who he was to the world. It also called on sports stars of football, bearing in mind we’re in the run up to the world cup, to come out, declare themselves, and set an example. I do not disagree that it would make it easier for young boys and girls if someone they loved and looked up to was comfortable with something that they are still attempting to come to terms with. However, to actively call for people to make examples of themselves is ridiculous, annoying, insensitive, and blatantly no one else’s business but the person who has to make the choice.

The fact is that today’s Britain is not as liberal, caring, or accepting as some people like to convince themselves it is. Much to my disappointment.
David Laws should not have done what he did. He should not have taken the £40,000 wrongly. But whether or not to announce to the world that he is gay is not anyone else’s choice but his own, and I understand completely, and sympathise greatly, with the torment he felt, the paralysing fear which disabled him, and the fierce desire for privacy, for himself and his partner, Mr Lundie.

I hope very much he will get through this episode in his life, and that he has the love and support of those he thought loved him before. And I hope very much that this bright spark, this hugely and undoubtedly intelligent and talented man, even if he is a Liberal Democrat, can show how talented he is again. Just maybe not wielding the spending axe. I am after all, a Labour boy.