Choices.

  A new slogan suitable for our capitalist parasites ideology.

Photo courtesy of Erik R. Rishoff /flickr.

    

    By now it should be clear to everybody that crunch time is fast approaching and capitalism doesn't work for the benefit of the ordinary people. Everywhere you turn companies are laying off employees, the list is staggering.

   All the figures point to a massive increase in poverty, homelessness and deprivation, no blue horizon for the ordinary people of this country.

    Figures announced this morning state that the UK economy shrank by 20.4% in April, the largest monthly contraction on record, and it is all just beginning. In the coming months job loses will be on a scale not seen since the twenties and before. Here is a short list of what is known at the moment:

The Telegraph states that 250,00 business will be laying off employees.

Frankie and Benny's is closing 120 restaurants,

Roll Royce laying off 3,000,

UK car industry laying off 2,000

British Gas laying off 5,000

J Mathey laying off 2,500,

Airlines expected to lay off 70,000

BP world wide, laying off 10,000

Mulberry laying off 25% of workforce, 

Bentley cars laying of 25% of its workforce,

Airbus stated it will make job cuts. 

This list is by no means complete and comprehensive, and this as the cheery part of the picture. 

    And so the dark clouds continue to gather, and we haven't even sorted out Brexit and the mayhem that it will cause. Another factor, and I suppose we can blame the Thacher gang for this, most experts agree that UK will be hit hardest of the rich nations as 75% of its economy is in the service industry, and that will be devastated.

      Meanwhile the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been pouring billions of money he doesn't have into the coffers of the corporate world, to "save jobs" which translates into saving the corporate world from losing too much of their loot, and keeping them "afloat", you have to keep the shareholders happy. Money that the money lenders will shortly be knocking on the Chancellor's door to sort out a repayment method. Which will include cutting government spending, which means cutting social spending, much tighter and deeper austerity, a cap or cut to public sector wages, and of course selling off public assets to raise cash to pay for that bailout of the corporate parasites, for example, parts of NHS etc.

     So what should we the ordinary people do? Just grin and bear it, start thinking of charity shops, food banks and hand-outs, tighten our belts and get on with it? Remember, bringing your kids up under such conditions will stunt their potential, blight their general physical and mental health, scar them for life, and in all probability, also scar their children. 

     A lot of people during this pandemic learnt about mutual aid and found it worked and was enjoyable. We need to expand that feeling of community and and continue and expand mutual aid in our lives. Refuse to fall back into the consumer mode that the corporate world desire, buying crap and that endless supply of stuff that is out dated  forcing you to buy another. Start to organise to take control of our workplaces, and distribution centres, to produce what we want and need and distributing them in a fair and just manner.  Our lords and masters are already organising to get you back on the treadmill of ever increasing consumption and growth, all to the detriment of the planet and the the benefit of that pampered, privileged bunch of wealthy parasites. You follow them to your detriment or you resist and follow the path that will benefit us all in an equal and fair manner. The choice is simple, more and bleaker austerity, poverty and deprivation, or a chance to build that better world for all.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Let's Hear You.

       Everybody should by now be aware that the reason the UK has more deaths from the coronavirus pandemic, than most countries in the world, was simply due to Neo-Liberal policies, orchestrated austerity to suit the financial Mafia, gross ineptitude of the government for more that a decade. The evidence is everywhere, hospitals with staff shortages, equipment shortages, shambles of a testing program, neglect of care homes, and an unbelievable chaotic system of ordering essential PPE. All this adds up to dereliction of duty resulting in untold misery and avoidable deaths, especially among the poor and vulnerable.
       I received the following from a very reliable source, for obvious reason wishing to remain anonymous. Whistle blowers can and do receive a forceful backlash from the powers that be. Front line workers are supposed to be submissive and keep silent, the opposite should be the case. Let's hear your voice.

News from the Front Line.

      As an front line NHS worker who was unfortunate enough to catch the Covid19 virus and was laid low for 4 weeks, it became obvious that the continued cuts to public health and social care over the last three decades was beginning to take its toll on the population.
      This coupled with over a decade of Tory “austerity” cuts has devastated the vulnerable, the poor and the elderly.
      The total unpreparedness of the NHS to deal with an emergency has been highlighted by the outbreak of the corona virus and the chronic under-funding of public health and social care departments has meant that staff in all sectors have been put in an impossible position of trying to care for patients and clients without the benefit of protective equipment or a lot of personal equipment that was out of date.
     And while the virus tore through the elderly in care homes (the vast majority now privatised after Thatcher’s “Care in the Community” programme, putting private profit before public health) Boris and co. sat on their collective hands, and did nothing.
     The crocodile tears of the Tory government, who don’t forget had voted and CHEERED last year about not giving public sectors a wage increase in England, beggars’ belief. Their hypocrisy of Clapping for the NHS is an absolute disgrace as they have been part of a government Cabal since the 1980s to run down Social Security and destabilise the NHS for privatisation.
     When the threat of the virus has finally taken its toll on our poorer and most vulnerable, lets again take to the streets and tell them hands off of our NHS and lay the foundations down to control our workplaces and communities.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Now Or Never.

          We have now been in lockdown for couple of months, and there is talk of our lords and masters allowing a gradual "opening up" of society, a sort of parole for the public. I believe now is the time to take a very close look at where we have been, what has really happened and where do we go from here.         

       As expected the state has taken full advantage of the situation and with one fell swoop, has moulded us into a submissive population, sitting waiting for our next instructions as to how we should live our lives. They have introduced legislation that makes it easier for them to govern us, and rest assure these will be built into any future they have in mind. They have managed to create that imaginary connection between us, the state, and the economy, we are all one now, we have to go back to get the economy growing again. 

        We will be instructed to go back to work, not because they can guarantee our safety, but because they need us to start again to generate wealth for the shareholders. The "money tree" has already appeared, taxpayers money will be lavished on businesses to "keep them afloat", forgetting that for more than ten years there was no money for the NHS or our social services. Keeping the shareholders happy is more important that the health and well-being of the people, in their plans, that will not change.

         We will be expected to forget that their relentless drive for an ever growing economy was responsible for gross inequality, abject poverty for millions and the destruction of our planet. We will be expected to fall into line as it will save jobs, as if jobs were sacred to their philosophy, when they cast aside countless workers to increase profit. Virgin Atlantic is casting over 3,000 workers aside, Ryanair is dropping over 3,000 workers from its payroll, and those that it keeps are being told they will have to take a pay cut. You are fodder for their greed machine. Is that the road we wish to follow?

       

        We all know we can create a fairer world, we are already laying the foundations in our variety of mutual aid projects, people and communities coming together to help each other without the profit motive. This can be built on and expanded, community swap shops, community skill sharing projects, etc. I suppose we can thank the pandemic legislation for showing us we can live without running out to buy their crap and focus more on what we need,  

         Which world are we going to focus on, their, back to work to grow the economy and feed the parasite shareholder class, or one based on co-operation, communities, the needs of the people, workers' controlled workplaces and distribution services, all freed from the profit motive and built on sustainability. 

          We have to make that decision now, those in power have already chosen their plan for our future, and it will, as it has always done in the past, benefit the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the many. It's our choice, and it may be our last chance.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Talk Is Cheap.

   We now get a daily briefing from our political ballerinas, they seem to enjoy making noises about being on a war footing and mouthing off with Churchillian phrases and platitudes, all noise and empty rumblings. Of course we should always remember that their hero Churchill was the idiot responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands at Gallipoli due to his arrogance and total lack of understanding of the situation.

       Allied casualties reached upward of 200,000 men killed, wounded, or missing in action. The men evacuated from the Gallipoli beaches later were shipped to France, smack into the bloodbath of the Western Front trenches.

       As for Gallipoli, it would be difficult to find another location where so many men from so many nations fought and died in such a small place. Turks, Germans, British, Australians, New Zealanders, French, Indians, Senegalese, Arabs, Austrians, Gurkhas, and others

      Of course Churchill was an imperialist, and therefore revered by our lords and masters. 

     It is the one thing our political ballerinas are good at, mouthing platitudes, and grand sounding soundbites and we are hearing a lot of them with regard to the NHS, but these and other front-line workers are still short of equipment to safeguard them as they do their life saving work. Plenty of vacuous phrases but very short on cash.

     So in our very humble way we have come up with a poster which we have put in our window, just to try to keep in the forefront of people's minds that our government ministers are responsible for the depleted state of our NHS and other social services, all talk but little cash.

   We hope those who have the facilities will print out the poster and display it where they can. Or email us at annarky(at)radicalglasgow(dot)me(dot)uk and we will send you some.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk    

Do We Leave The Problems To Our Kids?

 

 

      So you have seen the grotesque pantomime performed by the political ballerinas at Westminster, you have seen the rising child poverty, you have seen the increase in precarious working conditions, you have seen the decimation of our social services, you have seen the increase in homelessness and un-affordable rents, you have seen the corporate mafia vultures circling our National Health Service. Look abroad and you see the rise of fascism in Europe and else where, you have seen the wars in the Middle East where the West has stepped in to bring the people of that area "democracy" and delivered death, destruction and destitution, plus an unimaginable wave of desperate people taking the dangerous course migrating half way across the world in search of a decent life. You look at our burning planet and the total unwillingness linked to complete inability of the system to do anything meaningful about this impending disaster. You look at Chile and you see the people of that country rise up in desperation to try and stop the the ever downward spiral of their living conditions, as well as the continuing exploitation, endemic corruption and state violence. Across the globe people are standing up and saying, very loud and clear, this system doesn't work for the vast majority of the people on the planet.

      We see the vast wealth that we produce, but we see it private jets, luxury yachts, opulent penthouse and vast gated estates, we are aware of the tax havens that are a boon to the millionaire and billionaire predatory class, while we, the wealth producers, struggle from day to day for a decent living.

      It is obvious that we have the imagination, the desire, the means and the ability to devise a much fairer and sustainable system that is built on mutual aid, and co-operation, that sees to the needs of all, and respect for all life on the planet. A system freed from the vile clutches of the profit motive, free of borders and authority over others. You know that in your hearts that is the world we want for our children and our grandchildren. However it is up to us to deliver it, or will we sit back and leave this vile corrupt system of exploitation for our kids to sort out?

     It is obvious that the system cannot be reformed, it is built on exploitation of others for personal gain, that is the basic principle of its existence. The only answer is the total destruction of the entire system, and that will only come about by you and me standing up and joining those who are already in direct conflict with this cancerous system of corruption and greed. We can eradicate it from the planet and place it in stories of the past, labelled "The Darkest Hour In Human History.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Illusion Of Order.

Paris 2018.

        As usual, our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, displays order in our land. The government has set up a hotline for the innocent people of the  "Windrush" engineered victimisation scheme, well that's that problem sort!!! All those lovely people, the leaders of the Commonwealth, are wining and dining with the Queen and agreeing that her, on lifetime benefit, son, should become leader of the Commonwealth, well that's unemployment down again. All this is laced with bits of spice and a little bit of shock here and there, but all is well here in the UK, order reigns among a happy population, after all we have a royal wedding to finance and look forward to, which will bring colour and pleasure into our simple lives. And so the illusion is re-enforced for the gullible. The misery caused by austerity, universal credit, rising homelessness, increasing child poverty, a crumbling education system, and a health service cracking at the seams, is sidelined in favour of popcorn and bubblegum "news", trivia and propaganda. Nor is there a word about the chaos just across the Channel in France. Transport strikes that are paralysing the country, the students' strikes and occupations, Air France strikes, and not forgetting the strikes and protests by civil servants, energy workers and garbage collectors, then there is ZAD, and the ongoing struggle to defend ZAD against brutal eviction. France's Economy Minister has admitted that the strikes are impacting on growth, oh dear. President Macron is not a popular man among the ordinary people, but of course, big business love him. To the uninitiated, that should give you a hint as to where his loyalties lie. 

Defence of ZAD, April 2018.

  

    On top of this welling up of hatred and disgust with the economic system in France, the powers that be, are a bit nervous about the looming 50th. anniversary of the May 1968 French uprising, which may be celebrated in a way that the political ballerinas and corporate Mafia don't like. Well here's hoping. 

Paris, May 1968.

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

 

How Much Profit Can Be Made From Your Child's Illnes?

         Our political ballerinas who all worship at the alter of the God "The Market" are hell bent on taking every fibre of our society into the magic world of "The Market". That land of deregulated greed where profit is the only acceptable criteria. We are already well down the road to total immersion in the mysterious and whimsical world of "The Market", our health service is quivering on the brink of conversion to the faith of "The Market".

 Peter Radford explains it thus:

       “Markets, you see, are wonderlands that always and inevitably lead to efficient outcomes. And it is no good any starry eyed liberal tinkering with those outcomes. They are magically correct. By correct we mean that they cannot be improved upon. Economists have this vice like attachment to certain core beliefs. One of those is that, if left unfettered, markets will zero in on an allocation of stuff that can never be improved, especially by meddlesome governments.
       The way you get to this particular promised land is by letting the great forces of supply and demand batter away at individual preferences and budgets until all the trading and so on ends with no one able to make another trade without such a trade making someone else worse off. It sounds wonderful. Now to make this all work we have to believe in magic. We have to suspend our intelligence and imagine a world where everyone knows exactly what everyone else is doing, where no one cheats, where everyone is marvelously rational, where they don’t suddenly change their minds, where they can calculate at the speed of light, absorb vast amounts of data, and always — yes always — arrive at precisely that combination of stuff they wanted. Within the constraints of their budget of course.”

         This magical system is how the American health care works, and it is the desired aim of of our political ballerinas, to make our health service a replica of the American market controlled health care system. Only idiots who are blind to everything in the world except profit, would contemplate such a disaster being foisted on the people of any country.

 From Pete Dolack:

       You could not devise a worse health care system than that of the United States if you tried. By far the most expensive, with among the worst results.
       Perhaps saying “among” the worst results is being too kind. That is an accurate statement if we are simply measuring metrics such as mortality rates and other medical outcomes. But if we consider that tens of millions of United Statesians go without health insurance while none do in any advanced capitalist country (or most any other) — and that tens of thousands annually die because of that lack — then we must reasonably assess the U.S. health care system as the worst.
       This is the high cost of private profit in health care. How much? The United States spends more than $1.4 trillion per year than it would otherwise if it had a single-payer system. Such is what happens when a service is left in the hands of the private sector, and allowed to be bent toward profit rather than human need.
       To calculate that figure, I took the average per capita health care spending of the three largest EU countries — France, Germany and the United Kingdom — and the neighbor of the U.S., Canada, and compared that average to U.S. per capita spending. The composite average for Britain, Canada, France and Germany for the years 2011 to 2016 is $4,392 per capita per year, converted to U.S. dollars adjusted to create purchasing power parity as reported by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Per capital health care spending in the U.S. for 2011 to 2016 averaged $8,924 — more than twice as much! Taking that difference and multiplying by 317 million, the average U.S. population for the five-year period, and the total annual excess comes to $1.44 trillion.
      That excess has been steadily increasing. Doing these same calculations for earlier periods found that for the period of 2001 to 2010, the annual average of excess spending was $1.15 trillion. The annual average for the period of 1990 to 2000 was $685 billion.
       For 2016, the OECD reports that only nine of the 35 countries surveyed spent more than half of what the U.S. spent on health care, and the second highest spender, Switzerland, spent $2,000 less per capita than did the United States.
        Can this astounding amount of spending be accounted for by more health care? Nope. The average length of a hospital stay in U.S. in 2014 was 5.5 days, seventh shortest of 35 countries surveyed by the OECD. The average hospital stay in each of the four core comparison countries (Britain, Canada, France and Germany) was longer — a composite average of 7.6 days.
      Paying more for less
      So it really comes down to inferior results. The U.S. does well in combating cancer, but poorly in almost every other category of health care measurement. And people in the U.S. pay dearly for the privilege of health care, if they are lucky enough to have access to it. The cost of health insurance continues to rise, and the amount a patient must pay out of pocket before insurance kicks in (the “deductible” in U.S. lingo) is also steadily rising as employers push more of the cost of health insurance on to their employees.

From Pillip Longman, another comment on "The Martket" controlled American health care system.

       “Indeed, the inflating cost of health care is the overwhelming reason why most Americans haven’t received a raise in years, and why employers increasingly make use of contract workers rather than taking on new employees that would receive benefits. This year, the total annual cost of health care for a typical family of four covered by a typical employer-sponsored plan surpassed $25,000, according to the actuarial research firm Milliman. Such a family will typically pay more than $11,000 of this cost directly out of its own pockets, through payroll deductions, copayments, and deductibles. They will also pay much more indirectly in foregone wages and other forms of compensation, and quite possibly more yet in the form of unemployment, as employers seek to escape their share of the mounting cost of providing health care for their employees.”

         Is this the health service you wish for, is this in any way acceptable to you? If you think you can preserve our National Health Service by appealing to our political ballerinas, many who have shares in health care companies, or receive payments from health care companies, you are naive in the extreme. The political machine is in the pocket of the corporate juggernaut and it is driving at breakneck speed to total conversion to the faith of "The Market". Our only hope of every having health care and social services that are desired and required, is by the total demolition of this insane system of capitalism. Not tinkering with its inners in an attempt to make it a more humane and compassionate system, it is a greed driven profit oriented ruthless system, that cannot function other than it does.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

NHS Fire Sale.

        Just so that you know what this bunch of corporate shitbags and weasels are up to with their vacuous phrases and empty sound bites.

 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Occupational Hazards.

        Anybody with two or more living brain cells should be well aware that our National Health Service is being privatised. The strategy of continual highlighting failings in the service, creates dissatisfaction and raises expectations, and calls for change, this is engineered by propaganda from our babbling brook of bullshit, and lack of funding from a government cabal of greedy millionaire private enterprise junkies. As the crescendo of complaints keeps rising, the call for change increases and from the private enterprise entrepreneurs, their call is always, private money, open the NHS to the market. You have to hand it to them for their persistence and determination, this call has been going on since the birth of the NHS, our problem is that they are more than half way there.

      The years between 1976 and 1994 saw a spate of hospital occupations, perhaps the time is right for a return to this tactic. If you want a NHS that is publicly owned and free at the point of need, you will have to do something drastic and very soon, or it will be  British National Health Service, PLC.

This is a quote from Past Tense, a very interesting, and worth reading document: 

past tense

Occupational Hazards

Occupying Hospitals:
inspirations and issues from our history

A past tense Dossier

        Between 1976 and 1994. more than twenty hospitals in the UK were occupied either wholly or partly by either staff who worked in them, or by local communities, or both; usually to prevent threats to close or merge them, cutting services and slashing jobs. Some were successful, some were not, but work-ins or occupations were a widespread and accepted tactic.
      With the looming threat of ‘re-organisations’ and further cuts and closures in the NHS looming, could occupations and work-ins be back on the agenda?
       Occupational Hazards documents some inspiring tales from the past, and asks some questions about some of the issues and problems arising from taking over a hospital.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

You're Not Sick, You're A Malingerer.

       We all know, or should know, that the system of capitalism wants to dismantle the welfare system. We all know, or should know, that they are being aided and abetted by the various governments, especially the cabal of millionaires, who at present, are sitting with their hands on the control levers in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption. The proof keeps popping up as the National Health Service is sliced and diced up in bite size pieces for the corporate world to gobble up, and benefits are slashed and re-worked to be unavailable to those who need them.
      So it is encouraging when a book exposing this pushing of the ideology of corporatism controlling everything for profit, gets a bit of publicity. Perhaps the exposure will prompt more people to act and take action against this ever increasing drive to corporatism, and away from caring and compassion. What I mean by that is, bring about the end of capitalism.

This from Disabled News Service: 

       A string of activists, academics, politicians and journalists have welcomed the publication of a new book by a disabled researcher which exposes how successive governments have planned the “demolition of the welfare state”.
        Mo Stewart has spent eight years researching the influence of the US insurance giant Unum over successive UK governments, and how it led to the introduction of the “totally bogus” work capability assessment (WCA), which she says was designed to make it harder for sick and disabled people to claim out-of-work disability benefits.

        We all know, or should know, what comes out of politicians' mouths is not what is discussed behind closed doors. Their devious plans are for their partners in crime, platitudes are for public consumption.
Quote from her book:

       She describes in her book how Peter Lilley, secretary of state for social security in John Major’s Conservative government, hired senior Unum executive John LoCascio to advise the UK government on how to cut the number of claimants of long-term sickness benefits.
       She says that Mansel Aylward (pictured), the chief medical adviser in Lilley’s department – which was later to be renamed the Department for Work and Pensions – went on to co-author an academic paper with LoCascio in 1995 which argued that GPs should be side-lined from advising on claimants’ fitness for work.
       Both Aylward and LoCascio went on to contribute to a conference held at Woodstock, near Oxford, in November 2001, which examined so-called “malingering and illness deception”.
        The conference papers were later published, says Stewart, and argued that “malingering” was a lifestyle choice for many claimants of long-term sickness benefits.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

 

     

Capitalism Has Crashed, Install New System.

          Here we are in the 21st. century, and nothing has changed, the poor still have to pay for the mistakes of the rich. How the rich make the poor pay for those greed driven blunders, can be subtle and/or brutal, sleight of hand by legislation put out by their minders, the “government”, or simply brutal pay-offs and redundancy. Most of the methods being used to bludgeon ordinary people into paying for the blunders of the rich parasites, do permanent damage to lives of those affected. They also come in many guises, for example, the bedroom tax, benefit sanctions, leaving individuals with no means of support, attacking the sick as they lose their meagre benefits to the callous, Work Capability Assessment. Working hours are increased while wages decrease, the uncertainty of zero hours contracts and part-time working, and the doubt to whether you will have a pension or not. These are all part and parcel of making the poor pay for the rich life style of the parasite class. Then there is the bonus to their rich corporate friends, through the Workfare schemes, offering their rich buddies free labour, why pay employees, when your friends in government are handing you free labour? 

      Invariably these cuts and schemes come down hardest on the poorest sections of our community, forcing them to make choices between, to eat or heat, increasing homelessness, and mental and physical health problems. Slowly and surreptitiously, public services vanish, day centres, care homes, libraries, become memories. The education budget diminishes, forcing councils to introduce unqualified teaching staff, to the detriment to the pupils potential and development. Any wonder anguish and pain multiply, suicides increase, this is the price the people pay for the crass greed of an army of rich parasites. To add insult to injury, when they create the conditions when our NHS is in greater need, they start to dismantle it, slicing and dicing it up into bite size pieces for their rich corporate henchmen to gobble up, privatisation by sleight of hand. They can now make large profits from the sick and injured as the whole ethos of the NHS is swung towards profits. 

      This is also handed out as the only way possible, there is no other game in town, which we all know is utter rubbish. There is a better way, there is a better world waiting for us, it is up to us to start moving in that direction. We have the ability, the imagination, the resources, the the numbers, all we need now is the will. We know we can create a world based on mutual aid and respect, co-operation across and between communities, a world of no borders where we see to the needs of all our people, a world freed from the profit motive and built on sustainability. We have the plans in our hearts and our heads, we made and distributed everything in this world, we know we could do a much better job if we decide to start again working from the base of decent humanity. 

       I have hope, I see people fighting back, direct action, protests, strikes and taking up arms, we all know, capitalism has failed miserably, we all know reformism has failed miserable, the next stage is to get rid of the whole stinking system. 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Corporate Health Service, PLC.

      If you pop your head into that cesspool, the babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, you will be aware of the dread and doom headlines regarding the NHS. in recent years. Here are just a few:

    The NHS in England faces a funding gap of up to £2bn, about 2% of its budget, for the next financial year, the BBC understands.

      The NHS could slip £2.5bn into the red later this year and its financial position could spiral “out of control”, with many hospitals and vast chunks of the service running out of money, one of its most senior figures has warned.

     NHS finances in crisis due to rising demand and budget cuts

     Exclusive: NHS faces financial disaster in 2015 as politicians urged to find radical solution

      Two finance directors in three fear their hospital will go into deficit next year as next government must choose between cuts and extra spending, say experts.

       All this in one of the richest countries on the planet, why? It is not incompetence by staff, it is not abuse by patients, it is ideology. The powers that be, that sit in The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, are following the dictate of the financial Mafia and their corporate masters. They will continue to run the NHS into the ground by means of changes, targets and lack of funding, and then state that something drastic has to be done to save the health service. That drastic action will be the calling on the cavalry of private finance, to come riding to the rescue and invest. In other words take over the running of the NHS. The NHS will become the Corporate Health Service, PLC. The NHS is well on the way to being privatised, and if you can't see that, you're not looking at the evidence. The UK is the world's 6th. largest economy and the 3rd. largest in Europe. We can afford to spend 2.2% of our GDP on weaponry making billions in profits for the arms industry, no country in Europe spends a greater percentag, but we can't afford to look after the health of the people??? It is ideology, it is financial Mafia policy, that is grinding the NHS down, so that it can be carved up in bite size pieces for the corporate greed machine to devour and create a massive money making machine out of the ill-health and suffering of the sick and elderly.   

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk