NHS ‘reforms’ = Goodbye NHS

Some Tories have always hated the National Health Service. Their reasons for hating it vary from their adherence to neoliberalism to the fact that they have never used the NHS and only view it from afar.

Two years ago, Daniel Hannan appeared on Fox News to attack the NHS (which is referred to as “socialized medicine”). Today he returns to this theme. The title of his blog is “Whom do we trust on the NHS: elected ministers or trade unions”? Do you really want to know the answer? Let’s put it this way, it isn’t the ministers.

American righties love him. He speaks in a posh English accent and is articulate. But being articulate means nothing if your logic is flawed and the information you disseminate is incomplete, faulty or plain false. Most Americans know only what they’re told about the NHS and when Hannan pops up on some Fox News programme attacking and spreading misinformation about it, it is the only message in town. To date and to my knowledge, no one has appeared on US television to defend the NHS from Hannan’s bunkum.

Dan forgets that the unions are involved in the day to day running of the NHS. Whereas ministers – especially free-market Tory ministers – have an ideological agenda and do not work day-to-day in the hospitals and clinics. But then Dan is no fan of trade unions. In his world, unions would not exist and everything that hasn’t been subjected to marketization would be marketized.

Who do I trust on the NHS? I would certainly trust the unions over ministers. and I won’t take Hannan’s words seriously. I doubt that he’s ever used the NHS.

Here, Dan plays his time-for-change card

We are conflicted in our attitude to the NHS. We moan about it, but are reluctant to contemplate alternatives. We criticise its failings, but refuse to infer anything from them.

Let’s remind ourselves what he said about the NHS

Here he is on Glenn “I cry on cue” Beck repeating the same lies. Beck practically has his tongue up Hannan’s arse.

Note the way Beck laughingly claims that any health care reforms are “unconstitutional”.

Here he is again (he’s a notorious self-publicist) on Reason TV talking about the NHS, Enoch Powell and The Plan (which I will be critiquing in the coming weeks).

The NHS would work much better if ministers didn’t interfere in it and vain self-publicists like Hannan didn’t go around spreading untruths about it.

Yesterday the British Medical Association (is this what Hannan means by “unions”?) voiced their opposition to the proposed changes calling them “dangerous”.

What’s in store? More unnecessary competition, further marketization and the all important ‘customer choice’. What next? Organ banks where you can deposit or withdraw organs?

UPDATE: 2127

Added final paragraph.

UPDATE: 26/11/11 @ 1715

I haven’t had time to fully critique The Plan because I’ve been too busy with my research.

They hate them and bait them. No wonder a Democratic congresswoman was shot in Tucson

When Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot yesterday, I immediately thought that ultimate responsibility for the shooting lay with the hate-speech of America’s right-wing media, its pundits and their allies. After all, seemingly insane ideas and impulses have to come from somewhere.

The sheriff of Tucson, Clarence Dupnik, was spot on when he said “Arizona has become the Mecca of racism and bigotry”. Recently the state passed anti-immigration law SB1070 which permitted the police to stop and search anyone they suspected of being an illegal immigrant. Indeed, the sheriff of Maricopa County, the notorious Joseph Arpaio has been at the centre of this firestorm. But Arpaio is currently facing charges of abusing his power. His views on immigrants are well known and he is even lionized in this country by people who really ought to know better.

Since the complete deregulation of broadcasting under Reagan in the 1980’s, American television and radio networks no longer have to pretend to be unbiased. The deregulation of the airwaves allowed the likes of Rush Limbaugh and others to indulge in their favourite past-time of free-form hate-speech. They bait liberals and welcome listeners on air who call for their deaths.  Ann Coulter’s books, for instance, depict Democrats as “dangerous” and  “stupid”.  Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News typically subjects liberals to hectoring and abuse.  The language and tone used by these so-called broadcasters often verges on the violent.  Their sole aim is to dehumanize their opponents.  During the congressional election campaign, freaky Sarah Palin produced this crosshair picture on her website.

Note that the picture has Gabrielle Giffords as one of the ‘targets’. The Daily Mirror says,

Controversial Republican politician Sarah Palin hurriedly removed a map of America with a cross-hair target over Mrs Giffords’s Congress seat from her Facebook profile.

I don’t think the FBI will be visiting her any time soon but this sort of thing is clearly irresponsible and dangerous. But is Britain free from this liberal/red/whatever-baiting? No. Recently, Hannan and Delingpole of the Telegraph have run blogs that bait and smear their opponents. A recent blog from Delingtroll asks “Why did God give Liberals annoying, whiny voices”? Make no mistake this sort of thing comes directly from the American right. His book, 365 Ways to Drive a Liberal Crazy has a title that could have sprung from the foetid brain of Ann Coulter.  Yet Delingtroll and Hannan both claim that only left is capable of hate. What these two wannabe hate-jocks want to do is to remould Britain along the lines of the US. I suppose we can be grateful for the fact that no one in this country has used the sort of imagery that Palin has used.

The response from the Telegraph’s Toby Harnden is characteristically dishonest,

Paul Krugman of the “New York Times” suggests darkly that Giffords was shot because she was “a Democrat who survived what was otherwise a GOP sweep in Arizona” and “violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate” (those reponsible for such a climate being, of course, Republicans).

Harnden is in denial. He claims to know what motivated the suspect and uses hearsay to support his thesis,

Former classmates talk of “nonsensical outbursts” and a person “on his own planet”. His favourite reading apparently included “Mein Kampf” and “The Communist Manifesto”. My colleague Jon Swaine has a summary here of the raving of a person who most people would judge to be a complete nutcase even if he hadn’t gone out and shot people.

Harnden’s stablemate Jon Swaine claims to have the inside track on Gifford’s assailant, Jared Loughner.

Ms Parker said Loughner had encountered Miss Giffords once before in 2007 and had “asked her a question and he told me she was ‘stupid and unintelligent’.”

However she added that when she had known him, Loughner seemed to be liberal or Left-wing.

How convenient. But this looks like bullshit,

The YouTube account stated that among Loughner’s favourite books, most of which were much-loved classic novels, were Mein Kampf andThe Communist Manifesto.

Only in Hayek’s fevered mind could these two books be mentioned in the same breath. Oddly enough this ‘link’ only appears in the right-wing press. In fact, the New York Daily News doesn’t mention the Communist Manifesto at all.

Loughner lists the Adolf Hitler autobiography, “Mein Kampf,” among his favorite books in an online profile, a list that also includes classics such as “Animal Farm” and “The Odyssey.”

Someone is making things up on this side of the Atlantic. I wonder why? Indeed the Murdoch-owned New York Post also repeats this line about the Communist Manifesto while adding that Loughner likes The Wizard of Oz.

In Britain, there right have been calling for the BBC to be broken up for years alleging ‘bias’ as their prime concern. Recently Murdoch’s News Corp has sought to increase its share in BSkyB which would quite possibly create a news service that closely resembles that of Fox News. The Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt appears ambivalent about a possible takeover. Though this Guardian story tells us that he held a private meeting with James Murdoch in June.  Probably because he and his fellow Tories know that once Murdoch gets his hands on BSkyB, the party will have its very own unofficial ministry of information. They can also distance themselves from any strident remarks made on the channel by claiming that BSkyB is a “commercial broadcaster with no ties to the state”.

Irresponsible broadcasting that makes use of hate-speech will inevitably lead to some people believing that they have some sort of  right to take another’s life because a shock-jock or demagogue tells them that ‘liberals’ are responsible for the nation “going to hell in a handcart”.

Loughner also killed 5 others including a 9 year old child and a federal judge.

UPDATE: According to this Murdoch rag,  Loughner was some sort of conspiraloon.

THE suspect being held over Saturday’s shooting of US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords may have links to anti-Semitic race hate group American Renaissance.

An internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo quoted by FOX News Channel revealed the gunman – named by the media as Jared Loughner, 22 – is “possibly linked” to American Renaissance.

The group subscribes to an ideology that is “anti-government, anti-immigration, anti -ZOG (Zionist Occupational Government), anti-Semitic,” according to the DHS memo.

Plural media or supine media? The right’s media claims don’t stack up

Jeremy Rhyming-Slang: Murdoch can count on him to do the 'right' thing

There are many right-whingers in this country who constantly moan about ‘BBC bias’. It seems to me that none of them actually pay any attention the BBC’s news output, particularly with regards to corporation’s reportage of the recent student protests. Throughout its history, the BBC has been more biased against the left and the working class than it has the right: the General Strike of 1929, the Battle of Orgreave Colliery are a couple of examples of this tendency. Then, in the aftermath of the 9/11, old footage of celebrating Palestinians was grafted onto current footage to help reinforce the myth that all Muslims hate America (this ignores the fact that there are Christian Palestinians). These are examples of real bias yet the right say nothing – and for obvious reasons.

Make no mistake, the right’s claim that the BBC is ‘biased against them’ is a nothing more than a manifestation of control freakery. They won’t be content until all the news media of this country reflects their views. Guido Fawkes blog tells us that “breaking up the BBC” will actually create a “plural media”. The subtext to this demand is that right-wingers like Staines want Murdoch to increase his stake in BSkyB. Murdoch already owns The Sun, The Times, The Sunday Times, The News of the World, Times Educational Supplement, The Times Literary Supplement and publishers Harper Collins.  Staines says,

The BBC must therefore be an even worse threat to “media plurality”, particularly when one considers that it is protected from fair competition by a state subsidy via taxation. Somehow this doesn’t worry the Guardian, which is hardly surprising because BBC News often feels like the broadcast arm of that paper. When one considers that the BBC overwhelmingly recruits from its pages the Guardian-BBC axis is abundantly clear.

The fact that media jobs (note I said media jobs) are advertised in The Guardian is not an indication of media bias any more than teaching jobs advertised in the Murdoch-owned TES will necessarily attract an overwhelming number of right wing, Tory- voting teachers. It’s a facile assertion. What Staines fails to understand is that the numbers of media jobs advertised in The Times and The Telegraph are fewer than in The Guardian because their media sections are smaller. The Guardian has had a dedicated media section for a number of years. This has not been the case with the right wing press.

Douglas Carswell chimes in with this

Creating a framework that allows local TV to flourish – and without public funds – would give a real boost to localism.  A patchwork of local TV stations across the country would help folk keep tabs on their ever more autonomous council – and their directly-elected police commissioner and mayor.

Besides, it would, as Guido suggests, give us a more decentralised, more plural media.

These TV stations will more than likely be bought up by larger concerns. This is exactly what happened to many local newspapers in the 1980’s which were bought up by larger publishing companies. As for a “plural media” how exactly will this be achieved by creating ‘local television stations’? ITV franchises like Anglia, Thames and Granada once provided quality local news until deregulation forced them to consolidate. Localism, my eye.

When the Broadcasting Act (1990) was passed, the Major government claimed that it would lead to more ‘choice’. 19 years after the Act was passed, it has led to dilution, repetition, dumbing down and a greater choice of rubbish. Television companies, including the BBC,  have been involved in a race to the bottom since the Act was passed. Commercial radio has fared even worse with much of the music output, for instance, duplicated across channels.  Interestingly enough the Act also provided a convenient loophole to protect Murdoch’s Sky which was defined as a “non-UK service”.

What the Tories and their supporters actually want is a supine media that disseminates their ideology and only asks polticians what Americans call ‘softball questions’. They want a British equivalent of Fox News which, in spite of its name, contains very little news and a lot of right wing opinion. Fox News, as Chomsky and Herman observe, is little more than an “unofficial ministry of information”. No doubt this is what Jeremy Hunt and his supporters want to see. Not content with having most of the newspapers on their side, they want control of the rest of the media too.

The last thing this country needs is to have the likes of Richard Littlejohn or Nick Ferrari elevated to the same status as Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity in the States.

Don’t let Murdoch get his own way. Please sign the petition.