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    Finding a Backbone #NHS Archived Message

    Posted by Gerard on December 15, 2019, 4:41 am

    Great Sputnik this weekend...told me some things I did not know....essential viewing and essential knowledge.....found out just how much acceptance of Maastricht (and rejection of Schengen), was a "businessman's agenda"..surprises me (being "on-message" re: "backbone"), that Corbyn didn't flag this up (esp. re: Europe and PFI). What is it with the man? He gets paid to be a politician.

    Quote; "Sometimes important things are hidden in plain sight*. The contentious requirements of getting the Uk budget deficit down below 3%, and getting state debt to fall as a percentage of GDP which have guided policy since the crash under Labour, Coalition and Conservative governments were made in Brussels. I supported the Labour and Coalition governments from 2009 saying annual borrowing was too high and needed curbing to avoid a crisis of confidence in the UK as a borrower, but have not agreed in recent years with the anti growth stance that the Maastricht state debt rules has encouraged in much Establishment thinking. These rules have been the background to low and no growth in several countries on the continent and to mass unemployment in much of the south and west of the Euro area. In the Euro area countries are threatened with fines if they do not comply." This from John Redwood for Chr*st's-sake! https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2019/09/02/austerity-economics-comes-directly-from-eu-policy-and-the-maastricht-requirements/

    *Italics mine.

    Also...

    Quote; "George Monbiot (Opinion, 17 January) asserts that the PFI bosses fleeced us all. Twenty years ago there were exceptions. Oxfordshire county council and many other councils recognised its deceptive creative accounting and avoided using PFI.

    Central government does not distinguish between irresponsible borrowing for revenue and responsible borrowing for capital. Both are in the public spending borrowing requirement (PSBR) which central government wished to present as low (a high PSBR leads to austerity to reduce it), so it restricted local government’s borrowing and used PFI to disguise its own borrowing.

    Councils saw PFI as wasteful, so financed new care homes by setting up charitable trusts which were allowed to borrow, schools by selling playing fields for housing, and similar devices. So we avoided being fleeced by PFI and got value for money in our building projects."..

    "I am surprised that Larry Elliott (Opinion, 18 January) does not link John Major initiating PFI projects with his ratification of the Maastricht treaty which imposed limits on public spending in 1992. The treaty effectively outlawed public borrowing on major infrastructure projects, allowing the City of London to successfully lobby the government to introduce PFI." The Guardian.

    Quote; "The NHS has been quietly transformed from a public health system designed to deliver health care to everyone based on need in the most cost efficient manner, to one designed to maximise profit extraction by global private health insurance giants. Achieved by means collecting premiums from the insured then denying them care when they become too sick and expensive whilst excluding the unprofitable, poor and the elderly. Switching to this model, based on the American system, amounts to one of the greatest betrayals of the public interest by successive Governments, Conservative and New Labour. The stealth privatisation has seen our hospitals turned into distinct business entities and different parts of the NHS separated out and compelled to compete with each other rather than collaborate together for the interest of the sick. Consequently we have seen the erosion of staff morale and abandonment of the ethos of the NHS whilst simultaneously diverting billions into administration and bureaucracy only needed to run a commercialised profit driven system. The deliberately complex and stealthy deception has taken three decades yet most people remain unaware of what is afoot. Mainstream media have neglected their role in holding our politicians to account, and explaining to the public what is going on with their beloved public service. We are trying to fill this void. Our film “Sell Off” demystified the marketisation and fragmentation of the NHS and showed how it has been set up to fail using Private Finance Initiatives, complex funding arrangements and structures which help paint the NHS as financially failing, which of course is the intention. Debts, fragmentation, cuts and closures have left the NHS on it’s knees as we enter the final stage. Staff culls, increasing use of temporary agency staff, degrading of training infrastructure and eroding employment rights prior to corporate takeover. A failing NHS now labelled ‘unsustainable’ and made vulnerable but to be rescued by patient charges and top-up insurance to be administered by our American friends lying in wait for the big bonanza. Services delivered by for profit companies hiding behind the NHS logo. With “The Great NHS Heist” we hope expose and explain the big picture and leave the viewer in no doubt as to the end game. Contributions from front line staff, whistleblowers, British and American policy experts with experience of the dysfunctional system we are importing. The film will provide a complete account of the best kept secret in recent British domestic politics. It’s then over to you, the public to spread the word and force our politicians to reverse the destruction and protect our NHS from the corporate raiders before it’s too late." Go to: https://thegreatnhsheist.com/ for documentary.





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