Monthly Archives: January 2023

Starmer ditches pledge to end NHS outsourcing

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/starmer-ditches-pledge-end-nhs-outsourcing

LABOUR leader Sir Keir Starmer’s apparent U-turn on a commitment to end NHS outsourcing is “morally wrong and politically self-defeating,” campaigners said today.

The criticism from groups including Keep Our NHS Public and Momentum came after Mr Starmer told Sky News he would seek to use the private sector in the health service more “effectively” if elected prime minister.

The policy breaks a promise Mr Starmer made during his party leadership campaign in spring 2020 to abolish the use of external private providers.

The volte-face follows comments by shadow health secretary Wes Streeting urging Tory ministers to use private hospitals to help clear Covid pandemic-related treatment backlogs.

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Continue ReadingStarmer ditches pledge to end NHS outsourcing

Coming Soon

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I need to do an article about Keith ‘Tony Blair’ Starmer and the Labour ‘Tory Party 2.0’ Party’s duplicity over broken pledges and the future of the NHS (Wes Streeting too).

Continue ReadingComing Soon

Stuart Hall: New Labour has picked up where Thatcherism left off

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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/aug/06/society.labour

The Labour election victory in 1997 took place at a moment of great political opportunity. Thatcherism had been rejected by the electorate. But 18 years of Thatcherite rule had radically altered the social, economic and political terrain in British society. There was, therefore, a fundamental choice of direction for the incoming government.

One was to offer an alternative radical strategy to Thatcherism, attuned to the shifts that had occurred in the 1970s and 1980s; with equal social and political depth, but based on radically different principles. What Thatcherism seemed to have ruled out was another bout of Keynesian welfare-state social democracy. More significantly, Thatcherism had evolved a broad hegemonic basis for its authority, deep philosophical foundations, as well as an effective popular strategy. It was grounded in a radical remodelling of state and economy and a new neo-liberal common sense.

This was not likely to be reversed by a mere rotation of the electoral wheel of fortune. The historic opportunities for the left required imaginative thinking and decisive action in the early stages of taking power, signalling a new direction. The other choice was, of course, to adapt to Thatcherite, neo-liberal terrain. There were plenty of indications that this would be New Labour’s preferred direction. And so it turned out. In a profound sense, New Labour has adapted to neo-liberal terrain …

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/aug/06/society.labour

Continue ReadingStuart Hall: New Labour has picked up where Thatcherism left off

Working people deserve better than Austerity 2.0 from Labour

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/e/working-people-deserve-better-austerity-20-labour

UNITE leader Sharon Graham is absolutely right to demand assurances from Keir Starmer that a Labour government will not mean a continuation of austerity.

On this issue she speaks not just for her union but for the working class as a whole.

Austerity has beggared Britain over the last 13 years, impoverishing the public realm, cutting real wages for millions, and it is at the root of the cost-of-living crisis engulfing the country.

It is the expression of the drive by the capitalist class to make workers pay for the crisis which has unfolded, with pauses but without ending, since the bankers’ crash in 2008.

An end to austerity should therefore be the first and unbreakable commitment of any Labour government, as it was under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/e/working-people-deserve-better-austerity-20-labour

Continue ReadingWorking people deserve better than Austerity 2.0 from Labour

The Shutdown of “Luxury Emissions” Should Be at the Center of Climate Revolt

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https://theintercept.com/2022/12/13/climate-protest-private-jets-schiphol-airport/

SEVEN HUNDRED SELF-DESCRIBED “climate rebels” breached the chain-link fence surrounding Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, the world’s third-busiest hub for international passenger traffic, on November 5. With bolt cutters they opened holes in the fence and poured in, some of them on bicycles, and raced across the tarmac. Others laid ladders against the 9-foot-high fence and topped it on foot.

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“The superrich have got used to polluting as they please with a total disregard for people and planet, and private jets are the pinnacle of these luxury emissions that we simply cannot afford,” Jonathan Leggett, one of the activists, told us. “Our action brought them back to earth. We wanted to show the extremeness and injustice related to this manner of transport.”

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In the Netherlands, 8 percent of the population takes 40 percent of flights. Worldwide, the difference is even more stark: One percent of the population is responsible for 50 percent of pollution due to aviation, making air travel a textbook example of how pollution by the rich leads to consequences and injustices for those who have not caused the climate crisis.

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https://theintercept.com/2022/12/13/climate-protest-private-jets-schiphol-airport/

Continue ReadingThe Shutdown of “Luxury Emissions” Should Be at the Center of Climate Revolt