INCREASED NHS funding during the last Labour government masks how privatisation reduced its efficiency, says a groundbreaking new expert report which was launched in Parliament this week.
The Rational Policy-maker’s Guide to Rebuilding the NHS was produced by academics and NHS professionals at the 99% Organisation and Keep Our NHS Public (KONP).
Cross-party MPs, policy-makers attended the event sponsored by Labour MP Richard Burgon.
Today he said: “This report lays bare the truth that underfunding and creeping privatisation have left our NHS in crisis. But there is a way forward.
“Proper public investment and a commitment to keeping the NHS free at the point of use can rebuild our health service and improve patient outcomes.
“The government must take note: this is not just about economics, it’s about saving lives.”
The report warned that ministers “must skilfully avoid the pitfalls of the past” Labour government, including failing to tackle social care.
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Founder of the 99% Organisation Mark E Thomas said: “There is no dispute that the NHS is struggling badly, but there is certainly dispute about how to fix it.
“This report demonstrates that calls for further privatisation or an insurance-based system would be catastrophic for both public health and the economy.
“The only viable solution is proper funding, preventive healthcare investment, and tackling the root causes of ill health, including poverty.”
KONP co-chair Dr John Puntis said: “Decades of market-driven policies have eroded our NHS.
“This report makes it clear that the way forward is not more outsourcing or corporate involvement, but a properly funded, publicly run health service that puts patients before profit.
BRITAIN has returned to the “bad old days” of the Birmingham Six, with corrupt judges and police swapping Irish people for black and Muslim communities, top defence lawyers have said.
Fifty years on, the lessons from that monumental miscarriage of justice have “all been eroded” with senior judges back to pushing for guilty verdicts, an anniversary event in Parliament heard.
Renowned solicitor for the six men wrongly convicted of the 1974 terrorist pub bombing, Gareth Peirce, warned “frightening signals” by the Court of Appeal since their sensational 1991 acquittals have led to the “self-imposed censorship” of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) watchdog.
She described how police and prosecutors have found “endlessly innovative” ways to subvert laws which were originally passed to prevent the state framing innocent people for terrorist attacks during the Troubles.
Ms Peirce said the “halcyon” days following the Court of Appeal’s quashing of those wrongful convictions, based on false confessions through police brutality, were over.
“The authorities can distort science in just the same way,” she told MPs, lawyers, victims and campaigners on Thursday.
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“Individuals from communities that have different customs, different faiths, different ways of looking at things — it’s easy to distort those and present to a jury.”
She added: “The experience I and others have had are of ‘back to the bad old days’ of judges helping to push a guilty verdict in these kinds of cases.
“The Court of Appeal isn’t as it once was, in its mind to the possiblity of quashing convictions.
Extinction Rebellion activists protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice against the long sentences handed out to climate activists, March 7, 2025
Just six years cut from 41-year jail sentence for Just Stop Oil activists
THIRTY people turned their backs on judges today to reveal T-shirts reading “corruption in court,” after it was announced that only six years would be shaved off a 41-year prison sentence for climate protesters involved in peaceful action.
In January, a rare mass appeal was held for 16 Just Stop Oil (JSO) protesters who were handed the draconian sentences last year.
Today, only six of them saw their sentences reduced in a ruling that has been condemned as having “no place in a democracy that upholds the right to protest.”
Among them were the “Whole Truth Five,” who sparked outrage after being given record-breaking sentences for “conspiracy to cause a public nuisance” after organising a protest on the M25 over Zoom.
JSO founder Roger Hallam, who was handed the longest sentence, five years, saw his jail time reduced to four.
Cressia Gethin, Louise Lancaster, Daniel Shaw and Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, who were originally handed four years each, saw their sentences moderately cut to between 2.5 and three years.
The only other protester who saw a reduction was 78-year old Gaie Delap, whose sentence for participating in an M25 protest was cut from 20 to 18 months.
All 16 protesters had been taking part in non-violent actions calling on the government stop issuing new oil and gas licences, a demand which has now been met.
Among the challenges thrown out were that of Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland, who were sentenced to two years and 20 months for throwing soup on glass covering Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers.
After the ruling, Ms Plummer said in a statement that Britain’s democracy is being “sold off to the highest bidder,” with the nation’s courts “corrupted by the oil and arms industries.”
The harsh sentences were imposed last year after now-sacked extremism adviser Lord Walney released a report agitating for tougher punishments on activists while pocketing money from arms and fossil fuel companies as a paid lobbyist.
At today’s ruling, Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr acknowledged that “conscientious motivation” was a “factor relevant to sentencing in each case,” but that this “did not preclude a finding that any appellant’s culpability was still high.”
Last year, in cases such as the Whole Truth Five, activists were repeatedly prevented from talking about climate change during trial.
The claimants’ lawyer, Raj Chada, said his team would be reviewing the judgement and considering an appeal to the Supreme Court.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London. (Photo: Handout/Chris J. Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark RichardsNeo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
The Chancellor held meetings with a number of finance bosses in the weeks following the budget, including Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman | UK government / Treasury
Revealed: Head of world’s biggest asset manager lobbied chancellor on tax rules weeks before policy was tweaked
Rachel Reeves changed the government’s position on non-doms weeks after one of the world’s most powerful financiers asked her personally not to increase the tax burden on the super rich.
Documents released to openDemocracy under the Freedom of Information Act reveal Stephen Schwarzman, the CEO of leading asset manager Blackstone, raised “concerns” with Reeves about her plans to reform the tax treatment of non-domiciled individuals at a meeting in Downing Street in December.
The chancellor had previously used the autumn Budget in late October to re-commit to Labour’s manifesto promise to abolish the non-dom tax regime, which allows wealthy individuals who live in the UK to be domiciled elsewhere for tax purposes.
But around a month after meeting with Schwarzman, Reeves watered down this commitment.
Speaking at World Economic Forum in Davos in January, she announced that she had been “listening to the concerns of the non-dom community” and would soften the government’s plans.
The government blocked a request from openDemocracy for details of the discussion between Reeves and Schwarzman, as well as other meetings between senior ministers and major financial institutions, including BlackRock and JP Morgan, but has released a heavily redacted follow-up letter.
openDemocracy approached both the Treasury and Blackstone for comment, but neither had responded at the time of publication.
Reeves’ heavily redacted letter
Schwarzman and a senior lobbyist from Blackstone met with the chancellor and her top advisers on 5 December, as part of a series of meetings between the government and the finance sector.
The Treasury told openDemocracy that the meeting’s purpose was “to gather perspectives on the UK as an investment destination and how to strengthen the UK’s position as a world leading investment management hub”.
While the government has so far rejected openDemocracy’s Freedom of Information requests about what was discussed at the meeting, it did release a heavily redacted follow-up letter that Reeves sent to Schwarzman a week later.
Despite the redactions, the letter shows that the tax treatment of high-net worth individuals was a major topic of discussion between the pair.
“Dear Stephen,” the chancellor wrote, “It was my pleasure to meet with you last week. Thank you for your time and the ideas you shared on how I and the government may seek to achieve our ambitions for growth across the UK.”
A section titled “the tax regime for non-domiciled individuals” reveals that Schwarzman “mentioned concerns” about non-dom tax treatment and inheritance tax.
“You noted the significant contribution that non-domiciled individuals make to the UK and mentioned concerns around non-domiciled individuals leaving in response to the reforms announced at the Budget,” Reeves wrote.
“I want to reassure you that I do value the contribution that non-domiciled individuals make to the economy and want to encourage them to spend and invest more of their money in the UK.”
Reeves also used the letter to highlight that some non-doms will be able to “take advantage of a three-year Temporary Repatriation Facility”, a scheme created by the Conservative government that enables former non-doms to bring foreign income and gains into the UK at a discounted tax rate for the first three years.
Reeves also sought to assuage Schwarzman’s apparent concerns about the UK’s inheritance tax (IHT).
“New arrivals to the UK will benefit from 100% UK tax relief on their [foreign income and gains],” she wrote, “provided they have been non-UK tax resident for the previous 10 years.”
The majority of Reeves’ letter to Schwarzman was redacted, raising questions about what else the giant asset manager lobbied for during the meeting.
A Labour MP, who spoke to openDemocracy on condition of anonymity, said: “The chancellor needs to come clean about why she reversed the policy on non-doms. She was lobbied by Blackstone then the policy was quickly dropped.
“She had no similar response to pensioners or Waspi women when she decided not to fulfill their needs. Who’s side is she on?”
The government has also refused to release any records from a number of other meetings with leading financial institutions in response to a series of Freedom of Information requests by openDemocracy.
‘Listening to the non-dom community’
The previous Conservative government announced plans to phase out the non-dom system, which allows wealthy people who live in the UK but are domiciled elsewhere for tax purposes to only pay tax on money they earn in the UK, rather than on all their earnings.
Unveiling the plans in last year’s Spring budget, Tory chancellor Jeremy Hunt said there would be a two-year transition period in which existing non-doms would pay a reduced rate on their overseas income.
The following month, Labour went one step further, with Reeves promising that if elected the party would raise £2.6bn by closing “loopholes” in the plans to abolish non-dom exemptions.
The new chancellor repeated this pledge at the Autumn budget in late October. She said the non-dom tax regime would be replaced with “a new residence-based scheme with internationally competitive arrangements” and the transition period upped from two to three years.
Weeks after the Blackstone meeting, Reeves attended the gathering of the World Economic Forum in Davos, where she sought to reassure the international business community that the UK is an attractive place to invest.
She announced that the government would alter the policy, in effect allowing current non-doms to pay the reduced rate of tax on more of their earnings throughout the already-extended transition period.
“We have been listening to the concerns that have been raised by the non-dom community,” she said.
Many organisations and individuals have lobbied the government about the policy, including a group formed specifically to oppose the plans, the Foreign Investors for Britain, which has reportedly been in regular contact with No 10’s business adviser, Varun Chandra.
But an intervention from Schwarzman would carry considerable weight.
Schwarzman’s firm, Blackstone, is the largest asset manager in the world, controlling more than $1trn in assets globally. As CEO, Schwarzman’s personal remuneration package for last year was worth over $1bn, and a Forbes estimate in November 2024 put his net worth at around $53bn.
Schwarzman is a Republican donor who worked with the first Trump administration and backed the president’s re-election campaign in 2020. He said he would not support Trump at the 2024 election, calling on the party to “turn to a new generation of leaders”, but later U-turned on this to endorse the now-president.
Blackstone is believed to be the largest commercial landlord in history, holding huge swathes of residential real estate. In 2019, the UN’s special rapporteur on housing said in an open letter that the firm was “having deleterious effects on the right to housing” and accused it of “using its significant resources and political leverage to undermine domestic laws and policies that would in fact improve access to adequate housing consistent with international human rights law.” The firm disputed the contents of the special rapporteurs’ letter.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
