A registration form and a stethoscope at the Temple Fortune Health Centre GP Practice near Golders Green, London
A “PFI 2.0” will divert money away from patients and into shareholders’ pockets, campaigners warned today as the government announced plans to use private finance to fund new neighbourhood health centres.
The government has pledged to open 250 centres as part of an effort to shift outpatient care away from hospitals.
Officials say they will serve as “one-stop shops,” bringing together GPs, nurses, dentists and pharmacists under one roof.
Announcing the plans, Health Minister Karin Smyth warned that government funding “will only get us so far,” citing a £40 billion black hole in the NHS’s finances.
“We need to use every measure available to us, which is why we’re leveraging in private investment to construct some of these centres, making the most of all expertise and every tool at our disposal,” she said.
But campaigners have warned that the use of public-private partnerships could repeat the mistakes of disastrous PFI (private finance initiative) schemes, in which private firms financed the construction of hospitals, leaving taxpayers lumbered with high-interest repayments over the long term.
Zarah Sultana spoke to Socialist Worker ahead of the Your Party conference
‘Your Party must be explicitly socialist, anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist—and also as maximally democratic,’ she told Socialist Worker
Zarah Sultana issued a rallying call for the left to unite and fight ahead of the Your Party founding conference in Liverpool this weekend.
She told Socialist Worker, “Labour is plummeting in the polls because this government has failed the working class.
“It has failed to help people here at home—and it has alienated thousands if not millions by materially participating in the genocide in Gaza.
“Reform UK is exploiting that anger, but it’s just the establishment in disguise.
“Farage scapegoats migrants to distract from his neoliberal economic agenda.
“We have a duty to offer a real alternative. Your Party must be explicitly socialist, anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist—and also as maximally democratic.
“We must build a party robust enough to take on entrenched power and win.
“No more tinkering at the edges—we need to reconstruct our society from first principles. We need socialism.
“History will not forgive us if we fail to capitalise on this moment. The options are socialism or barbarism.
“We must fight, we must unite and we must win.”
Orcas discuss the formation of UK’s new Socialist party and ask if the killer apes have finally come to their senses.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
The commitment was no new oil or gas extraction. Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to abandon that today by announcing new oil and gas extraction in the North Sea. There will be some BS explaining that it’s somehow not new when of course it is. This was expected from these shits (they abandon all their commitments) from the expansion of airports and possibly allowing the huge Rosebank proposed oil field.
Ed Miliband is a useful idiot pretending that the Labour Party have a responsible climate policy which is shown to be untrue and they’re just climate wrecking shits like other right-wingers.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
US President Donald Trump, accompanied by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaks to members of the media aboard Air Force One on October 27, 2025. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
“It should come as no surprise by now that the president who campaigned on keeping the US out of wars and then promptly bombed Iran has now found another conflict in which to embroil the country.”
New survey results show that Americans strongly oppose US military action against Venezuela as the Trump administration privately weighs options for land strikes against the South American country—as well as possible covert action targeting the government of President Nicolás Maduro.
The CBS News/YouGov survey, published on Sunday, found that 70% of Americans—including 91% of Democrats and 42% of Republicans—are against the “US taking military action in Venezuela,” and a majority don’t believe a direct attack on Venezuela would even achieve the Trump administration’s stated goal of reducing the flow of drugs to the United States.
The poll also found that a slim majority, 53%, support “using military force to attack boats suspected of bringing drugs into” the US, even as human rights groups and United Nations experts say such attacks—which have killed more than 80 people since early September—are grave violations of US and international law.
The survey data came amid reports that the Trump administration is set to launch “a potentially deadly new phase” of its campaign against Maduro’s government, which has responded to the US president’s threats and military buildup in the Caribbean with a large mobilization of troops and weaponry.
Citing two unnamed US officials, Reutersreported on Sunday that “covert operations would likely be the first part of the new action against Maduro.” The outlet quoted one anonymous official as saying Trump is “prepared to use every element of American power” to achieve his stated goals in the region.
On Monday, as the New York Timesreported, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff is set to visit “Puerto Rico and one of the several Navy warships dispatched to the Caribbean Sea to combat drug trafficking as the Trump administration weighs the possibility of a broader military campaign against Venezuela.”
Gen. Dan Caine, the top US military officer, has “been a major architect of what the Pentagon calls Operation Southern Spear, the largest buildup of American naval forces in the Caribbean since the Cuban Missile Crisis and the blockade of Cuba in 1962,” the Times added.
Also on Monday, the Trump administration formally designated Maduro and top officials in his government members of a foreign terrorist organization, a move that the White House believes expands US military options in Venezuela.
While polling data has consistently shown that the US public opposes military intervention in Venezuela by significant margins, Republicans in Congress have thus far blocked action to prevent the Trump administration from attacking the country and bombing vessels in international waters without lawmakers’ approval.
Al Jazeera columnist Belén Fernández wrote Sunday that “it should come as no surprise by now that the president who campaigned on keeping the US out of wars and then promptly bombed Iran has now found another conflict in which to embroil the country.”
“And as is par for the course in US imperial belligerence, the rationale for aggression against Venezuela doesn’t hold water,” Fernández added. “For example, the Trump administration has strived to pin the blame for the fentanyl crisis in the US on Maduro. But there’s a slight problem—which is that Venezuela doesn’t even produce the synthetic opioid in question.”
Late last week, a group of House Democrats led by Seth Moulton of Massachusetts announced a new legislative effort aimed at preventing the Trump administration from attacking Venezuela without congressional authorization.
The bill, titled the No Unauthorized Force in Venezuela Act, would bar the White House from spending federal funds on military action against Venezuela absent specific congressional approval.
“We owe our service members clarity, legality, and leadership—not threats, not chaos, and not another unnecessary conflict,” said Moulton. “This legislation draws the line the president refuses to draw. It protects our troops, reasserts Congress’ constitutional role, and ensures we do not sleepwalk into another ill-advised war.”
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves speaks to the media about the October inflation statistics from the Office of National Statistics, during a visit to a Tesco supermarket in Earl’s Court, west London, November 19, 2025
CHANCELLOR Rachel Reeves was branded “deluded” by disability campaigners today after suggesting an extension to her benefit fraud crackdown will help balance the books in tomorrow’s Budget.
The Labour minister has pledged to extend targeted case reviews, which root out inaccuracies in universal credit claims, with the aim of bringing in an extra £1.2 billion by March 2031.
While she is expected to announce the long-awaited scrapping of the two-child benefit cap at a cost of about £3bn, she is also expected to raise taxes to bridge a multibillion-pound gap in her spending plans.
Disabled People Against Cuts co-founder Linda Burnip told the Morning Star: “I think Rachel Reeves must be even more deluded than we thought if she thinks she is going to raise more money from clamping down on benefit fraud which for PIP has never been more than 0.5 per cent and more recently has been zero.
“We are already seeing people in receipt of social care having their universal credit claims closed wrongly due to having a separate bank account to pay for their social care which is not their money to spend on other items but which is provided by social services departments to solely fund their care. DWP is a complete shambles and not fit for purpose.
“Reeves also fails to grasp the very basic economic principle that growth of the economy will only happen if people have disposable income to spend.”
Fran Heathcote, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union which represents job centre staff, added: “A government serious about economic growth should fix the broken social security system and ensure that those with the broadest shoulders contribute more through a fair tax system.
“There is far more to be gained from going after the billions of tax avoided or evaded by wealthy individuals or large businesses.”
A registration form and a stethoscope at the Temple Fortune Health Centre GP Practice near Golders Green, London
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves speaks to the media about the October inflation statistics from the Office of National Statistics, during a visit to a Tesco supermarket in Earl’s Court, west London, November 19, 2025