Tony Blair

Morning Star: The Tories have wrecked the NHS – but that doesn’t mean Labour will rescue it

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/tories-have-wrecked-nhs-doesnt-mean-labour-will-rescue-it

The NHS overtook the economy as voters’ biggest concern in February, according to polling by Ipsos. Small wonder when waiting lists have hit 7.5 million: there can hardly be a person in the country who doesn’t have a friend or relative who has been affected.

And the Conservatives bear a heavy responsibility.

In the decade up to the pandemic, real-terms healthcare spending per head rose on average by just 0.4 per cent a year — in four years it actually fell, despite rising pressures on the service.

That compares very poorly to the record of the last Labour government, which raised spending by 5.7 per cent a year on average from 1997-2010. It even compares badly to that of the Thatcher and Major Conservative governments, which averaged a 2.1 per cent annual increase.

But we should be more cautious than Poulter about endorsing Keir Starmer’s solution.

Starmer and shadow health secretary Wes Streeting have pointedly refused to offer the increases in NHS budgets that the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown governments delivered. Streeting is emphatic that he will not “pour money into a 20th-century model,” instead demanding reforms which, in increasing reliance on the private sector, both mimic existing Conservative policy and are unlikely to make a difference to waiting lists (because private healthcare in Britain recruits from the NHS, so overall capacity will not grow).

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Britain’s public services are collapsing under the strain of decades of neoliberal policy. In the NHS, hospitals have been undermined through outsourcing services to the private sector as well as by the cost of PFI debt — both issues with their origins in the Blair years.

To restore our NHS to health, we need a reversal of privatisation and outsourcing and a forced end to all PFI contracts, as well as a significant increase in overall funding to bring us closer to healthcare spending levels in France or Germany.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/tories-have-wrecked-nhs-doesnt-mean-labour-will-rescue-it

Continue ReadingMorning Star: The Tories have wrecked the NHS – but that doesn’t mean Labour will rescue it

Labour’s public-private plans are just a return to the dreaded PFI era

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/labours-public-private-plans-are-just-return-dreaded-pfi-era

Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves in the shadow of Tony Bliar.

SOLOMON HUGHES warns Reeves’s proposed national wealth fund hands City financiers control over billions in public money for big business — and we get… to pay!

HOW will Keir Starmer’s Labour try to “grow the economy?” The short answer is it is going to try to use public money to persuade international investors to put cash into “growth” industries.

It’s the return of the public-private partnership. The big danger is that, like Labour’s last public-private partnership, the private corporations will get all the growth, while the public sector gets ripped off.

The main economy-grower Starmer is promoting is Rachel Reeves’s proposed national wealth fund. It will invest in key industries like “green energy” and other modern manufacturing sectors.

There is a strong Labour case to run a national bank investing in key industries: the 1945 Labour government set up two such banks, the Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation and the Finance Corporation for Industry, which lent growth capital to small- and medium-sized industries or larger manufacturing firms respectively.

Labour argued that the City avoided investing in these crucial sectors, exacerbating the 1930s Depression. Both government-founded investment funds were very successful. Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour proposed similar publicly owned national investment banks.

But Reeves’s plan makes public money subordinate to private investment. She told the last Labour conference: “For every pound of investment we put in, we will leverage in three times as much private investment.”

Labour plans to invest £7.3 billion in the fund, and so attract around £22bn private “co-investment.” Reeves says private money will be attracted because the government cash will be “encouraging and derisking investment” from international finance: investors will assume that if the government has a stake in, say, a car battery factory, that it is a “sure thing” and won’t be allowed to go bust or lose money for shareholders.

But what happens if the publicly backed investments hit trouble? Say the car batteries come out too expensive, reducing profits, or need extra investment to fix production problems — will the private investors insist that the public investor take the losses? And if the profits are bigger than expected, will both parties benefit equally?

There are some major signs Reeves’s deals will favour the big private investors. First, because it is putting in more of the money, they can call more of the shots. This is not really a national wealth fund because most of the money will not be national.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/labours-public-private-plans-are-just-return-dreaded-pfi-era

Continue ReadingLabour’s public-private plans are just a return to the dreaded PFI era

Journalist shreds Campbell’s denial he derided young people for Gaza outrage

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The Skwawkbox reports on Alastair Campbell lying about a speech he gave. Campbell claims that he didn’t deride young voters over Gaza but unfortunately for Tony Bliar’s liar-in-chief it was filmed.

There are more Alastair Campbell’s lies in the Evening Standard article:

“I know Tony didn’t lie, I know I didn’t lie,” he said. “But when you have made as part of your case, the fact that you have stated in your honest conviction, that this is about tackling Saddam Hussein’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the inspectors go in and they don’t find them, that’s a pretty obvious trust moment.”

Campbell is trying the “I honestly believed” defence when the truth is that he wrote a whole dodgy dossier full of lies. This cnut’s proper place is rotting in a prison.

Continue ReadingJournalist shreds Campbell’s denial he derided young people for Gaza outrage

Palestine Ambassador warns against Britain’s complicity in Israeli war crimes

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Traitor Tony Blair receives the Congressional Gold Medal of Honour from George 'Dubya' Bush
Traitor Tony Blair receives the Congressional Gold Medal of Honour from George ‘Dubya’ Bush for being a good boy.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/palestine-ambassador-warns-against-britains-complicity-israeli-war-crimes-aid-story

BRITAIN must not be complicit in Israel’s ongoing crimes against humanity, Palestine’s ambassador to Britain warned today after reports emerged that Tony Blair may become involved in Israel’s ethnic cleansing.

The former prime minister and warmonger visited Israel last week to discuss a possible role in mediating the relationship between the country and Arab nations after the war on Gaza.

The role would include a part in Israel’s plan of resettling Palestinians in other countries, according to the Times of Israel.

Mr Blair has so far denied the reports.

Palestinian Mission to the UK head Husam Zomlot said the role would help Israel to “implement the mass expulsion and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland under the guise of ‘voluntary migration’.”

He said in a statement: “We call on the UK government to ensure that no British figure will in any way take part in Israel’s ongoing crimes against humanity.

“We are adamant that any who do will have to bear the legal consequences of such immoral and criminal acts against the Palestinian people.”

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/palestine-ambassador-warns-against-britains-complicity-israeli-war-crimes-aid-story

Continue ReadingPalestine Ambassador warns against Britain’s complicity in Israeli war crimes

Reeves’s new book lifts whole Wikipedia sections

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Rachel Reeves engages in a New Labour tradition of plaguarism in her book. Tony ‘c********r’ Blair and Alastair Campbell engaged in huge plaguarism in drafting the Dodgy dossier and were also found out in short order.

Original article republished from the Skwawkbox.

Shadow Chancellor denies plagiarism, but at least twenty sections are identical to Wikipedia entries or slightly reworded

Rachel Reeves seriously plaguarised wikipedia in her book. Image thanks to the Skwawkbox.
Rachel Reeves seriously plaguarised wikipedia in her book. Image thanks to the Skwawkbox.

Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s new book is littered with examples of text lifted exactly, or very nearly, from Wikipedia, according to the Financial Times.

The paper identified at least twenty examples, with some exact and others only slightly modified, including this lengthy passage:

Rachel Reeves seriously plaguarises wikipedia. Image thanks to The Skwawkbox.
Rachel Reeves seriously plaguarises wikipedia. Image thanks to The Skwawkbox.

Ironically, a theme of the book is others taking credit for the work of women.

The publisher admitted that sections had been included without modification, but ‘allies’ of Reeves denied plagiarism. Her spokesperson said to the FT:

We strongly refute the accusation that has been put to us by this newspaper. These were inadvertent mistakes and will be rectified in future reprints.

Original article republished from the Skwawkbox.

Continue ReadingReeves’s new book lifts whole Wikipedia sections