Kay Phillips

Andrew Lansley, the Conservative Health Minister, has blown the trumpet call for the privatization of the National Health Service. Using the fear that has been well-stoked by the ConDem government, a major attack on the principles of free health care in the UK has been announced. Without an ounce of shame, Lansley declared a complete dismissal of the promises made by both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats during the general election campaign. In other words, no-one voted for this but the government wishes to do it anyway.

After 13 years of New Labour changes in the NHS, including creeping privatization, the very last thing needed was a new re-organization. Lansley has confirmed that General Practitioner (GP) practices will be expected to take on planning and commissioning of health care over the next four years, thus removing the role of Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) in planning.

Dr Kay Phillips, a practicing GP and National Chair of the Respect Party, was not impressed by the changes. ‘GPs are trained in clinical diagnosis not financial planning or management. Most GPs do not want to be finance managers; they just want to be left to treat patients. This re-organization will put GPs at the forefront of making cuts and bringing in private companies.

‘We have suffered 13 years of Labour government meddling in the NHS that has led to partial privatization and cost huge amounts of money. Now, the ConDems want to drive this ideological attack on the NHS further. The basic fact is that they hate the idea of a state run, free health service at the point of use. Drug companies see big profits from breaking up the NHS and the ConDems do their bidding.’

The plans amount to an invitation to privatization by making GPs form companies and tender out NHS services. With the break-up of a national service, the pensions and national pay bargaining of NHS staff will be destroyed.

An illustration of the cost of bringing the private sector to healthcare is that Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs) has saddled the British people with £200 billion of debt in the form of repayments to private contractors, according to the Office of National Statistics. Another is the recent revelation that £26 million was handed to a private company by Greater Manchester PCTs for operations that were not performed. This occurred because of a contract for 9,000 operations between 2005 and 2009.

Naturally, Andrew Lansley has huge experience of the lives of the poorest in our society for whom free health care is essential. He went to a private school, Brentwood, and worked as a senior civil servant for Norman Tebbit. His qualifications for dealing with health include his claims that obesity will be increased by seeing obese people and stating in 2008 the recession would be good as more people would spend time with their families. What a shame he has not taken his own advice.

The Respect Party believes this is a completely unnecessary attack motivated by free market fundamentalism in the government. We welcome the declared opposition of the major trade unions in the NHS, UNITE and UNISON. These unworkable and destructive plans can and must be stopped.

Are we all in the same boat together? Gideon Osborne, our aristocratic Tory Chancellor, insists that the level of ‘public debt’ means we all have to tighten our belts and make hard choices. He fails to mention that a very small group on British society created this huge debt with banking speculation. He also ignores the twenty year period of continuous tax cuts and evasion for the richest that explain so much of the debt.

While the majority has faced wage freezes and job losses since 2008, there is one group of wage militants who have seen their income rise dramatically. UK top executives receive an average of £3.1 million per year as a salary, according to figures released today. This represents a 5% wage rise since 2008. This seems obscene enough in a period of mass unemployment created by the very executives paying themselves such huge amounts.

However, the bosses have moved towards annual bonuses to supplement their meager income. These bonuses will reach up to 300% of annual salary and, even in smaller companies, will get to 100%. Of course, we all understand bonuses that relate to company performance or ‘performance related pay’ which companies tried to introduce across British industry. This is not what executives mean by it.

Cliff Weight, director of MM&K (one of those leading the study), explained that ‘many performance-related pay schemes appear designed to satisfy the Chief Executive Officer and in fact offer little incentive for anything above just 'adequate' performance’. In other words, the bonuses are almost inevitable for these executives but just do not appear as salary for tax purposes.

Most of us never experience such wealth in a lifetime yet alone a year. Why has there been no freeze for chief executives? Why are they not paying back the money lost in the recession or taken from the public finances?

The public schoolboy government of the ConDems is not about necessary cuts or hard choices. It is starting an austerity programme designed to break the modern notion of the welfare state. This attempt to shrink the public finances is about abandoning the safety net to the poorest caught in the recession. It is about refusing to accept responsibility for the lost jobs and refusing help to those without the right home or enough money to look after their families. It is about ending the very limited wealth redistribution in taxation and benefits.

This government intends to change the role of the state away from helping the poorest and relieving the tax burden on their rich friends, in whose name they govern. By the way, did you know that David Cameron is a direct royal descendant of King William IV? So, another aristocrat who hides it and another pretending to promote fairness in society from a position of privilege and without hard choices as we know them.

The Respect Party is calling on the British government to act urgently to secure the release of 28 British nationals who are confirmed missing after the Israeli assault on the Gaza aid flotilla. These were members and supporters of Viva Palestina, the Free Gaza movement and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. So far, the Foreign Office has failed to reply to urgent requests for information regarding the fate of these heroic volunteers.

All were aboard ships taking 10,000 tonnes of construction materials and human assistance to Gaza in defiance of the illegal and inhumane Israeli blockade. The flotilla was attacked in international waters and so far 19 aid volunteers are known to have died. This was an act of piracy and murder.

All five ships were boarded, commandeered and towed to Ashdod port in Israel . The aid was confiscated and all the aid volunteers were arrested. The Israeli government has failed to release any information on their whereabouts or health so they are missing at this time. The full list of those who we know are missing is below.

Among them is Kevin Ovenden, the international coordinator and leading force in the creation and development of Viva Palestina. He has led three aid convoys to break the siege of Gaza since March 2009 and is the epitome of tireless heroism and sacrifice in support of Palestine .

Kevin is a hugely influential and cherished comrade in the Respect Party. He is a member of the Executive Committee, the National Council and a leading figure in Tower Hamlets Respect. He led the Viva Palestina group that joined the Gaza aid flotilla this week and carries the pride and passion of our entire party and movement with dignity and intelligence in this daring mission.

We demand the immediate release of Kevin Ovenden. The Respect Party has firm information that Kevin was unharmed in the assault on the flotilla and we expect his unharmed release from detention forthwith.

We demand the release of all those detained in this murderous attack. These people are heroes who have risked everything to help Palestine . They will be honoured upon return. In particular, we draw attention to Ahsan Shamruk, who travelled with Viva Palestina and was injured in the attack. He is reported to be in a stable condition and we send our thoughts and wishes for his safe return home. 

The full list of British nationals (provisional) is as follows:
Laura Macdonald Stuart
Ebrahim Musaji
Jamal Sayed
Parveen Yaqub
Baboo Adem Zanghar
Ahsan Shamruk
Mustafa Cengiz Ahmet
Tauqir Sharif
Boudejma Bounoua
Mohammad Bounoua
Sakir Yildirim
Kenneth O'Keefe
Ali El-Awaisi
Mohammed Bhaiyat
Lort Phillips Alexandra Mary
Sarah Nancy Colborne
Ismail Adam Patel
Nader Daher
Mahi Mohammed Abid
Nur-E-Azom Choudhury
Kevin Ovenden
Peter Venner
Clifford Gardner Hanley
Muzzammil Layth Chogley
Jamaluddin Mohammad Farid Elshayyal
Hassan Al Banna Ghani
Lazrag Salah
Ali Altan

Viva Palestina founder George Galloway released the following statement today:

"Israel has massacred unarmed peace activists aboard a flotilla taking emergency aid to the besieged Palestinian people in Gaza. This is a watershed that will change the perception of the world, as Sharpeville and Soweto did to the Apartheid regime in South Africa.

"It unmasks Israel which no-one can now consider a member of the 'international community' but is rather a rogue state, a pariah state.

"The embargo and blockade of Gaza must be brought to an end. This has been underwritten by the United States, by Britain and the European Union, but this has got to end now."