NO NHS UNDER STARMER

Someone tweeted me with the following message:
"It's quite simple. You claim that we cant have an NHS under Starmer. You must know why you think that's impossible. Im perfectly able to listen & understand."

After several false starts I decided to simply write straight off the top of my head and see how short it might be.  At 1,231 words or 7,295 characters it seemed too big for a tweet.  So I decided to put it on my blog for their perusal and my future reference.

THE BIG TWEET:

For you to say it's simple is really very disingenuous.  I might find it easier to explain object oriented test driven software development or back propagated neural network artificial intelligence feedback systems to you since I am far more of an expert in those fields than politics.  I guess you can understand that I couldn't possibly explain them to you if you start from the position that they are wrong and I have to "explain" them to you to convince you otherwise.  Especially if you think it will be "simple".

I did give you four references which you have not pursued; The Great NHS Heist, The Dirty War on the NHS, Health & Social Care Act 2012, and Neoliberalism.  The deconstruction of the NHS from a collective self funding service to a 'for profit' market began probably back in 1980 with a book entitled "Privatizing the World: A Study of International Privatization in Theory and Practice" written by Oliver Letwin. A reviewer described it as a manual for "how to dismantle the stuff that glues us together and sell it off to corporate cartels".

The next notable document was co-authored by Letwin and John Redwood in 1988 called "Britain's Biggest Enterprise - ideas for radical reform of the NHS" which has proved to be a bit of a blueprint for exactly what has happened.  These papers, the PFI scandal, the Naylor Report, the construction of private NHS trusts, are all part of the process which has been installed piecemeal and by stealth ever since 1980.  The Health and Social Care Act 2012 specifically disconnects government from any responsibility for the population's health and effectively turned the NHS into a complex arrangement of saleable businesses competing in a free market.

If you look into it in detail you will find that people who do understand the complexity frequently refer to the 2012 Act as the kingpin in the privatisation process and call for that Act to be repealed to re-establish government's responsibility for Health Care because without that there is no "National Health Service" as we knew it.  The NHS has already become a corporate infrastructure which can only be funded by Health Insurance in a 'for profit' free market.

Money that the government used to put into the NHS is now paid to corporations to run sectors for profit.  This is an ideology for which there is no evidence of success and much evidence that it does not and cannot work.  Of course it works for those profiteering from it but always at the expense of the detritus at the bottom of society.

Starmer probably doesn't even understand what is happening.  If he does then he is definitely part of it.  If he doesn't then his ignorance indicates he couldn't comprehend what to do.  The only way Labour could carry out their manifesto pledge to repeal the H&SC Act 2012 would be in spite of Starmer not with him.

He was also party to incarcerating Julian Assange which will turn out to be one of the most devastating crimes against democracy.  He shows no signs of considering the matter important let alone seeking proper due process.

His first public act as Leader was to write to a group, smaller than the number of train spotters in the UK (I've done the maths), called the Board of Deputies of British Jews, to concede to fully implement their demands.  The Labour Party has far more important things to do and should not be dictated to by a very small, massively wealthy, self interested right wing club.  It really doesn't matter if they are right or wrong they should not dictate Labour Policy.

He then gets ironically hoist on his own petard when he sacks Rebecca Long-Bailey from the shadow cabinet.  He gives an antisemitic reason.  He claimed the article she re-tweeted contained an "antisemitic conspiracy theory".  The remark in question referred to the "Israeli secret services" training the US police.  This is a fact.  Look up "Israeli Tactical" as one example.  A company in America founded by a high ranking Shin Bet officer offering training to the US police in Krav Maga which is an Israeli secret service developed close contact fighting discipline which explicitly uses the neck hold as seen used on George Floyd.  The IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism specifically describes "Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel" as antisemitic.  So Starmer claimed that a factual statement about the actions of the Israeli secret services was antisemitic.  He conflated Israel's actions with "all Jews".  That is definitively antisemitic according to the IHRA guidelines.

These things are by way of illustrating that he is out of his depth and compulsively supporting the prevalent political Zionist and Neoliberal agendas.  The problem with political Zionism is that it's fundamentally imperialistic and the problem with Neoliberalism is that it's unconstrained capitalism.  I am not aware of him announcing allegiance to these political ideologies by name but everything he does is indicative of his core belief in, or commitment to, them.  He shows no signs of acting for the poor or oppressed and every sign of supporting power and wealth.

He is an establishment man, knighted no less, attempting to appease all power hubs, and, as such, is incapable of addressing the deep core damage which has destroyed the welfare state and the NHS as we thought of it (and some still do).

Look up Dr Bob Gill.  He is easy to find on the internet, on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.  He has spent many years trying to understand and evidence what has been happening inside the NHS.  If you watch some of his videos, and take your lead for further investigation from there, you will understand the subject in much more detail and, hence, more accurately.

Given how you propose it might be easy for me to "explain" I suspect you will be in danger of suffering serious mental meltdown or painful cognitive dissonance.  It is not easy to realise the people you trusted were poisoning your children all along.  They have disembowelled the NHS under the influence of cultural anaesthesia and the population cannot bring themselves to see that they are dead all but the head that is looking at the suction pumped and hollowed out torso.

Starmer cannot and will not revive the NHS.  Corbyn understood (eventually) and even with the intention to repeal the 2012 Act and to get all private profiteering out of the NHS I doubt it could have been achieved because the money and influence involved are far too big.  The privatisation of the NHS is a mega-neoliberal project that has been ongoing for 40 years.

Do you know who is the CEO of NHS England?  It is a man called Simon Stevens and you can start by looking him up on Wikipedia.  One small quote from Wikipedia: "From 2004 to 2014 Stevens was a senior executive at UnitedHealth Group. Initially appointed president of UnitedHealth Europe, he became CEO of UnitedHealthcare's $30 billion Medicare business, and then corporate Executive Vice President and president of its global health businesses spanning the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. He also was a director of Brazil's largest hospital group AMIL".  Where does anyone imagine the NHS is going?  Primarily to UnitedHealthcare, the biggest Health Care Insurance company on planet Earth.

So, unfortunately, "we can't have an NHS under Starmer".