02 November 2017
Halloween Diary of a Corbynista
Things can only get scarier
by Don Urquhart
18 October
The BBC has announced an online NHS Tracker which allows you to view performance of NHS Trusts against three key targets.
Wait for treatment at A&E (target 95% within 4 hours).
Wait for cancer treatment (target 85% within 62 days).
Wait for a planned operation (target 92% within 18 weeks).
The CQC rating of my local trust, the Royal Free, is “Good”, so I was surprised to discover that it achieves none of the targets and rates 105th of 134 Trusts.
19 October
This evening Theresa May will deliver an after dinner speech to EU worthies in Brussels. She has used Facebook to trail the contents, making reassuring noises to EU nationals living in Britain. We have entered a new age in political governance. Trump infamously uses Twitter to get things out of his system over breakfast. Our Prime Minister favours Facebook for communicating government policy. It is ironic that she did this on a day when the Commons voted 299-0 to pause the Universal Credit rollout, a result which the government chose to ignore. Who needs Hansard when you have Facebook?
21 October
Mark Carney appears to be trailing an interest rate rise. Proponents seem to be focussing on runaway personal indebtedness, wrongly I think putting this down to low interest rates. The man in the street does not perceive interest rates as being low. The high street banks, while offering virtually nothing in terms of deposit interest to customers, charge swingeing rates to borrowers and push the poorest into the arms of rapacious credit card companies and loan sharks.
22 October
It is totally in line with this government’s policy of health service cuts and privatisation that, while the taxpayer partly funds R&D, the pricing is totally in the hands of the drug companies who blame the costly and lengthy R&D cycle. Richard Sullivan, professor of cancer and global health at Kings College London explains: “When a drug is refused by Nice there’s only one reason it’s refused – the company has knowingly overpriced the drug.” Globalisation working its magic for the benefit of all.
23 October
The 5 biggest business lobby groups have apparently drafted a letter to David Davis urging a swift decision on transition plans. The BBC says that Sky News and the Guardian have seen a draft but the authors do not wish the contents to be made public. So, is this news or not, is there a letter or not and does it say anything we didn’t already know? To find meaning in the statements issued by government spokespeople you need a perspicacity beyond the likes of Andrew Marr, Robert Peston, Jo Coburn and yes, even Andrew Neil. I wish I had a pound for every time these four have asked their guests how much they would pay as a divorce settlement.
24 October
NHS Improvement, which is a real organisation, not a spinoff of satirical comedy W1A, pops up again with a report that the NHS could carry out 280,000 more operations per year if they organised the use of operating theatres more efficiently. Having watched the TV Series about St Mary’s Paddington where lack of beds and support staff were clearly the main problems I can only guess at the reaction of people at the coalface.
25 October
We live in an age of impenetrable job titles. Hence we have Max Hill QC working as the Independent Reviewer of Terror Legislation. There are 650 MP’s and a revising chamber of some 880 old worthies but we still need an Independent Reviewer of their work. I have nothing against the chap but he appears to be the beneficiary of a Kafkaesque job creation scheme.
26 October
What have been described as the Universal Credit debates in the Commons were tiresome dialogues of the deaf. On the Labour side there were recitals of the difficulties suffered by claimants. From the opposing benches there was anguish that the Tories were unfairly regarded as devoid of compassion and insistence that the new UC arrangements made practical sense and would help people get back into work. At PMQ’s Theresa May claimed that UC had been rolled out to 8% of Job Centres and this would be only 10% by year end. You wonder why they are arguing about pausing such a dilatory process.
27 October
The National Audit Office (NAO) has issued a report on the WannaCry ransomware attack in May and its impact on the NHS. As they rightly say someone ought to do something. But it is hard to see who will do what? The Department of Health warned the Trusts about cybersecurity in 2014, but is clearly not there to manage the health service as the Trusts did nothing, and, given the budget issues, will surely continue this policy.
28 October
My East End grammar school was blessed with a school field and tennis courts. A couple of years ago I returned for an 80th anniversary celebration. The fields were built on and the tennis courts were a car park. The Local Government Association tells us that leisure facilities will be closing at an unprecedented rate. The Department for Communities and Local Government reassures us: “Our historic four-year funding settlement provides councils with £200bn and the certainty to plan ahead.” Or put more simply: “Nothing to do with us guv.”
29 October
Khadija Sonko’s son Yusuf died in June when caught in the crossfire of Liverpool gangs. She and the police have begged witnesses to come forward but with no success to date. In the financial year 2016-17 Merseyside Police recorded 91 shootings compared with 61 in the previous year. Most go unpunished because of the climate of fear engendered by the gangs. When you take neighbourhood police off the streets you invite the criminals to take over. Theresa May was memorably reminded of this by the Police Federation when she addressed their conference as Home Secretary. Then, as now, she took it all on board, like the strong and stable chocolate teapot she was and remains.
30 October
It is difficult to put oneself in the shoes of a Spaniard, Catalonian or otherwise. From the UK, Spain, in our ignorance, appears homogenous. We knew about the Basques and ETA and also the strong sense of Catalonian identity. We had it as different from Scotland in relation to England. The Scots appear to us to have a clear separate identity. Over the next few weeks we shall see whether Catalonians feel themselves to be as distinct.
31 October
According to a Department of Health spokesperson “We want the NHS to be the safest place in the world to have a baby.” For many years now I have wanted to establish a relationship with the glamorous actress Julia Roberts, but have been diffident about developing a realistic plan to achieve this. Jeremy Hunt flooded the airways (Marr and Peston anyway) to tell us how much more he is spending on the jewel in Britain’s crown. The trouble is that he spends it with expensive third parties, like the agencies benefiting to the tune of £97 million from the shortage of 3,500 midwives.
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