Just A Few Minor Details

by Les May

BETWEEN 10 May 1940 and 23 May 1945 Labour MPs were part of a coalition led by Winston Churchill.   Initially Clement Attlee was a member of the five man Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal.  From February 1942 Attlee was also Deputy Prime Minister.

In other words any planning for the post war world, including planning for an overhaul of the health care system, was as much done by Labour politicians as it was by those from other parties.   Labour didn’t just ‘get lucky’, implement existing plans drawn up by someone else and take all the credit for the formation of the NHS, as two recent contributors would have us believe.

Listening to Jeremy Hunt this morning I was left with the impression that one of the responses to the staggering number of deaths in Care Homes and similar facilities is likely to be a coming together of the Care Services and the NHS. This has been a long term ambition of Andy Burnham who has written and spoken about this since he was Health Secretary 2009-2010.   If, as I expect, legislation to bring this about will be in a future Queen’s Speech will the two recent contributors who are so keen to deny Labour credit for establishing the NHS be demanding that Burnham receives a share of the credit for a coming together of the care and health services?  Personally I am happy to give credit for this to whatever government brings it about.

As for the ‘Libertarian Left’ if it does not like the ‘statist’ model we have now it has had 73 years to bring into existence a viable alternative to the NHS and has done precisely nothing.   It is always ready to snipe from the sidelines, but never wants to devote time and energy to giving some thought to exactly how an alternative system would deliver specialist as well as routine care; how it would deal with epidemics of, for example, winter flu; provide a vaccination service for children which by its nature relies on ‘herd immunity’ to be fully effective; or how it would be funded.  What would its response to the Covid19 pandemic look like? How much thought has it given to international trade or international terrorism, cyber hacking or effective strategies to combat climate change?

Any answers to questions like this will be a long time coming, not least because so many of those who sail under the flag of the ‘Libertarian Left’ have lost themselves on the barren shores of ‘trans issues’, both for and against. 

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Locked Onto Influenza Revisited

by Les May

Today Jeremy Hunt admitted that in the UK, as well as in much of Europe and the USA, the response to Covid19 had been based on how an Influenza pandemic would be dealt with. This would explain why testing was largely abandoned on or about 8 March.

Because the progress of Influenza epidemics is well understood, after initial testing to identify the Influenza strain which is circulating in the general population, it is usually abandoned with no deleterious effects. It may be restarted after the first peak of infections has passed if a second peak seems to be coming, in order to identify whether it is a different strain.

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2020/04/locked-onto-influenza.html

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Tory Debates: 'Words have consequences'

Power Politics Smelling Around a Lampost

by Brian Bamford

DURING the Tory leadership debate on the 30th, June, the BBC was accused of bias and the Daily Mail ran an headline: 'BIASED BRAZEN CONTEMPTABLE' and an editorial entitled 'A farrago of deceit and naked BBC bias'.  The editor Geordie Greig wrote:  'One questioner was an imam ('Abdula from Bristol'), who took Mr (Boris) Johnson to task over his use of Islamaphobic language.'  

What the Imam questioner from Bristol asked was did Boris accept that 'words have consequences?'

Boris then admitted that some of his remarks might occasionally have caused some plaster to off the ceiling, but added that people sometimes chose to 'escalate' his comments. 

Ludwig Wittgenstein was once quoted as saying:   'A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.'

Despite Geordie Greig's protestations about BBC bias in the Daily Mail, the Imam was justified in asking his question which was of interest to the public.

more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ludwig_wittgenstein_147252

A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ludwig_wittgenstein_147252

The roots of this question stem from a column in the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper on 5 Aug 2018, in which Johnson wrote that while he doesn’t support a burqa ban in Denmark, he does think they’re 'ridiculous' because they make women look like 'letter boxes' and 'bank robbers.'

But Johnson was also perfectly entitled to describe the effect the asthetic style of the burka had on him:  'If you say that it is weird and bullying to expect women to cover their faces, then I totally agree,' Johnson wrote.  'I would go further and say that it is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes.'

Months later in December 2018, Boris Johnson was cleared by an internal Tory Party internal inquiry of breaching the Conservative Party’s code of conduct by comparing veiled Muslim women to letter boxes and bank robbers when an independent panel decided the former foreign secretary was 'respectful and tolerant' and was entitled to use 'satire' in his newspaper column in August.

When I worked at Arrow Mill in Rochdale in the early 1970s, the Pakistani textile spinners there told me that at that time their women-folk wouldn't wear the veil because we natives would laugh at them.  At that time there were less Asian women in the UK, and what shocked most people was that the women usually trialed behind their men-folk when they where out walking in the streets.  It was years later when the fashion of the burka became more commonplace among Muslim women in the UK.

From a logical point of view  'words have consequences' because words are tools to shape meanings in the way a chisel would impact an impression on a piece of wood.  Polemics is the art of throwing eggs or delivering blows in the businesslike manner of a boxer (see Wittgenstein reference above).

In response to this we are told that the critics of Boris will tell us that they are offended and that what Boris writes is a form of 'hate speech'.  Well they may well make this claim as such people often do as they are very vocal.  Yet, others may thus equally respond, as Queen Gertrude did in Shakespeare's play Hamlet:.  'The Lady Doth Protest Too Much, methinks'. 

Most writers on Northern Voices have been clearly committed to libertarian anarchism as rooted in free speech, and question the squeamishness of those who make claims that they are perennially offended by something or other.  The squeamish are now categorised as 'snowflakes'. 

Yet are the squeamish simulating their 'offence' to close down free speech in the way that is available to any human being?  Here we are dealing with something like a private language or the philosophical 'problem of other minds'.  We have words that refer to sensations like being 'offended' or being 'in pain', but we have no way of knowing if these sensations are fake or not.

To throw into relief the possible artful practices of squeamish human 'snowflakes' let us consider what Wittgenstein asks about a dog:

'Why can’t a dog simulate pain? Is he too honest? Could one teach a
dog to simulate pain? Perhaps it is possible to teach him to howl on
particular occasions as if he were in pain, even when he is not. But the
surroundings which are necessary for this behaviour to be real
simulation are missing.'

We can however go further and distinguish between the artful human snowflake and the dog by what Russell B. Goodman writes about in his essay 'Thinking about Animals:  James, Wittgenstein, Hearne': 

'Dogs can be sneaky or deceptive, and that there are stories of
dogs pretending to be injured and doing other clever things. So
perhaps a dog can simulate pain. Would the dog then be dishonest?
Wittgenstein is making a revealing little joke here, based on the
incongruity of saying that dogs either are or are not honest. They
do not have a form of life in which honesty is a major component
in the way that for example, hiding bones and smelling lampposts
are.'

Thus honesty, hypocrisy, sincerity and what could be called human decency, do not form part of the dog's universe.  What could be said about Boris's comments on the Burka and the claim of his alleged Islamophobia is that he is there to entertain and is simply attention seeking when he talks about letter- boxes.  After this week's latest debate with Jeremy Hunt, Eamonn O’Domhnaill, 48, a finance manager from Ireland, was unimpressed with both candidates but said:
'I don’t believe Boris Johnson is taking this seriously - there has been far too much buffoonery.'.

We all know Boris is believed to have favoured remain in the run-up to the referendum.  It is tempting to suggest that there is a certain Fastaffian amorality about his politics which places him closer to Russel B. Goodman's dog smelling round a lamppost as he seeks the Tory leadership..

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The Politics of Delusion

by Les May

I VOTE Labour. In the referendum I voted to remain in the EU, but accepted the result.   At no time have I felt it necessary to criticise Labour’s policy about Brexit. It has confounded the ‘scribblers’ in the media whose criticism has had to be limited to grumbling about its lack of clarity. How nice it would have been for them if Labour had declared its support for, or opposition to, a further referendum.  They would have been able to look forward to lots of ‘exclusive’ briefings from Labour MPs in favour of or against the policy, as the equivalent of open warfare gripped the party. It has not happened.

Credit for this not happening is not due to Corbyn alone.  Those seen as ‘big names’ in the party who do not entirely agree with his stance, John McDonnell, Emily Thornberry, Keir Starmer, plus those Labour MPs which some sections of the media would find more congenial as Labour leader, e.g. Yvette Cooper, Hillary Benn and Stephen Kinnock, have been muted in their criticism.

Criticism has tended to come from Labour MPs eager to convince us that if only it would adopt their preferred strategy of supporting a second referendum and campaigning to remain in the EU, the party’s poll ratings would magically improve.

What people who believe this forget is that Labour does not have a majority in Parliament. Labour is essentially a bystander with no power to influence the decisions of the next prime minister, who at this moment is being selected by 160,000 Tory party members in no way representative of the wider population and who seem happy to trash the economy, the union with Scotland and tear up the international treaty which gave guarantees to the people of Ireland in a single minded pursuit of leaving the EU.

If Labour did adopt such a strategy it would have the support of the Welsh and Scottish nationalists, LibDems, MPs who identify themselves as Independent and some Tories.   Even if collectively the different groupings could muster a majority, constitutionally there appears to be no mechanism by which Parliament can prevent a Johnson or Hunt led government forcing us to leave the EU without a deal. To believe that Labour declaring itself in favour of a second referendum and that it will campaign to remain in the EU will in some way influence what happens when a Johnson or Hunt led government takes over is the politics of delusion.

The people who believe this are not alone in being deluded. Corbyn, Hunt and Johnson all share their own delusions.  They believe that if they become Prime Minister they will be able to negotiate with the EU to produce something that is different from the deal that was rejected three times by Parliament.  Corbyn has already tried to sweet talk the Irish government to no avail. I doubt whether the other 27 countries of the EU are exactly quaking in the boots at the prospect of meeting Boris or Jeremy who both seem to think that threatening to leave with ‘no deal’ is going to wring some major concession from the EU.

Labour’s worst nightmare has to be that blame will be dumped on it for the chaos that will follow if Hunt or Johnson have to ‘put their money where their mouth is’ and the UK leaves the EU without a deal.  Labour will be accused of doing ‘too little, too late’ by people who don’t want to acknowledge that its ability to significantly affect whether the UK leaves the EU after the referendum was always limited. Labour’s best option now is probably to look to a damage limitation strategy. 

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A Symbol of Global Repression

by Les May

THE title of this piece is that used by the ‘i’ newspaper to preface two extracts, one from The Times and the other from the Daily Telegraph.  Both relate to the case of Asia Bibi the Pakistani Christian woman who was held on death row for eight years accused of blasphemy before finally being acquitted by the Pakistan Supreme Court.   The acquittal resulted in mobs taking to the streets demanding that she be hanged.  The rioting mobs were only placated when the president of Pakistan Imran Khan said that her acquittal would be ‘reviewed’.  Since then she has been in hiding and her defence lawyer has fled to the Netherlands of fear of his life.

A report in The Telegraph quoted Jeremy Hunt the Foreign Secretary as saying:  ‘So often, the persecution of Christians is a telling early warning sign of the persecution of every minority. But I am not convinced that our response to the threats facing this group has always matched the scale of the problem’.

A Times editorial said ‘Asia Bibi’s case symbolises the fate of persecuted Christians around the world. It is welcome that the Foreign Secretary has clarified the Government’s stance whilst acknowledging the UK’s failings with regard to safeguarding Christian’s overseas.’

What is both surprising and disappointing is that it has been left to a Tory cabinet minister and two Tory supporting papers to take up the Asia Bibi case. The normally very vocal so called ‘liberal left’ with its obsession with identity politics has ignored her plight.  I am also aware that some time ago one of the Northern Voices editors contacted Jeremy Corbyn’s office for a response to the Asia Bibi case.  A reply is still awaited.

As I have mentioned before I have no axe to grind on this as I am an atheist.   But I cannot help noticing that all too often, because some Christians express views about homosexuality and abortion that some people do not like, Christians are seen only as persecutors of others and never as victims of persecution.

So far as I am concerned Christians are free to believe that they know what God thinks about homosexuality or abortion and to tell the rest of us if they are minded to do so.  I am free to ignore them. It’s called tolerance and stems from the belief that freedom of speech is having the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

Given that Asia Bibi is in fear of her life, yet her plight is ignored by the so called ‘liberal left’, puts into perspective the constant whingeing from assorted self interest groups about trivial incidents which they claim are ‘offensive’. A stray hand on someone’s knee or calling someone with full set of wedding tackle ‘he’ when they claim to be ‘she’, doesn’t really compare with having mobs on the street determined to hang you from the nearest lamp post.

38 Degrees, Your Doctor & his targets

Dear Northern Voices,

When you walk into your doctors office, you want to know your GP is only thinking about giving you the care you need, not the money they can save or the targets they have to hit. But right now some GPs are being offered cash incentives to cut the number of patients they refer to hospital - including people who might have cancer. [1]

This plan is dangerous - GP groups and medical experts have already raised the alarm. [2] But if we want to stop this scheme before it spreads across England, it will need thousands of us to tell Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to put an end to it.

Jeremy Hunt is probably hoping this all blows over quickly. A huge petition, signed by hundreds of thousands could make sure that doesn’t happen. We can show that NHS patients (like you and me!) won’t stand for targets and money getting in the way of the care we all need when we’re sick.

If 200,000 people sign the petition in the next 48 hours, we’ll send it straight to Jeremy Hunt. So, Brian, will you sign the petition now?

SIGN THE PETITION

GPs work hard to give us the care we need. But because the government hasn’t given it the money it needs, our NHS is struggling. [3] It means NHS bosses are looking for any opportunity to save money. But setting financial incentives and arbritarty targets for GPs simply doesn’t make sense. And when it comes to the care our families get when we’re sick, it’s not right to force doctors to compromise. [4]

Now we’ve got a chance to stop these targets for GPs. But we need to act quickly, before they spread even further. If thousands of us add our names to the petition, we will deliver it straight to Jeremy Hunt by Friday.

So N.V.,  if you want Jeremy Hunt to put patients first, sign the petition now. It only takes 30 seconds:

SIGN THE PETITION

Thanks for all you do,

Zoë, Cathy, Bex and the 38 Degrees team

Missing Junior Doctor mentions Jeremy Hunt

THE press today is full of rumours that Rose Polge, a junior doctor who went missing last Friday, left a note inside her car in which she included comments about her personal life as well as a sentence referring to the Heath Secretary Jeremy Hunt.  

Doctor Rose Polge, 25, who works at Torbay Hospital in Devon, was last seen on Friday afternoon. Soon after she was reported missing her car was found in a car park near Anstey's Cove in Torquay.

Today's Daily Mail reports:

'Now, hours after a friend revealed the young medic was under a lot of strain because of her "long working hours", rumours at the hospital suggest she wrote a letter which mentioned Mr Hunt just before she disappeared.   The note is believed to have been found in the car.'

Dr Polge has shared a link to an online to a petition supporting industrial action by junior doctors over Mr. Hunt's proposed contract changes in the National Health Service, which would involve extra weekend work for junior doctors.

It is claimed that Dr. Polge is a member of a Facebook group set up to co-ordinate striking junior doctors at the Devon hospital and last month she posted a new Facebook profile picture, featuring the hashtag #NotFairNotSafe.

A friend has said that the young medic was under a lot of strain because of her 'long working hours', and rumours at the hospital suggest she wrote a letter which mentioned Mr Hunt just before she disappeared.  The note is believed to have been found in the car.

ITV News Westcountry reports 'persistent rumours' have been circulating at Torbay Hospital about the note – and Devon and Cornwall Police, who are leading the search to find the junior doctor, have refused to deny the report.

A police force spokesman said today: 'We are not making any comment about a note or the contents of it.'

The Secret of Hunt's success: The HUNT - BOTTOMLEY Link!

Hunt calls on English workers to graft like the Chinese

I doubt there is anything that is more guaranteed to get the backs up of English workers than hearing some upper middle-class Tory bastard telling them that they need to work harder.

Earlier this year at the Tory Party conference in Manchester, the multi-millionaire Health Secretary, Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt, claimed in a conference speech that low-paid workers lacked dignity and self respect and ought to graft like the Chinese "Who put in punishing hours" in a sweatshop. Needless to say, having been borne into a life of privilege, this former head boy of Charterhouse and student of Magdalen College Oxford, would know all about hard graft.

Jeremy Hunt's own career and  advancement in life, is something that seems to have been shrouded in mystery. At the Tory Party conference, Hunt claimed that his father "worked as a manager" for the NHS. Given that his father, Sir Nicholas John Streynsham Hunt, was Admiral of the Fleet in his main career, this is something of an exaggeration. After retirement, Sir Nicholas like a lot of well-connected establishment figures, became a 'quangoista', joining various hospital boards. He then became Chairman of the South West Surrey District Health Authority during 1990 to 1995 and then Chairman of Nuffield Hospitals from 1996 to 2001. For most of this time, his niece, Virginia Bottomley, was the Secretary of State for Health in a Conservative government.

Until her retirement from open politics, Virginia Bottomley, had been the Conservative MP for South West Surrey. In 2005, her cousin Jeremy Hunt inherited her constituency (not quite Queen's Crawley) and stepped into her shoes becoming the new MP. Virginia was then ennobled and became Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone. She now lobbies on behalf of the private health sector and was a director of BUPA between 2007-2013.

During 1998-2001, Virginia Bottomley became Vice Chair of the British Council, a body that is linked to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and which promotes British cultural interests overseas. While she was at the British Council, Jeremy Hunt, became the monopoly supplier obtaining the catering contract for his company 'Hotcourses'. As the monopoly catering supplier for the British Council, Jeremy amassed the fortune that he is so proud of today.

After being elected to Parliament, Jeremy was appointed Minister for Media and Culture and was put in charge of adjudicating the News Corp bid for BSkyB. Jeremy had previously partnered News Corp in his educational supplies business. After being an MP for just seven years, Jeremy Hunt became Secretary of State for Health, a position that had been previously held by his cousin Virginia Bottomley.

Although he owes much of his success in life to the social class that he was born into and his social connections, the Prime Minister, David Cameron, says that it's not where you come from that really matters but where you are going. But career progress of this type, "the leg up", or some would say 'nepotism,' is something that is admired by Cameron in spite of his assertions about merit. Cameron's only job outside of politics, was when he worked for Carlton TV, a job he got by being given a leg up by his mother-in-law, Lady Annabel Astor.

We do not mean to throw any odious imputation upon the general character of either Virginia Bottomley or Jeremy Hunt, nor do we suggest that they have acted in any way illegally. However, it is intriguing how both their lives and careers have been so closely intertwined as Jeremy as followed in the footsteps of his older cousin in becoming Health Secretary and in inheriting her Surrey constituency. Nor should we be surprised at the antics of a nepotistic English ruling elite, the Tory Party, who work to defend established privilege and work for anyone with money or power.

As for working like the Chinese, Jeremy Hunt failed to mention in his speech to the Tory Party that in 2010, Apple's Foxconn plants in China issued contracts forcing workers to sign a pledge stating that they would not commit suicide due to workplace stress. Another cousin, is Tristam Hunt MP, the son of Lord Hunt.