POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

“We can reverse our social atomisation by giving people the power to work collectively with their peers to solve common problems. We can reverse our society's infantilisation by inviting people to look to themselves, their communities and wider society for answers, instead of just the state.” David Cameron

Greeting citizens

Have you got a migraine coming on?  Good!  That means your brain is fighting back.  Fighting back against the bombardment of buzz words and sound bites which if you actually sit down and try to make sense of, could make you blow a gasket.

We’ve been trained to believe that anything said slowly, in a “reasonable” tone with a posh accent and a few long words is correct, intelligent and true.

But is it really? 

Don’t panic – it is not you who is stupid – it really doesn’t make sense.

David Cameron is inviting us to work collectively with our peers to solve common problems – what’s wrong with that you may ask? Nothing at all – that’s why I’m in UFO (the Union of Fabrication Obliterators).  On June the 30^th we’ll be taking collective action with our mythbusting peers and our allies in other unions to solve our common problem of working people (paid and unpaid), people on benefits and pensions (and those who’ve been kicked of them) and children and young people having to pay the price for the economic recession. David Cameron himself said (in May 2009) he understood people’s anger “….about the bankers who got rich while they were bringing the economy to its knees.”  Do you think he’ll make headline news on June 30^th by singing our praises for rising collectively out of our infantilisation? I mean that is what he meant isn’t it?

You see while we can’t fault him on what he’s saying, we have to question what he uses it to justify.  He uses his ‘power to the people’ comments to justify bringing in NHS reforms that were never voted on by the electorate (that’s the people, Dave) - since the Conservatives promised there would be no major reorganisation of the NHS.  He uses them to justify having a bunch of unelected GP consortia (NOT the people, Dave) running the Health Service in partnership with a load of unelected private companies and an unelected “monitor” making sure they are operating competitively – yes that’s competitively – not efficiently, not in a way that maximises health and prevents ill-health, but competitively.  There’s not a patient, member of the community or elected councillor in sight and the private companies will all be using the NHS logo so we won’t even know whether they’re private or not (e.g. the “NHS” Treatment Centre in Nottingham).

So when David Cameron talks about empowering “the people” – who is he really talking about?  Who is he listening to?  Not Unite and five other health organisations who have said ‘….the sheer scale of the ambitious and costly reform programme, and the pace of change, whilst at the same time being tasked with making £20 billion of savings, is extremely risky and potentially disastrous.’

What about the private health care firms who have donated £750,000 to the Conservative Party since David Cameron became leader in 2005 and the Private health lobby out in force at Tory conference?

Come on Dave, you can talk all you want about giving power to the people and switching power from here to there, but we already have a system for giving people a voice and it’s called Democracy – it involves people voting for individuals to represent them locally and nationally.  It doesn’t work perfectly – there are plenty of groups who are still marginalised and disenfranchised, but if you believe in people power the least you can do is start respecting the democratic process we’ve already got and acknowledge that you have no mandate for “reforming” the NHS and taking it out of the hands of elected representatives or for making massive cuts in public services. 

ΩΩΩΩΩΩ    OVER AND OUT    ΩΩΩΩΩΩ

When is an efficiency saving not an efficiency saving?

Spot says:

Ey up me ducks,

       

Now in view of how so much can get lost in translation, for those of you who have difficulty understanding the lingo, I’ve got a glossary at bottom of this ere posting for you to peruse at your leisure.

This week I’m returning to the old efficiency chestnut.  I’ve already mentioned previously how it’s a working class stereotype that public institutions such as local councils and the NHS are inefficient, and that public sector workers are underworked, overpaid and lazy, but these things can still cause a bit of confusion so I’m homing in on “efficiency savings”

Well now it all started with our household deciding to make efficiency savings!  This is on account of how we foresee an increased demand for energy later in the year when our house becomes multi-generational what with the arrival of a new nipper due in August. 

We had a big discussion about how to go about it, we decided to be open minded and listen to all David Cameron’s speeches on the subject - cos being so well-educated and all, he must have picked up something as he went along.  But you know what ?  We was flummoxed -  we just couldn’t make head nor tails of it…...he kept saying we had to spend less!

Well I tell you, my hind leg were aching I was scratching my head so many times trying to get some sense out of that one.  If we spent less, we’d have less energy – now a new nipper wouldn’t be experiencing that as very efficient would they?  Like, if we cut down on our weekly baths, true we’d spend less on energy, but we’d smell more…What’s the point of that?

Well we gnawed it over fer a good half hour and we came up trumps with our own efficiency saving strategy - Did we spend less? Did we hellers like! We forked out an arm and a leg…BUT….pay attention now Dave – it gets a bit complicated…What we forked out on was Solar panels and a brand new modern boiler, so even though it costs us more in the short run…..our household bills will be lower per amount of hot water used in the future!  Furthermore we’ll be damaging the environment less!  Now that’s what I call an efficiency saving. 

When is an efficiency saving not an efficiency saving?  When it’s a flippin cut, that’s when.

You can’t make the NHS more efficient by bleeding it dry, squeezing the staff, handing work out to agencies and private treatment centres etc. but that’s not the point is it - they’re not really interested in efficiency they’re interested in cuts.

Public health warning: Don’t believe anyone who says they want to make the NHS more efficient unless they’re saying they’ll need to spend more money to do it.

Yours Spot

(Keeping the spotlight on the stereotypes)

GLOSSARY

lingo                                        - language or dialect

‘ere                                          - here

on account of                          - because of

nipper                                      - child or offspring

make heads nor tails of it        - understand

go about it                               - do it

picked up                                - learnt

and all                                     - etc.

as he went along                     - during his life

flummoxed                              - confused

to get some sense out of         - understand

Like                                         - (here) for example

gnawed it over                                    - considered it

came up trumps                       - were successful

Did we hellers like!                 - certainly not

forked out an arm and a leg    - paid a lot of money

flippin                                      - [used for emphasis]

(old) chestnut                          - recurring issue