Faster Backwards

More bad news for this country – yesterday saw two other major changes come into force.

According to the campaigning journalist in the i newspaper, Owen Jones, it was the day that the NHS died. After years of piecemeal ‘reforms’ contracting out of services and getting private companies to run hospitals, the government handed control of services to General Practitioners – as if they don’t have enough to do being what they were trained for, they now have to be accountants and quality controllers. They cannot just get NHS services from the NHS as they do now, they have to go through comercial tendering, which means… well, nobody really knows what it will mean, but probably the whole service will be provided by private companies.

So, why was this allowed to happen?

Well, Labour paved the way by the changes above, and have since done, well, very little. The online campaigning group 28 degrees fought long and hard, but for once didn’t manage to tip the balance, though they may have made some impact.

And the other pillar of our society that fell yesterday was the massacre of legal aid, which means something like 75% of people who were entitled to it, are no longer. There is no aid for housing, for immigration, for financial difficulties, in other words, the rich now have a licence to really abuse the poor.

The government is of course defending itself, accusing such dens of iniquity as the anglican church and the many struggling charities of being ‘vested inerests’. I suppose the term ‘hand wringing liberals’ has gone out of fashion with them.

Many of hte poor – not suffering enough already from benefit cuts, soaring costs of food and everything else – now have to contribute to council, ie local taxation. The government says everyone should contribute, but most local councils claim it will cost more to collect than they will gain from this. so, yet again, we are dealing not with finances, but with punishing the already suffering poor.

we have an MP claiming he could live on the current benefit level of £57. well, let’s see him, and all his colleagues – try. Let’s see him feed himself, pay for rent, gas, heating, water, and now council tax out of this generous sum. Who needs to travel, or clothe themselves, or use a phone or a bus? All the poor have to do is to endlessly apply for jobs they know they will never get.

The government claims this is for the good of the poor, to help them out of the trap of poverty, and into work. Like beating children teaches them to behave, and shouting at foreigners makes them understand what you say.

And the timing – bringing all these changes in on April Fools Day.
How very apt.
And only a day after Easter Sunday, the day that these so-called Christians are meant to have been celebrating the ressurection of a humble man, who helped the poor and who died for humanity’s sins.

When a Tory – ie Conservative – government is insulting the Archbishop of Canterbury, a man who has worked for big businesses and has almost died in his clerical role in Africa, there really is something rotten in the corridors of power