29/01/2023
THE BIG LIE
I was born in 1948, the year the National Health Service (NHS) was created by Clement Attlee’s Labour government. It was, in my view, the pinnacle of human achievement. But from the beginning the Tories and their friends in the right-wing media were against it. Winston Churchill’s Conservatives voted against the formation of the NHS 21 times before the act was finally passed. Despite continued efforts to destroy it the NHS has survived – just about. Creeping privatisation now threatens to finish it off once and for all. The NHS is already two-tier, with appalling waiting times for treatment forcing people to have operations done privately. And many choosing to take out private health insurance.In short we are sliding inexorably into the US system where around 112 million Americans have trouble paying for health care. Health coverage is among the most intensely debated subjects in US life, both because of the generally high cost of healthcare expenses, and because access to coverage varies significantly based on employment and socio-economic status. And people in the UK seem to be blissfully unaware of this pending nightmare.Of course the Tories and their cronies cannot privatise the NHS overnight, given that there is still such a well of public affection and goodwill towards it. So, they destroy it by stealth, by a thousand cuts. As Noam Chomsky notes: “That’s the standard technique of privatisation: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, and you hand it over to private capital.”But it doesn’t have to be this way. For as long as I can remember the mantra from successive governments has been: ‘We can’t afford it.’ This is the narrative that is swallowed almost wholesale by an ignorant, gullible public.This is the big lie.The money is always there. It is simply a case of how you choose to spend it. I cite three examples.1. In July 2016, the House of Commons backed the renewal of the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons system by 472 votes to 117. CND has calculated that replacing Britain’s nuclear weapons system will end up costing at least £205 billion, and that’s before taking into account that Ministry of Defence projects typically go well over budget. My argument is, putting aside the whole question of whether or not we need nucelar weapons, there is clearly £205 billion somewhere in government coffers. How many schools and hospitals would that buy? 2. The 2008 economic crash. The UK Office for Budget Responsibility reported the cost of government interventions as £33 billion (taxpayers money, almost all of which was to prop up private banks that had caused the problem in the first place).3. Have you noticed how money is always found to fight wars? According to the Ministry of Defence, the total cost of UK military operations in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined was £20.3 billion (up to but not beyond June 2010). There’s the nurses’ and ambulance workers’ pay rise – with cash to spare.Tony Benn once said: “If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.”The reason the NHS is starved of money is not because we can’t afford it but because governments make an ideological choice not to fund it. The Tories (and right-wing Labour MPs) are hell bent on privitisation and de-regulation. Aneurin Bevan was the Minister for Health in Attlee’s post-war government and was largely responsible for the establishment of the NHS. He said: “The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it.” He also said: “No society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.”As I write this, nurses are on picket lines, striking for better pay and to defend the very existence of the NHS. Ambulance workers are striking too. It is unprecedented. And a travesty.But sadly, people are still falling for the big lie. I urge all of you who are able to, to get out onto the picket lines and support our treasured NHS and our wonderful healthcare workers.Before it is too late.
“The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it.” - Aneurin Bevan
