‘Tis time again to ‘Protect the NHS’ and resurrect this campaign!

 

 

It’s amazing: after yesterday’s ‘omigawd – interest rates rise!’ news, splashed across all front pages, today this has sunk below the MSM horizon as the usual compilation (here) shows. La Truss will make it all go away while she’s also going to combat China because just fighting against Russia isn’t enough. She’ll cut taxes and that’ll help because ‘it’s what Maggie would have done’, or so John Redwood sez, writing for the DT (paywalled link). 

There’s one astounding news item: the NHS’ ‘111’ service has been ‘hacked’. Operators must now go back to using pen and paper when dealing with calls. You can read the story here at the DM which ain’t paywalled. It is of course copied from the DT which published their report yesterday evening. This paragraph made me rub my eyes:

“The Adastra software went offline at 7am on Thursday and staff have been told it may be not functioning again until next week. Advanced, which supplies the service, confirmed last night the problems have been caused by a cyber attack.” (link)

So this software went offline on Thursday morning. Apparently it took until yesterday, Friday, evening for the Westminster MSM to take note: nearly two days. Did nobody notice this earlier? There’s more:

“The British software firm has more than 25,000 customers and a turnover of £330 million, according to its website. It has officers in Birmingham, Ashford, Kent, Atlanta in the US, Bangalore in India and Melbourne in Australia. This latest attack will raise fears that hackers could target private companies who partner with critical organisations in the UK, such as the NHS.” (paywalled link)

We’re not told  if that firm’s software running in the USA, Australia and India was also ‘compromised’. Note well that ‘Our NHS’ uses software run by private companies. Is this because there are no British companies, no Brits who could set up such software, never mind run it?

Furthermore, note that the immediate response is that hackers did it, or that ‘the Russians did it’. Checking if some mistake had been made in-house? Don’t be silly! Still, the report that the poor things at ‘111’ must now use pen and paper has led one comment poster to remark: “Pens and paper sound good to me. The NHS will have to employ people with the intelligence to use them.” Ouch.

I am astonished that apparently the ‘111’ managers don’t have a ‘plan’ to deal with such outage. I am also astonished that this fabulous software firm – it must be fabulous else ‘Our NSH’ wouldn’t have used them! – doesn’t seem to have any backups or redundancies built in.

It will take the software firm four days to sort things out! Why is there no call from those ‘111’ managers to local GPs to step up in this emergency and help by doing home visits? The phones are still working, aren’t they, and a ‘111’ operator surely will have lists of local GPs who can be contacted? No, let the patients suffer because, as we all know, there’s only one cure for all this: ‘moar money’.

‘Our Sacred Cow’ is the main subject in today’s issue of The Times. Their lead article online is proper fear porn: “Winter of woe means long waits for patients – Only six in ten will be seen within four hours” (link, paywalled). Here’s the spin, the wail we’ve now become accustomed to:

“A senior government figure said the winter looked “incredibly bleak” as an increase in Covid-19 cases and a resurgence of winter flu could push the NHS to breaking point.” (link, paywalled)

Obviously, it’s time for another ‘Save Our NHS’ campaign! Doubling down, The Times has another article – reading the headline is sufficient: “NHS crisis: lack of beds, GPs and carers leaves patients in lurch” (link, paywalled). It’s all so very complicated, sez The Times, writing that staff shortages because of ‘post-pandemic burn-out’ have a domino effect. Clearly, nobody else in the Nation is permitted to suffer from ‘post-pandemic burn-out’.

Moreover, it’s forbidden to ask if the NHS might just possibly have bought this on themselves, thanks to their ‘covid measures’ which all remember so well and which are still in place. Of course, the effect of lockdowns and GP Surgery Fortresses on the health of the nation isn’t mentioned. 

On top of that we find that today’s Times Editorial is pushing the NHS onto the agenda of the Tory PM Race. The headline suffices: 

“The Times view on the NHS: Breaking Point – The NHS is under unprecedented strain and faces an acute staffing crisis. The new prime minister will need a bold plan or public trust in the system could evaporate” (link, paywalled)

Well, we all know what this means: we stupid peasants can trust only one Party to ‘save the NHS’, and that is Labour. After all, ‘Toree cuts’ and ‘Toree austeriteee’ have ruined yon Sacred Cow. Never mind the rise and rise of our money being poured into the NHS year by year. Check out this graph, but don’t ask if we received ‘value for money’. 

And so to the ‘cost-of-living’ crisis, meaning that workers are demanding wages to compensate for inflation. According to The Times, workers at Felixstowe are going on strike for eight days, starting on August 21. They’re not alone. There’ll be more train strikes:

“Members of the Aslef union are due to strike on August 13, which will affect Arriva Rail London, Avanti West Coast, CrossCountry, Greater Anglia (including Stansted Express), Great Western, Hull Trains, LNER, London Overground, Southeastern and West Midlands Trains.” (link, paywalled)

Ah well – train users surely can WFH’! Lord Frost in his DT article yesterday called them the ‘Establishment laptop class’ – so apt! So that’s one Union. There are still the RMT and Unite:

“More rail strikes have been announced for August 18 and 20 by the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association and Unite, as well as a separate RMT walkout by London Underground staff on August 19. More than 1,600 London bus drivers are also poised to take strike action. Members of Unite employed by London United will walk out on August 19 and 20.” (link, paywalled)

Now here’s something odd: why are all those strikers going to walk out more or less on the same dates in August? Cynical old me wonders if it might have something to do with the Summer Bank Holiday on the 29th of August … surely not!

I leave you with a nice little report in the DT, according to which Sir Keir Starmer, who has forbidden his front benchers to stand on picket lines because “Labour must turn “from a party of protest into a party that can win power” (paywalled link). Stop laughing – Labour might have voted with the government on all things covid, but they do protest against slavery and all the rest!

Starmer is obviously a gifted politician because, just as his colleagues on the opposite bench, he promises one thing when campaigning but forgets his promises when it’s about getting into No 10 – see the DT headline:

“Sir Keir Starmer promised to stand with striking workers in leaked footage – In a campaign video, the Labour leader also described himself as a ‘proud trade unionist’ (paywalled link)

Is he machiavellian (noo!), is he napoleonic, not interfering while his enemy (the Toreees …) is making mistakes (nooo!), or is he plainly dictatorial, stomping on everything Labour used to hold dear so as to get into No 10? Perhaps he or one of his minions will finally attack the Truss-Sunak show and declare that they are going to destroy ‘Our Sacred Cow’ which will only flourish under Labour.

Enjoy the weekend, with or without a hosepipe ban. After all, carrying watering cans is a weight-bearing exercise and therefore good for your health. You do want to ‘Protect the NHS’, don’t you!



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