Don’t you dare to have fun – there’s a strike on!

 

Today is the shortest day of the year 2022 which ought to make it easier to ‘follow the guidance’ of a health minister to stop doing everything because it could be ‘a risk’, according to this morning’s headlines. Check them out at the usual place (link).

So let’s take a closer look at today’s top issue. According to the MSM the war of words is becoming more intemperate. The Trade Union boss of Unison told the DM that ‘it’s the government’s fault if people die during ambulance strikes’ (link) – callous or what! Meanwhile the Health Minister Mr Barclay told the DT:

“[…] the refusal of unions to agree to provide cover for emergency calls and a lack of clarity about which cases will get a response had made contingency planning “almost impossible. We now know that the NHS contingency plans will not cover all 999 calls. Ambulance unions have made a conscious choice to inflict harm on patients,” (paywalled link)

The utter insanity of this strike and the blame game being played becomes clear when we read that the last-ditch talks Mr Barclay held with union bosses about ensuing that emergency calls were covered broke down because yon bosses criticised ministers “for refusing to discuss pay.” It’s getting even worse when we read that:

“About 600 members of the Armed Forces have been drafted in to drive ambulances during the strikes, but they will not be able to break red lights or turn on blue lights when driving and cannot carry out clinical tasks.” (paywalled link)

The deployment of those soldiers clearly is just some sort of pacifier meant for us plebs, degrading them to nought but taxi-drivers. After all, Army paramedics don’t know nothing about nothing … or did perchance those trade union bosses insist that only their members were permitted to give first aid to patients but nobody else be allowed to do so, in the hope that suffering patients would cry out to their MPs, demanding Sunak to shell out more money?

“Health leaders” have apparently already written to the PM, “urging an end to the deadlock with unions striking over pay and conditions and negotiation on pay” and so have Tory backbenchers, demanding Sunak “to back down and negotiate on pay with striking health workers.” (paywalled link). Why is none of those demanding Hunt to open his coffers?

Labour is shining in their absence: not one squeak from any of them has made it into the MSM. The Labour shadow health minister, Mr Wes Streeting, was allegedly told to keep his mouth shut after he criticised the NHS in the days before the nurses’ strike kicked off. Well, I can’t blame Labour for staying out of this mess, they only follow Napoleon’s advice never to interfere when the enemy is making mistakes. 

Still, their non-interference may come back to bite them. For example, there are some informational crumbs to be found which paint a different picture. Here’s one from the DT:

“Even before the strikes got under way, data leaked to Health Service Journal showed average waits for cases such as heart attacks and strokes had hit more than three hours in some areas, with eight of England’s ambulance trusts declaring critical incidents.” (paywalled link)

Interesting, no? After all, we recall regular reports in the MSM about long queues of ambulances at A & E departments! Moreover, we recall regular reports in the MSM of certain groups of the population abusing ambulances as taxi service to A & E for minor ailments! But let’s not accuse the Sacred Cow of anything which might damage her ‘reputation’ … 

The strange thing is that the ‘health correspondents’ in our – also sacred – MSM do have or ought to have access to the ‘Health Service Journal’ (HSJ) where news and problems in the NHS are faithfully reported. I receive their headlines, but cannot read the stuff because it’s subscription only, which is a cool £400+ pa – not something I can afford, but surely our mighty papers can!

Why are said MSM ‘health correspondents’ not making use of this resource? I’ll hazard the guess that they are either scared of what’ll happen to them once their beloved Labour is in power, such as ‘no access’ to their ‘sources’, no gossip to write about – or because they are still following the good old ancient Labour tradition which has weaponised the NHS to such an extent that any criticism is regarded as treason. Meanwhile, the leading article in the Times today is about ‘saving the NHS’, with the subtitle:

“Labour deserves credit for recognising that the health service is in deep crisis and requires urgent reform. It may fall to the party that created the NHS to rescue it” (link, paywalled)

Giving ‘credit to Labour’ refers to the remarks by Mr Streeting who is now silent. Not mentioned is that Labour has turned the NHS into a political bludgeon with which to clobber the Tories. Remember the slogan ‘24 hours to save the NHS’? No criticism of yon Sacred Cow is permitted. It’s all about ‘Toreee cuts’, even though the reality is different. I don’t need to mention all those ‘diversity managers’ whose salaries could be used to raise nurses’ pay or employ more nurses. Next, here’s what can be called a ‘sitrep’:

“The reality is that, despite the sincere displays of public appreciation for NHS staff during the pandemic, the NHS itself has not been working for a long time. Indeed, the wave of strikes is being driven not only by demands for higher pay but also by the frustration of NHS staff at the stresses of working in a self-evidently crumbling health system. As Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, noted this week, “the NHS is in an existential crisis … It is failing patients on a daily basis.” (link, paywalled)

Never mind that The Times seems to think ‘moar money’ would alleviate the ‘frustration’ of NHS staff – look at the bias! Any Tory who’d have dared to say what Mr Streeting did would’ve  been howled out of court. The Times editors also provide some interesting numbers which ought to silence the Labour cries about ‘Toree austerity’. After describing how badly the Sacred Cow is doing in comparison with other countries, we read (my emphasis):

“In 2019, the British government spent 9.9 per cent of its GDP on healthcare, slightly above the average for advanced economies, although slightly less than Germany, France and the Netherlands. Indeed, an Institute for Fiscal Studies report published this month showed that despite record amounts of funding being poured into the NHS in recent years, its performance has actually deteriorated. The NHS currently has 8 per cent more nurses, 9 per cent more consultants and 15 per cent more junior doctors than pre-pandemic, yet is treating fewer patients than before. In the last month, it carried out 14 per cent fewer emergency admissions and 14 per cent fewer outpatient appointments than it did in the same month in 2019.” (link, paywalled)

We’re told that the Tories have had no idea how to ‘overhaul the service’. The fact that Labour has made this impossible with their incessant claim that the Tories are destroying the NHS isn’t mentioned, for obvious reasons. Therefore, I find it cute that the Times editors put their faith in Labour, claiming that ‘only the party that created the NHS can rescue it from its current malaise.’ (link, paywalled) – as if Starmer would bite the Unions’ hands which feed his coffers!

The above quote shows yet again that the MSM are derelict in their duty to do proper research by picking up the data and reports provided in yon HSJ. Yet again, we, the serfs working fro the Treasury, paying for the NSH and other services with our taxes, are left out of this political game using the NHS as playball between Labour and Tories, with the MSM as biased referee. 

Is it too much to ask that all the above spare a thought for us plebs who have and are experiencing the ‘malaise of the NHS’ which isn’t so current after all? It’s surely time to acknowledge that the Sacred Cow cannot be ‘saved’ by neither Labour nor Tories but ought to be put out of her misery. 

Whatever you do today – ‘Save the NHS’ and don’t dare to have fun!



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