NHS Wales: Better than you’ve been told

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A&E, accident, ambulance, Coalition, Conservative, Democrat, emergency, hospital, Labour, Lib Dem, Liberal, national, NHS, paramedic, privatise, Tories, Tory, Wales

This was not the actual ambulance involved in the case mentioned below. It is intended to be a representative picture of an ambulance. We mention this to head off anyone who wants to point out that it’s the wrong colour.

Readers of this blog will know that Vox Political is a staunch supporter of the National Health Service here in Wales which, under Welsh Labour, remains a nationalised system and still works better than the part-privatised Tory/Coalition patchwork on offer in England.

The site has good evidence of the choice available when dealing with surgery by appointment – but with criticisms focusing on emergency treatment, I have been frustrated by my inability to comment on this aspect of the service from first-hand experience.

Now I have first-hand experience.

Around 5pm today, a lady visiting Casa Vox had a fainting fit, directly in front of yr obdt srvt. Her speech slowed down, her arms and legs started to shake, and she folded up – concertina-like – and dropped to the floor (banging her head on a low cabinet – this was in the kitchen – because I wasn’t fast enough to catch her).

Attempts to revive her seemed to succeed partially, but then she passed out completely.

So Mrs Mike dialled 999 and asked for an ambulance.

What followed was enough to convince me of one fact:

Everything you have heard about NHS Wales, from Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, is wrong.

Even where they have singled out known problems, they are wrong because their solutions are wrong.

They haven’t experienced NHS Wales’ emergency teams in action; they are wrong.

The ambulance arrived within four minutes of the call.

Two paramedics installed themselves in the kitchen and interrogated Mrs Mike and Yrs Truly, while carrying out thorough tests on the unconscious lady.

When they decided they were happy to move her, they brought in a wheelchair and transferred her to their ambulance. Mrs Mike dealt with them after that but they were able to revive the poorly lady and she was able to stroll back in (with the aid of sticks) around 90 minutes after her attack.

This was not a case that required hospitalisation, although the paramedics had discussed it with us; they were considering three hospitals at one point and would have made the journey if necessary. In the end, it was not.

Instead, the paramedics were able to do everything that needed to be done at the scene, cutting out any extra strain on ambulance time and obviating pressure on A&E departments.

Yes, this was a minor case.

But it proved that this blog’s faith in NHS Wales is well-founded.

Yes, it is an extremely subjective viewpoint.

But if anybody wants to put forward a different view, all we have to do is ask:

What’s your experience?

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Patsy Burstow and the next great NHS betrayal

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119, Act, administrator, amendment, andy burnham, betray, budget, clause, close, closure, collusion, company, Conservative, consultation, Democrat, finance, government, health, Health Secretary, hospital, Initiative, Interest, Lib Dem, Liberal, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, national, neuter, NHS, patsy, paul burstow, PFI, politics, Powys County Council, private, public, sell-out, service, shadow, social care, special, Tories, Tory, trust, TSA, Vox Political

Patsy n A person regarded as open to victimisation or manipulation; a person upon whom the blame for something falls.

Burstow n A patsy.

It seems a familiar story: The Tories plan legislation that is clearly no good at all – in this case, a legal clause to allow the closure of successful hospitals to prop up failing NHS trusts (Clause 119 of the Care Bill). The Liberal Democrats object and threaten to rebel. The Tories then offer concessions to make it seem less likely that this will happen and the Lib Dems withdraw their objections.

All seems well until the new rules are put to the test. Coalition MPs voiced disquiet at the powers being granted to allow a trust special administrator (TSA) to force through changes at a neighbouring hospital if they consider it necessary to save one that is failing. This power is considered likely to be used to save hospitals run under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), which are therefore saddled with huge unnecessary interest bills on the money invested by private companies.

We are told there will be some form of public consultation. Great. Here in Mid Wales, Powys County Council consulted constituents on its plans to cut £20 million from its budget for 2014-15. After the answers came back, the council’s cabinet ignored every single word of the responses and pressed on with its plan. Changes were only brought in after the rest of the council made it clear that they weren’t putting up with those shenanigans.

So much for consultation.

The minute a hospital is closed to prop up the PFI place next door, the Tories will blame Patsy – sorry, Paul – Burstow. They’ll say he had a chance to do something about it but didn’t.

What makes it worse for him is that Labour weren’t going to put up with his shenanigans and forced a vote on his amendment – which would have completely neutered the offending clause. Burstow voted against it – that’s right, against his own amendment, helping the government to a narrow 47-vote victory.

So much for him.

One politician who does seem to have the good of our hospitals at heart is Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham. What did he have to say about all this, during the debate yesterday (March 11)?

“What we have seen … from the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), who positioned himself as though he was going to make a stand for local involvement in the NHS, is the worst kind of collusion and sell-out of our national health service.

“Just as the Liberal Democrats voted for the Health and Social Care Act, again they have backed … the break-up of the NHS.”

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Tony Benn seriously ill in hospital

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Tony Benn [Image: Daily Mirror]

Vox Political offers its sincerest best wishes to Tony Benn, who has spent a fourth night in hospital where he is understood to be seriously unwell.

Mr Benn was my constituency MP in Bristol during my formative years, and I used to hear a great deal about his beliefs and principles from politically-active members of my family who used to attend meetings with him.

This information greatly influenced my understanding of what politicians should be – especially during the time of Conservative ascendancy during the 1980s and 90s.

It is from him that I took the metaphor, often used on this blog, of politicians as either ‘signposts’ or ‘weathercocks’. A ‘signpost’ points clearly in the direction that person believes the nation should travel, while a ‘weathercock’ goes any way the prevailing (political) wind blows. Use that to examine your own MPs and see how they measure up!

I was lucky enough to meet him only two years ago, when he spoke at Theatr Brycheiniog in Brecon. The event was attended, not only by members of the general public, but by politicians of every hue, including prominent Conservatives. Clearly, Mr Benn enjoys cross-party respect.

He spoke clearly and wittily, and it was a privilege to enjoy the illumination of his insights. I hope that he will recover soon, so we can all continue to enjoy the benefits of his wisdom.

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Is Jeremy Hunt trying to fool us with the same con trick, all over again?

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Andrew Lansley, Care Bill, CCG, Clause 118, clinical commissioning group, close, closure, companies, company, competition, Conservative, consult, firm, government, GP, GP commissioning, health, Health and Social Care Act, Health Secretary, healthcare, hospital, Interest, Jeremy Hunt, Lewisham, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, National Health Service, NHS, patient, patient choice, people, PFI, politics, private, Private Finance Initiative, privatisation, privatise, public, sector, sick, solvent, South London Healthcare Trust, success, The Guardian, Tories, Tory, Vox Political

It seems that Jeremy Misprint Hunt is trying to pretend that his planned law making it easier to close good hospitals to prop up bad ones (and boost private health firms in the process) is happening because “Conservatives genuinely care about the NHS”.

Writing in The Guardian, he tells us that Clause 118 of the Care Bill currently on its way through Parliament – the so-called Hospital Closure Clause, “is necessary because we need the power to turn around failing hospitals quickly and – in extremis – put them into administration before people are harmed or die unnecessarily.

“The process has to happen quickly, because when a hospital is failing lives can be put at risk. That is why it matters so much – and why, in opposing it, Labour are voting to entrench the failures they failed to tackle.”

For information, Clause 118 was included in the Bill after Mr Hunt lost a legal battle to close services at the successful and financially solvent Lewisham Hospital in order to shore up the finances of the neighbouring South London Healthcare Trust, which was losing more than £1 million every week after commissioning new buildings under the Private Finance initiative.

The private firms that funded this work were apparently charging huge amounts of interest on it, meaning that SLHT would never be able to clear its debt.

PFI was introduced by the Conservative government of 1979-97 and, sadly, continued by the Labour government that followed it.

It seems likely that it will contribute to the absorption of many NHS trusts by the private sector, as the effects of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 take hold.

Clause 118 means the Health Secretary will be able to close successful local hospitals in England on the pretext of helping neighbouring trusts that are failing – without full and proper consultation with patients and the public, or even agreement from the (in name alone) GP-led Clinical Commissioning Groups.

The resulting, merged, organisation could then be handed over to private firms who bid to run the service at a price that is acceptable to the government.

So it seems that this is a plan to speed up the process of privatisation, rather than anything to do with caring about the NHS.

It seems to me that Mr Hunt is trying to lull the public into false security by claiming the NHS is safe, in exactly the same way his forerunner as Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, provided assurances before Parliament passed his nefarious Health and Social Care Act.

Mr Lansley said his law would increase the range of choice available to patients (it doesn’t; in fact, it increases the ability of service providers to choose which patients they treat, on the basis of cost rather than care); he said GPs would be able to commission the services they need for their patients (in practice, they don’t; the running of the new Clinical Commissioning Groups has been handed over primarily to private healthcare consultants, many of which are arms of private healthcare providers, creating a conflict of interest that is conspicuously never mentioned); and he said that CCGs would be able to choose who provides services on the basis of quality (they can’t; if they restrict any service to a single provider, they risk legal action from private healthcare firms on the grounds that they are breaching competition rules).

Mr Lansley lied about all those matters; it seems Mr Hunt is lying about this one.

Or am I mistaken?

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How much can YOU pay? A&E charges would speed NHS privatisation

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accident, CCG, charge, Chris Ham, clinical commissioning group, Department of Health, doctor, emergency, expensive, Freedom of Information, GP, health, healthcare, hospital, insurance, Kaiser Permanente, managed care, Managed Care Organisation, market, MCO, National Health Service, NHS, Personal Care Budget, private, privatisation, top-up, UK, undercut, USA

Health-CARE? It seems increasing number of GPs want the person on the stretcher to stump up a fiver or a tenner before the medical staff in the photograph can begin treatment. (Image: BBC – intentionally left fuzzy to preserve anonymity of those involved)

It is strange that more has not been made of the revelation that one-third of GPs apparently believe a £5 or £10 charge should be imposed on everybody turning up at hospital Accident and Emergency departments.

This seems to be a clear next step towards the marketisation of what used to be the National Health Service, disguised with a claim that it would “reduce frivolous use of the NHS and the growing pressure on emergency departments”.

It seems that a poll of more than 800 doctors found 32 per cent said “fees would be the most cost-effective way of cutting the number of people who go to A&E, who could have gone to their GP or a pharmacist instead or did not need medical attention at all”. Presumably they have already tried simply telling people what to do, then.

The story in The Guardian states that “specialists believe between 30 per cent and 40 per cent of all visits are unnecessary and that many patients could have sought help elsewhere because their illness was minor or not urgent”. That leaves 60-70 per cent of visitors paying extra for services their taxes have already funded!

According to the book NHS SOS (edited by Jacky Davis & Raymond Tallis; published by Oneworld), the plan is to convert the publicly-funded nationwide health service into one of “managed” care along the lines provided by Kaiser Permanente in the USA.

This is based on a flawed use of figures (p.39) so Kaiser is in fact far more expensive, but that didn’t stop then-Department of Health strategy director Chris Ham from defending the claims and allowing Kaiser to emerge as the model for NHS reform. This was seen as particularly useful for those with cash to invest in the company or other MCOs (Managed Care Organisations) as they reaped huge profits – until market saturation, government and employer schemes to keep health care costs down, and a series of scandals made the pendulum swing the other way. Then these companies started lowering patient benefits, increasing premium fees and withdrawing from unprofitable markets, and this is very similar to the current situation in England.

Finally, these firms began to expand internationally, to countries including the UK, where the NHS was seen as a hugely attractive business opportunity.

MCOs decide how services are organised and funded for their clients, through contracts with selected providers and rigorous control of hospital admissions. This seems uncannily close to the work of Clinical Commissioning Groups, which were set up under the pretext that they would allow GPs to control budgets, but in practice allow the money to be controlled by private firms that have been hired by overworked doctors – as was always intended by the Tory-led Coalition government.

Government regulations mean private companies must be allowed to bid to provide as many services as possible. Freedom of Information rules mean they can find out how the public service operates and then undercut its bid. Without funding, the public service will close, leaving the way clear for the private provider to pump up its prices – so they will eat up more and more of the limited NHS budget. But which services do they choose?

They choose those that are easiest and cheapest to provide – the services that provide the most opportunity to make a profit.

Accident & Emergency is not one of those services. It will remain with the public sector providers who are being “continuously cut and squeezed into downsizing, mergers, centralisation and closures”, reducing care to “short-staffed, overloaded, ‘centralised’ units”, covering “only those services that the private sector does not wish to provide” (ibid, p.18).

How can services like A&E continue, if the private operators are taking all the cash? The only answer, it seems, is to bring in health insurance. That is the plan, at least – and the proposed A&E charges seem intended to be a palatable way of opening that door to a public that would once have treated the very idea as anti-British and voted the government that proposed it out of office for a considerable period of time.

Next it seems likely that “top-up” insurance will be offered to people whose complex ongoing conditions qualify them for so-called Personal Care Budgets. The budget money will be limited, forcing patients (or rather, customers) to “top them up” with insurance.

Be very clear on this: You are not looking at the thin end of the wedge. The wedge has already been driven in and England is well on the way to having a privatised health service, with the NHS as nothing but a brand under which taxpayers’ money can be handed out to private firms that handle only the simplest procedures.

The intention, it seems clear, is to allow publicly-funded services to wither over a period of time, in order to soften you up – make you more receptive to the idea of paying for healthcare that once was free but may not even be available in the future if you don’t come up with some cash.

Are you going to sit there and wait for that to happen? Private health care, and health insurance, is far – far – more expensive than the NHS, which was the most cost-effective and efficient health provider in the world until the Tory-led Coalition got hold of it. Don’t believe the propaganda – the service had record satisfaction levels in 2010.

You can still stop the rot. To find out how you can work to reverse the damage being done to the most cherished organisation in the UK, visit www.keepournhspublic.com and www.nhscampaign.org.uk

If you’re living in Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland, don’t think that devolution of healthcare will save you because it won’t. Budgets are already under pressure from Westminster and the Tories will do whatever they can to force regional governments into the same, or similar, patterns.

One of life’s certainties is that you will become ill at some point. Don’t wait until that happens, because it will be too late.

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Schools and hospitals: Your government can’t be bothered

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Brian Jarman, Bruce, Coalition, Conservative, corporate, death, Department of Health, Direct Democracy, Downing Street, government, health, Health Secretary, hospital, inspect, Jeremy Hunt, John Beddoes, Keogh, Labour, Leighton Andrews, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, National Health Service, NHS, people, politics, Powys, scandal, school, self interest, sick, special measures, Stafford Hospital, Vox Political, Welsh. Education Minister

The modern answer to any problem: If your school or hospital is under-performing, don’t try to solve its problems – close it.

Late last year, a high school here in Powys was tested by inspectors and found so seriously lacking that it was placed in ‘special measures’.

(You’ll be familiar with the term, dear reader, because Jeremy Hunt, the bad-for-your-Health Secretary, has now placed several hospitals in the same category. We’ll get to them soon.)

Leighton Andrews AM, who was Welsh Education Minister at the time, wrote to Powys County Council on January 7 this year, stating that he would be minded to use his ministerial powers to close John Beddoes School, which is nearly 500 years old, if the local education authority failed to demonstrate improvement by the end of the summer term.

The Council’s cabinet immediately decided to ignore any calls for improvement and instead devised three alternative plans for closure. These were outlined in a letter to the Minister on January 30.

The authority then embarked on a formal public consultation which returned an overwhelming result in favour of retaining the school but sorting out its problems – as had been done 10 years previously at the high school in Newtown, around 20 miles away.

But the council’s cabinet chose to add insult to injury, not only by going ahead with its closure plan (so much for local democracy) but also by planning to re-open the school as a second campus of Newtown High, the school that had received remedial treatment in the past and is now one of the highest-performing in Wales.

Meanwhile, in England, all 161 hospital trusts are to be inspected under a new “more robust” regime, in the wake of hysteria stirred up by Downing Street and the right-wing media about failings at 11 hospital trusts. The trusts had been investigated after the so-called Stafford Hospital scandal, as they had the highest death rates between 2010-12. The public inquiry into Stafford concluded that the public had been betrayed by a system that put “corporate self-interest” ahead of patients.

The headlines claimed 13,000 people died needlessly in 14 dangerous hospitals. Polly Toynbee in The Guardian rightly pointed out that this was nonsense: “The Tory ambush was pre-planned by Downing Street as well-primed MPs used a report by Sir Bruce Keogh, the NHS medical director, to turn Labour’s good NHS record into a liability. Labour’s outrage was not synthetic, but indignation within the NHS was even fiercer at seeing the progress of the last decade trashed. The attack was not just on Labour, but on the viability and the future of the NHS itself.

“Where did that 13,000 come from? Not from Keogh’s meticulous report. With an innocent face, the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, protested: ‘I don’t know how that number was put out there.’ It came from No 10 briefers, and was quickly refuted by Keogh, who called it ‘clinically meaningless and academically reckless’. It was also promoted by Professor Sir Brian Jarman, author of the Dr Foster hospital guide.”

Why did the Conservatives put out the misinformation?

Readers of this blog may be forgiven for thinking it’s just another in a long line of goofs by a government that can’t get its facts right.

In fact, it’s part of the ongoing war on the National Health Service, intended to soften up public feeling and smooth the way for ever-greater privatisation.

…because we all know that privatisation works so well and is so much cheaper, don’t we (British Rail)?

There is a link between all three issues. Yes, that’s right, three – not two.

In each case, the public wanted an improved service. The onus was on the appropriate authority to get involved in the situation, find out what was going wrong, and fix it.

But Powys Council’s cabinet couldn’t be bothered – and decided to close a school instead. Closing a school wipes the slate clean and means that the council won’t be seen to have poor-performing education institutions on its books.

The NHS organisations in charge of the 11 failing hospital trusts couldn’t be bothered either – and, according to investigators, chose to cover up the failings in their systems, rather than correct them.

And the Conservative-led Coalition government certainly can’t be bothered. David Cameron and his cronies are busily selling off our greatest national asset, piecemeal, to their big business friends who intend to wring every penny of profit they can make out of it. Do you really think that health care in the UK will improve under such a corrupt regime?

This blog has roundly criticised Mr Hunt for his co-authorship of a book that criticised the NHS, before the Coalition government came to office.

In Direct Democracy, published in 2005, he told readers that the health service was old-fashioned and out of touch: “It was, and remains, a child of its time.”

Now, as local and national government neglect links up with institutionalised ass-covering to bring more and more public services to their knees, the public might well be left wondering why nobody responsible for them feels the need to put them right.

Apparently, that’s an old-fashioned notion, too.

(The first Vox Political collection, Strong Words and Hard Times, is now available and may be ordered from this website)

So you thought the battle for the NHS was over, did you?

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backdoor, BT, CCG, clinical commissioning group, Coalition, competition, Conservative, electricity, funding, gas, government, health, Health and Social Care Act 2012, hospital, Liberal, Liberal Democrat, Lord Hunt, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, National Health Service, NHS, Parliament, people, politics, privatisation, regulation, section 75, sick, Tories, Tory, Vox Political, water

If you’ve been following the mainstream news media, that’s probably forgiveable.

The fact is that the House of Lords will be debating – today – a so-called ‘fatal’ motion to annul the new section 75 NHS privatisation regulations, on the grounds that they do not allow clinical commissioning groups to employ service providers in the best interests of patients.

The strict wording of the motion is as follows: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath will move the humble address to the Queen, praying that “the National Health Service (Procurement, Patient Choice and Competition) (No. 2) Regulations 2013, laid before the House on March 11, be annulled on the grounds that they do not implement the assurances given by Ministers to Parliament during the passage of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 that NHS commissioners would be free to commission services in the way they consider in the best interests of NHS patients (SI 2013/500).”

These are the regulations that were withdrawn and rewritten very hastily, after a storm of protest over backdoor privatisation of NHS services last month. Now they are back before Parliamentarians again – and the prognosis is not healthy.

Even after the criticism that led to the re-drafting, the regulations require all NHS services to be put out to competition unless the commissioners can prove there is only one provider capable of delivering them. Such decisions could expose CCGs to costly legal challenges.

It means commissioners will be forced to open up – to private sector competition – any part of the NHS that companies think will be profitable, with very few exceptions.

This means funding could be drained from NHS hospitals as services are relocated elsewhere, and local health decision-makers will be able to do little or nothing to protect them from this starvation of funds.

Now, dear reader, you might be sitting at your computer wondering what all the fuss is about. If private providers get the contracts, it will be because they can provide a superior service at lower cost, right? That’s what this is all about, right?

Wrong.

Have you ever known costs to go down after a publicly-owned organisation was privatised? Is your gas bill lower now than it was in the 1980s? How about your electricity bill? Water? If you’re still with BT for telecommunications, is that bill lower than before privatisation in the 1980s?

Even adjusting for inflation, that seems unlikely.

No, the reason NHS services (in England only, of course, as health is a devolved issue) are being offered up to tender is to make fat profits for the greedy bosses of private healthcare companies, who have made themselves very close to leading members of the Conservative Party. Over the last few years, many questions have been asked about these connections – how much have these companies contributed to the Conservative Party over the last few years? How many Conservative MPs are likely to receive financial benefits from this outsourcing of funds?

If you have a Conservative MP, a Freedom of Information request about their own interests might be illuminating in this regard.

Think about the long-term effects. If an NHS hospital is starved of cash, this means it will be hard-pressed to provide whatever services remain with it – and these are likely to be the more costly and high-pressure accident and emergency-type services. These pressures could lead to more mistakes of the kind that have been filling up media headlines recently, and in any case the financial losses could eventually cause NHS hospitals to close – or be taken over by a private company.

What then? The only choice for people living nearby will be to go private, and pay for the health service that was previously free.

If you live in England, is that really what you want? To end up forced to pay – at great cost – for services that are currently free to everybody?

You’d better hope the Lords see sense this afternoon and send the government back to think, yet again.

Lunatics in charge of the asylum – the only way the Bedroom Tax makes sense

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accommodation, association, bedroom tax, benefit, benefits, care in the community, charge, Coalition, Conservative, council, Democrat, Department for Work and Pensions, disability, Disability Living Allowance, disabled, DLA, DWP, government, Government of Millionaires, health, hospital, housing, landlord, Lib Dem, Liberal, Margaret Thatcher, mental, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, patient, people, politics, private, rent, single parent, social, Tories, Tory, underoccupation, Vox Political

We are living through a time when it is very popular to criticise government – of all colours and political persuasions – for failing to live up to its promises. This is very unfair.

Seriously, it is!

So let us pause for a moment and give the praise that is due to a policy of the Thatcher era that may in fact be celebrating its 30th anniversary this year: Care in the Community.

At the time, this policy of emptying out mental hospitals, putting their patients on the streets to fend for themselves in the hope that there would be an increase in local care, was pilloried by all and sundry as an abandonment of the nation’s duty of care.

It certainly seemed a dangerous move at the time – especially for schoolchildren who had to navigate city streets that were suddenly filled with ill-dressed and dirty men and women with a predilection for shouting foul oaths at the empty air ahead of them, presumably in the belief that it was a person.

But hindsight is a wonderful thing, and it seems that, not only did these ladies and gentlemen in fact benefit from care in the community, some of them responded so well that they were able to return to normal working life, join political parties and become members of the Coalition government.

This is the only workable explanation for the State Underoccupation Charge, or Bedroom Tax, as it is more correctly known.

The only way it can make sense to anybody is if they have a mentality that is seriously skewed.

The problem, according to the government, is that huge numbers of people are either on the waiting list to get into some form of social housing (council or housing association accommodation), and huge numbers already in such accommodation are overcrowded. This, it is alleged, is because too many people are sitting in homes that are larger than they need.

The solution that has been put forward is to find a way to make these “under-occupiers” vacate their homes and go and live in spaces that are more appropriate to their needs.

The government has decided that the correct way to do this is to apply the stick, rather than the carrot, and deprive people in social housing of set amounts of benefit for every room that is deemed to be more than they need. The definition of such rooms is arbitrary and it is understood that dining rooms are being defined as bedrooms in order to “encourage” people to move out.

Worse than this is the fact that the people who are likely to be dispossessed of their homes actually have nowhere to move to.

One would imagine that a government wanting people in social housing to move to more appropriate accommodation would take the precaution of ensuring that such accommodation was available, in the form of one- or two-bedroom social housing provision, before “encouraging” anybody to move anywhere. This has not happened.

Instead, people are expected to move into privately-rented accommodation, which is known to be both more expensive and less suitable for their needs.

This is madness – and that is why we should consider those who have devised the scheme to have been mentally ill at some previous point in their lives, if not at the present time.

There is, however, a rational explanation for the Bedroom Tax. But it cannot take the official line as its raison d’etre.

No; the reason for the Bedroom Tax is that the Government of Millionaires believes that people in social housing – people who are, by the government’s own definition, among the poorest in the UK – have too much money.

Ministers want these people to be drained of their cash. How to achieve this? Charge them for “extra” bedrooms, or make sure they move into private sector accommodation where they will receive no more Housing Benefit but will have to pay more in rent.

This is a plan for the impoverishment of the very poor.

That is the only sensible explanation of the government’s intransigence in the face of the avalanche of news stories about those who will be disadvantaged by it, including today’s in The Guardian, which states that 150,000 single parents will become poorer as a result of the Bedroom Tax.

And while people on Disability Living Allowance may receive part of a £30 million fund, targeted towards those who have modified their homes, the amount available is £100 million short of what is needed.

The Department for Work and Pensions press office, again called into bat because government ministers are a gang of craven cowards who won’t face up to their shortcomings, said: “We need to ensure a better use of social housing when over a quarter of a million tenants are living in overcrowded homes and two million are on housing waiting lists.”

When the choice is between impoverishment at the hands of the state or impoverishment at the hands of a private landlord (in other words, no choice at all), those words are revealed as what they are.

Empty.

Coming soon: criminal sentences for the long-term unemployed?

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Andrew Marr, BBC, benefit, benefits, Britannia Unchained, Coalition, community service, Conservative, criminal, Daily Telegraph, David Cameron, Department for Work and Pensions, disabled, executed, execution, Free Enterprise Group, government, Henry VIII, hospital, Jobseeker's Allowance, judge, magistrate, Middle Ages, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, NHS, Parliament, people, politics, prison, school, sick, Tories, Tory, unemployment, vagrancy, vagrant, Vox Political, welfare

Jobless criminal: Proposals by the Tory Free Enterprise group would put the clock back to the 16th century, when joblessness was a criminal offence.

According to the Telegraph, that outstanding group of backwards-thinking Tories, the Free Enterprise group, has come up with a new way of turning back time to the Middle Ages.

The group, some of whose luminaries were responsible for the stain on literature known as Britannia Unchained, believe those out of work for more than a year should have their benefits docked by 20 per cent.

Anyone unemployed for more than six months should do 30 hours’ community service and lose 10 per cent of their benefits, they reckon.

Britannia Unchained, you will recall, wrongly suggests that workers in the UK are among the laziest in the world.

Magistrates regularly dish out community service orders to people who have been convicted of criminal offences that may be punishable by imprisonment. These orders are for work totalling not less than 40 hours. I suppose the Free Enterprise zealots think they have cleverly avoided comparisons by limiting their suggestion to 30 hours, but if a person is unemployed for more than a year, under their proposal, they would have to do 60 hours’ unpaid work in the community – well within the amount for criminal offences.

Taking away 20 per cent of a person’s income has never been within a magistrate’s – or a judge’s – powers as fines have always been specific amounts. I would imagine that a judge would consider such a sentence to be an overly cruel and unusual punishment.

The whole proposal is reminiscent of the days – perhaps the Free Enterprisers consider them ‘good old days’ – when unemployment was considered a crime, along with vagrancy. Perhaps we should be happy they don’t want to reintroduce the death penalty for it!

That is exactly what unemployment used to attract. From 1536, the law allowed vagabonds and the jobless to be whipped and hanged. In 1547, a bill was passed that subjected vagrants to some of the more extreme provisions of the criminal law, namely two years servitude and branding with a “V” as the penalty for the first offense and death for the second. During the reign of Henry VIII, as many as 72,000 people are estimated to have been executed.

He was on the throne for a fair amount of time, so he’d probably be impressed by the death toll already racked up by this government among the sick and disabled.

Chris Skidmore, Conservative MP for Kingswood, who part-wrote the report, tried to make it look respectable by saying, “Now is the time for the Conservative party to be brave. We need bold thinking and ideas that reflect the fact that we are the party that believes people should have the freedom to make the decisions about the things that affect them.”

Which people? Not unemployed people, I take it. People like you, Chris?

We know the welfare budget is going to be hit again by the Coalition government – these idiots simply don’t have any other ideas. Comedy Prime Minister David Cameron told Andrew Marr his party would “level” with the public about the need for another £16 billion of spending cuts in 2015-16.

“We have to find these spending reductions and if we want to avoid cuts in things like hospitals and schools, services that we all rely on, we have to look at things like the welfare budget,” he said.

So the Free Enterprise group’s foolishness might soon become government policy.

And don’t be fooled by Cameron’s comments about hospitals and schools. When he says these are services “we all rely on”, he means that he and his cronies are relying on turning them into cash cows from which they can all profit. The hospitals are already being sold off piecemeal to private firms that Tory ministers partly own.