The fiction of NHS inefficiency

Yesterday I saw someone ranting beneath one of my Facebook posts about how they consider the NHS to be "broken", and how it has "been that way for decades".

With the drip, drip, drip of anti-NHS stories in the right-wing press it's easy to see how people might have become convinced that the NHS is a catastrophically inefficient mess, but the evidence actually says that it is not.

Efficiency

There is a mountain of evidence to show that the NHS is still (somehow) one of the most efficient health care systems in the world (despite years of Tory mismanagement and Andrew Lansley's catastrophic reforms that even top Tories admit to being "unintelligible gobeldygook"), and it's still vastly more efficient than the private sector dominated US health system.

According to the 2014 Commonwealth Fund study the NHS ranked as number one in almost every category in comparison to the heath systems of ten other developed nations (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the US).

Meanwhile the 2013 World Bank figures reveal that the UK spent significantly less per head of population on health care provision ($3,598) than all ten of the other countries in the Commonwealth Fund analysis (New Zealand $4,063, France $4,804, Germany $5,006, Sweden $5,680, Canada $5,718, Australia $6,110, US $9,146, Switzerland $9,276, Norway $9,715).

How is it possible that the NHS could have been ranked as one of the best services in the developed world and also as one of the cheapest too, yet be the "catastrophically inefficient failing monstrosity" that certain right-wing elements would like you to believe that it is?

Isn't the fact that the NHS is ranked as both better and cheaper than the health services in so many other developed nations an indicator that it's actually incredibly efficient by global standards?

The NHS is ours

The NHS is ours. It's ours because we have paid for it through our taxes. 

The NHS was founded in 1948 and inspired socialised heath care systems across the social democratic countries of the world, the introduction of the NHS coincided with a massive upsurge in the health of the nation, and the NHS is still demonstrably one of the most efficient health care systems on the planet too.

Of course the NHS isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination because no large organisation ever can be, but it's still one of the most important jewels in our national crown that is being prised out and sold off by the Tory government as part of the greatest fire-sale of public assets ever (that they're currently conducting), a fire-sale so vast that it eclipses Margaret Thathcer's rate of sell-offs during the 1980s.

Propaganda

Remember when Rupert Murdoch's minions used the contamination of baby drips at a private sector supplier to lambaste the NHS as baby poisoners? Remember when Jonathan Harmsworth's minions at the Daily Mail used the accidental mailing of cancer scare letters by an outsourced, privately operated automated letter sending outfit to slam the NHS?

It's amazing really that despite the drip, drip, drip of "NHS = Bad" propaganda that gets pumped out by the right-wing media, such an overwhelming majority of people still believe that the NHS should be preserved as a not-for-profit public service dedicated to providing health services that are free at the point of need. According to a YouGov poll in 2013 the ratio was 84% in favour of NHS preservation and just 7% in favour of the Tory policy of carving the NHS up for privatisation.

It is clear that the Tories have no public mandate to tear apart the NHS and distribute the pieces to private sector interests (many of which have donated directly to Tory party coffers) but they're busy doing it anyway.

A top Tory has even admitted that the ideal way to ensure that the NHS is privatised and stopped from providing universal coverage is by creating a public impression that it is in chaos. 

In this sense the de-funding of the NHS, the closure of hospitals and withdrawal of services despite furious local opposition, and the setting up of ideological battles with vital NHS staff (like the junior doctors for example) would seem to be ideal tactics to manufacture the crisis conditions wanted in order to justify ever more ideological attacks on the NHS.

There have always been elements within the Tory party who have hated the concept of socialised health care with a burning ideological passion. In their view the NHS is an abomination; an impediment to their fantasy free-trade utopia, so it simply has to be done away with. It astounds me that anyone could seriously believe the Tories to be responsible custodians of a socialised health care system.

The sad thing is though that some people have allowed their opinions to be poisoned by the drip, drip, drip of misinformation from hacks employed by the likes of Rupert Murdoch and Jonathan Harmsworth. Some people allow themselves to believe that the NHS is catastrophically inefficient and desperately in need of reform, and that large scale privatisation is the solution, when in reality it so clearly is not catastrophically inefficient nor in need of further privatisation into the hands of private health interests, many of which have contributed directly to Tory party coffers.

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Godfrey Bloom: intemperate language, political non-apologies and outright lies.

In July 2013 the UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom made a number of statements about the UK foreign aid budget that illustrate what a borderline racist party UKIP actually is.

He told an approving crowd of UKIP supporters in the West Midlands that Britain should stop sending aid to "Bongo Bongo Land" and that most of the UK foreign aid budget is spent on ""to buy Ray-Ban sunglasses, apartments in Paris and Ferraris".

It took several weeks for the fuss to reach the national press, when they picked up on a radio interview where he tried to defend the use of the phrase "Bongo Bongo Land". Within hours of the mainstream press furore Nigel Farage condemned Bloom's use of the phrase "Bongo Bongo Land" and instructed him to pen a public apology. It is worth noting that Farage's only criticism of Bloom, was for his "wrong language", which was quantified with a statement of 100% support for Bloom's assertions about the UK foreign aid budget, here's exactly what he said:

"Godfrey 100% right over foreign aid budget but pleased he's apologised over the wrong language he used."

Thus it seems that Nigel Farage agrees 100% with the ridiculous false assertion that most of the UK foreign aid budget is spent on luxury items, sports cars and apartments in Paris. There's not really any other way of interpreting 100% support is there?

Alongside the statement of support for Bloom's ridiculous comments about Ray-Bans and apartments in Paris, Farage included a link to Bloom's public apology, which is yet another example of the political non-apology where the politician apologises for any "offense that might have been caused", rather than apologising for having made the statement in the first place. Bloom also tries the ridiculous defence that he didn't think that referring to poor countries as "Bongo Bongo Land" could be seen as offensive. If it is true that he didn't realise that "Bongo Bongo Land" could be deemed offensive, this just goes to illustrate the insular mindset of the UKIP community, where barely concealed racism is not considered offensive by anybody.

For me, the most important element of Bloom's abject so-called apology is a bit of rabble-rousing rhetoric in the penultimate paragraph, where he makes the unsubstantiated assertion that UK foreign aid has been used by the Argentine government to buy Mirage fighter jets. This is a grotesque misrepresentation at best, and an outright lie at worst. Here's what he said:

"My aim, successful as it appears, was to demonstrate the immorality of sending [money abroad], some to buy arms - Mirage fighters in Argentina is just one example."

After a bit of research, I found that according to the Daily Express (which may pass as a reliable source in UKIP circles, but not here) the total UK contribution to Argentine between 2007 and 2013 is supposedly to £27 million . £7 million from a contribution to a joint EU fund, and £20 million in the form of a World Bank loan. I found absolutely no evidence (reliable or otherwise) to justify an assertion that any of this cash had been spent of Mirage fighter jets.

It is absolutely clear where the £7 million contribution to the €50 million EU Development and Cooperation Fund is allocated (source).

• Education to increase social inclusion and vocational training capacity (32.9%)
• Economic competitiveness for small businesses (35%)
• Strengthening EU-Argentina relations (32.1%)

If Godfrey Bloom has evidence that any of this EU money was spent on Mirage fighter jets instead, I'd like to see it because it would be a massive fraud. If it is the case that Mr Bloom has evidence that Argentina used EU social development funds to purchase military hardware, it is somewhat surprising that it hasn't been widely publicised by UKIP, given their ideological opposition to the EU.

It is a bit of a stretch to even consider the £20 million contribution to the $450 million World Bank loan to Argentina as foreign aid, given that it takes the form of a repayable loan, so it should be considered foreign investment rather than foreign aid. However, for the sake of clarity I'll explain what that loan is too.

The World Bank loan to Argentina is "to support the Government of Argentina’s strategy towards increasing rural productivity in the regional economies of the country (areas outside of the Pampas) and supporting the development of a knowledge economy". All funds provided through this loan facility are also clearly allocated (source):

• $300 million will support investments in public infrastructure and services in rural areas, as well as complementary on-farm and off-farm private investments, in the Regional Economies. All investments will be aligned with the Provincial Agricultural Development Strategies.
• $150 million supports the expansion of Argentina’s capacity to generate productive innovation in knowledge-based areas by creating highly skilled human capital; facilitating the creation of new knowledge-based companies; fostering private–public collaborations in the priority areas of information and communication technologies (ICT), nanotechnology and biotechnology; upgrading research-infrastructure; and strengthening the system’s overall policy framework.

Again if Mr Bloom has any evidence that these World Bank loan funds have been spent on Mirage fighters, rather than on rural development and the development of the Argentine "knowledge economy", perhaps it would be good of him to hand his evidence over to the World Bank?

There is one further point that some drooling UKIP reactionary may try to raise, that this £7 million in clearly allocated foreign aid and £20 million in clearly allocated foreign investment could allow the Argentine government to spend some extra money on acquiring Mirage fighters. Lets have a little think about how many Mirage fighters one could buy with £27 million. It turns out that it is actually impossible to buy a new Mirage fighter, since the aircraft went out of production in 2006.

It seems that Bloom is referring to the purchase by Argentina of 20 second hand Mirage fighters from the Spanish Airforce. These fighter were built in the mid 1980s and are badly outdated, hence the Spanish government getting rid of them. Even if the entire £27 million in aid and loans was diverted to this fighter plane purchase (which it clearly wasn't), it would only have funded the transfer of 3 of these outdated jets.

Bloom provides no source at all to justify his assertion that EU and World Bank funds have been misappropriated in this way, and it seems that the subject of Argentine fighters was only raised in a pathetic effort to get narrow minded reactionaries on his side by invoking the "Argentine bogeyman".

I believe that filling out what is purportedly a public apology for offensive language with a pack of lies (or unsubstantiated assertions at absolute best) is hardly a good strategy. Lying to the electorate is contemptible enough, but doing it in a public apology must be some kind of all-time low.

There are a number of issues about the way UK foreign aid is allocated (especially the fact that George Osborne has opened a new tax loophole to allow British based companies to avoid tax on their profits from countries that receive UK foreign aid). Far too much UK foreign aid ends up in corporate hands, and not enough in the hands of the genuinely needy. Nigel Farage's 100% endorsement of Bloom's ridiculous comments and outright lies does absolutely nothing to enhance the debate over the way foreign aid is spent, it simply clarifies the fact that Farage endorses the misleading rhetoric and lies spouted by one of his senior UKIP colleagues.

Whether or not you find Bloom's intemperate language offensive, the essential point to I would like you to take from this post is that the telling of lies about the foreign aid budget clouds the water and makes having a rational debate on foreign aid spending that much more difficult. It is clear that Bloom and Farage don't want to have a rational debate about the way foreign aid is spent as they claim, they simply want to whip up a frenzy of xenophobia with a pack of lies.

The liar is the enemy of honest and objective debate.
 

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The neoliberal ascendancy

It is obviously impossible to fully explain the rise of the neoliberal economic orthodoxy in a single flow diagram. I admit that I have simplified the situation somewhat in order to make the diagram fairly concise and accessible, but I believe that what the flow diagram demonstrates is still an essentially accurate portrayal of the neoliberal ascendancy.

Here are a few links to provide further details and supporting evidence.

What is neoliberalism?
A basic definition of neoliberalism.

What is a justification narrative?
Describes the propaganda technique of presenting simplistic justification narratives for distribution by the mainstream media.

The Great Neoliberal Lie
Description of the Great Neoliberal Lie; (which is that the global economic crisis was caused by excessive government spending rather than reckless gambling in the dangerously deregulated financial industry).

The golden hammer of neoliberalism
Describes the fallacious reasoning that allows orthodox neoliberals to present neoliberalism as the cure to a crisis caused by neoliberalisation.

More riches for the rich, recession for the rest
Evidence from the UK economy that under "austerity" the majority are getting poorer whilst the economic establishment are continuing to get significantly wealthier.

Eurozone austerity: Neoliberalism rebranded 
Article examining how "austerity measures" in Eurozone countries like Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland bear striking similarities to orthodox neoliberalism.


For anyone that would like to read even more about the rise of neoliberal economics I would recommend these books:

Ha-Joon Chang - "Bad Samaritans"
Naomi Klein - "The Shock Doctrine"
Charles Ferguson - "Inside Job"