Andrew Lansley, the Conservative Health Minister, has blown the trumpet call for the privatization of the National Health Service. Using the fear that has been well-stoked by the ConDem government, a major attack on the principles of free health care in the UK has been announced. Without an ounce of shame, Lansley declared a complete dismissal of the promises made by both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats during the general election campaign. In other words, no-one voted for this but the government wishes to do it anyway.

After 13 years of New Labour changes in the NHS, including creeping privatization, the very last thing needed was a new re-organization. Lansley has confirmed that General Practitioner (GP) practices will be expected to take on planning and commissioning of health care over the next four years, thus removing the role of Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) in planning.

Dr Kay Phillips, a practicing GP and National Chair of the Respect Party, was not impressed by the changes. ‘GPs are trained in clinical diagnosis not financial planning or management. Most GPs do not want to be finance managers; they just want to be left to treat patients. This re-organization will put GPs at the forefront of making cuts and bringing in private companies.

‘We have suffered 13 years of Labour government meddling in the NHS that has led to partial privatization and cost huge amounts of money. Now, the ConDems want to drive this ideological attack on the NHS further. The basic fact is that they hate the idea of a state run, free health service at the point of use. Drug companies see big profits from breaking up the NHS and the ConDems do their bidding.’

The plans amount to an invitation to privatization by making GPs form companies and tender out NHS services. With the break-up of a national service, the pensions and national pay bargaining of NHS staff will be destroyed.

An illustration of the cost of bringing the private sector to healthcare is that Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs) has saddled the British people with £200 billion of debt in the form of repayments to private contractors, according to the Office of National Statistics. Another is the recent revelation that £26 million was handed to a private company by Greater Manchester PCTs for operations that were not performed. This occurred because of a contract for 9,000 operations between 2005 and 2009.

Naturally, Andrew Lansley has huge experience of the lives of the poorest in our society for whom free health care is essential. He went to a private school, Brentwood, and worked as a senior civil servant for Norman Tebbit. His qualifications for dealing with health include his claims that obesity will be increased by seeing obese people and stating in 2008 the recession would be good as more people would spend time with their families. What a shame he has not taken his own advice.

The Respect Party believes this is a completely unnecessary attack motivated by free market fundamentalism in the government. We welcome the declared opposition of the major trade unions in the NHS, UNITE and UNISON. These unworkable and destructive plans can and must be stopped.

Are we all in the same boat together? Gideon Osborne, our aristocratic Tory Chancellor, insists that the level of ‘public debt’ means we all have to tighten our belts and make hard choices. He fails to mention that a very small group on British society created this huge debt with banking speculation. He also ignores the twenty year period of continuous tax cuts and evasion for the richest that explain so much of the debt.

While the majority has faced wage freezes and job losses since 2008, there is one group of wage militants who have seen their income rise dramatically. UK top executives receive an average of £3.1 million per year as a salary, according to figures released today. This represents a 5% wage rise since 2008. This seems obscene enough in a period of mass unemployment created by the very executives paying themselves such huge amounts.

However, the bosses have moved towards annual bonuses to supplement their meager income. These bonuses will reach up to 300% of annual salary and, even in smaller companies, will get to 100%. Of course, we all understand bonuses that relate to company performance or ‘performance related pay’ which companies tried to introduce across British industry. This is not what executives mean by it.

Cliff Weight, director of MM&K (one of those leading the study), explained that ‘many performance-related pay schemes appear designed to satisfy the Chief Executive Officer and in fact offer little incentive for anything above just 'adequate' performance’. In other words, the bonuses are almost inevitable for these executives but just do not appear as salary for tax purposes.

Most of us never experience such wealth in a lifetime yet alone a year. Why has there been no freeze for chief executives? Why are they not paying back the money lost in the recession or taken from the public finances?

The public schoolboy government of the ConDems is not about necessary cuts or hard choices. It is starting an austerity programme designed to break the modern notion of the welfare state. This attempt to shrink the public finances is about abandoning the safety net to the poorest caught in the recession. It is about refusing to accept responsibility for the lost jobs and refusing help to those without the right home or enough money to look after their families. It is about ending the very limited wealth redistribution in taxation and benefits.

This government intends to change the role of the state away from helping the poorest and relieving the tax burden on their rich friends, in whose name they govern. By the way, did you know that David Cameron is a direct royal descendant of King William IV? So, another aristocrat who hides it and another pretending to promote fairness in society from a position of privilege and without hard choices as we know them.

Workers at Pilkington Ceramic Tiles in Swinton, Salford, have voted to hold a demonstration at the factory on Monday 28 June 2010 at 9am. The firm went into administration last week after existing since 1892 and announced new investment at the factory of £500,000 only last year. This was to develop new production lines and manufacturing equipment.

Instead, the directors have opted to throw the workforce to the lions. KPMG, the administrator, has decided to lay off 204 staff out of the 343 employed at the factory. It wants to sell the company to the highest bidder or let it be stripped of its profitable parts. Not one worker will receive redundancy payments even though families work at the plant and some have given forty years of service.
Salford is already under severe pressure with large scale job cuts threatened at the council. Labour’s thirteen years of government has not saved one of these jobs. Instead, Labour introduced the very loophole that allows the administrator to lay off staff without even a handshake. This is a disgrace and a shameful episode.

KPMG, the administrator, will demand fees and salaries for its staff that conduct the break-up of Pilkington Tiles. Last week, it was reported that KPMG had clocked up £8.6 million in fees when appointed to take over running Aero Inventory UK, an airline parts manufacturer. It became administrator in November 2009 and has offered those owed money 1.1p for every £1 owed while clocking up its own fees. In 2008, it was administrator of Courts furniture stores and was forced to defend its fees in court after charging over £23 million in three years. This included partners charging £600 per hour and even work experience staff at £17 per hour.

This is the world of the market economy magnified large for us, a world where the rich will walk away richer while discarding the poor without even a job to show for their commitment. The growing crisis of job losses and unemployment in Britain is mirrored by the growing wealth and profit at the top of society.

The Respect Party fully supports the Pilkington Ceramic Tiles workers who have voted to demonstrate. A minority are members of a trade union, UNITE, and we urge the rest to join the union immediately. We are faced with a situation in which there is no alternative but to campaign to save jobs. Resistance is all that we can do to hold our lives together and give our families and children a chance of some future. Respect offers its support, urges people to attend the demonstration and show support and will actively campaign with the workforce to build support for saving these jobs in every area.

The ConDem government claims to be ‘progressive’. It is nothing of the kind. Led by no less than three public school boys in Cameron, Clegg and Osborne, this is rule by bankers and the rich in the interests of bankers and the rich. Gideon Osborne, the 18th baronet of Ballentaylor (old Anglo-Irish aristocracy), has unveiled an ‘emergency budget’ that strangles the poor while delivering handouts to the rich.

Sympathetic
This budget is sprinkled with minor measures that seem to help the poorest. State pensions are to be linked to earnings or rise by 2.5%. This is welcome but goes nowhere near addressing the poverty that pensioners are in after more than 20 years of pensions getting smaller. Those earning under £7,475 per year will now be exempt from income tax.

The only way that these can be considered ‘progressive’ is by reference to the appalling record of New Labour in tackling poverty while in government.

"The massacre on the Mavi Marmara must be a turning point. Passengers from 32 countries were murderously attacked by the israeli forces.

"This is the Sharpeville and the Soweto of the movement for Palestinian solidarity.

"People of those countries around the world must now tell their governments that we are not prepared to continue to allow Israel to flout international law. The inhuman siege of Gaza must end now!

"The Israeli government has used terror for political ends. But we are not afraid.

"We who survived the Mavi Marmara massacre will redouble our efforts to bring humanitarian assistance to the people of Palestine and end this siege!"

Kevin Ovenden was on board the Gaza flotilla ship Mavi Mamara during the Israeli assault. He has organised three aid convoys to Gaza with Viva Palestina and is  a member of the Respect Party's National Council. Kevin confirms that he, Nicola Enchmarch and Nader Daher are all safe and well.

The Respect Party is calling on the British government to act urgently to secure the release of 28 British nationals who are confirmed missing after the Israeli assault on the Gaza aid flotilla. These were members and supporters of Viva Palestina, the Free Gaza movement and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. So far, the Foreign Office has failed to reply to urgent requests for information regarding the fate of these heroic volunteers.

All were aboard ships taking 10,000 tonnes of construction materials and human assistance to Gaza in defiance of the illegal and inhumane Israeli blockade. The flotilla was attacked in international waters and so far 19 aid volunteers are known to have died. This was an act of piracy and murder.

All five ships were boarded, commandeered and towed to Ashdod port in Israel . The aid was confiscated and all the aid volunteers were arrested. The Israeli government has failed to release any information on their whereabouts or health so they are missing at this time. The full list of those who we know are missing is below.

Among them is Kevin Ovenden, the international coordinator and leading force in the creation and development of Viva Palestina. He has led three aid convoys to break the siege of Gaza since March 2009 and is the epitome of tireless heroism and sacrifice in support of Palestine .

Kevin is a hugely influential and cherished comrade in the Respect Party. He is a member of the Executive Committee, the National Council and a leading figure in Tower Hamlets Respect. He led the Viva Palestina group that joined the Gaza aid flotilla this week and carries the pride and passion of our entire party and movement with dignity and intelligence in this daring mission.