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Dr. Tim Evans has some interesting views regarding the reality of what many people ostensibly on the ‘left’ really think about healthcare
On 11 September 2001, Daniel Kruger, of the Centre for Policy Studies wrote a major feature article in the Daily Telegraph entitled Why half the members of trade unions have private health care. Kruger correctly pointed out whilst many members of the Trades Union Congress (T.U.C) continue to publicly attack Tony Blair’s efforts to establish an ever closer relationship between the National Health Service and British and French private hospitals, the trade union movement are themselves massively involved in a range of private healthcare schemes. Today, more than 3.5 million trade unionists have various forms of private health cover – which is more than half the T.U.C’s 6.8 million membership.
In his article, Kruger points to a trade union web site that spills all the beans called Trade Unions and Not-For-Profit Private Healthcare. It makes for remarkable reading and exposes the hypocrisy of many trade union leaders when it comes to private healthcare. This site quite rightly points out that the history of British independent health and social care is deeply rooted in the not-for-profit traditions of the friendly societies, mutuals, co-operatives and charities from whence the trade unions originally came in the early part of the nineteenth century. Today, for instance, BUPA is a mutual, Nuffield Hospitals are a charity, and people like the Salvation Army, Methodist Care Homes and Jewish Care all provide high quality health and social care services on a not-for-profit basis. There are literally dozens of other organisations underlining this deeply libertarian tradition.
Today, 7 million people have private medical insurance. Another 7 million people have private health cash plans such as H.S.A. (Hospital Saving Association), health cash schemes – as separate from private medical insurance invariably offer cash towards a range of services that were once covered by the NHS. For example, dentistry, ophthalmology, physiotherapy, chiropody, maternity services, allergy testing, hospital in-patient stays, convalescence, home help, and in some cases the use of an ambulance.
Another 1.2 million people have private dental insurance, whilst more than 20 million people pay directly for private dentistry with no insurance at all. 1.4 million people now have critical illness and permanent health insurance whilst 8.5 million will go private in 2002 for complimentary medicines such as osteopathy and chiropractics. Millions of these people will be trade unionists.
Perhaps, as the political scientist Dr. Nigel Ashford pointed out in 1997, it is under the historic and voluntaristic rubrics of mutuality and co-operation that Tony Blair might just continue with his Plan to Privatise UK Health and Welfare(1)
Come to think of it, perhaps that is why Labour’s ministers are beginning to talk about giving the best “three star” NHS hospitals “Independent Foundation Hospital” status and are endlessly obsessing about giving them “earned autonomy”. Strange bedfellows – funny old world!
(1)= (link requires Adobe Acrobat Reader which can be downloaded for free)
Patrick Crozier has a good article On Corporate Manslaughter. He notes that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) will be prosecuting Railtrack (the company which ‘owns’ the actual railroad infrastructure in Britain, recently in effect re-nationalised by the State). Thus one part of the state is trying to make another part of the state pay fines to yet another part of the state.
Patrick makes several excellent points and avoids the usual stale perspectives on these sort of issues.
Yesterday, 12 March 2002, there were 11 RNLI lifeboats launched off the British and Irish coasts.
Also yesterday people all across Britain and Ireland would have seen men and women on the high streets of their towns and cities collecting money from passers-by for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and rewarding them with small stickers. The RNLI is an emergency service that has been in operation in Britain for 175 years and it is run by volunteers and is entirely funded by voluntary donations.
As an all-weather sailor myself, I have always had not just a fondness for the RNLI but a significant vested interest in its existence.
Lifeboat stations can be found in coastal communities across the British Isles.
Anyone who has seen an off-shore lifeboat launch during a pounding North Sea gale can be left in no doubt that these people are some of the world’s great unsung heros. In the course of saving over 130,000 people from the sea since its founding, more than 400 RNLI volunteers have lost their lives.
But another reason that I am so fond of them is not just their fierce bravery but that regardless of the fact the RNLI is an utterly non-political organisation, they are perhaps one of the very best arguments for libertarian voluntarism in the world (link requires Adobe acrobat reader or similar): a world class non-governmental ‘common good’ emergency service not just manned but also funded without coercive taxation.
Please visit the RNLI website and donate to this superb organisation.
It drives on with a courage which is stronger than the storm. It drives on with a mercy which does not quail in the presence of death. It drives on as proof, a symbol, a testimony that man is created in the image of God and that valour and virtue have not perished in the British race.
– Winston Churchill, RNLI Centenary 1924
I just spotted this splendid article on the ‘Grauniad’/Observer website which actually have the bravery to call for the complete abolition of Britain’s third rate socialist healthcare system. The sooner the better.
UPI reported recently in an article titled Big brother is big business that the UK is the most remotely surveilled state in the world.
Advocates point to its efficacy at the same time as national crime rates are soaring. A study by the Scottish Center for Criminology suggested that “spy” cameras had little or no effect on crime. It concluded that “reductions were noted in certain categories, but there was no evidence to suggest that the cameras had reduced crime overall.”
Yet more and more CCTV cameras appear on our streets every day as companies vie for state contracts to bring Orwell’s vision of a Britain under all pervasive observation to reality. Authorities invariably claim that they are to discourage violent crimes and burglary, yet increasingly they are used to prosecute people for transgressing traffic and litter regulations. Nightmarish.
When the state watches you,
dare to stare back
The latest (April) edition of British society magazine Tatler (no link to article) has a short piece by leading British Playwright and signatory to the Free Slobodan Milosevic Petition, the wonderful Harold Pinter. As a result, perhaps readers might like to e-mail the editors of that respected publication to request another nice Harold Pinter article in the next issue called:
- What the in-people are wearing to the society war-crime trials in the Hague this year
Or maybe…
- Waxed Barbour Jackets and green wellies, the perfect fashion accessory for the well heeled ethnic cleanser and soooo easy to wash the blood off.
Yes, it is good to see the journal for the elite of Britain wanting to branch out from covering the parties of polo players, models, actors, actresses, stock brokers, society gardeners, designers, minor royals and bankers, and now also showcasing apologists for mass murdering ethnic cleansers as well. Rupert and Camilla will be pleased!
When he is Irish of course! Well according to Democratic Representatives in US Congress this seems to be the case.
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York seems to have allied herself with the Provisional Irish Republican Army (P-IRA). She attempted, with some of her Democratic colleagues, to push through legislation in praise of dead P-IRA terrorists. In this amazing act of stupidity, these Democrats are trying to use the American House of Representatives to further their support for the P-IRA. This group of people obviously do not share most Americans new found distaste for terrorism of any kind. This disgusting legislative act should be widely reported to all who will listen.
Oh yes, and one more point, Ms. McCarthy is a staunch anti-gun zealot.
Surely this is not the best message to send to the US’s staunch ally, Britain. Reports on this in the British press will not make it easy for Blair to convince his reluctant back-benchers to stay quiet, when and if the US/UK coalition goes after Iraq.
Either the Democrats need to do some house cleaning/reprimanding or else anyone who loathes terrorism should campaign to make sure all those Democrats who supported this bill are defeated at the next opportunity.
Lagwolf
Apparently, somebody claiming to represent the Scottish National Liberation Army has admitted responsibility for sending packages of ‘caustic substances’ through the post to Tony Blair and several other MPs.
I wouldn’t go as far as to call this an attempt on the life of Our Glorious Leader (especially as he is in Australia at the moment) or, if it was, then it is a pathetically ham-fisted one.
No, if reports are accurate, then it is obviously some sort of pointed message. But what message?
Things are getting a bit racey over here.
I have only a fuzzy and rather amateurish understanding of Chaos Theory but I do believe that it attempts to explain the process whereby a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazon and, some time later, as a direct result, a hurricane lays waste to Poland. Or something. In other words, it is an exposition on how tiny, insignificant events can, through a cumulative series of knock-on effects, eventually become really big, major, world-changing events.
On the assumption that I am right (or, at least, not too hilariously wrong) then I think we are witnessing something in reverse by the UK governments sudden resurrection of the proposed ban on fox-hunting.
Now it is fair to say, that fox-hunting has been under the cosh for some time now. It has been priority No.1 for animal rights groups for years but, since Labour came to power in 1997, it has also been the target of the Labour left who see it as a decadent hobby for the cruel and arrogant rich; a totem of class privilege. This is a charge which is neither true nor fair but it has played well within the context of the Politics of Envy and, even if it were true, it deserves to be protected from state bullying.
But, faced with some determined opposition, the government has shied away for forcing through a ban of the sport in England and, until the last few days, the issue appeared, if not dead, then dormant.
All of a sudden, though, it is back on the agenda and with indecent haste, the government announcing a House of Commons Free Vote on March 18. Not through any sense of principle, mind. Tony Blair is known to be, at best, agnostic on the issue. No, it has everything to do with the War on Terror.
Blair has committed himself to supporting a US attack on Iraq but knows full well the unholy ruckus that support is likely to cause within his own party. This is a trade-off. Blair is telling the left that, if they keep quiet over the fate of Saddam, he will throw them some red meat in the form of the ban on fox-hunting they have always lusted for. In other words, give me Baghdad or the fox gets it.
It may not work. First, cynical ploys are the life-blood of the left and this may simply not be enough to buy their silence. Secondly, the principled opposition that rallied before is already rallying again and dark mutterings of civil disobediance fill the air.
But is this not an example of Chaos Theory only in reverse? Crazed terrorists kill thousands of people in America and, as a result, an old English tradition faces state-mandated oblivion.
The British government feels it no longer even has to hide the fact it wishes to be the centre of a vast spider web of surveillance. Gone are the days of ‘no comment’ regarding Echelon and Carnivore. Now the state is demanding the ability to control all communications between British scientists and foreign colleagues on pretty much any subject the state deems appropriate.
The situation is little better in the USA and as the editorial in the latest print edition of New Scientist aptly puts it:
The government there is withdrawing thousands of technical papers that amount to cookbooks for chemical and biological weapons. It has also asked journal editors to leave out details from papers that would be essential for anyone replicating the work. This undermines the whole notion of ensuring that research results can be checked by others. It also raises a paradox: terrorists, it seems, are deemed smart enough to understand arcane science, but too dumb to fill in the gaps in research papers
The deadening effect this will all have on a vast swathe of scientific progress is not hard imagine. Inevitably some types of research will just migrate to places where the state does not impede its development resulting in more, not less, diffusion of critical knowledge and technologies. Rather than a narrowly targeted moderation of clearly weaponised technologies, the state has elected to implement an Orwellian oversight on all technical discussions on subjects to be determined by semi-qualified bureaucrats who will always have a presumption of the legitimacy of intervention. A disappointing response but hardly a unexpected one to someone such as myself who assumes the worst of states and is rarely surprised.
When The State watches you,
dare to stare back
In the early Spring of 1998, when I was still a jobbing scriptwriter, I was invited to a showbiz party held in the home of a TV producer who had hired me to work on some his projects. During the course of the evening I got into conversation with an actress who had just finished filming an episode of a TV cop drama. She told me that she had been trained to handle a gun convincingly and I replied that that was the type of training we could all do with and for real. I could not have caused her more offence if I had stuck my hand up her skirt.
“So you think we should all go around shooting each other then?” she exclaimed.
That’s what it is like over here. Anti-self-defence is the default position. It is the accepted norm. It is so universal and unquestioned that even unarmed self-defence is often referred to as ‘vigilantism’. It is uncivilised and neanderthal. We don’t need to defend ourselves; we have our marvelous police to do that for us.
Prior to today, promoting the right to bear arms was only marginally less controversial than promoting legalised child sex abuse. Given that context, the appreance of this column may reasonably be regarded as something of a turning point.
“Given this scandalous situation, it is time for the Government to confer a new right on the people: the right to bear arms. Gun control in this country is in any case a joke. There is far more gun crime now than there was before the idiotic law passed by the Major government to ban handguns after the Dunblane massacre”
One has to be living in Britain to appreciate exactly how ground-breaking that statement is and it is made all the more significant by the source. Simon Heffer is not a Libertarian, he is more of a traditional paleo-Conservative but he is a high-profile commentator and is generally regarded as a serious voice. He is the kind of man TV producers want on their talk shows when they need a bit of gravitas. He can be excoriated and villified and, indeed, he will be both but he can’t be ignored and that matters.
Despite this pleasing development, I have a quibble and an important quibble. Mr. Heffer invokes the state to grant us a right to bear arms. This is wrong. It is not a licence and what the government gives, the government can take away again. We already have a right to bear arms, bestowed upon us by our ancient common law heritage and exercisable by the mere act of being born. All the government has done is to deprive us of it. Now, if Mr. Heffer can get his head around that concept as well, we will really be cooking with gas.
That said, he is to be heartily congratulated for saying what was, up till now, not even thinkable. In doing so, he has prised open a door that was previously glued shut, nailed over and padlocked. The restoration of our common law rights is still a journey of a thousand miles but the first few steps have been taken.
Courteous policemen, red telephone kiosks, afternoon tea, cap-doffing and genteel bucolic stability. That is the cartoon image that many non-British people seem to have of Britain.
I don’t suppose they will want to read this
“Gun crimes during the first 10 months of the annual period have trebled in most of the urban areas which have so far submitted statistics to the Home Office. Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said gun gangs were spreading across the country whereas, until recently, they were confined to a handful of London boroughs”
Drug running, gun culture, drive-by shootings, rampant robbery, burglary and car-crime. Not very ‘Mary Poppins’ is it?
I would, ideally, like to write something satirical and witty about all this but I can’t. First of all, because the galloping erosion of our civil society is no laughing matter. Secondly, I am just too furious. I am furious at the way that the failure of one government prohibition (drugs) reinforces the failure of another government prohibition (guns) and to the detriment of all.
But I am even more furious at the despicable lies that were foisted on us during the campaign to ban private gun ownership. “It will make the streets of Britain safer” they said; “It will put an end to gun culture” they promised; “It will reduce crime” they assured us; “Criminals will find it harder to procure weapons” they proclaimed.
Ad-hoc justification was heaped upon egregious falsehood by every politician, pundit, lobbyist, talking-head and self-appointed ‘expert’ as they all jostled with each other for a place in the Pantheon of the Righteous.
But they won the day. It was no-contest. We few voices of principled reason were pilloried as apologists for child-murderers and psychopaths and who wants to line up with people like that?
So you foreigners can just disabuse yourselves of any lingering image of ‘genteel Britain’. This is a country where, on one side we have a national police force that is overstretched, politically hamstrung, misdirected and, like all nationalised industries, primarily concerned with protecting their own monopoly. They have guns. On the other side, we have growing gangs of ruthless and violent bandits set loose in a playground of grabbable booty. They have guns. In between, is the hard-working, law-abiding taxpayer, naked, and hoping for the best.
I do not believe that this is what was intended.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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