After a quarter of a million people signed petitions against the secretive Tory SI 257"back-door privatisation" amendment and thousands more wrote to their MPs, the Lib-Dem health minister Norman Lamb stated that they would rewrite the legislation to "to remove any doubt".
Labour gleefully called it an "embarrassingU-turn", and paraded around as if it were their own victory, rather than a victory for the quarter of a million members of the public that signed the petition, despite a media blackout on the subject.
Yes they opposed this amendment and many of them signed Early Day Motion 1104 to scrap it, but it must be remembered that Labour, and especially former Health Minister Alan Milburn (who now works in the private health sector) were the ones that really kicked the NHS privatisation door open in the first place.
Labour gleefully called it an "embarrassingU-turn", and paraded around as if it were their own victory, rather than a victory for the quarter of a million members of the public that signed the petition, despite a media blackout on the subject.
Yes they opposed this amendment and many of them signed Early Day Motion 1104 to scrap it, but it must be remembered that Labour, and especially former Health Minister Alan Milburn (who now works in the private health sector) were the ones that really kicked the NHS privatisation door open in the first place.
It would be easy to see this Coalition statement of their intent to rewrite the amendment as a huge victory for people power over corrupt politicians, however the battle isn't won yet...
Remember the Tory sham "listening exercise”? Where the public and medical profession almost uniformly criticised their proposals, but the Tory party ignored it all in favour of advice from private health lobbyists. After which they steamrollered on with their hugely controversial top down reorganisation of the NHS. Despite continued criticisms and votes of no confidence from across the medical profession they eventually pushed it through parliament with Lib-Dem support, using the endlessly repeated narrative that the reforms were not intended as a privatisation of the NHS at all.
Once the fuss died down they tried to push this secretive keystone privatisation amendment through in the hope that nobody was paying attention. They got well and truly caught out, but to expect them to suddenly decide to safeguard the NHS after getting caught out like this would be as insanely optimistic as expecting the Liberal-Democrats to protect the NHS from the Tories.
Once the fuss died down they tried to push this secretive keystone privatisation amendment through in the hope that nobody was paying attention. They got well and truly caught out, but to expect them to suddenly decide to safeguard the NHS after getting caught out like this would be as insanely optimistic as expecting the Liberal-Democrats to protect the NHS from the Tories.
The Tory led coalition may well rely on exactly the same strategy they used before and simply wait until the fuss has died down, then submit a slightly revised amendment which still carves the NHS for private sector interests to cherry-pick at will.
We must be vigilant and we must be prepared to continue the fight once again if they come back with the same plan in different words. The NHS is not safe in their hands.
Another Angry Voice
