On Tony Blair's Vision for Britain in Labour’s Third Term

Workers' Daily Internet Edition: Article Index :

Building the Opposition to Labour’s Neo-Liberal Programme:
On Tony Blair's Vision for Britain in Labour’s Third Term

NHS Plc: The Privatisation of Our Health Care

The Very Existence of Legal Aid is under Threat

On the October 11, Tony Blair delivered a major speech at the University of London in which he outlined his "vision for Britain" which is widely viewed as the key points of the Labour Party's programme for a third term in government. Concentrating almost entirely on domestic issues, Blair made it clear that the core of this vision would be to replace "the traditional welfare state" with a "true opportunity society". Therefore, Blair signalled from the outset that a third term for his Labour Party would usher in a further assault on social programmes and an intensification of the neo-liberal programmes which have been the hallmark of the last seven years of the present Labour government.

Praising the achievements of his government's seven years in power, Blair admitted that nevertheless there were "too many hard working families in difficulty and distress" and "too many of the elderly insecure and fearful of the future". Therefore, he argued, his government's third term could not be one of "minimalist politics" but needed to be one of "bold and far reaching reform" with regards to health care, education, welfare benefits, childcare, pensions and law and order.

As a starting point, he called for a fundamental alteration in the "contract between citizen and state at the heart of the 20th century settlement". In other words, Blair is signalling the end of the post-war social contract under which the bourgeoisie established the social programmes such as the NHS and the social welfare system. In place of this now outmoded "traditional welfare system", Blair proposes a new "opportunity society" at the centre of which will be "the individual" with "the right and responsibility to take the opportunities offered". With these echoes of Margaret Thatcher's infamous outburst that there is no such thing as society, only individuals and families, Blair betrays the fact that his party's programme is the logical continuation of the anti-people programme of the Margaret Thatcher years. What will this new "opportunity society" look like and what will happen to those "individuals and hard-working families" who fail in their "responsibility" to take the "opportunities offered"?  On this, Tony Blair is silent but his elaboration of the details of his programme makes it clear.

With regard to the health system, Blair declares that his programme will "open up the system further". He continues, "We are planning a significant increase beyond that already announced in the NHS's spending on independent providers of diagnostic and treatment services." In other words, private health care monopolies. He stated that there would be a second wave of NHS procurement worth £500 million. With regard to schools, Blair announced that there would be "200 entirely new academies … run by independent sponsors". So as to make it clear who these "independent sponsors" might be, he continued, "I will be happy to see these sponsored not just by individual entrepreneurs but also by companies; by churches and other faiths and by the independent school sector." Blair's "opportunity society" is evidently about creating more opportunities for the monopolies to raid the state treasury by handing over the funds for the social programmes directly to them while the state abdicates its responsibility to provide for the well being of the citizens.  

Turning to reform of the welfare system, Blair declared that "for too many the welfare state is one which simply pays out benefits, trapping people into long term or even lifelong dependency. We are piloting new approaches to reach out to those trapped on Incapacity Benefit to help them to return to work." He continued, " It is essential to bring the cost of the system down if we are to deal with the rising costs in areas where we need to spend more.  Already, as a result of measures in the system the costs of Incapacity Benefit are forecast to fall by £750 million." So much for the concern for "those trapped on Incapacity Benefit", the real motivation for this heartless assault on workers who have been incapacitated, becomes clear. The question arises as to why measures are not taken against "those trapped in the receipt of dividend payments and interest" so as to find the necessary money to "fund the areas we need to spend on".

For those on incapacity benefit who are hounded back to work, Tony Blair has another stick to beat them with and it is called "lifelong learning". He states that "lifelong learning is not only central to our education policy, it is central to our employment policy, central to our economic policy, central to our policy of extending opportunity to all those out of work and central even to our pensions policy as it enables more older people in their 50s and 60s to acquire the skills and opportunities to remain in work." In Tony Blair's mouth the words "lifelong learning" assume an altogether different meaning from what they appear to mean. There is nothing here about the lifelong development of the individual so that he or she is a cultured person capable of carrying out their social and political responsibilities as a decision maker. No. For him it means that people must adapt themselves to never ending insecurity and change so that they can better serve the interest of big business in its cutthroat struggle for markets and profits.

Turning to what he termed the "challenge of childcare and the work/life balance", Blair declared that a third term Labour government would extend childcare provision for 3 -14 year olds and continued "expansion of under fives provision ... must be on the basis of a fair and sustainable allocation of costs". He did not mention whom these costs should be allocated between, nor did he mention any responsibility the state might have to provide childcare for its youngest members. Not only did he not acknowledge the state's responsibility for the well being of its youngest, he did not do so for its eldest either. He said that one of the challenges of a Labour third term would be to "help people provide for security in their retirement". This he said was "about the balance between work and savings" and there was a need to "develop in the future a system which combines decent provision for those without savings with incentives for all in work to provide for themselves". Therefore again, the third term Labour Party programme is that pensions are not a reflection of a modern society's responsibility towards its retired workers who have given their working years to the development of the society. On the contrary, once a worker has retired society should wash its hands of him or her. What happens to them after retirement is a personal problem and none of society's business. The pensioners must fend for themselves and sink or swim. Such is the barbaric essence of the Tony Blair's vision.

Since a third term Labour government clearly intends to intensify its neo-liberal programme of handing over the funds for the social programmes directly to big business, while abandoning its responsibilities to the citizens of the country, it is rather ironic that it is only in the field of law and order that Tony Blair thinks that citizens have any rights. He declared that the challenge of law and order for a third term Labour government would mean "a wholly new infrastructure to protect our security – through ID cards and the electronic registration of all who enter our country". This measure, he continued, is "a classic example of the modern acceptance that a citizen has duties as well as rights". Therefore, for Tony Blair, citizens have no right to a pension, no right to childcare, no right to receive incapacity benefit if they are unable to work, no right to properly funded health care and education systems. Their only right (or is it a duty?) is to accept being issued with an ID card and to see all who visit the country registered electronically.

The vision Tony Blair sets out for a third term Labour government is a reactionary, anti-people programme, which builds on and intensifies the attacks of the last seven years of the present government. It makes it clear that there can be no illusions about the nature of this party and the next government it will form. For all those who oppose this programme, the task now is to build the workers opposition and to present to the society a different vision from that of the monopolies which Tony Blair has presented. The programme that the workers must take up is the direct opposite of that formulated for Labour’s third term. It is essential that the workers must discuss the solution to the problems which society faces right in front of their eyes, basing themselves firmly on their own experience of the anti-social offensive at home and the aggressive warmongering programme of New Labour abroad. The task which faces them is to build their opposition to this reactionary programme which the Labour government is carrying forward on behalf of the monopolies and financiers, on behalf of the strategic interests of the Anglo-American elite, as the bourgeoisie prepares for the next general election in order to carry forward their offensive.

This review of the above-named book by Allyson M Pollock*, was published in The Guardian by Margaret Cook on October 2, 2004. The book published by Verso, 256pp, £15.99.

New Labour has a phobia of psychotic dimensions, a phobia so entrenched that radical ideals are perceived as repellent and policy-making regresses into the wide blue yonder, beyond even Conservative territory. The phobia is that of ever again being accused of high-tax, high-spending intentions, in which contingency New Labour foresees, in hallucinatory detail, its own destruction. And so it guards its coffers with the ferocity of the deluded and the paranoid, against any open-ended societal demands that its own people make and need. Such phobias defy reason, and the object of terror is viewed through a miasma of unremitting hostility.

This is the only rational explanation for the terrible tale that unfolds with lucid and detailed authority in the pages of Allyson Pollock's book. It is a tale that demands to be read by every person in this country who has a stake in the NHS and the vestigial remnants of the welfare state; and indeed, everyone with democratic instincts. Our government, relying on public apathy and a short attention span, has been progressively and furtively dismantling our life-support systems and auctioning them off to the highest bidder, in the naive hope that no one will notice the difference between public and private providers of services. There has clearly been a long-term plan at work, with tactics of the most cynical kind to blind, coerce, deceive and discredit, depending on the gullibility or dogged persistence of the protester.

New Labour leaders know that they are defying evidence and sense in their obsessive commitment to market policies. Why else would they go to such lengths to falsify evidence, use manipulative techniques and, when all else fails, to threaten and intimidate to carry their will? Pollock describes how she became a target of their aggression. Invited to join the House of Commons health select committee inquiry into the private finance initiative (PFI) in 1997, she was asked by the Department of Health's PFI unit head whether it was wise or in her career interests to brief MPs against senior NHS officials. Later replaced, along with other similarly critical members, she gave evidence to the same committee and came under vicious attack both personally and for the quality of her research. The committee chairman was powerless to prevent both the loss of impartiality by loading of the committee with yes-men and the abuse of parliamentary privilege by certain committee members in seeking to destroy Pollock's work and research base; though these survived, supported by Roy Hattersley, Private Eye and other radical organs.

The author is a courageous and gallant David, battling the Goliath of government, and this was not the only time she came under attack. She does not sensationalise but uses these anecdotes to show to what depths our leaders can sink in order to subvert the democratic desires of the people. And more horrifying than any personal attack is the strategy of polluting scientific evidence, for once the government-sponsored, politically correct ideology is in print, however much it may be disproved and rejected as flawed, it continues to be quoted and becomes part of official thinking and propaganda.

The mantras of the current round of euphemistic rhetoric in establishment healthcare policy are "choice" and "diversity". Pollock shows the only choice people in the UK will enjoy when the process is complete is whether or not to take out insurance and accept the prospect of escalating co-payments, or go without any healthcare provision at all, which is the lot of millions of Americans today. Gone will be the freedom from fear we have enjoyed for more than 50 years. But these power-packed messages are delivered at the end of the book, only after a calm and balanced analysis of healthcare history has been made. The book couches difficult and complex concepts in a persuasively lucid manner that hopefully will ensure it is widely read. If it is, this book could make a huge impact on the forthcoming UK general election.

Using history and research, Pollock reveals the fallaciousness of the propaganda that the NHS is unaffordable, monolithic and "Stalinist"; the belittling language that on-message politicians use; and the delusion that the private sector is more efficient. In its hey-day the NHS was the most cost-effective system ever devised, in striking contrast to the private system of the US, which is designed to deliver only where there is profit to be made, and in which fraud on a massive scale is endemic. The Conservatives introduced the era of the internal market and GP fundholding, in which money was increasingly diverted from care and into burgeoning (and costly) bureaucracy. They also dreamed up the PFI, which Labour eagerly grasped and has relentlessly pursued in spite of the widespread discrediting of its intellectual case.

Now public-private partnerships invade the NHS in every layer of its fabric. Pollock covers all the incursions fragmenting our once Rolls-Royce of a service: hospital senior managers who are business-trained with no public health experience; outsourcing of data collection so that commercial secrecy prevents any rational use of it in planning; primary care trusts and foundation hospitals; motivation by targets so that clinical decision-making becomes distorted by perverse incentives, usually financial; diverting funds into high-profile medical conditions at the expense of unglamorous, unprofitable ones such as long-term care, mental disease or geriatrics; paving the way for healthcare corporations, the pharmaceutical and construction industries, insurance companies and private hospital owners to become "filthy rich" (in Mandelson-speak) at the expense of the taxpayer and the NHS user.

Future propagandists will spin the message that it was the NHS which failed. This book refutes that claim. Neither of the two main parties is a capable, honest and trustworthy steward for our future health, and the public need to know that. With this week's Labour conference spate of pre-election promises, of more hospitals and shorter waiting times and Milburn-led "public service reform" ( tremble at the thought), the public ought not to be impressed. Unfortunately, to recreate a philanthropic health service, we need a government that has not lost touch with democratic principles.

* Allyson Pollock is Professor of Health Policy and Chair of the Health Policy and Health Services Research Unit at University College, London, and Director of Research & Development at UCL Hospitals NHS Trust. She trained in medicine in Scotland and worked in hospitals in Edinburgh and Leeds before moving to London in 1986, where she became a consultant in public health. Her research interests include the financing of health care, the funding and structures of primary care, intermediate care, and long term care, and health and globalisation.

Professor Pollock's work on the private finance initiative has been a major intervention. She has given evidence to the Health, Transport, and Treasury Select Committees of the House of Commons, and to the Finance Committee of the Scottish Parliament. She has also co-written articles on the impact of the WTO and GATS on health and other public services. She has been invited to speak on all these issues in countries as diverse as Spain, Canada, the US, Cuba, Taiwan, and Indonesia. Among her many activities she is Chair Elect of the Society for Social Medicine and member of the editorial board of the Journal of Medical Ethics.

Release by Citizens Advice, October 18, 2004

The very existence of Legal Aid is under threat – that is the message Citizens Advice Director of Policy Teresa Perchard gave to the Law Society annual conference in Birmingham on Friday (15 October 2004).

Proposed changes to civil legal aid by the Legal Services Commission and the Department for Constitutional Affairs will see a huge rise in the number of people who can find no avenue towards justice, she said.

Citizens Advice is the largest not-for-profit provider of legal services in the country, with 200 bureaux holding Legal Services Commission Contracts to provide legal aid. In the last year, the Citizens Advice service helped people solve more than 5.6 million problems.

Proposed changes to funding and eligibility for legal aid could see many of these people lose their access to civil justice. Citizens Advice believes the Legal Services Commission should withdraw proposals that dramatically reduce eligibility for legal aid and introduce wider use of conditional fees.

Teresa Perchard told the conference: "There’s no doubt that legal aid is facing a very serious threat. The Legal Services Commission’s ‘refocusing’ of civil legal aid and the Government’s fundamental review are looking at moving further and further away from the notion of legal aid as a universal service, towards a system that is so highly targeted and means tested that fewer and fewer people will be able access their rights through public support.

"Already, Citizens Advice Bureaux have been coming across cases of people who, having worked hard all their lives and found themselves reliant upon disability or pension credits, are expected to get into debt simply to get their landlord to carry out repairs on their home.

"How do we buck this trend? As a sector we have to show that we can deliver best value and beneficial outcomes from limited public resources. And we can do that best by working in partnership to address the range of problems that our clients experience in real life. We need government as a whole to see investment in legal aid as a way to provide a real benefit to the economy. Huge amounts of time are lost because people have to battle through stressful and demanding courses of action in order to get what is rightfully theirs.

"Our research shows 6.5m people last year faced serious problems, which went unsolved because there was nobody able to help them. Legal aid should not be seen as a gravy train for lawyers, but as a way of meeting the vast unmet demand for advice."

Teresa Perchard also stressed the need for the Clementi Review of legal services to instil in the industry a greater public-service focus.

She said: "We need to return to the idea of law as public service. Could you imagine doctors charging patients on the basis of insurance and credit-underwritten no-cure, no fee deals, or offering up-front referral fees for potential patients? The whole approach to how we service small claims, consumer, personal injury and small debt disputes needs to be fundamentally rethought, otherwise we are simply adding to people’s problems rather than resolving them."