Category Archives: News and Politics

Current affairs, madnesses of government, politics and politicians

Sophistry from Jessica Arnold

Jessica Arnold, Associate Director of Primary Care, NHS Bromley

An article in the Guardian berating users of private medical services caught Grumpy’s eye. His initial reaction was to dismiss it as being just another staff writer beating the socialist drum, but on further examination the author was an Associate Director at NHS Bromley, one Jessica Arnold.

Whereas unbalanced and slanted writing is the norm for the paper’s writers who quickly mug up on the background of their latest target over the first coffee of the day, Grumpy studied the piece published on 08/01/20 with more than usual care. He was taken aback at the blatant hypocrisy of the argument presented from an NHS insider, but on further investigation it seems that Ms Arnold is a paid up member of the Labour party (attending the annual conference even) and hence a proxy for the John McDonnell Marxist take on public services.

Ms Arnold essentially admits that the NHS isn’t working, but her thread of logic seeking to place the blame on a parallel private system is highly flawed, and seeks to ignore the underlying causal factors. Grumpy has used private GP services twice over the Christmas period for the simple reason is that no GP appointments were available in time frame relevant to his problem. However, to suggests that he in some way contributes to a shortage of GP’s is not only simplistic left-wing drivel, but profoundly wrong.

Ms Arnold’s argument is based on the notion that private medicine is responsible for ‘poaching’ NHS staff, which is the cause of the staffing crisis. This is breathtaking sophistry; the NHS itself is indeed a poacher of scarce medical skills on a scale which dwarfs any effect of the private sector. As Grumpy outlined in his note here because of deliberate policies of governments of both persuasions places at medical schools in the UK were restricted in favour of a mammoth multi-million pound poaching exercises from a variety of other countries, and particular India.

So whilst arguing that private medicine was depriving UK patients with care, the fact was that the NHS itself was depriving Indian mothers – with the highest child mortality expectation in the developed world – of doctors who were poached by higher salaries in the NHS.

As Cambridge Professor Ha_Joon Chang has argued systems which involve just the private sector or just the public sector are increasingly being shown not to work well; rather, thinking how private and public enterprise co-exist is key to developing a balanced society and economy.

The problems Ms Arnold recognises stem not from Grumpy’s recent burn being attended to by a private GP but from the policies of politicians, and only politicians. As a member of the Labour party, Ms Arnold will recall that Gordon Brown planned to cut thousands of doctor and nurse training places if labour were elected in 2010. However, for decades both parties have (a) knowingly held down training places because it was cheaper to poach scarce staff from Romania etc (b) encouraged the take up of local places by foreign students to generate income but without solving the local resourcing problem.

The fact is that until and unless the NHS trains more doctors than it poaches from other countries with far worse health systems than the UK, Ms Arnold’s attempt to lay the blame on private provision rings hollow.

What are GPs for?

For some considerable time now, waiting times to see a GP (in Grumpy’s patch at least) have stretched out to be 3 – 4 weeks, or worse. That rather begs the questions about, if not the role a GP plays, but to how that role is being radically transformed from its original conception.

If one sustains a minor injury, say, in the garden which requires cleaning and dressing, or a sprain which required strapping up, then attention is required quickly, and 3 or 4 weeks is not an option. The result is likely to be a trip to Accident and Emergency (A&E) at a local hospital.

An individual might develop some other illness (say some for of viral attack) which appears not to be clearing up, and indeed worsening , then again a wait of a month would not be a sound course of action, and a visit to A&E would be in order.

These are but two examples of how small incidents which in days of yore would be in the remit of a local GP are now driven to drain resource from pressured A&E departments.

It would seem that GP services have been relegated to routine scheduled monitoring (say for pregnant women), addressing the needs of those with long term chronic illnesses and essentially for activities which can be (a) scheduled and (b) have no element of urgency about them.

Everyone from patients to politicians knows that unless there is integration and coordination between social services, primary care (including GPs) and hospital services then there will continue to be resource mismatches and basically an inefficient hotch potch of support. Time to rethink how the NHS and Social Services work together.

Goose and gander

What’s the difference between the two individuals pictured here? Well, on the right is Stormzy, a ‘grime rapper’ whose lyrics embrace such niceties as wishing to gift a ‘facial’ to any young lady unfortunate enough to be involved with him. Stormzy has created a scholarship to fund two black students to attend Cambridge University. The initiative has been welcomed / praised by many in the educational field, as widening access to BAME students from disadvantaged and poor backgrounds.

On the left, however, is Sir Bryan Thwaites (both obviously white and from a privileged demographic), who offered £1m to fund two scholarships at Dulwich College and Winchester School for talented white boys from poor backgrounds.

Both Dulwich and Winchester immediately rejected the offer on the basis that any discrimination on the grounds of colour was against their core values.

Nothing could underline the contorted posturing of academia and politicians on supporting underprivileged youth than this. Poor white boys can expect a worse educational outcome than poor black boys, but somehow this fact is inconvenient when ethnically focused help is directed towards whites and not blacks.

Grumpy was hugely impressed by pieces written by Trevor Phillips (former Head of the Equality Commission and himself black) who trashed the ‘self-righteous guilt tripping’ offered by these organisations when faced with evidence based support for the disadvantaged of the wrong colour i.e. white. His intervention brings the weight needed to re-balance efforts in seeking to improve equality of opportunity for young people.

Lib-dem manipulation

As the Lib-Dem manifesto is published, it is clear that either (a) their policy research employees are particularly poor, or (b) they deliberately use disproved memes to connect with various ‘focus group’ touch points they think will strike a chord with their target electorate regardless of their veracity. Grumpy is particularly astonished that they have trotted out the tarnished ‘sock in pants’ theme as a headline to bolster their female focused agenda.

A motion at Conference will note that “Approximately 40 per cent of girls in the UK have used toilet roll because they couldn’t afford sanitary products.”.

The topic of ‘period poverty’ was brought into wider focus by labour MP Danielle Rowley who announced to the Commons that she was having a period (urggghhh, TMI), and made an assertion about costs of sanitary products, thus pointing to the ‘rolled up newspaper / toilet paper / socks in pants’ stories as part of a push to to make such products ‘free’ (or in reality, paid for by taxpayers) . (See link here ) Her idiotic assertions (for example implying she changed a tampon as frequently as every 5 minutes of every waking hour) was testament the the lack of validity of argument so prevalent in today’s politicians.

The ’40 percent of girls’ meme quoted as a headline for the conference probably came from an article by Guardian writer Amika George (see link ), who merely regurgitated dumb statistics which were patently unsupportable. Grumpy did a reasonably comprehensive analysis of the assertions, which he summarised here ). The backing data for these various stories was statistically naive in the extreme.

It’s a pity to see that the Lib-Dems are so seemingly poorly researched in checking facts which underline their policy themes; alternatively, if they have deliberately chosen to promote unsupportable figures for political purposes, it destroys their claims to hold the moral high ground (low as that may be) in British politics.

[Grumpy cheerfully admits to re-touching what the Daily Mail would call Ms Swinson’s ‘ample assets’ to effect a disgracefully sexist example of manipulation. We can all do it.]

Boris and the mysterious Ms Acuri

MP Barry Sheerman in reasoned debate in the Commons

Boris is now being called to answer questions about … well it doesn’t matter. The way of the world appears to be that some non-entity makes an accusation about a public figure (normally involving sex, money or both) who is then required to respond, not by due process, but to trial by media, and as often as not, some self serving politician who seeks an opportunity to gain exposure by feigned outrage at the ‘allegations’. ‘Questions to answer’ … ‘held to account’ … ‘goes to character’ – the lexicon of mud-slinging is rolled out for personal and political gain.

Grumpy had no interest in an artificial furore about whether BoJo had somehow been involved in ‘influencing’ a grant to a company called Hacker House, a director of which, Jenifer Acuri, he is said to have had a ‘relationship’ with (another coded word full of innuendo and allusions to something illicit and sexual). However, Grumpy discovered he had multiple connections in LinkedIn to Ms Acuri (although he has never met her) and other people associated with Hacker House, so his ears perked up.

Layla Moran stated in the commons “We now know that Hacker House is not based in the UK”, presenting this as a ‘fact’ to support the allegations that BoJo was complicit somehow in facilitating a grant to a foreign organisation, and thus demonstrating yet again for his disregard for the rule of law.

She could have checked Companies House and determined that it is a UK Company, number 09678695, with a registered office in the UK in Ludgate House, a commercial office block on Fleet Street, London. It has a British director (although there is no impediment to prevent ALL the directors of a UK company being located overseas), and submits accounts to HMRC. In what way can the Company be described as not being based in the UK ? This is plain sophistry. Moran told an untruth to assert white is black, and from that perspective she is a guilty as others in using language to deceive and smear.

In the febrile atmosphere of the commons on 25th September, both sides sought to diminish the other in an astonishing display of the breakdown of government. Whilst Geofrey Cox (Attorney General) and Johnson did so fairly directly, Labour and Lib Dem sought to do so by innuendo and false conflating of issues. (Although Boris has also been also called a ‘dictator and ‘tyrant’ by opposition MP’s). Anna Soubry attempted to make a ‘joke’ about pole dancing, a snide reference to the aforementioned Ms Acuri, who is said to have indulged in same, again with the implication of a salacious character, five pound notes in knickers, and that sort of thing. As an ex-barrister, she is well versed in the art of smear.

On a broader front, Johnson was accused (by MP Paula Sherriff) of using “pejorative language” in referring to the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill as the ‘Surrender Bill’. As ever, the Oxford English Dictionary helps to interpret this; it defines ‘pejorative’ as “expressing contempt or disapproval”. Boris may be said to be not unreasonable in this regard, as he was of the view that it tied the hands of the government in negotiating with the EU, and hence his disapproval. The reality is that this approach is meat and potatoes to all MP’s – the tags ‘poll tax’ , ‘bedroom tax’ were all used by Her Majesty’s Opposition to convey negative connotations to the electorate about Bills in the House. At another extreme, Grumpy is also reminded of MP David Lammy referring to Brexit supporters as ‘worse than Nazis’, which did not generate even the slightest condemnation from the likes of Paula Sherriff in particular or the denizens of Corbyn’s benches in general.

Grumpy, and he suspects the ‘common man’, views them all equally; petty, backbiting, and mud slinging, with a focus on trying to do down the other side and ignoring the serious motes in the eye of the nation which need so desperately addressing.

A short reign

It rather looks like it’s 1649 again at the Palace of Westminster, and a blonde head is about to roll in a few days or weeks time. The parallels with that time are rather interesting. In seeking to try Charles I, parliament declared itself being able to legislate alone, as has just happened. The charge against the King was that of treason against the good of the country by ac ting to further his own personal interests, which has also been the mantra of the 21 rebels and others.

And so, the events of January 30th 1649 seem about to unfold again, albeit metaphorically. Thoughts of those days were triggered by Grumpy wondering who will be taking the role of Oliver Cromwell in this story. [ As an aside, the painting by Paul Delaroche (most known in the UK perhaps for the evocative depiction of the “Execution and Lady Jane Grey” in the National Gallery) entitled “Cromwell and the corpse of Charles I”, 1831, shows Cromwell as having to Grumpy’s eye an uncanny likeness to one John Bercow.]

It will not, of course, be the revered speaker. However, having spent the last few days castigating BoJo for setting aside the constitution and tradition, the various players will seek to do just that in selecting his predecessor. The convention for appointing a PM when the incumbent has lost a majority is that the role is taken by the leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition; but the ‘no Brexit full stop’ rebels, having used the Labour Party as usefull idiots to remove Boris cannot now countenance letting loose Corbyn/Macdonnell to wreck the country even more comprehensively than the worse of their Project fear Brexit projections.

Interesting times.

BoJo strikes !

Well, BoJo has played his hand to defeat the forces seeking to revoke Article 50. The final outcome is now very uncertain, but voices screaming ‘undemocratic’ and ‘unprecedented’ seem to have lost their memory of key events over the history of the sorry Brexit saga.

Reminder: BoJo is PM because due process was followed in replacing Theresa May, and he was elected via a majority of Conservative MP’s and a majority of Party members. This is exactly the same process which brought May, Blair, Brown etc into office. That many of those who put him into office are now whinging seems odd.

Further, none of those MP’s or party members can suggest that they did not know what BoJo was about. From the outset of his PM campaign he made it clear that ‘do or die’ he would leave on 31st October ‘with or without a deal’; that’s pretty clear. Compare and contrast this clear message with the vacillation, U turns, opaqueness and duplicity of those opposed to Brexit.

Jo Swinson (see http://grumpy.eastover.org.uk/jo-swinson-is-a-confused-hypocritical-flip-flop/ ) as one of the prime drivers behind ‘stop Boris’ has always been clear about her goal – to stop Brexit at all at any cost and revoke Article 50. Given that totally undemocratic goal in face of the referendum, it is particularly hypocritical that she should be leading the shouts of ‘foul’ given her own (and that of her aligned partners) duplicity in seeking to frustrate the real democratic mandate to leave.

Clearly, there are hugely influential voices opposed to this, such as Grieve and Hammond; but they are surrounded by has-beens such as Anna Soubry, who having made a wrong call on her future, is now deservedly inconsequential. She however still seeks to deny the process that put BoJo in power was legitimate, but her most irritating line is the ‘people didn’t vote for’ no deal in the referendum. It’s the sheer mind-numbing arrogance of her claim to know what the populace – all 17+m of them – voted for which sets her out as an unthinking intellectual pygmy. Hammond, despite his probably superior knowledge of the likely after effects of no deal, nevertheless sat in his seat in a cabinet in which his boss had set her stall out by repeatedly saying ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’ and took the tax payers shilling and kept the ministerial car.

Well, MP”s – including most of the (re)moaners voted down (with an historic majority) the only possible deal the EU would countenance as being the very definition of a bad deal. Bojo is merely fulfilling May’s strategy and implementing ‘no deal’. Time to do it.

Confused Coveneny

Simon Coveney has reacted to BoJo’s pronouncement on the backstop, but the
former’s brain seems locked in some endless Euro-loop. The Guardian reported him as saying “I think from a Brexit negotiating perspective, it was a very bad day yesterday” and that Johnson’s approach “is not the basis for an
agreement” .

But wait, the EU have consistently said that there will be NO negotiating ; the Withdrawal Agreement is the only one on offer – so what negotiation is he possibly referring to ? He also said that Johnson’s approach to Brexit talks as putting the UK “on a collision course with the EU” .

The position is simple. The EU has said that the Withdrawal Agreement is not
for negotiation and they will not open it. OK, that’s clear. Coveney (and the rest of the |EU) are also aware that the Withdrawal Agreement will not get through the House of Commons, having failed 3 times to be passed. That’s also clear.

Coveney also said that BoJo had set a collision course and “I think only he can answer the question as to why he is doing that”. The reality is nothing of the sort, and Coveney knows this. Simon Coveney can answer this if he thinks for 10 seconds rather than playing PR games. The impasse has nothing to do with Boris.

There is something about the EU which fries the brains of its politicians from grasping simple logic. Someone should explain slowly to him (a) the EU has said the Withdrawal Agreement will not be re-opened to negotiation (b) it cannot pass in the House of Commons. Ergo, the collision course was set long before BoJo got into Number 10. There is no solution if both of these things are true, period. How hard is this to grasp ??

BoJo is simply recognising a reality that May refused to acknowledge. The backstop is the primary reason for the failure to pass the Withdrawal Agreement and Bojo is merely stating what is obvious to all except seemingly 649 people in Westminster (the 650th being Boris). This is what frustrates the general populace so.

The impasse can only be broken by altering one or both of these constraints, which is unlikely to happen, so outwith some unforeseen shift in attitudes by both parties, the law of the UK applies and on 1st November 2019 we are an independent country.