I still can’t bring myself to see how bad it is. New Labour. Now even Polly Toynbee has given them up. I remember talking to her at the introduction of the NHS reforms when Frank Dobson announced the demolition of the “Berlin Wall” between the NHS and local government social care. I raised some mild concern then about what was happening and was sharply dismissed as an unbeliever in the face of the Blairite agenda. Now she announces ” a shipwreck” and the “death of social democracy” in the hands of Brown and Darling.
Privatisation is showing itself clearly as the creator of a crisis in key public service. The deaths of 90 patients at the hands of the Maidstone & District NHS Trust has happened while the board had their eyes on the problem they had paying off their PFI debts. This is a result of New Labour, not Tory policy. Now Blair has gone to create havoc elsewhere it is clear that there is an endless queue of replacements who not only shun socialism but don’t even support a pale shadow in the pretense of social democracy.

What’s happening in schools is alarming now that some of the new academies have gone not only into the hands of private concerns, their curriculum is dictated so that they preach the creationism so favoured by the far right running America at the moment. It’s unbelievable in any case, but that this can happen under even New Labour. It seems to have stunned some of its own MPs.
Haven’t mentioned record numbers banged up, the exponential growth of women in prison – and privatisation. No care, not for the many who have mental health needs. The effects of mothers in prison is now being researched by the Scarman Trust in Birmingham. What happens to not only them but consequences on families cannot be imagined. Well certainly not by New Labour who don’t even show signs of caring.