When a Freudian slip resembles a self-inflicted banana skin

 a con, Coalition cuts, Jonathan Djanogly, Ken Clarke, Legal Aid, Lord Freud, welfare, Welfare State, www.soundoffforjustice.org  No Responses »
Jan 132012
 

Ekklesia describes the government’s performance in the Lords this week quite perfectly:

Lord Freud, for the government, is generally agreed to have put in a dismal performance – getting his sums confused, admitting lack of evidence on Work Capability Assessments (which have been plagued by misdiagnoses and appeals), and having no response to detailed case studies and well-researched criticisms levelled by opponents.

But this is not only happening in the context that is welfare and disability.  The admirable website Sound Off For Justice highlighted – also on Wednesday – the following absurdities in the Coalition’s foolish plans to cut Legal Aid:

Yesterday was is the launch my of my long-awaited report on the Government’s legal aid reforms which found that for every ￡1 cut from the legal aid budget less than 42 pence will actually be saved from the public purse.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) will achieve its savings by largely cost shifting to other cash-strapped departments. For example, for every ￡1 saved by removing clinical negligence from legal aid funding it will cost the NHS almost ￡3.

Thus it is that I am unable to decide whether I believe this government to be unbelievably Machiavellian as it proceeds with an unnecessary plan of cuts in order to impose a reign of merciless subjugation on a now hapless voting public or – perhaps worse for us all in such crisis-ridden times as these, where effective leadership is surely required – whether I see it to be simply and quite miserably incompetent in practically everything it does.

Evil or unprepared then?  That is the question.  What is clear is that Lord Freud’s slips were unhappy examples of self-inflicted banana skins; unnecessary but revealing actions of the frankly useless and totally unhelpful.

And what’s absolutely patent is that whilst Lord Freud will continue to enjoy a privileged standard of living, distanced from the violences of this socioeconomic disaster which he and his colleagues are visiting upon us, it will be the ordinary people who will suffer the consequences of this Coalition’s lack of preparation for the high offices it has aspired to.

As Ekklesia underlined (the bold is mine):

Lord Low hit out at the “draconian” nature of the ESA limits being proposed and called on Lib Dems peers (who had been given a non-whipped vote) to “search their consciences” when it came to voting.

On exempting cancer patients, Lord Patel pointed out that the issue was a reduction in savings, not extra funding. His amendment, he said,was not about adding to expenditure but refusing to take £1.3 billion from the most vulnerable.

He declared: “If you are going to rob the poor to pay the rich we have entered a different form of morality”, adding that cancer patients are not “not skivers, not benefit cheats”.

Absolutely spot-on.

And absolutely disgraceful.

And still I am not sure if it is true incompetence or utter evil.

Parallel worlds: how the monetisation of the Internet will lead to the monetisation of the Welfare State

 Amazon, Andrew Lansley, Apple, Facebook, FreeTheInternet, Internet, Jonathan Djanogly, Mark Zuckerberg, monetisation, Splinternet, Steve Jobs, unclassifiable, Welfare State  No Responses »
Oct 012011
 

Paul has some really good overviews of tons of stuff.  When we meet up, which is far too occasionally, for me anyhow, I find his ability to synthesise big ideas and break them down into gobbets I can understand one of the most exhilarating things about his conversation – and, by extension, though less frequently these days than might be the case, via the words he lets slip in his blog Never Trust a Hippy.

This evening, for example, I am struck by this paragraph:

As far as I can see, the Tories are moving ever-closer to a subscription model of the state – one where a higher-rate taxpayer expects a higher level of service, and where a freemium model of public service is advanced. You can almost see all politics as a tug-of-war in which active citizens game the tax and benefits system (I fleshed this out more here a few weeks ago).

And he goes on to conclude (the bold is mine):

To my poor mind, this isn’t an argument or fight that can be ducked. Nor is it one on which we can’t land heavy blows. Watching the way both the US and the EU are floundering at the moment, tracing the lack of historical vitality – governments that don’t believe that they have the legitimacy to act – this isn’t a trivial issue either.

I think Paul is absolutely spot-on in what he says, when he argues we can’t duck the fight.  And I think the reason we can’t goes much further than simply politics.  It may be the case, very shortly, that the most important development of the last ten years – and here I refer to the Internet – will end up looking like a futile and unhappy blip in our sociocultural history: really what I’m saying here is that I suspect the encroaching monetisation of the Internet – via Facebook, Apple, Amazon and its Kindle and a multitude of other splintering impulses – is acting as an undeniable customisation of our shared and common mindscapes which will lead inevitably to the monetisation of many other parallel worlds; worlds which to date have remained analogously free.

That is to say, the importance of this battle to maintain through the Internet a certain liberty of movement of ideas and content is much much bigger than simply guaranteeing a means of communication.  If we lose the marvellous commons which to date this Internet has more or less brought us, we may almost certainly run the risk of losing a whole raft of other realities. 

Is it really too wild, then, to suggest that the progressive monetisation of the Internet might make the Coalition’s plans to – similarly – monetise the Welfare State far more likely?

For just as the Internet has radically changed the way we think nowadays, and online behaviours have influenced what we accept offline, so the monetisation of the Internet may change what – in a much wider context – we feel we have a right to expect.

Thus it is that, in reality, I fear for the Welfare State not because of the Andrew Lansleys and Jonathan Djanoglys of this world.

Rather, I fear for the Welfare State because of the Mark Zuckerbergs and Steve Jobs.

The Coalition-sponsored guerilla war to rid Britain of all public sector services

 a con, David Cameron, Jonathan Djanogly, Ken Clarke, Legal Aid, NHS, NHS cuts, political guerilla warfare, welfare, Welfare State  No Responses »
Sep 292011
 

Here’s a government campaign (more background here) which hasn’t reached my attention until it’s almost too late:

Having access to high-quality public services is essential to our modern society. The better our public services, the more we help those most in need.

You will find fantastic examples of what great public services can offer individuals and communities all over the UK. Many of our public services are among the best in the world, with our public sector professionals leading in expertise and innovation.

However, the delivery of these services is not always consistent—with the most poor often being the most affected. Our old-fashioned, centralised approach means there’s too much “take what you’re given” and not enough focus on improvement and accountability. We want to change things so that everybody in the UK—no matter where they live, or what their circumstance—benefits from the best services available.

Open Public Services will encourage innovation and give people more choice and control over the services they use by putting power directly in the hands of millions of families and thousands of communities.

Tomorrow, in fact, its consultation period closes.  And I do wonder why it hasn’t received the publicity that other more discrete (though not discreet) government actions which aim to dismantle the NHS and Legal Aid have generated.  Especially since its ramifications are such that any result moderately in favour will lead to all public services being opened up to the private sector.

There is some good news, mind.  The White Paper itself is not only available in .pdf and Word format – but also in an OpenOffice.org .odt alternative.

Probably just about the only thing truly open about the whole damn exercise.  As an email which arrived in my inbox this morning points out (the bold is mine):

If you disagree with government plans to sell off all public services to the private sector, make your views known before it’s too late! Tell the government what you think at http://www.openpublicservices.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/

This Friday 30 September is the last chance for you to object to plans that could mean the full scale privatisation of all public services. If the government’s plans go ahead, hospitals, schools, libraries and social services will be open to be run by the private sector.

David Cameron has said that he wants to introduce ‘a presumption’ that private companies and charities can run all public services. This amounts to selling off all public services – the government wants to repeat the Health and Social Care Bill for all other departments.

Anyone who doesn’t want their public services to be auctioned off to the highest bidder needs to respond to this consultation before it’s too late. And please help spread the word and join the facebook group.

I’d be inclined to advise if you care about public services at all to follow the suggestions held in the email above.  In the light of this White Paper, it would seem that the Health and Social Care Bill on the one hand and the government attack on Legal Aid on the other are simply the first salvoes in a much wider piece of Coalition-sponsored guerilla warfare designed to break up and destroy – in one way or another – the much-treasured and beloved British Welfare State.

The Welfare State always was socialism by the back door – and the British people loved it precisely because of this.  The right could never get over the fact that socialism could flourish in what was supposedly a conservative nation.  And yet the value of a democratic socialism, focussed on the needs of all individuals, was never better demonstrated than by these now fragile pillars of the Welfare State.

The battle will only get cruder.  We have to be ready and prepared.

The Welfare State – and those 250,000 insults to people like you and me

 a con, Andrew Lansley, conflict of interests, Jonathan Djanogly, Legal Aid, NHS, Welfare State, www.soundoffforjustice.org  No Responses »
Sep 222011
 

Says it all really.  I wrote on this story already here:

Till today, the real confusion has lain in why the government has a) doggedly preferred its own proposals to the aforementioned plan; b) doggedly preferred the consequently minimal access it promises for the vast majority of people to proper legal support; and c) doggedly preferred – in these times of supposedly serious economic crisis – the £350 million they aim to save with their proposals to the £384 million the Law Society suggests might be practicable with theirs.

There was me thinking it all had to do with greasing the levers of corporate power.

But, in the light of the Guardian report this evening I link to above, it would appear the real reason strikes much closer to a much more tawdry home than that.

And so I ask the following question: are certain members of the Coalition now running the government entirely in their own self-interest?

Now we have another story from the selfsame newspaper – the repercussions of which as far as I can see have been more or less limited as far as the rest of the press is concerned:

Jonathan Djanogly, the justice minister piloting controversial plans to cut legal aid and curb payouts – a move that could benefit the insurance industry to the tune of £1bn a year – has investments worth at least £250,000 in companies with insurance arms.

He is also weighing up proposals that may have a profound effect on his brother-in-law’s business, which advertises compensation claims for accidents. Labour wrote to the cabinet secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, on Monday night to demand an investigation following the Guardian’s inquiry.

And I’m really looking to get my head round the reality this lays out before us: how is it possible for ministers responsible for our Welfare State – for let us be clear: Legal Aid is the fifth pillar of that raft of services and institutions which dragged Britain out of the mindsets of the 19th century – to be bankrolled by, family of or directly involved in companies whose futures and future profits will depend on the decisions they are currently piloting through Parliament? 

Why do so few people care about these apparent conflicts of interests? 

Why don’t more people find this outrageous? 

Will, in fact, the abiding achievement of this Coalition government be to even disengage our ability to disengage?

All you need to know about the dismantling of the Welfare State – in one easy lesson

 a con, Andrew Lansley, Coalition, Iraq, Jonathan Djanogly, Legal Aid, NHS, Tories, Welfare State  No Responses »
Sep 172011
 

This is how it used to be.  As recently as 2007, in fact – at least according to the Guardian newspaper:

The post-war Labour government established the four pillars of our welfare state: the NHS, free education, social security and public housing. Sixty years on, these institutions are rightly cherished and any major attempt to reform them can expect to provoke much public and media controversy.

The same government established the legal aid scheme (sometimes described as the fifth pillar of the welfare state) having recognised that equality of access to justice and the right to representation before the law were as fundamental to the creation of a just society as free healthcare and education. The scheme ensured that everyone who needed a lawyer should have one, regardless of ability to pay.

Now the Tory-led Coalition is in the process of dismantling the Welfare State – and, whilst as with the lead-up to Iraq almost a decade ago, there have been many murmurings, puzzlements, ideological disagreements and political accusations, the real reason would appear to be becoming evermore clearer.

Iraq, in the end, wasn’t about weapons of mass destruction.  It was, so clearly, a combination of assuring necessary supplies of oil to Western consumers whilst at the same time guaranteeing – in a wider sense – that mainly American economic interests could take financial advantage of the situation.

All that stuff about the end of history, the clash of civilisations and that neo-conservative century of newly politicised democratic endeavour was, in the end, I am sadly afraid, just a pile of incomprehensible burblings.

Remember this, at least for the rest of the post: it was all about – and nothing more than a question of – making pots of money.

And so we have, from the Telegraph as long ago as last year, an unhappy thesis in relation to the person now most responsible for engineering the dismantling of the first pillar of the Welfare State – that is to say, the NHS:

Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, is being bankrolled by the head of one of the biggest private health providers to the NHS, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Meanwhile, yesterday I posted on a story which came yet again from the Guardian.  In this case, the article seemed to indicate in a fairly convincing manner that the person most responsible for dismantling the fifth pillar of the Welfare State as mentioned above – the Legal Aid system – will be in a position to benefit personally from some of the changes he is looking to push through.

As I said at the top of today’s post: this is all you need to know about the dismantling of the Welfare State – in one easy lesson.

A transfer of masses and masses of pots of money.

To those who already have plenty …

Are certain members of the Coalition now running the government entirely in their own self-interest?

 a con, Guardian, Jonathan Djanogly, Law Society, Legal Aid, www.soundoffforjustice.org  No Responses »
Sep 162011
 

I have kind of asked this question several times over the past few days.  In my piece “Legal Aid = NHS = Welfare State = Magna Carta (or Bye Bye Britain)” I said the following:

It does really beg the question, doesn’t it? Why is the government so against the proposals of the Law Society – proposals which practising professionals have designed in accordance with their close and profound relationship to the coalface of daily endeavour; proposals which aim to save more money not less than the government’s own plan of action?

I then went on to pose, in my naive and trusting way, the following question:

So what do you think? Is there any pattern emerging? Does anything make you feel the strong are being given ever-stronger tools to impose their power over the evermore hapless weak? That the government doesn’t simply ignore the needs of the less well-off in society – but actually actively operates to prejudice them.

Only to conclude:

[...] The more the population discovers that its government’s true intention is to effectively remove a safe access at point of sale to a raft of human rights (human rights which we previously had learned to take absolutely for granted), the more those who break the law will get away with doing so. And thus the rich will get richer – and the rest of society, from the middle classes downwards, will be all the poorer in both body and mind for it.

Doesn’t half sound like what this Coalition government is doing to both the economy and the NHS.

So does no one else perceive the similarity on these three significant fronts – in vision and actions both?

Can no one else see the pattern?

Will no one else demand that this all be stopped before the circle is finally closed?

And I say in my naive and trusting way because I naturally assumed the Coalition was acting – as political groupings mostly do – on behalf of its sponsors and natural supporters.  Nothing out of the ordinary there, then.  Nothing to raise even a resignedly unhappy eyebrow.  You might not agree – you might even find it distasteful – but politics is politics, and the pork-barrel side of its age-old and revered process is never going to be that distant a factor.

Only the conundrum would now seem to be unravelling.  The other day I published a post which described how the Association of British Insurers and big retailers like Argos and Asda were supporting far-reaching government proposals to alter the balance and structure of compensation cases in the future – essentially, and for the alleged benefit of customers and workforces, to remove lawyers from the equation in order to save money and speed up the process.  As I said in that post:

So let me see.  What we’re arguing here is that if lawyers were no longer to be involved, insurers and their clients would continue to happily fork out an extra £289 per case compared to the amount they would otherwise have paid under the so-called “have a go” culture.  That is to say, without the threat of lawyerly intervention, insurers would blithely – nay, joyfully – pay out sums of money to injured parties precisely and only because the purpose of insurers is to give people lots of money!

It just didn’t seem to fit.  Didn’t seem to fit at all.

And then the Guardian goes and publishes the following story this evening – and everything becomes as clear as the hardest of all blood diamonds:

The Conservative justice minister piloting controversial plans to cut legal aid and curb payouts that could benefit the insurance industry to the tune of a billion pounds a year will personally profit from the changes, a Guardian investigation can reveal.

Jonathan Djanogly, the legal services minister, is pushing a bill through parliament which will attempt to slash the budget for legal aid by £350m as well as forcing claimants to pay out of any awarded damages their lawyers’ success fees and insurance policies that cover court costs. Experts say this will benefit the insurance industry by at least “hundreds of millions of pounds”.

Remember, as I and others have already pointed out with a more than sufficient clarity, the Law Society has proposed a plan which saves more money than the government’s own proposals whilst still managing to protect the right of access for millions of people. 

Till today, the real confusion has lain in why the government has a) doggedly preferred its own proposals to the aforementioned plan; b) doggedly preferred the consequently minimal access it promises for the vast majority of people to proper legal support; and c) doggedly preferred – in these times of supposedly serious economic crisis – the £350 million they aim to save with their proposals to the £384 million the Law Society suggests might be practicable with theirs.

There was me thinking it all had to do with greasing the levers of corporate power.

But, in the light of the Guardian report this evening I link to above, it would appear the real reason strikes much closer to a much more tawdry home than that.

And so I ask the following question: are certain members of the Coalition now running the government entirely in their own self-interest?