pull-quotes on this page ----- tomerton Hosp iate 4 Entra Julio Etchort/Retlex NUPE's Rodney Bickerstaff addresses nurses on the picket line at Homerton hospital, London: health service workers are looking for leadership to SOCIALIST OUTLOOK noó March/April 1988
But it is the strength of feeling and the eagerness of NHS workers to take action in defence of the health service that poses the greatest problem for the labour movement leadership. Because what the left of the movement have been advocating coincides with a mood for action at a grassroots level.
Health service workers, them the wider public, are looking for leadership to challenge the government effectively over the NHS. Those presently in control of the labour movement are in danger of being outflanked from both the left and the right — and it's got them running scared
Of course their first reaction to the groundswell of opposition has been to look for a way to control — and contain - it. Robin Cook, Labour's shadow health minister, weighed in quickly with a warning to nurses about striking, a point picked up by Kinnock in his speech at the local government conference in Edinburgh.
Even the trade union leaders - who at least stand to gain members from showing the slightest willingness to lead "strike action feeds the public
pressure to defend the NHS' an effective campaign — shy away from the use of even limited industrial action, or indeed from any substance with any real base in their membership, in favour of "imaginative', solely PR-based initiatives.
Given the direction of Kinnockism it's not surprising that the retreat to the "moral high ground' has left the movement's leadership high and dry and cut off from the mood - and needs — of the rank and file it left behind.
Cowed by Kinnockism, the movement has been left demoralised timid of asserting even its most basic values, and lacking confidence in the use of its traditional strengths. Having hitched themselves so firmly to Thatcher's free marketeering bandwagon and her cynical sham 'championing' of the 'consumer', Kinnock et al, having dozed off for a bit, are now waking up with a bump and are getting their bums scraped as they're pulled along behind her. Julio Etchart/Reflex Labour's response to Thatcher's challenge on NHS funding (which might yet see her through the crisis, and could well leave the Labour movement out in the cold and more of the NHS's workers in the private sector or on the dole and either way not in a union) has been slow in coming, basic at best, and SOCIALIST OUTLOOK noó March/April 1988
HEALTH stamps and lotteries. and with Everywhere Labour
'think-tanks' to produce them. But most their secretive, soul-searching, most efficient way to fund the NHS increase tax-funding to meet its increased workload. campaign of
main types of 'private money': • One is your money (willing or not) of private medical insurance. • The other is company money of health and the NHS. In general, any injection of company money will mean more — so in the end there is only one your purse or wallet. To hide this uncomfortable fact, the Tories are flirting with several schemes. extension of 'consumer choice'. Everyone would receive basic hospitals — until they run out! million course few would choose to spend
kidney ward.
certainly confused and patchy. 'Solu- tions' proffered by Labour range from Kinnock's own initial 'agnosticism' on the question, through a basic demand for a couple of billion pounds instead of tax cuts, to Labour MP Frank Field's public toying with the idea of health politicians are scrambling to assess the amount of dam- age that can be limited and the bottom line that they can live with. Plus having cut policy and research resources at policies Walworth Road, the Labour Party have suddenly realised that they need ideas and are desperately trawling around for Labour's importantly leaders lack the political commitment, or service • What are the Tory plans? SHREWDLY, the Tories have opened mould-breaking 'great debate' on the future of the NHS only after the 1987 They know that the simplest and (endorsed by 90 per cent of the public and 80 per cent of Tory voters) is to administration. But Thatcher prefers ideas that will inject 'private' money into the NHS, and thus undermine it. There are two paying new charges or as a customer invested in ways to make a profit out patients paying charges for treatment source of 'private money', and that is • 'Voucher' schemes dress up the imposition of charges for treatment and the establishment of a 'two tier' health service for rich and poor as an vouchers to spend in NHS or private • 'Hotel charges' has become the deceptive term used to cover up plans to force patients to pay for each day and night in a hospital bed. The term "hotel' suggests idle luxury — but of their fortnight's holiday in a gynae or the NHs? O JOHN LISTER Two big problems are that the
even their own much acclaimed PR strat- egy, to stake a claim for the socialist alternative model for the health service. Even under the terms of their own inade- quate scheme to simply harness public support through monitoring, identifying and targetting public opinion (not itself invalid as a device) - they've flopped. Because with their battallions of pri- vate pollsters and 'Labour listens' fia- scos, they've only attempted responsive propaganda — to tailor campaigns and perceived to particular snapshots of public opinion. They have failed, by not even at- tempting, to go on the offensive — to create and 'sell' a vision and practical possibility of a genuinely public health "hotel charges' would need to be means-tested (since a majority of in-patients are pensioners, children, or unemployed); and patients caught for the full charge would have to pay a relatively large amount to compensate for the large numbers of exemptions and the huge extra costs of Creating an 'internal market' and competition within the NHS also sounds trendy: but without extra cash many major hospitals, especially in London, will need to continue reducing their caseload. What comfort would it be for Londoners to hear of 'competitive' hospitals in Liverpool or Devon? And if London hospitals did increase their 'market share', this would reverse the government policy of diverting NHS resources out of the capital to other regions. 'Greater cooperation' between the NHS and the private sector is another deception. The whole burden of training nurses and medical staff, and of providing expensive emergency services and long-stay care for the elderly, mentally ill and handicapped falls on the NHS and local authorities. No wonder private firms volunteer to 'cooperate' in providing easy, profitable waiting list operations. Some propose a state lottery for the Hs. This only confirms that it is dogma, not economics that is the driving force in Tory thinking. Why else consider going to the bizarre lengths of administering lottery ticket sales, calculating winners, and paying out prizes — when almost the whole population (with the exception of cabinet ministers and their 'think tanks') favours spending more tax revenue on 11
whether anyone will oppose Kinnock his obsession with witch-hunting Labour country telling the labour movement
anis Doran/Reflex AT THE TIME of writing, it is still unclear clear whether he means a diversion from and Hattersley for leader and deputy at party members or from the fight against this year's Labour Party conference.
The Campaign group of MPs has voted by a large majority that there should be a challenge, and most constituencies with Campaign group MPs sup port such a challenge. But Tony Benn, the obvious candidate, is still undecided despite the sharpness of his attacks on Kinnock. The three women MPs mooted as candidates for the deputy leadership
The longer the indecision, the less
Ta challenge. launching a serious campaign diminish by the day. Yet the conditions for a leadership challenge are better than they have been for several years.
Kinnock has already said that such a 12 contest would be a 'diversion'. It is not
LABOUR PARTY
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