My Emails to My Local Labour Party Asking Them If They Want Copies of My Books Against NHS Privatisation

I’m still trying to get people interested in my books attacking the privatisation of the NHS. A few days ago I sent this email to my local Labour party, Bristol South, asking if they would be interested in receiving copies of them.

‘Dear ,

Thank you for the email notifying me of February’s meeting next week. I am contacting you because, like so many other people, I am greatly concerned about the state of the health service and the threat of privatisation. This process has been going on for forty years since Margaret Thatcher, and in my opinion is responsible for the much of the dreadful state it’s now in. A few years ago I wrote a couple of self-published pieces of literature against it. One is a ten-page pamphlet and the other is a small book. I would very much like to know if the party would like to receive copies, which they could use for reference and for helping others to understand this threat.

Here is a description of the books.

‘Don’t Let Cameron Privatise the NHS, David Sivier, A5, 10pp.

This is a brief critique of successive government’s gradual privatisation of the NHS, beginning with Margaret Thatcher. Tony Blair’s New Labour were determined to turn as much healthcare as possible over to private companies, on the advice of the consultants McKinsey and the American insurance companies. The Conservatives under David Cameron have continued and extended Blair’s privatisation, so that there is a real danger that the NHS, and the free, universal service it has provided for sixty-five years, will be destroyed. If the NHS is to be saved, we must act soon.’

Privatisation: Killing the NHS, by David Sivier, A5, 34 pp. This is a longer pamphlet against the privatisation of the NHS. It traces the gradual privatisation of the Health Service back to Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, John Major’s Private Finance Initiative in the 1990s, the Blair and Brown ‘New Labour’ governments, and finally David Cameron and the Conservatives. There is a real, imminent danger that the NHS will be broken up and privatised, as envisioned by Andrew Lansley’s, the author of the Tories’ Health and Social Care Act of 2012. This would return us to the conditions of poor and expensive healthcare that existed before the foundation of the NHS by the Clement Atlee’s Labour government in 1948. Already the Tories have passed legislation permitting ‘healthcare providers’ – which include private companies – to charge for NHS services.

The book is fully referenced, with a list of books for further reading, and organisations campaigning to preserve the NHS and its mission to provide universal, free healthcare.’

Yours with best wishes,

David Sivier’

I haven’t received a reply so far. I’ll let you all know if I get one.

Advertisement

Tags: Andrew Lansley, Clement Attlee, Conservatives, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, John Major, Labour Party, Margaret Thatcher, McKinsey, New Labour, NHS, NHS Privatisation, Pamphlets, Private Finance Initiative, Private Healthcare Companies, tony blair