Video Commemorating the Victims of this Tory Government

I’ve reblogged many articles and videos commemorating the people, who’ve died in hunger and misery thanks to the Tories’ wretched welfare policies. There have been pieces by Johnny Void, Mike, Another Angry Voice, Stilloaks and many, many others, which have given the names of some of these victims and brief descriptions of the circumstances in which they died.

This is another of these videos. It was originally produced by Jack back on YouTube, and then reposted by Democratic Socialist, an Aussie YouTuber, who argues with various right-wing idiots about socialism and the nature of capitalism. And some of them are truly mind-boggling stupid. One British Conservative, who put up a video attacking a pro-socialist video, stated in his own that he didn’t know, who Nye Bevin was. Democratic Socialist in his own critique of the Tory’s video pointed out how ridiculous it was that he, an Australian, should have to point out to him that Nye Bevan was the founder of the British NHS.

The video begins with this quote from Theresa May

‘We will make Britain a country that works not for the privileged few, but for everyone of us. That will be the mission of the government I lead, and together we will build a better Britain’.

This is then followed by the brief descriptions of some of the victims of the Tories’ welfare reforms, which has seen seriously and even terminally ill women and men thrown off their benefits after being assessed as ‘fit for work’, first by ATOS and then by their successor, Maximus. It has also resulted in desperately poor people being sanctioned and denied benefits by the Jobcentre for the most trivial of reasons. Many of the people in the video died by their own hand, unable to bear the misery and starvation any more. Although they killed themselves, the ultimate responsibility for their deaths lies with Conservatives, who instituted the policies that created their desperate poverty.

The people listed in the video as having been killed by these murderous welfare policies, which Mike and others have rightly described as the genocide of the disabled, include

Neil Groves
Brian McArdle
Mark Wood
David Clapson
David Coupe
Linda Wootton
Stephanie Bottrill
Annette Francis

The video ends with the statement

‘These are some of the people who got the media’s attention. There are many more that didn’t’.

Quite. The last thing I read, it was heading for around 700, though I can’t remember the precise figure. And there are many more, who are keeping body and soul together only through food banks.

Enough’s enough. The time’s long past that this government should have been forced out. It’s time an election was called and the Tories voted out of office before they murder any more of the poor, sick and disabled.

Fabian Pamphlet on Workers’ Control in Yugoslavia: Part 2

Continued from Part 1.

The Role of the Trade Unions

It is usually assumed that in a capitalist economy the Trade Union movement fulfills a different and essentially more democratic role than the unions in a country such as Yugoslavia. It is said that by remaining independent of management and government the unions provide the essential element in any democracy, that of opposition. This has always been one of the stumbling blocks which any advocate of workers’ control must encounter. An understanding of the role of our own trade union movement is a necessary first step towards working out a programme for democratising industry which does not fall foul of this traditional objection. This understanding may be furthered by an appreciation of the position of trade unions in other countries where social systems are different. In Britain it may well be that the trade unions become more and more committed to the status quo in industry, so their opposition function is weakened. The respect for national collective agreements, the support of the leadership for the current productivity drive, the discouragement of unofficial strike action, the rejection of co-ordinated industrial action to break the pay pause, and finally the decision to join the NEDC suggest that the unions are moving towards the position of partners in a managerial society.

The simple distinction between free trade unionism in a capitalist society, and trade unions in a communist state which become organs for the implementation of state policy, becomes increasingly blurred. We should think instead of a spectrum of relative degrees of independence from the state, ranging from the Russian trade unions at one extreme, through Yugoslav, Scandinavian and Dutch, to the British and American movements at the other, with perhaps the Communist Unions of France and Italy as the least committed to the state. The recognition of this trend does not imply advocacy of a general strike mentality over the pay pause, for example, but we need a more honest recognition of what is taking place. We should admit first that it is inevitable that the trade unions will move in the direction of close co-operation with government, and towards a ‘national interest’ point of view. As this trend continues, the worker is faced with the growing prospect of an alliance between government, employers and unions. In this situation union leaders no longer express the independent sectional and industrial aspirations of their members. Partly because of this, the role of the voluntary rank and file element in trade union government appears to be diminishing and its functions are being superseded by paid officials. The unions are becoming agencies run for their members and not by them.

With the weakening of the elements of opposition and participation there is a need to seek alternative means by which employees can express themselves in the government of industry. This need arises not only from a consideration of industrial democracy, but also of industrial efficiency. Appeals for increased industrial production, such as British Productivity Year, evoke slight response because they are based on an assumption of team spirit and equal partnership which is excluded by the very nature of social relationships in a private enterprise economy. Yugoslav experience strongly suggests that increased productivity is one of the results of their form of industrial democracy. However if democratisation in industry is advocated solely on grounds of higher productivity, it will be received with suspicion. The question would not be how much power and control can we give to democratic forms of management, but rather how small a concession will be necessary in the interests of productivity. Such a path would reproduce the history of progressive disillusion which has befallen Joint Consultation. Thus the idealist exponent of workers’ control may claim to solve must fully the economic problem of incentive.

In Britain, advocates of workers’ control have traditionally thought in terms of Trade Union management of industry. Efforts in this direction have always ended in a blind alley, since the objection that this involves a dual loyalty for the union is a valid one. As we have seen, the Yugoslav system does not involve Trade Unions in the direct management of the Enterprise. It suggests not only a new role for the Unions, but also the practical constitutional forms for the management of the firm by its employees.

The role of the unions in such a system is that of a mass social institution representing the wider national interests of the workers and tackling problems such as the overall levels of incomes and income structure, labour productivity etc. As we have suggested, there is already a tendency for British unions to assume such a role, and the doubts which we have raised about the desirability of this trend would be dispelled if the unions were operating within the framework of an industrial democracy. If workers had legally guaranteed rights of management then the need for the union to be an instrument of opposition is weakened. However, unions could still continue to protect the interests of their members by taking up grievances on behalf of groups and individuals who are in dispute with the elected management bodies. They should certainly seek to influence the decisions and activities of management bodies, but should not be tied to them in an institutional sense.

Workers Democracy in Britain

In considering the relevance of the Yugoslav model to British conditions, two objections may arise. The First concerns the compatibility of Industrial democracy and the private ownership of industry. Does it not challenge the very origins of power which are possessed by the managers of private enterprise firms? Is it not desirable for the Labour movement to give much closer attention to the possibility of introducing experimental forms of workers’ control within existing nationalised industry. This would demonstrate the practicability of the method and point a way to the fully democratic society at which the socialist movement aims.

The second objection is more difficult to counter. Yugoslavia is a one party state. is it likely that in a multi-party state, industrial democracy could be introduced with any guarantee of its permanence? Would not the anti-socialist forces exert such pressure that the system was undermined whilst it was being introduced, and abolished at the first opportunity presented by the return of a Conservative government? It is probably true in Yugoslavia that the permission of opposition views and organisations could generate counter-revolutionary forces which would seriously retard the evolution of the system. The government and the Party clearly fear this. Thus after flirting with Djilas’ heresies, which included the advocacy of a second – though socialist – party, the leadership decided against taking the risk. This is the point at which Yugoslav experience ceases to be helpful to us.

We should not therefore assume that the introduction of industrial democracy in the British context is impracticable. There are signs that unease concerning status at work has penetrated through to the political arena. Liberal party references to ‘syndicalism’ and the long-awaited Conservative Industrial Charter are manifestations of this. These schemes relate to the improvement of the position of workers within the present hierarchical framework, and do not tackle the root of the problem. We would expect that the early demonstration of the viability of a system of democratic control within the nationalised industries would generate enthusiasm for the idea and lead to demands for its extension. The British political system certainly restricts the speed of change, but a change which has become truly popular is difficult to reverse (e.g. The National Health Service). We believe that the Labour Party could, by taking the first steps towards democracy within nationalised industry, transform what has been an electoral embarrassment and a millstone into its biggest asset.

See Part 3 for my own conclusions.

Theresa May Stopped Britain Accepting EU Legislation Controlling Immigration

This is very interesting stuff, as it hints at all kinds of machinations that have gone on behind the doors of the Tory party to ramp up the controversy about immigration artificially as a way of stoking popular resentment against the EU.

On Sunday, Mike also put up an article forecasting that May’s speech on Tuesday about Brexit would be a disaster, and that it would show her absolute failure to control immigration. Mike was informed by his commenters, Wanda Lozinska and Pat Whitaker that six years ago the EU passed legislation that would limit the time EU citizens could freely circulate in a foreign country to three months. After this time, they would have to show that they either had a job, or could support themselves through their savings or insurance without relying on the host nation’s welfare services. But Britain was one of the few states that did not adopt this legislation.

This was when May was head of the Home Office, which is in charge of immigration.

Mike’s article concludes

So Theresa May has always been able to curb immigration. She simply chose not to.

One has to wonder why not.

Is there a secret aspect to this, that we haven’t been told?

http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2017/01/15/theresa-mays-brexit-speech-on-tuesday-will-be-about-her-failure-especially-on-immigration/

It looks that way. Of course, there are distinct advantages to big business to keeping up a high immigration rate, regardless of what the Tories may say about the need to curb immigration, national sovereignty and the rest of the guff. A plentiful supply of labour means that wages can be kept low, and unions weak. If your staff start complaining about poor wages and conditions, you can simply sack them and replace them with people even more desperate for work from eastern Europe. You can also keep the working class divided by stoking up nationalistic resentments against foreign nationals. Counterpunch today has put up a very interesting article about how the Jim Crow laws in the southern American states during Segregation served to keep the working class weak and divided by pitting Black and White blue collar Americans at each other’s throats. See Kevin Carson’s article ‘Right to Work and the Apartheid State’, at http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/01/19/right-to-work-and-the-apartheid-state/. And quite apart from the economic aspects, the Tory party clearly also used immigration from eastern Europe and the EU to pose as the defender of the traditional British population from the threat of all those foreigners, just as its always banged the jingoistic drum against EU legislation when it served their purpose.

It seems to me absolutely certain that May and the Tories have kept immigration high despite, not because of the EU as part of their policy of grinding down the working people of all countries for the enrichment of big business.

Don’t be taken it. The Tories are not the friends of British working people. They want to stoke up insecurity and xenophobia between people of different races and nationalities, all the better to exploit them.

Reject them and their bigotry.

Marx was right: workingmen [and women] of all countries, unite!

And defend the NHS. May and Hunt must resign. Now!

The War and Socialist Demands for a National Health Service before the Beveridge Report

This is following a debate I’ve recently had with a critic, who stated that the National Health Service had its origins in the Beveridge Report of 1942, and was endorsed by Winston Churchill and the Conservatives. This is true, up to a point, though Churchill was initially very cautious about the foundation of a National Health Service. After the War he made a radio speech denouncing the Labour party’s plans for a complete reconstruction of Britain as ‘a Gestapo for England’. However, Michael Sullivan in his book, The Development of the British Welfare State (Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf 1996) also points out that before the publication of the Beveridge, there had been a long process of negotiation and demand for some kind of comprehensive, free healthcare for working people, and that this had become official Labour party policy in the 1934. He writes

Discussions about the reform of British health care had, in fact, occurred between the National Government and interested parties during the 1930s (Abel-Smith, 1984, pp. 424-7). The starting point for these discussions was the extension of health insurance rather than the position adopted by the Socialist Medical Association in the early 1930s. These latter proposals, which became Labour party policy in 1934, included the provision of free services to patients, the establishment of a corps of full-time salaried doctors and the introduction of local health centres which would be the hubs of the health care system. The discussions between doctors and government had emphasised the need to cater for the British Medical Association’s preference for the retention of a large private sector in health and the extension of health insurance to cover hitherto uninsured groups. (Leathard, 1991, p. 24).

During the early war years the departmental civil service encouraged the continuation of these discussions and received deputations from the medical profession and the Trades Union Congress. Events, however, overtook these discussions. The formation of the Emergency Hospital Service had, as we have noted earlier, the effect of providing a planned health service, albeit in the conditions of war.

By 1941, civil servants in the ministry of health, perhaps influenced by the running of the EHS, suggested a comprehensive national health system in which general practitioners would be grouped in health centres associated with local hospitals. In October of the same year, the Minister of Health, the Liberal, Ernest Brown, announced that some sort of comprehensive service would be introduced after the war. The organisational and funding arrangements of the service remained unclear, though the minister did suggest that patients ‘would be called on to make a reasonable payment towards cost, whether through contributory schemes or otherwise (Hansard, 10 October 1941). At this time, a survey of hospital provision was also set under way.

At the same time, professional interests were attempting to influence the shape of any future national health system. First, the voluntary hospitals, which had been in financial difficulties before the war, started to plan to avoid the return of financial ill-health after the war. Their suggested framework for a national health system included a closer co-operation between the two existing hospital systems in which local authority hospitals might buy service from the voluntary sector, a call echoed of course in the 1980s, if in a slightly different form and from a different source!

The British Medical Association and the Royall Colleges were also active. Charles Hill, better Known to a generation earlier than that of the author’s as ‘the radio doctor’, and later to become a Conservative Minister of Health, argued that those who planned first would be more likely to influence the final form [of the health service].’ That planning initially included an acceptance of the ideas emerging about General Practitioner (GP) health centres, as well as those of central planning and of a universal and free service. (Pp. 40-1)

He then describes how the BMA later changed its opinion, and became resolutely opposed to the idea of socialised medicine.

Of the contribution of the Conservative Health Minister, Henry Willink, he says

The White Paper, introduced by the then (Conservative) health minister, Henry Willink, conceded very little to the doctors and the voluntary hospitals. Indeed it was, at first sight, almost as radical in intent as the National Health Service came to be seen. Under this plan, a national health service was to be comprehensive and free and financed out of general taxation and local rates. A closer look at the White Paper reveals acknowledgement of some of the doctors’ concerns, however. The planned service would, as far as the ministry was concerned, be free and comprehensive. There would, nonetheless, be no compulsion for doctors or patients to use the planned public service but doctors who opted into the system would be offered the opportunity to become salaried employees of the central or local state. This latter offer, of course, flew in the face of the formal position adopted by the BMA. (p. 41).

He also points out that Willink appears to have retreated from several of his initial positions due to lobbying from the BMA:

In the succeeding months, political lobbying was intense. BMA leaders engaged in secret negotiations with Willink and appeared to have achieved a large degree of success. It seems that the minister colluded with the BMA in dismembering the proposals contained in the White Paper. First the idea of Central Medical Board was dropped to be followed by the demise of plans for a salaried service organised around health centres. Local authorities, it was now decided, would build health centres, but not control them. Instead GPs would rent the buildings, would be remunerated by capitation fee and be entirely free to engage in private practice. (p. 42).

He also argues against the view that the War was ultimately responsible for the creation of the NHS, and that it was the result of an overall consensus in which there was little left for Labour to do but decide the final details. He writes

The war cannot sensibly be regarded as the midwife of the NHS. Some account must also be taken of pressure for change in health policy during the inter-war years.

As we have already seen, the SMA were successful in placing these recommendations for a national health service on the political agenda during the 1930s. These proposals for a free and comprehensive service with a salaried staff formed the basis of Labour party policy as early as 1934. The proposals put forward during this decade by the BMA were, of course, less radical but acknowledged that there were fundamental weaknesses in available medical cover. On two occasions in the 1930s, it published reports which recommended that each citizen should have access to a family doctor and to the services of appropriate specialists. These recommendation, like later proposals from the BMA, fell far short of a national, or nationalised, health service; the financing of the service was seen as best achieved through a system of health insurance. The BMA were even unwilling to accept the recommendations of its own Medical Planning Commission about the scope of a health insurance scheme (Sullivan, 1992). Nonetheless, the BMA during the 1930sa was ready to concede that co-ordination of any post-war service was most satisfactorily located at the national level. (pp. 42-3).

He also notes that even in the 1920s there were calls for some kind of national health service.

There had, of course, been an even earlier call for a national health service. In fact in 1926 the Report of the Royal Commission on National Health Insurance was published. It acknowledged that the insurance system established in 1911 by a reforming Liberal government had become an accepted part of national life. It suggested, however, that ‘… the ultimate solution will lie we think in the direction of divorcing the medical service entirely from the insurance system and recognising it, along with all other public health activities, as a service to be supplied from the general public funds (HMSO, 1926). (p. 43).

Of the supposed consensus produced by the War in favour of an NHS, he says

While it is undoubtedly the case that the experience of war played some part in promoting ideas about changes in the principles and practices of health care (ultimately represented in the 1944 White Paper), it is far from clear that this process represented a new beginning. War may simply have achieved the acceleration of an already established process of policy movement.

Nor should we fall into the trap of seeing the development of war-time health policy as consensual, leaving a Labour government only to decide on the best way to implement agreed policy frameworks. Though many doctors, even in war time, supported the idea of a health system funded from general funds and including a salaried service, there was critical resistance to some of the measures outlined in Willink’s White Paper. that resistance, from the BMA leaderships and, it must be said, from a small majority of doctors responding to the BMA survey, included resistance to the idea of doctors as public servants and, sometimes, to the idea of comprehensive health system itself.

Even among those medical and other interests favouring the establishment of a comprehensives system, there were conflicts about other issues. While the SMA and the Labour Party and Service doctors supported the idea of financing the service from the national Exchequer, most other doctors and certain elements in the Conservative Party favoured a system of health insurance, either publicly or privately administered. While the former grouping favoured control of the health service by central or local government, many doctors opposed government activity that went beyond central planning functions. While the SMA, Service doctors and local medical officers, the Labour Party and some ministers in the Coalition government favoured a salaried service, this found very little support in the wider ranks of the medical profession.

By the end of the war there was agreement of only a limited nature, which masked a wide divergence of opinion amongst interested parties in the health field and in the wider social politics of health. (P. 44).

He concludes

War-time health policy seems, then, to be of less significance than some claim in defining post-war health policy. Though limited agreement on the need for a comprehensive system had emerged, conflict remained over the nature of that system. More than this, inter-war factors seem to be not insignificant in the growth of pressure for a comprehensive health system. War undoubtedly accelerated the acceptance as orthodoxy hitherto contested arguments. Nevertheless, as Aneurin Bevan was to find out, that orthodoxy was still some way short of a national health service.

It’s therefore clear then that sections of the civil service was aware of the defects in existing health provision in the 1920s, and that the Labour Party was demanding something like an NHS from 1934 onwards. The proximate cause of the emergence of the NHS was indeed the emergency health care system set up in the war to treat victims of bombing and evacuees. I concede to my critic the fact that Churchill was, at times, cautiously in favour of an NHS, and that Henry Willink did advocate a free health care system, although his was not ultimately as radical as that set by Bevan.

Nevertheless, ultimately it was Bevan and the Labour party that set up the NHS in 1946. Furthermore, even though there were elements in the Tory party that certainly supported the creation of the NHS and welfare state, there were still many others that opposed it.

Furthermore, the origins of the National Health Service in a fragile war-time and post-war consensus does not, unfortunately, alter the situation today. The Tory party is determined to privatise the NHS by stealth. Jeremy Hunt has said that he wants the NHS broken up and replaced with private health care. Another Tory apparatchik stated that by 2020, if his party had its way, the NHS wouldn’t exist except as a clearing house for health insurance. This was later denied by the Tory spin machine, would claimed that he instead said that the Tories would succeeded in removing unnecessary health regulations and bureaucracy. In the last government, there were 95 Tory and Lib Dem MPs with interests in private health firms, hoping to profit from the NHS’ privatisation.

The only remaining clear champions of the National Health Service as national, free, universal system are the anti-Blairite wing of the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn.

And that’s my last word on this issue. At least for now.

The Discreet Charm of Lord Coe

Lord Coe has been on TV a lot lately. It’s been a year since the London Olympics, and the BBC has been full of pieces on their sports programmes debating whether it has been successful in encouraging more Brits to take up sport. The Beeb’s opinion on this issue has been ‘yes… and no’. More people are taking up sport, and thanks to the Games more facilities have been built, and the area of east London on which the Games were held has been regenerated. On the other hand, some sports still have no funding, and not enough facilities are available everywhere. In fact Private Eye noted that many people, who wished to take up a sport, simply couldn’t because the Conservatives had closed and sold off many venues. Those that remained were massively oversubscribed.

Coe himself, because of his leading role in the Games’ management and promotion, has effectively become their public face. Many voters will no doubt consider voting for him simply because of his role in the Games, and the ‘feel-good’ factor their success has generated. So it’s worth reading Another Angry Voice’s article on Coe’s connection to a number of healthcare companies looking to profit from the privatisation of the NHS. It’s entitled ‘Lazy Lord Coe and Tory NHS Reforms’. Coe is lazy, as his voting record in parliament is extremely low. When he does appear, it’s to defend his own commercial interest by voting against amendments to preserve the NHS. The Angry One’s article states

‘Sebastian Coe is a lazy lord. He has occupied a place in the House of Lords since the year 2000, and since then he has bothered to participate in just 136 out of 1,714 votes, which works out at a feeble 7.9%.

It is interesting to note that of the 11 votes he has bothered to participate in over the last 24 months, 4 have been in support of Tory NHS reforms.

As you should know, the Tory Health and Social Care Bill and the keystone SI257 amendment (which compels NHS commissioners to tender virtually all services to the private sector and to accept the lowest bid, irrespective of other considerations such as patient safety, quality of service or long-term continuity of service provision) have been designed to carve the NHS open in order to allow the private sector to cherry-pick the most lucrative services.

In October 2011 Coe voted with the government three times in order to help the hugely controversial Health and Social Care Bill pass through the upper house, including a vote against allowing a specialist health select committee to scrutinise the bill properly before it became law.

In April 2013 Coe voted against a motion to overturn the secretive anti-democratic SI257 amendment on the grounds that it went against assurances that were made in both houses of parliament that “NHS commissioners would be free to commission services in the way they consider in the best interests of NHS patients”. So along with his fellow Tories, and all but one of the Lib Dem peers to vote, Sebastian Coe voted against NHS commissioners freedom to commission services in the best interests of patients.

One must wonder which interests Sebastian Coe places above the best interests of NHS patients?

Is there a possibility that it could be his own financial interests?’

He then supplies numerous evidence to show that this is very definitely the case.

The article is at http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/lazy-lord-coe-and-tory-nhs-reforms.html

It’s worth reading, especially if you’re inclined to believe that ‘he’s all right’ or a ‘good bloke’, because of what he did for the Games.

Book Review: From Beveridge to Blair – The First Fifty Years of Britain’s Welfare State, 1948-98

By Margaret Jones and Rodney Lowe (Manchester: Manchester University Press 2002)

This is a documentary history of the first fifty years of the British welfare state written by two history lecturers at Bristol University. The book is part of a series of collected documents on aspects of contemporary history, aimed at sixth-formers and university undergraduates. The book’s blurb states

‘The creation of Britain’s welfare state in 1948 was an event of major international importance and is widely regarded as the crowning achievement of Attlee’s Labour government. On its fiftieth anniversary, for example, New Labour proclaimed ‘at its birth, the vision was broad … We need to capture that original Vision.

Yet the term ‘welfare state’ is now used, even by New Labour, with extreme hesitation. Moreover, although the public services it represents (such as the NHS and education remain at the heart of British politics, the election of Mrs Thatcher in 1979 reopened a fundamental battle over whether these services are best provided by government or the market.’

The blurb states that the book is intended ‘to inform and stimulate debate by providing a concise introduction to the evolution of both the structure of the welfare state and the attitudes towards it.’ It has an introduction, and then chapters on the political debate, social security, health care, education, housing and personal social services. There is also a chronology of events giving the year, the government of the time, and the events in the above departments of the welfare state.

The Introduction

This begins by noting New Labour’s ambivalence towards the welfare state, shown in the muted nature of the celebrations of its fiftieth anniversary in 1998. It then has the following sections: Defining the Welfare State; the Core Policies; the Exception of Employment Policy; and the Evolution of the Welfare State.

The Political Debate

This chapter is divided up into sections, each containing documents relating to that subject or area. The first is on Democratic Socialism, and has pieces on Marshall and the Evolution of Social Equality; Titmuss and the Virtues of Collective Action; The ideological Divide between Labour and the Conservatives, written by Anthony Crosland. The next section, Reluctant Collectivism, has extracts on One Nationism’ the Market and Community Case for State Welfare. Following this is the section on the New Right, with an extract from Hayek’s Roads to serfdom; the Institute of Economic Affairs and Choice in Welfare; Sir Keith Joseph and the Origins of ‘Thatcherism’; Charles Murray on the Emerging Underclass. The next section is on New Labour, and contains extracts from the 1994 Commission on Social Justice; There is a section on Incorporating Feminist Perspectives; after this is the sections on Frank Field and ‘Stakeholder’ Welfare, setting out his ‘Key Political Assumptions’; and Anthony Giddens and the Third Way.

Social Security

The chapter opens with the a brief description the types of benefits available and debates surrounding its nature and the principles by which it should be governed. It then has the following sections:
The Expansion of Social Security, with extracts on the Beveridge Vision, with its Three Guiding Principles of Recommendations, the Six Principles of Social Insurance, Flat Rate of Subsistence Benefit, Flat Rate Contributions, Unification of Administrative Responsibility, Adequacy of Benefit, Comprehensiveness and Classification. The next section is on Bevan’s abolition of the Victorian Poor Law, the Times’ summary of the Atlee’s welfare state, the introduction of earnings-related benefits, and Equality and Pensions. The section after this is on ‘Modernising’ Social Security, with sections on Thatcherite Principles, Breaking the Benefit-Earnings Link; the 1985 Social Security Review, the 1986 Reforms, Re-thinking Labour Policy, the 1998 New Deal and the Working Families Tax Credit. The next section is on the Controversy between Universalism and Selectivity, with sections on Choice in Welfare, Defending Universalism, Targeting and the 1976 introduction of child benefit. After this is the section on the Poor, with extracts on the Reality of Poverty in the 1950s, the ‘Rediscovery’ of Poverty in the 1960s, Low-Income Families in the 1970s, and Living on Social Security. The last section of this chapter is on Poverty and Social Exclusion, drawing on the 1999 census.

Health Care

The chapter on Health care also had an introduction to the issues involved, and then sections on the Vision, with an extract on Wartime Plans; the Allocation of Scarce Resource, with extracts on Bevan on Finance, The Guillebaud ‘Economy’ Report, 1956, and Enoch Powell and the Fundamental Dilemma; Restructuring the NHS, with extracts on the 1974 reorganisation, the Managerial Revolution, the 1988 Thatcher Review, the Introduction of Internal Markets, New Labour and the NHS; Controversies, with sections on Bevan’s Resignation, Pay Beds, and Privatisation and the 1988 Review; Health Outcomes, with extracts from the 1980 Black Report, and Health Inequalities.

Education

This chapter has sections on The Vision, comprising extracts on the Wartime Ideals, Scientific Manpower, Conservative Ambitions, Higher Education, Nursery Education, Special Needs and Multicultural Education; Controversy: Comprehensive Education, with extracts The Case for the Defence, from Robin Pedley’s argument for it, the Conservatives attempt to reinstate choice in 1970, Labour’s insistence on reinforcing compulsion in 1974, and the Thatcherite Response; Controversy: the National Curriculum. This begins with a discussion of William Tyndale School, which became a national scandal. The teachers there were extreme advocates of ‘child-centred learning’, who didn’t really want to teach. Private Eye’s Ian Hislop included the scandal about the school in his history of education broadcast one Christmas a few years ago. One pupil at the school said violence from other pupils was so bad you daren’t go there without being ‘tooled up’. One teacher taking a reading group simply wrote on the blackboard, ‘I hate reading groups and sent the children out to play’. When confronted with the fact that most of the pupils at the school couldn’t read, the teacher’s replied that neither could people in the Middle Ages, ‘yet they built cathedrals’. The result was an outcry that resulted in the teachers involved rightly losing their jobs, and a campaign to introduce a national curriculum. Other extracts in this section include James Callaghan’s speech launching a great debate on the National Curriculum in October 1976, Shirley Williams as a representative of Old Labour on a ‘Core’ Curriculum, Margaret Thatcher’s Response and Attacks on the National Curriculum. the last section is on the consensus on education in the 1990s, composed of two extracts, the first on the Thatcherite Revolution, and the second on Labour’s continuation of the same policies.

Housing

The chapter on Housing has sections on the campaign to end the housing shortage from 1945 to 1955, consisting of further sections on wartime plans, Bevan’s position, the Conservative Vision and Macmillan’s Achievement; the Restoration of the Market, with sections on the 1957 Rent Act, the 1959 Labour Manifesto attack on the Conservative’s record, the Milner Holland Report into the operation of 1957 Act, and scandals such as that of the brutal slumlord, Peter Rachman, the 1965 Fair Rent Act, the shift from building new houses to the renovation of older properties, the 1972 Housing Finance Act,and Anthony Crosland’s attack on the 1972 Act. The next section, Eroding Public Provision, 1979-1998, has sections on the sale of council houses, the fiasco of the 1984 simplified housing benefit, which bore out Crosland’s previous criticisms of the 1972 Housing Finance act, the 1988 Housing Act, New Labour’s adoption of the same principles, and the implementation of the divide between provider and purchaser. The next section is on Causes Celebres, with sections on the outrage over Peter Rachman’s brutal treatment of his tenants in the East End; the explosion in the Ronan Point block of flats, which ended the construction of tower blocks, the foundation of the homeless charity, Shelter; the controversy over Clay Cross, in which the local council refused to raise rents resulting in a bitter political campaign that resulted to the radicalisation of the welfare state and the Winter of Discontent; and the New Labour Social Exclusion Unit’s Report on homelessness.

Personal Social Services (In other words, those requiring a Social Worker, Probation Officer or similar Care Worker)

This chapter on The Personal Social Services contains sections on the Statutory Sector, with extracts from the 1965 Seebohm Report, the 1986 Audit Office Report on the failure of the policy of ‘Care in the Community’, and the Thatcherite Solution. This is interesting, because it was delayed due to its recommendation that local authorities should work to clear objectives with proper government funding. The best care was to be provided for those in need regardless of the whether the organisation providing it were state, voluntary or private. The Tories did not naturally like this, as it appeared to enlarge the role of the government, not reduce it. The next extract in this section was New Labour’s Solution. The section on the Volutary Sector begins with Lord Longford’s defence of voluntarism, extracts from the Seebohm and 1978 Wolfenden Reports and the Conservatives’ re-prioritisation of voluntary provision in 1981. The next section, Children in Need, has a extracts from Lady Allen’s letter, highlighting the terrible conditions endured by children in care homes; the death of Dennis O’Neill, a 13 year old boy, who died of maltreatment at the hands of his foster parents; the 1948 Children Act, the 1960 Ingleby Report; the death of a seven year old girl, Maria Colwell, while supposedly under the protection of social workers; the 1989 Children Act, New Labour and the Crisis of Child Care, the 1997 Utting Report on the systematic abuse of children in care homes, and testimony by the children themselves on the failure of legislation to protect them.

The book is a fascinating overview of the first fifty years of the welfare state, as recounted and described by the people and events that set it up and shaped it. It shows the transition from the state provision of welfare services established at the Welfare State’s inception after the War to increasing private and voluntary provision of services, as well as reports on the failure of these policies. Critical to the process of privatisation has been the ideas of Von Hayek, introduced into Britain by Americans such as Charles Marshall, and into the Conservative party by Sir Keith Joseph and his protégé, Margaret Thatcher.