At war

 At war.

So we are at war not with the Russians or the Chinese but with our own government. But It's been this way for years ever since the Tory government came into power and George Osborne threw down the gauntlet on reducing the governments exposure to the cost of running the state. His thesis was that the state was too big and too expensive and that collectively we should expect less and get used to a smaller publicly tax funded, centralised body to run our affairs and turn to private enterprise to do that work. With the growth of companies such as Serco the government parceled out lucrative contracts to run public enterprises , Serco's remit for instance covers healthcare, transport, defence, prisons all the responsibility of central government but siphoned off to this private monolith who's remit is to its shareholders not the general public. This clash of responsibility between the publicly elected politician who's reason for being in place is to respond to the needs of the electorate and the Management Board of Serco who rely on their shareholders is obvious. This diverse set of operating interests has been allowed to grow, along with the other quasi governmentally linked groups such as the ‘quangos’ who are supposedly arms-length governmental bodies governing the outcomes of which were, initially ‘government civil service’ responsibilities and in this way the privatisation of government responsibility avoids direct ministerial responsibility.

This body within a body which is not democratically held responsible is in evidence today as the Health Minister Steven Barclay refuses to talk directly to the nurses because he insists pay increases have to go through a pay board quango even though he has the final say on the pay boards recommendation before any acceptance by government. It's a convenient smoke screen and the unions are increasingly frustrated by the double speak amplified by their lackeys in the media. We the general public are confused and alarmed by the frightening image of falling ill and having to wait hours for an ambulance and then many more hours waiting discharge from the ambulance into a hospital bed. The lack of nurses and doctors, the bed blocking when old people can’t be released for their lack of anywhere to go, the buck passing and sheer inevitable crashing of a system which had been a linch pin for living here was always predictable, some would say engineered by people like Osborn who wished to privatise the NHS and pass the lucrative medical contracts to the American ‘Big Pharma’ the giant waiting in the wings.

Stitched up like a kipper, we are powerless with only a benign political opposition to represent our interests which is unable to represent its social roots for fear of being labelled left wing or worse, communist and having having adopted the mantra “the only way is the centre way” by Tony Blair and now held over their heads whilst a politically illiterate voter is only to willing to vote Tory in some misguided belief that by doing so they join the ranks of the middle class.

It’s all tied to perceptions, of which mine is but one but the misuse of reasoned communication and being subjected to 24/7 misinformation and lies has left everyone morally uncertain and socially weakened.