Month: February 2020

In key marginals, a Conservative election leaflet masquerading as an NHS prescription has been posted to voters in the last few days. It’s a deception that’s already caused outrage.

But whilst the version reported on so far, sent to Tory/Lib Dem battleground seats like Richmond Park, Oxford West, and Cheltenham, is relatively bland, openDemocracy has seen a second version of this leaflet. And that version reveals a darker story about Johnson’s Conservative Party. It shows just how blatantly the Tories are using immigration to neutralise concerns about the NHS – and, worse, how they are using concerns about the NHS to stoke the division and racism that the Tories appear to think will benefit them electorally.

This second version of the Tories ‘NHS’ leaflet (pictured below) has been sent to voters in Tory/Labour battlefields in the North and Midlands, including Middlesborough, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Leigh, Dewsbury, Derby, Coventry, Crosby, and my own home town of Stroud.

It contains 40 short sentences – and astonishingly, fully half of them talk about immigration.

We need “an immigration system that takes pressure off the NHS”, the Tory anti-Labour leaflet tells us – not just once, but eight times, in slightly different forms of words. It tells us repeatedly that we need to “take back control of our borders”. That Corbyn wants “uncontrolled immigration”, to “extend freedom of movement”, and “give everyone the right to bring their whole family to the UK”.

Both leaflets hint darkly that we might need to start paying for hospital treatment – “when we leave hospital, we leave with a prescription – not a bill”. The anti-Lib Dem leaflet says in the next sentence that the solution to prevent this is “a growing economy that can support the NHS”, the anti-Labour leaflet suggests that the way to avoid us getting a bill for treatment, is “an immigration system that supports the NHS”.

This is the leaflet sent out in Tory/Labour battlegrounds (first two pics), followed by the one sent out in Tory/Lib Dem battlegrounds (second two pics)

The layout of the leaflets and some of the text is identical – with just a few actual Tory NHS pledges (for more nurses, funding and hospitals, all already debunked by health experts).

But where the anti-Lib Dem leaflet pledges twice to “give mental health the same priority as physical health – so everyone gets treated with the respect they deserve”, the anti-Labour one offers in its place, pledges to “clamp down on health tourism” and deliver “an Australian-style points-based immigration system – so we have control over who comes to our country”.

Each time the anti-Lib Dem leaflet talks of the need to “support the economy so that we can invest in” the NHS, the anti-Labour version says nothing about investment, but repeats mantras about the need to “control immigration” by “getting Brexit done”.

Remember – this leaflet is entitled “A Prescription for the NHS”. But it seems to be far more about voter suppression – putting people off voting for their preferred party by offering fear, confusion, division, and scapegoating.

Neena Modi, immediate past President of the Royal College of Paediatricians and Child Health, told openDemocracy that the anti-Labour leaflet “would appear to be a blatant attempt to fan northern Brexit sentiment by implying that the woes of the NHS are due to the health demands of immigrants and health tourism. Apart from being false, the former claim is particularly nasty in its racist undertones.” Modi went on, “The government’s own figures suggest health tourism equates to at most £300m per year. Contrast this with Department of Health and Social Care figures showing the NHS spent £9.18bn on the independent sector in 2018-19 compared with £8.76bn the previous year. The NHS is on its knees for 2 reasons. First, it has been underfunded while in parallel an increasing percentage of public funds are being diverted away from frontline care and into the profit margins of private companies that are demonstrably providing inferior care. Second doctors and nurses have been deliberately kicked in the teeth.”

But despite all this, reports from my own marginal seat and those my openDemocracy colleagues have been reporting on, suggest that the Tories’ divisive arguments are landing with some voters.

This week I spoke to NHS insiders in my home county, to find out whether it really is getting harder for patients to access the NHS, whether that’s got anything to do with migrants, and if not, to uncover the real reasons the NHS is under pressure. Most have worked in the NHS for decades, and all the NHS staff spoke on condition of anonymity.

A local hospital governor told me the migrant-blaming leaflet posted out locally was “bullshit”. A senior hospital consultant told me it was “absurd”. All told me that the problem was more about cuts to services and workforce, than about increased demand from patients. About how since 2010, too few staff have been trained, and too many have left, or retired early. Staff are demoralised over pay, but even more demoralised by the impossible demands imposed by cuts and the bureaucratic, fragmented system imposed by competition-obsessed governments, requiring every patient interaction to be monitored, coded, and priced. This isn’t what health workers came into the NHS for, and many are voting with their feet. Faced with staff shortages, managers respond by making it harder for patients to access services – changing eligibility rules, cutting opening hours, beds and hospital clinics, and expecting patients to figure out the right part of the service to approach amidst the chaos.

Here’s what people in my local NHS told me this week. I hear similar stories from across England.

Community-based NHS clinician

We’ve got more bureaucratic control of clinicians, and less autonomy. We’ve got increased fragmentation, between NHS providers and private ones all competing with each other for patients, and all of this has led to a lot more admin for NHS staff. There’s so much more admin now, we are taken away from our patients for several days a month, which we never used to be.

GPs often now send patients to non-NHS organisations to get their scans like ultrasound done, thinking they’re being helpful, but that just wastes time as NHS staff can’t access the images, so patients often end up being sent for a repeat scan.

Community nurses are short and health visitors have been cut, so they have reduced their remit, in other words, reduced the patient eligibility for accessing their service.

Former acute NHS hospital governor

The shortage of GPs is the biggest single factor in the health service having problems. If you can’t get to see your GP for two weeks, then you’ll go to A&E.

Cheltenham’s A&E [one of only two in the county] has been downgraded. After 8pm it doesn’t take any blue light emergencies now, they’re all sent to Gloucester.

They’ve cut around 100 beds at Gloucester since 2010… They said they were increasing community beds to make up for it, to move people through the system. But that didn’t happen. You’ve had cuts in community hospitals too.

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They’re running down community hospitals, Stroud hospital is being run down…They do these mealy mouthed consultations… to justify further cuts. They keep mucking about with the times, with the terminology, changing the rules, has it got an x-ray, is it open after 8, what will it treat, how will I know if it’s an ‘emergency’ or just ‘urgent’? It puts more pressure on the two A&E units because people default to the main hospitals. People come because they’ve been so messed about a lot.

We asked the Trust about [the impact of so-called health tourism]. It was so negligible; it was hardly even worth accounting for – it was in the tens of thousands out of millions. Generally the people who come are young and fit and therefore make very little demand proportionally on the NHS… They are working and paying taxes and they are actually subsiding our older people. The loss of GPs retiring early, and the loss of beds in both community hospitals and acute hospitals, outweighs by miles any potential increased impact from migrants… Since 2008, the number of people attending A&E in Gloucestershire nearly doubled, from 8000 a month to 15000 a month from 2008 to now…It’s inconceivable this is down to immigration…that’s marginal.

In trying to cut costs, they caused chaos in the system. And chaos cannot be efficient.

Acute NHS hospital consultant

The situation in the hospital is dire. Right now [in the middle of a working weekday] over a third of patients in A&E have been waiting for more than 4 hours [the target] to be seen.

We’ve got more than 100 patients ready for discharge [from acute beds], but we can’t because there are no beds available to discharge them to.

I’m really worried that if the Tories get in, we won’t have an NHS in five years’ time.

NHS junior hospital doctor

The NHS is haemorrhaging doctors – both temporarily (people off sick) or permanently. These gaps are then covered by locum doctors. The cost of locums is extremely high. The reason that locums are needed is because Tory cuts lead to overwhelming and punishing work schedules which are unsustainable.

Other ways in which I have seen costs increased is by the whole management structure. The NHS obviously needs managers but so much money is pumped in management – whether that's salaries or infrastructure (look at the quality of the Clinical Commissioning Group building in Gloucester compared to the hospital). Complex management layers divert money away from the frontline.

NHS mental health worker

Apart from rooms and staff we are not an expensive service to run, needing no beds, hospitals or medicines. But we are crippled by lack of funds to recruit and retain staff. Staff are worn out, burnt out by the increasing demands of the targets that give no second in the day to pause, reflect, have a break, recharge your depleted emotional battery. The pressure is so high to perform and achieve the unrelenting targets, experienced staff are leaving in their droves. It is getting increasingly hard to fill vacancies as we can't train enough to halt the flow of those leaving the profession. And when staff leave there is often a freeze on posts so we can't recruit. It feels like we are on a treadmill with no leniency , no compassion and no end in sight.

As we enter the second decade of the new century, signs of crisis are all around us. Climate change, rising economic inequality, assaults on workers’ rights and wages, unchecked corporate power, financialization, entrenched racism, misogyny, and xenophobia, and emboldened neo-fascism and right-wing populism, to name a few.

These are not simply isolated phenomena or unexpected byproducts of an otherwise healthy economic model. The entwined crises we face share a deep-rooted common cause: the undemocratic, inequitable, and extractive nature of our economic system. Despite the veneer of a prosperous recovery from the great financial crisis a decade ago many people rightly feel the economy no longer works for them and this is contributing to a deep popular disenchantment and realignment that is reconfiguring our politics and societies.

Meanwhile, new technologies – which could usher in a new era of shared prosperity – currently amplify and reinforce existing inequalities of power and reward. The internet, which holds the power to connect people to all of history’s accumulated knowledge in nanoseconds, is increasingly controlled and manipulated by what are essentially large advertising corporations; social media platforms, which can bring people in communities and across the world together in unprecedented ways, have turned into engines of disinformation, distrust, and division in the hands of their corporate masters; and the sharing economy, which promised a future of more equitable consumption and provision, has been transformed into a dystopia of precarious work and wealth extraction as Silicon Valley corporations, backed by giant Wall Street investment firms, run roughshod over local economies and governments.

Marginal tweaks won’t address these deep imbalances. We must comprehensively break from this interconnected system of large corporations, wealthy investors, and authoritarian employment relationships that is focused almost entirely on profit and accumulation. Instead we must extend democratic governance into all aspects of economic life, repurposing enterprises and assets to serve social and environmental needs rather than unequal accumulation.

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Fundamental to this systemic change must be a deep institutional turn in ownership and control to democratise economic and political rights within the economy. In place of a narrow monoculture of ownership forms, we should scale a pluralistic ecosystem across the full spectrum of assets, resources, enterprises, and services that, collectively, transfer wealth and power from the hands of the few to the many. Prominent in this landscape is public ownership – assets, services, and enterprises that are held collectively by all people in a specific geographic area, either directly or through representative structures.

Once left for dead amidst the neoliberal onslaught of the late twentieth century, public ownership is currently experiencing a resurgence around the world. This includes conventional, national-level strategies such as large state-owned enterprises and giant public wealth funds, but also new energy around reversing privatisations and restoring public ownership at the local and regional levels (also known as remunicipalisation). Underpinning this resurgence is an emerging understanding that public ownership of enterprises, services, and assets can be a powerful tool to combat the many interconnected challenges we now face, from rising inequality and climate catastrophe to disillusionment with democracy.

More specifically, public ownership can challenge the increasingly extractive, financialised, consolidated corporate form of ownership that is at the heart of these crises, and deliver real material benefits to workers, citizens, and their communities. Alongside this growing interest in public ownership is an appetite for different models and approaches to make public ownership as effective, accountable, and democratic as possible.

In both the UK and the US, the political case for public ownership has largely focused on returning traditional sectors, industries, and infrastructure to public ownership (or keeping them in public ownership). This includes railways and transport infrastructure, water and electricity utilities, and banking and postal services. These sectors are still undoubtedly critical, especially in the context of addressing the intersecting emergencies of climate change and inequality. However, public ownership also has a role to play in developing and deploying the critical new technologies and infrastructure that will underpin the twenty-first century economy – an economy that must be, unlike its predecessor, rooted in climate and social justice.

To that end, The Democracy Collaborative (based in the US) and Common Wealth (based in the UK) have joined together to undertake a new transatlantic project exploring the frontiers of public ownership in the twenty-first century. We will focus on developing concrete and credible policies for the extension of arrangements of public ownership and control in four broad areas:

1) Digital infrastructure – the core facilities, assets, and services upon which the vast array of information technologies rely, including fibre networks, data centers, and cellular and mobile networks.

2) Data and platforms – specifically the types of data and datasets we collect and construct, who can control and use that data, and the platforms that intermediate social and economic relationships;

3) Intellectual Property and Research & Development – including alternative approaches to IP rights that focus on unlocking the benefits of technological advancement and public investment for social, economic, and environmental betterment, as well as leveraging already significant public investment in R&D processes to intersect with alternative approaches to IP.

4) Land and natural resources – ensuring that the inputs and outputs associated with these new technologies and approaches do not imperil and damage local communities, workers, and the environment.

The coming decade is arguably the most important in human history, especially as relates to climate and the environment. The status quo – of a planetary emergency and deep inequalities – is unsustainable and insupportable. Strategies for extending democratic public ownership over the commanding heights of the twenty-first century economy can open up a more innovative, sustainable, and inclusive future. Crucially however, they need to be ambitious, credible, capable of uniting a broad coalition in support, and able to present itself as an integral part of the emerging economic consensus.

This article is adapted from the project’s introductory essay which can be viewed on the Common Wealth website here.

US religious right activists with links to Trump’s White House have supported the spread of what are called ‘crisis pregnancy centres’ around the world, openDemocracy’s Tracking the Backlash project revealed this week. 

There are thousands of these centres in the US where some have been previously criticised for presenting themselves as neutral health facilities while hiding their anti-abortion and religious agendas from women who are looking for help. But the global scale of these activities has not been mapped until now. 

Over nine months, our team followed the global networks and spending of the Christian conservative group Heartbeat International, a pioneer of these centres in the US, and worked with undercover reporters in 18 countries to conduct the largest global investigation into their overseas activities. (Read more: Exclusive: Trump-linked religious ‘extremists’ target women with disinformation worldwide).

The results have prompted calls for action around the world. In South Africa and Mexico, officials have already promised inquiries and potential sanctions. (Read: Revealed: US-linked anti-abortion centres ‘violating the law’ in South Africa).

To produce this investigation, we analysed 10 years of Heartbeat’s US financial filings. This showed how they have spent almost a million dollars around the world since 2007 – and gave us names of more than a dozen specific grantees.

One reporter enrolled in two of Heartbeat’s online ‘academy’ courses, to see what it teaches people in its network. We then mapped all of Heartbeat’s ‘affiliates’ outside of the US. In Latin America, we found, its key partner is a regional network that is also backed by a second US anti-abortion group, Human Life International.

We were surprised to find that crisis pregnancy centres linked to these US organisations had spread all over the world but there had never been a global investigation into their activities. In Argentina, parliamentarian Mónica Macha suggested that these centers have been “acting in the shadows”. 

Last year, we first sent undercover reporters to some of these centres in five countries, visiting them in person in Italy, Mexico and Spain and calling their hotlines in Croatia and Ukraine. Across countries, several reporters were told strikingly similar false or misleading claims about abortion’s health impacts.

Heartbeat claims to have a network of these centres on “every inhabited continent”. So we went global too – working with reporters to replicate these visits and hotline calls in another 13 countries (Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria, South Korea, Israel, Serbia, Romania, Ireland, Canada as well as in the US). In Zambia, a reporter also interviewed the leaders of a network of these centres.

Over the next week and beyond, we’ll publish more reports from this investigation. None of this would have been possible without our growing international network of reporters collaborating on the Tracking the Backlash project. Key contributors are listed below (though not in all cases, for security reasons).

Since 2017, openDemocracy’s Tracking the Backlash project has followed the dark money, international networks, strategies and impacts of ultra-conservative and far-right groups aiming to block or roll-back women’s and LGBTIQ rights globally. 

Led by women and LGBTIQ journalists, collaborating across borders, this project has previously revealed how US Christian right groups have spent millions of dollars in Europe over the last decade, and how one Spanish ultra-conservative group worked to drive voters to the far-right ahead of the 2019 European elections. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive all the updates about our new stories.

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Fulham, who won at Hull last time out, will go third in a win this evening.

Boro, meanwhile, have impressed recently, winning four of their last five games to move up to 16th in the table.

The reverse fixture in October finished goalless but who will come out on top tonight?

The superstar forward is expected to be one of three overage players Egypt select for their Olympics campaign later this year, with the nation’s Under-23s manager name-checking him when discussing a possible squad selection.

Speaking earlier this week, Shawky Gharib said: “Out of the three senior players we’ll call up, Salah is the only one we’re settled on so far because he’s simply one of the top three players in the world.”

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Should Salah feature at the summer tournament he would miss Liverpool’s entire pre-season – and possibly the opening games of the 2020/21 Premier League campaign also.

The gold medal match is scheduled for August 8, which is the same weekend as the opening gameweek of the new season.

It will be huge blow for Liverpool should Salah be called up, and Jurgen Klopp was quizzed on Egypt’s possible decision when he met the press on Friday.

Making it clear he does not want to lose one of his key players, Klopp did reveal no final decision has been made so far.

“No decision,” said Klopp on Salah. “Like always, it is clear, do I want to lose him? Of course not.

“We have to consider different things. I will speak with Mo and we are clear what we want. We need more info and no one has contacted us so far.

“We cannot discuss it as we don’t know too much yet. We will speak and we will see.”

When Norwich host Liverpool on Saturday night – live on talkSPORT – it will be the 36th contest between the theoretical worst and best sides in the division.

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The Canaries will fancy their chances against Jurgen Klopp’s men, despite their rampant march to the title.

Their opponents might be undefeated but they have looked weaker in recent weeks and Daniel Farke’s side have already shocked a few of the big boys this season, despite their lowly position.

Manchester City were early victims, losing 3-2 in September, while Tottenham, Leicester, and Arsenal have all been held to draws also.

But how often do team no.20 topple the league leaders in the English top flight?

Jamie O'Hara says Man City can still have a better season than Liverpool

Following their 3-0 away win at relegation rivals Bournemouth last time out, Watford climbed out of the relegation zone for the first time this season, having picked up four wins in their last five league games.

Spurs, currently sitting eighth in the league, have hit a poor patch of form and are without a win in their last three games, including a 1-0 home loss to runaway leaders Liverpool in their last outing.

Watford will want to keep the resurgence under Pearson alive whereas Mourinho’s men will want to close the gap on the top four which currently sits at a nine points.

talkSPORT’s GameDay will bring you all the action from this huge game and here’s how you can tune in to it all.

Virgil van Dijk put the Reds ahead in the first half, but it was Mo Salah’s last-minute goal to assure the win which started up a party atmosphere.

In 2013/14, Liverpool fans were made to regret singing this song prematurely as Brendan Rodgers’ side ended up conceding the title to Manchester City.

However, six years on, this seems incredibly unlikely for Jurgen Klopp’s men who are 16 points ahead of Pep Guardiola’s reigning champions.

Although it is only mid-January, the Reds appear unstoppable and it’s become a matter of when they will win the league, not if.

Pictures emerged on social media of Romero, the Argentina goalkeeper, standing by the side of the road next to his smashed Lamborghini, which is allegedly worth £170,000.

'Solskjaer's a fraud!' – Man United fan giving up season ticket and putting himself on Liverpool waiting list

The collision occurred as Romero drove to Manchester United’s Aon Training Complex in Carrington, with the car crushed under a roadside barrier.

The extent of the damage can be seen in the below video:

Romero, 32, is understood to have owned the vehicle since 2017.

The goalkeeper, who played for Racing Club, AZ, Sampdoria and Monaco before joining Manchester United in 2015, is currently the Red Devils’ second-choice glovesman behind David de Gea.

He has made nine appearances this season, but all in cup competitions, and has not played a Premier League game since the 2017/18 campaign.

Romero was an unused substitute as United lost to Liverpool on Sunday afternoon, and he should again be on the bench for Wednesday’s home clash vs Burnley.

He could make his latest starting appearance this weekend when United return to FA Cup action with a trip to either Tranmere or Watford, who play their third-round replay on Thursday evening.

There were no nervy moments like last time around as both players and ownership appeared to walk away with value from these negotiations

In 2015, negotiations over a new MLS Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) nearly ended in disaster. There were mediators, final-hour meetings, a vote to strike. With just days left before the MLS season, the two sides found a way to avoid a work stoppage by agreeing to a CBA that many saw tilted heavily towards the ownership side. 

Compared to last time, the recent negotiations were relatively painless and stress-free. There were no big scares or nervy moments. The season never really felt like it was in danger. In the end, a deal got done with plenty of time to spare and the players have plenty to show for it. In 2015, it all felt pretty one-sided. This time around, it appears to be a win-win.

The MLS and the MLS Players Association (MLSPA)  announced on Thursday that the two sides had come to terms on a CBA that addressed a number of key issues.

More teams

Spending will go up incrementally over the next few years. Players will have expanded options when it comes to free agency. Charter flights have gone up, the minimum salaries have gone up and Targeted Allocation Money (TAM) will be converted into General Allocation Money (GAM), allowing teams to be more flexible with how they spend on players currently in or coming into MLS.

“This deal is the culmination of our efforts to engage players from every team to define our goals and push for real progress,” said Jeff Larentowicz, Atlanta United defender and MLSPA Executive Board Member. “Through this work and our solidarity, we have been able to reach an agreement that will provide players with greater rights and increased compensation, and will ensure that the league’s resources continue to be used to create a league of choice for players both on and off the field.”

“It’s been a long journey and could always be better,” added Philadelphia Union captain Alejandro Bedoya in a tweet. “However, this deal has many significant gains for players & represents a meaningful step forward for growth of the game in North America. Lot of work put into this from those involved. Now let’s get back 2 business & just play!”

In these negotiations, like any, there has to be give and take. The league’s goal is to keep as much power and control as possible by limiting anything that can push costs up involuntarily. The players, meanwhile, push for their own freedom of movement and, of course, a bigger payday.

A new series of owners, meanwhile, are ready to take off the training wheels. Gone are the days of complete parity as ambitions have soared in recent years. Teams can spend money in a number of different ways, and several clubs continue to dictate trends by finding new ways to build a competitive advantage.

Going into these negotiations, the players had a bit more power than last time. Expansion fees have surged in recent years, with the league set to hit 30 teams by the time this CBA is over. Those fees have been proof that this league is a worthwhile investment and they meant that the owners could not cry poor this time around.

Atlanta United owner Arthur Blank told the Athletic recently: “(MLS) has grown and yet maintained, I think, financial integrity and stability. Not all the clubs are profitable, but most are, and most are getting more profitable.”

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The big picture is that roster spending will increase, meaning bigger salaries for players at both the top and bottom of the player pool. Last time around, the players’ fight for a limited form of free agency came at the cost of a number of things. One of those things was money, as the increased push for free agency meant that the players needed to make concessions elsewhere.

In this CBA, they got a bit of it all. Free agency improvements give players more freedom at a younger age. Salary increases and media rights distribution give players more money. The converting of TAM into GAM may be the biggest win of all, though, as money that was almost always spent on new foreign players will now be available to use on players within the league, AKA MLSPA members.

Ownership did just fine too. The training wheels, by and large, are still on. There are still mechanisms that allow the rich owners to be ambitious while keeping costs lower for those less inclined to spend big bucks.

Compared to the rest of the world, players are still very much restricted when it comes to freedom of movement while the new Under-22 Initiative gives clubs a mechanism to buy young players and eventually sell them on for profit. Even with the concessions on free agency, the owners kept a cap on raises, meaning that there will be no major bidding wars over players that are eligible to move.

The overall feeling of this CBA is that it is a starting point, not an ending point. In the coming years, there’s reason to believe MLS will take a massive step forward, and the job of this CBA was to put the league in position to do just that.

It needed to put the league in a place where it can take advantage of when a new TV deal is negotiated in 2022. It needed to put the league in a place where teams could continue to sign coveted players from all over the world. And, most importantly, it needed to put the league in a place where it can build towards the almighty 2026 World Cup that many believe will change North American soccer forever.

Because of that, this feels like a win-win, one that keeps MLS steadily on a path towards becoming the “league of choice” it has always wanted to be.