The Failure of Labour's Policies propoganda against workers involved in industrial action.
employees in the service industries, such attacks.
David Ennals, Secretary for the Social Services, fired the shots:
"I appeal to those who are taking industrial action, for God's suspend it... They can no longer take it out on the patients. is no doubt some people have already died."
Now that the dispute has been settled, it is timely to ask ourselves about the extent of concern Ennals and the Labour leaders in general have shown for the of our National Health Service over the past few years and whether the Tory press have ever felt the need to expose its shortcomings times other than during industrial action.
Government Cuts As chance would have it we don't have to look very tar for the answers. Just two days Ennals appeal to the hospital workers the annual report of the DHSS was published. The report showed that in certain areas converted shops, with their windows boarded up and their cielings leaking, were being used as doctors' surgeries, and that in industrial cities like Liverpool, for example, rates of illness and death are significantly above the national average, the provision of doctors is at its most meagre. Such is Ennals® real concern for the sick, The solution proposed in the DHSS Report is alarming. In order to provide additional health clinics to cover the gaps in primary care, expenditure on the hospital service will have to be diverted. proposition totally ignores fundamental causes of the Over the past two months we have experienced the usual barrage of brunt of this assault have been the hospital workers, who like many are most vulnerably first sake The re state at ness" within the NHS. Five years ago under the Barber cuts, after Conservative government reduced capital expenditure on the NHS by £1ll millions. This is not very surprising. The Tories cared much for public spending. A year later, however, government came to power.
Labour leaders promised radical measures after a barren period where of the Tories in office. In fact, they did nothing to restore budget. Instead, in Labour government cut the NHS bill by a further £75 millions. A s a result queues for hospital treatment have lengthened dramatically, and reports of people dying while on the waiting list have become increasingly widespread.
Such a Private Sector Benefits the "sick- However, one of the key problems Taking the placed for La new factory in NHS.
at £20 per kilo, A s result During industry.
Money also Plan. th e hospital treatment.
never Wilson's The the NHS allowed for private 1976, the under-subscribed.
by: Terry Viney for the NHS is not necessarily the shortage of public money. but the way so much of this money is used by government for the benifit of private drug companies, private health insurance schemes, and private medical practice.
La Roche is a Swiss drug firm with annual profits around £150-£200 millions. Last month we learned that the government is to give the firm £45 million to build Scotland. Roche national. are experienced exploiters of the With their products Valium and Librium, which they produced N.
they were able to make sales to the NHS at £1, 962 per kilo for some years. In 1970 the NHS was paying out £10, 000 a day just for Roche tranquilli s e rs.
drug companies consistently produce a higher rate. of profit than any other manufact- the Black, flows freely to private health insurance schemes such as BUPA and Private Patients The function of such organizations is to enable some individuals to jump the long queues for Private Practice Thrives Badly needed money is also diverted out of the NHS and into private hands by the way doctors are employed by the state and the attractive opportunities they work. The BMA resisted the attempt to put doctors in the employ of the NHS. Instead the government agreed to preserve their freelance status. As a result doctors are able to set up practices to their own convenience at the expense of the needs of the population. The areas offering greatest opportunities for time, an additional private income, (the south and the city suburbs) are relatively well supplied. Working class areas are correspondingly This leads It is becoming daily more apparent that the leaders of the labour movement offer policies not in the interests of working people but of capitalism.
The LSA sees as the central task today the building, in the unions & Labour Party, of a broad class-struggle, left-wing against the pro-capitalist policies of these leaders.
The struggle for such an altern -ative programme, based on the method of the Transitional Programme, should incorporate the following points: 1) The fight for socialism is interConcretely, this means giving full support to national liberation movements (particularly in Ireland) by mobilising the widest possible support around the right to self-determination. 2) The struggle for socialism is not merely 'economic'. It seeks to unite all the exploited & oppressed against capitalism. Concretely, this means giving full support to Women's and Gay movements fighting for their liberation. Building mass actions - & winning support for them in the labour movement - is key to uniting workers and convincing the doubly oppressed that socialism has answers to their problems. 3) The struggle for socialism is inseperable from that to defend and extend democratic rights. Socialism as a system has to be infinitely more democratic than what exists in the West today. It is for this reason that socialists give full support to the struggle for socialist democracy in the deformed and degenerated workers states in the USSR, Eastern Europe & China.
The LSA is convinced that the present fragmentation of the left is a 'handicap' to achieving these aims. It therefore seeks to obtain as much unity as possible by supporting united-front campaigns on concrete objectives. At the same the LSA encourages regroupment of the left on clear programm atic positions.