Despite constant assurances from ministers as it passed through parliament that NHS reforms would not pose a serious risk to the future of our healthcare system by ushering in full scale privatisation, it has become clear that this is exactly what the government intends to do. However if enough Members take a stand against the government’s reckless corporate agenda, we still have a chance of sustaining a genuinely public National Health Service.
Business minister Michael Fallon MP this week blamed both the financial crisis and the deaths in Mid Staffordshire hospital on the “regulatory culture” of the Labour years. However deregulation risks babies and bathwater territory. What we need is better and more effective regulatory systems so that failures cannot be ignored again and stakeholders are protected.
Iceland is a good example of the fallibility of the rating agencies. During Iceland’s financial crisis, no one – and least of all the rating agencies – seemed to wonder why three banks from a tiny island with no history of banking could out-earn foreign banks despite borrowing at a relatively high cost.
MigrationWatch is more interested in scaremongering than getting the facts right.
Sometimes, even abject policy failure doesn’t make much material difference. This is the paradox of the UK government’s loss of its AAA credit rating.
The right-wing Think Tank Reform published a report yesterday claiming that private firms are better at running prisons. There are fundamental problems with Reform’s analysis, however.
David Cameron’s proposal to allow development aid to be used to fund military spending risks breaking OECD as well as Britain’s own International Development Act.
The government claim to be taking tax avoidance seriously, but so far the rhetoric has been far removed from reality.
The decision by the House of Lords to pass an amendment removing the word ‘insulting’ from Section 5 of the Public Order Act is a victory for free speech and should be welcomed.
The chancellor George Osborne has written in the Guardian that he is committed to ending tax abuse by multinational companies. He needs to show he means it.
