"Are You Thinking What We're Thinking" - Lynton Crosby?

Is this another of lobbyist Lynton Crosby's ideas?

If you or I sent around a van fitted with huge posters telling foreigners to "go home" we would most likely be prosecuted under the race relations act, so why is the British government doing it? Have we really sunk so low that as a people that we are now comfortable with this kind of nastiness, bullying and intimidation?

Ever since the Tory led coalition government has assumed office, the prime minister has been pursuing a divide and rule strategy. Able bodied against disabled people, young against old, private sector workers against public sector workers, employed against unemployed. Every day the right wing press seems to be publishing scare stories about one group or another and blowing them all up out of proportion. Deliberately quoting erroneous statistics to whip up fear and hatred has become the norm. if it's not about dividing the nation over immigration and the unemployed or those on benefits, then this government are purposefully trying to divide the nation over the NHS.  It seems that the Conservatives have launched an all out attack on the poor, the downtrodden and the oppressed.

The vans telling immigrants to "go home" have been blasted by refugee groups and councillors of all parties, who have called them divisive, offensive and have accused the government of creating racial tension.

Surely we are better than this?

The most ridiculous point is that the people the government say these posters are aimed at would probably not be able to read or understand them anyway, they are much more likely to be read by people entitled to live and work here going about their normal legal business, some of the posters depict an Asian person being lead away in handcuffs? Why not a white person? In fact why depict any person at all being lead away in handcuffs? It is completely unnecessary. 

Many people are understandably appalled an insulted by this kind of thing and I thought we were trying to reach out to young Muslims and try to stear them away from people who could radicalise them? Really is this kind of thing going to help that cause or just  give them an enormous shove in the opposite direction? As usual with this government it is ill thought out and ill conceived.  Please let's not kid ourselves we all know that these posters are not designed to try and help repatriate people, what they are designed to do is appeal to the lowest possible denominator from a government scared of losing votes to Ukip and this in itself is rude and insulting, as it implies that all Ukip voters are closet racist bigots and while I have no time for Ukip, I'm pretty certain that the majority of their supporters are no such thing.

These vans are being driven around areas with high immigrant population and are causing upset and offense, imagine if you were child of immigrants legally here you are walking along minding your own business and you look up and read that poster, would they understand it, or would they just think they and their family are being told by the Tory government to go home or they will get arrested? It is not only offensive, these posters are downright stupid and must be very frightening to children and we all know that children can take things literally and can become extremely anxious and upset by things they read!

All these coincidences since tobacco lobbyist Lynton Crosby became David Cameron's fixer strategist, it was Crosby that let go with a foul mouthed rant against Muslims during Boris Johnson's mayoral campaign.

Lynton crosby said:

Mr Johnson should concentrate on traditional Tory voters instead of  'f*****g Muslims'.

Apparently Crosby's view is that chasing the Muslim vote and the votes of other ethnic groups is a waste of time and he frequently expressed himself in these terms, which some people found very offensive. It would seem from this poster campaign that he hasn't changed his views and would quite frankly rather them not here at all. Ironic really when you realise that Lynton Crosby is a foreigner! I wonder, does Lynton Crosby pay UK tax on his huge earnings from the Tory party?

When asked about the 'f*****g Muslim' comment, Crosby always claims he has no recollection, what is it about the Tories, as Leveson showed, none of them seem to be able to remember doing anything!

It comes as no surprise that Boris Johnson has backed these offensive poster campaign, after all he's a Tory and he also hired Lynton Crosby and sees nothing wrong in insulting and intimidating oppressed people. In 2011 after the summer riots Johnson backed one of his closest aides, Richard Barnes, when he joked "why did police put Persil in the water cannons? - To stop the colours running"

Let's not kid ourselves, every party has its bigots, but the the Conservative party seems to have more bigots per capita than any other party (excluding the EDL and BNP)

Tory Cllr resigned after racist remarks

Student Conservatives Racism Scandal

Oxford Tories Nights of Port and Nazi songs

These are the kind of people we have running the country and if that is not bad enough, it would appear that the Conservatives are busy recruiting like minded people to top positions. Forget Ukip, soon we will be governed and managed by a load of racist bigots! 

Even Tory Lord Ashcroft warned Cameron about hiring Lynton Crosby, not because he thought the 2015 election campaign would lead to a re-run of the immigrant dominated 2005 election campaign, but he thinks Crosby is not needed because he would become a "distracting influence". He is right and wrong! I think that Crosby is deliberately making the 2015 election campaign all about immigration and he is doing this by stoking up fear and resentment and as the election approaches it will become worse and we can expect more  intense dirty tricks and Tory smear campaigns. As for being a distracting influence, Ashcroft is absolutely correct, Crosby is already proving to be a distracting influence and expect more of his lobbying past and lobbying contacts to be revealed as 2015 nears. Cameron will be quizzed repeatedly about Crosby's lobbyist links

These latest posters put me in mind of the former Tory leader Michael Howard disturbing 2005 general election poster campaign "Are you thinking what we're thinking?" Which were designed to get into the psyche with an unsettling subliminal message be it on scaring people over the NHS, unemployment or immigration. Theresa May was right when she famously describe the Conservative party as the "nasty party", they are and as they get drunker and abuse their power, they are becoming nastier and nastier.

Forget Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" the Tories are turning this country into a 

'cesspit of hate'!

Crosby & Cameron's "Cig Society"

It's hard to tell between Prime Minister David Cameron, and lobbyist election strategist, Lynton Crosby who is the dog and who is the tail, and who is wagging who!

The arrogance of both men is pretty evident, they act as if the Labour party who is  Her Majesty's opposition, has no right to oppose and ask what is going on at the heart of British government regarding lobbyist and Australian Lynton Crosby. They behave as if Labour and us "plebs" should just shut up and accept what Cameron says, because the PM has said it and anyway it doesn't matter because this is the "only answer we are getting"! Well the prime minister for "Benson & Hedge Funds" had better realise that his arrogance and aversion to the truth is being duly noted and as the general election approaches he will be quizzed persistently on plain packaging, minimum alcohol pricing, fracking and H5 (Private Hospital Alliance) and goodness knows what else.

Questions also need to be asked why Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood decided to help David Cameron and deny Ed Miliband's request for an inquiry on the basis of a document said to have been drawn up over recent days.This undated and unsigned document is just a distraction and designed to once again mislead the public, it is absolutely no defence, and Heywood should not be allowing himself to become embroiled in politics of the gutter, he should have distanced himself from this intention to deceive the public not actively take part in it!

This is not the first time that Heywood has saved the neck of Cameron and Hunt, he stepped into the breach previously over the Andy Coulson phone hacking/BSkyB scandal, when he (Heywood) decided that there should be no inquiry into why the the former Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt (now the Health Secretary) misled and lied to parliament over his dealings with Rupert and James Murdoch. At that time Hunt was just a couple of hours away from signing over permission for Murdoch to purchase all of BSkyB shares which would have given Murdoch the monopoly over the press and broadcast media in this country, which of course would have given him the power over what news was published! It really is a frightening prospect that one man, (not even a national of this country) was almost handed control of  our news agenda and came to being a hairsbreadth away from being waved through by Jeremy Hunt, with the full knowledge of David Cameron and also the chancellor George Osborne!

The public has the right to demand that the utmost integrity in public life is maintained, but David Cameron is abusing his power and bringing politics and public life into disrepute at a time when the public already have an extremely low opinion of our politicians.

For example not only has David Cameron brought a lobbyist who has clients who are responsible for the deaths of millions of people right into the heart of British government, his party and his government apparently underneath the direction of their lobbyist election strategist Lynton Crosby are also responsible for the leaking of disinformation about the Sir Bruce Keogh report, in which Keogh had been reviewing possible avoidable deaths in some NHS hospitals. It would appear that someone from inside the government deliberately leaked incorrect information in an attempt to smear the Labour party, and the  former Health Secretary Andy Burnham, purposefully undermining the NHS  by using it as a "blunt weapon" with which to "get Burnham"! It's obvious that the Conservative party and Lynton Crosby had initiated the "get Burnham" smear campaign in the week before the Keogh review was leaked to deliberately tie it in with the intentionally erroneous information said to have been seen in leaked Keogh review.
 If true this exposes that David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt could be guilty of breaching the ministerial code of conduct and have failed to uphold strict standards in public life!

It has been reported that one of the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt's Sapds leaked this information, but it is unclear and is probably untrue, but it's not for the first time that the health secretary has a problem with his SPADS, it seems to be a bit of a habit, Hunt has previously sacrificed one of his spads in order to save his own neck over the Murdoch BSkyB affair! However, the situation is so serious that questions must be asked and answered;

1. Who deliberately leaked erroneous information regarding the Keogh review? 
2. Was it Jeremy Hunt or was it one of his Spads, or did it come from higher up? 
3. Who sanctioned this leak, was it lobbyist election strategist, Lynton Crosby? 

Whoever it was the source of this leak must be tracked down, we cannot tolerate a government deliberately leaking incorrect information to smear and discredit their opponents using the NHS and their office to do so. In acting this way this government deliberately placed at risk public health, safety and trust in our NHS. There is a name for when governments deliberate release erroneous information it is called "disinformation"!

Disinformation: Is intentionally false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately which is intended to mislead, esp. propaganda issued by a government to the media

This is exactly what has happened concerning the Keogh review.

The Parliamentary Committee for Standards in Public Life must look into this serious breach of government conduct.  I know this has been reported to them and they must act. Sir Jeremy Heywood cannot and must not make or take any party in this decision  because he has placed himself far too close to the controversy, as soon as he decided to guild the lily and publish documents purporting to back up Cameron's position which were subsequently found to be worthless, unsigned and undated and written weeks after the hiring of Crosby, he totally compromised himself and his office.

Like the plain cigarette packaging scandal, this has Lynton Crosby's  fingerprints all over it.

• Who's decision was it to leak the Keogh report?
• Who deliberately fabricated the fictitious figure of  "13,000 unnecessary deaths"?
•  Who then passed it on to the BBC, Sky News, the Telegraph and the Mail in order to deliberately denigrate and smear the NHS and NHS staff purely for political reasons?
• Who gave the OK for an "attack dog" style assault on Andy Burnham and the Labour party to make it appear that they were to blame for something that did not happen using deliberately false information?

Whoever did give the go ahead for this leak, whether it was David Cameron, Lynton Crosby or Jeremy Hunt, they are guilty of deliberately undermining the NHS and placing at grave risk the health, safety, welfare and trust of the public.

I simply do not believe it was Jeremy Hunt's Spad, because it is doubtful a Spad would have been able to access the Keogh review at that time or be privy to this class of information, so this points the finger to the leak being firmly up the chain of command.

It's time that David Cameron, Jeremy Hunt and the Liberal Democrat party took responsibility for their own actions. The NHS is failing because of the pressures this government are placing on it. The NHS is failing because of this government's unnecessary health reforms which the Liberal Democrats also voted through parliament. This  is not Labour's fault, it was actually Labour who saved the NHS from certain destruction the last time the Conservatives were in power and had control over it. In fact over the last decade (as actually reported by Sir Bruce Keogh) mortality rates have reduced by 30% over all. But then this government knows this and it doesn't sit well with their intention to fully-privatise the NHS, which is why they want to destroy NHS credibility and blame the former Labour government (now the opposition) for the furore that will follow. This is why our NHS has been under full-frontal attack for weeks, it is all part of the Conservative campaign to soften people up for NHS privatisation. It really is true, "the NHS is *NOT* safe in Tory hands"!

Sir Bruce Keogh was so angry about the erroneous information leaked from his review that he was overheard apologising to Andy Burnham. Yet to date I have not seen on retraction or apology in one single newspaper or one of the news outlets that ran with this erroneous story for three whole days! If this was the Labour party that had deliberately undermined the NHS and put at risk the health and safety of the public, if this was the Labour party that had purposefully sought to malign their political opponents using blatant lies and smear campaigns in the press and broadcast media, we would never have heard the last of it!

As well as deliberately trying to smear Andy Burnham, David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt also tried to smear baroness Young a Labour peer, which prompted her to write a furious letter of rebuttal to David Cameron, which was totally ignored when Jeremy Hunt repeated the mantra when he spoke to parliament about the Keogh review. They just keep on repeating their lies under the protective cloak of parliament, in the end Hunt was prevented from continuing by the Speaker, but only after several requests to stop were totally ignored!

If necessary a police investigation needs to take place to assess if this government, David Cameron, Jeremy Hunt and Lynton Crosby and the Conservative party has committed misconduct in a public office by giving false and misleading information to the press and broadcast media, with the intention to undermine the NHS and political opponents.

Now it has been reported that Lynton Crosby whose company CTF Partners and lists Philip Morris International, (the world’s largest tobacco firm whose brands include Marlboro), as one of its clients has created a database tracking every British MP’s opinion on plain cigarette packaging as part of its successful lobbying campaign to block the proposed policy change.  Conservative Party election strategist Lynton Crosby  has been employed by Philip Morris since November 2012 to advise on its campaign to have the plain cigarette packaging policy halted. 'Mysteriously' since Crosby was hired by Cameron and the Conservatives, the promised policy to have plain cigarette packaging was immediately dropped from the queen's speech, as was minimum alcohol pricing policy, which Crosby's company also lobbies the government on, on behalf of its clients.

It's inconceivable that Lynton Crosby and David Cameron did not know this and despite what Sir Jeremy Heywood has said, there needs to be an urgent investigation or an inquiry held to clearly assess if the prime minister, David Cameron and his lobbyist election strategist Lynton Crosby have again committed misconduct in a public office by discussing and changing government policy to advantage Lynton Crosby's clients.

This cannot and must not be allowed to go uninvestigated.

Should Keogh Report "Leak" Be reported to the Police?

Thanks to @AndrewzCooper for creating such an excellent chart of govt's plans for the NHS

Last weekend the BBC, Sky News and the Telegraph all broke the story about how the Keogh report asked for by David Cameron and due to report last Tuesday on the alleged failings of some hospitals, was going to show that there had been "13,000 avoidable deaths". They proceeded to repeatedly run this story all over the weekend and all day Monday too, with other broadcast media outlets and other right wing newspapers all joining in and repeating the alleged findings as the truth.

This is distraction and diversion politics at its worse.

Having watched this story unfold and becoming increasingly angry at the dubious and unfounded political spin presented as fact by sloppy journalists and repeated in other newspapers and the broadcast media with impunity, I ask, why is it up to me and many others like Steve Walker here and here and here to take to task and expose the lies, innuendo and blatant scaremongering put out by the Conservative led coalition and their friends in the right wing press and broadcast media?  Why is the right wing press, the right wing broadcast media (including the BBC) ignoring the truth and instead publishing nonsense spin? Look at this excellent illustration by Marcus Chown, the penny must surely be beginning to drop now?

This problem has now far exceeded the boundaries of party political loyalty, this whole Keogh business now seems to be highlighting something much more sinister. Yet where is the investigative journalism all these papers and media outlets say they prize so dearly and were almost hysterical about when the Leveson recommendations were published and have since refused to sign up to them? and why hasn't one of them tried to expose the truth about the relationship between Government, right wing press editors and right wing broadcast media? Who is pulling whose strings?

The first question that should be asked is where these particular media outlets obtained their information from? It cannot be a hard question to answer and it cannot be classed as journalistic "license" as all of them appear to have been given the story at the same time.

It is certainly no coincidence that just prior to the story breaking last weekend that all Tory MPs were also briefed to personally attack the Shadow Health Secretary, Andy Burnham, in a "get Burnham" Tory dirty tricks campaign! It would appear to most people that the attack Burnham campaign and the leak of the erroneous Keogh information are linked and if they are, as Tory MPs were briefed in advance of the Keogh report leak to attack Burnham, a certain degree of premeditation and planning looks likely to have taken place between the media outlets who first broke the story and whoever it was who leaked the erroneous information and the British government.

To what extent was Lynton Crosby involved in this personal  attack on Burnham and Labour and since when has it been classed as politically OK in this country not only to seek to purposefully destroy the integrity of a well liked and respected former minister when they knew he had done nothing wrong, but to also to purposefully undermine our entire health service placing at risk the welfare of millions of patients and their relatives for no other reason than for political gain?

First on their agenda is to destroy the Labour party's excellent reputation for investing in the NHS and saving it from Tory privatisation during the Conservative's last 18 years of  maladministration in 1997.
It's all part of a much bigger agenda. It's no coincidence that the recent spell of negative reports on the NHS, (many attacking the personal integrity of our nurses and doctors) are all part of the Conservative campaign to soften the public so they can privatise the NHS and the Tories really do not care how many lies they tell, how many people they hurt, or how many people they terrify with their blatant scaremongering, just as long as they achieve their end goal which is we now know *full-scale privatisation of the NHS* and try to get re-elected at any cost.

We are in the process of losing the NHS, David Cameron is slowly selling off the NHS to his Tory doning friends and supporters in the private healthcare industry by stealth. It is a filthy squalid business, but it is happening and the PMs new bestest mate Lynton Crosby, his so-called "election strategist" is most likely the person behind the current spate of lies and negative reporting and dirty tricks.

David Cameron has brought the tobacco and drinks industry that are responsible for millions of deaths, right into the heart of British government and the Liberal Democrat poodles coalition partners stand idly by and just allow it to happen.

If Lynton Crosby is working for the Conservative PM and he has companies that lobby in the UK,  in the name of transparency Crosby must be made to declare his interests and if he isn't willing to do that, then David Cameron needs to sack him immediately. We simply cannot have even the merest of whiffs of corruption right at the heart of British Government. I really cannot understand why Cameron even considered hiring Crosby in the first place, especially after his Andy Coulson debacle!

When the Keogh Report finally came out last Tuesday it did not even mention the Tory spin of '13,000 avoidable deaths' figure touted in the media all the previous weekend and the Monday before his report was officially released and in fact the report said that he [Sir Bruce Keogh] recalled under the Labour government, the focus was on rebuilding the NHS capacity after decades of [Tory] neglect: "the key issue was not whether people were dying in our hospitals avoidably, but they were dying while waiting for treatment". However this did not stop Jeremy Hunt describing the Keogh report as Labour's "darkest moment" on the NHS since founding it and nor did it prevent The Daily Mail's four page blitz on "Labour's day of Shame over the NHS". Once again Jeremy Hunt lied to parliament and deliberately set out to mislead the public, something he has done before over Rupert Murdoch and BSkyB when he was Culture Secretary.

In an unprecedented step, before his report was released, Sir Bruce Keogh was forced to deny the reports in the press and broadcast media, he said:

I agree with your sentiments entirely. Not my calculations, not my views. Don’t believe everything you read, particularly in some newspapers: 

It was Professor Brian Jarman that came up with the 13,000 figure and he apparently is not too happy with the way it was used. I don't buy that,Professor Jarman gave an interview which was repeatedly run on Sky News and BBC where he made some serious allegations which appeared to give weight to information that was supposed to be appearing in the Keogh report and yet that information did not appear in the Keogh report, in fact Sir Bruce Keogh said:

However tempting it may be, it is clinically meaningless and academically reckless to use such statistical measures to quantify actual numbers of avoidable deaths.

Keogh's report actually rejects claims that poor care in 14 Trusts caused thousands of avoidable deaths and what Jarman was saying on TV last weekend was not vindicated. 13,000 deaths is a pretty precise figure to come up with, where did he get it from? He must have seen something or someone must have told him something. Why did the Daily Mail decide to re-run Brian Jarman's "20,000 needless deaths claim"?  Why did the BBC and Sky News run clips of him more or less saying that Andy Burnham had swept these 13,000 mythical deaths underneath the carpet when nothing could have been furthest from the truth? When the Francis report into Mid Staffs has also repudiated that claim? There is absolutely no doubt from the tone of the articles in the Telegraph the Mail, the BBC and Sky News that the intent was to join in with the Tories "get Burnham" campaign and to try even harder to dislodge Labour as the party most trusted by the public to run the NHS properly. This is why Jeremy Hunt has used such emotive terms to describe what the government are doing such as "hit squads" and placing hospitals in "special measures". There is absolutely no need for language like this and as ever with situations like this when so many are affected it is so important to keep things in context. The NHS treats upwards of three million people every single week, the vast majority of them are pleased and satisfied with their treatment, the ratio of satisfied people to complaints is quite remarkable for a public service as big as this. Also the this country has 160 hospital trusts of which Hunt has placed 11 in 'special measures'. If there was no report, if there was no scare mongering, if you just took this at face value, then 11 out of 160 would be about average for action, this is not to say that we should not strive to improve the NHS, everyone who works in the NHS wants that and no one wants people to feel their concerns are not being treated properly or that they or their relatives and friends are not getting the correct treatment, but it is still important to keep this in context.

Like the Francis report, the Keogh report did not lay any blame for failings in the NHS at the door of the previous Labour government, but that hasn't stopped the right wing press like the Daily Mail running with a wholly inaccurate banner headline putting the blame entirely on Labour anyway! It's almost as if the paper had already thought of the headline and written the story and even though they knew their story was wholly inaccurate, they decided to publish it anyway. I have complained to the Press Complaints Commission.

What happened in the Telegraph, the Mail and Sunday Mail, the BBC and Sky News was scaremongering on an unprecedented scale, they actively sought to undermine the NHS and the confidence that the public has in the NHS. This behaviour could have deterred many people from seeking medical advice which could have lasting implications on their health, yet these organisations felt they could use unconfirmed statements from a report that was not published, these organisations themselves could be charged with causing avoidable deaths, pain, suffering, distress and anxiety! Their behaviour and the way they felt sure enough to publish and report the Keogh report raises many questions.

• Professor Jarman used the 13,000 figure that was a pretty concise figure, he obviously didn't just snatch it out of thin air, so where did he get it from?
• Jarman appeared to be talking about the Keogh report, so he may have been fed the same erroneous information - by whom?
• It would appear that these media outlets broke their stories all at the same time, which is pretty odd, this kind of thing usually takes on an "exclusive" identity. Were they in touch with each other prior to releasing the story?
• Who purposefully briefed them entirely inaccurate information and how did they manage to satisfy their legal teams before publication?
• If so who is the common denominator? Who leaked the same erroneous story to all of them?
• After all the problems concerning Saville and abuse of power that the BBC has had, who at the BBC gave the go ahead for this information to be broadcast and what did they see that convinced them they could publish?
• Who allowed BBC Newsnight to once again broadcast wholly inaccurate information?

Up until that point, only the government had sight of the Keogh report, so was it a member of the cabinet who leaked this story? For all of these media outlets to have been able to get this past their legal departments and feel confident enough to publish/broadcast these comments, they must have been pretty secure and have a lot of trust in their source, so it wasn't just anyone - who was it?

These questions are so serious that inquiries should be launched by the Committee for Standards in Public Life; The Department of Health and NHS England to discover who it was that leaked what looks to be a deliberately erroneous briefing on the contents of Keoghs findings to media outlets.

It is obvious that the so-called erroneous "leak" was leaked with the sole intention of doing as much damage to the NHS, Andy Burnham and the Labour party as possible by means of using the NHS and undermining it purely for political purposes.

The Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt statement in the House of Commons on the Keogh report was also shocking, it less of a statement and more a political diatribe, he was pulled up several times by the Speaker before finally being silenced by him. But once again (because he has done this before over Murdoch and BSkyB) Jeremy Hunt has used the cover of parliament to make his own completely erroneous statements. He failed to even mention that overall mortality rates have been reduced by 30% over the past 10 years. It's obvious why Hunt omitted to mention this, it's because it did not fit in with his narrative of blaming Labour for for the wrongs this government are actively causing in the NHS.

It's this government's strategy that whenever anything goes wrong they simply turn around and blame Labour and they think nothing of using lies, smears, cheap and dirty tricks and innuendos. Under cover of parliament David Cameron continues to lie and deliberately mislead the the British public, I have written about it on here several times.

However what occurred last weekend was something entirely different. This was someone in this government who has deliberately leaked a pack of lies to the press and broadcast media and in my opinion this needs to be referred to the police for proper investigation and if the Conservatives and their right wing friends in the press still refuse to reveal who told these lies then I think they should be forced by a court of law to reveal their source because of the criminal nature of it.

It is slanderous, libellous and Jeremy Hunt's ongoing and wilful misinterpretation of the truth about the NHS, in order to deliberately malign, hurt and endanger a person's career should not go unpunished.

This is political sabotage by means of using disinformation, if it was a member of the Conservative led coalition government, or a strategist, or an adviser who leaked this story then they must be identified and held accountable.

It should also be the very last time that this government led by David Cameron should use the House for political grandstanding and totally abuse of power.

It's not good enough to ignore this it has all gone way too far, this is our NHS that is being deliberately undermined and it is not only maligning the former health secretary, it is also deliberately maligning NHS staff and accusing them of virtually 'killing people' and it can no longer be tolerated. It is not only the deliberately maligning of dedicated men and women who work in the NHS, it is also placing at risk the health of the nation by deliberately misleading public over the NHS. This government has a duty of care towards the people of this country and not for the first time (remember them causing panic at the petrol pumps to deliberately malign the unions and Labour as a distraction from their disastrous budget?) This time they have deliberately placed in great danger the health and wellbeing of the nation, this cannot and should not go unpunished, what this government did is wholly reprehensible.

 It is time to call in the police and ask them to conduct an official investigation. If the British government have colluded with the right wing press and the broadcast media to deliberately mislead the public in order to bring down Her Majesty's Opposition and a former minister as well as the NHS by means of using lies and deception, then surely this must be a criminal offence? If the police cannot do anything then other legal channels must be looked at. Or perhaps for once the press will do their job and report accurately what is happening and help bring this terrible government down, before they cause the people of this country real and lasting damage by destroying our NHS.

NHS Reforms and Tory Donors - What Does Liberating the NHS Really Mean?

Update: I first wrote this blog in March 2011, the research is extensive. Revisiting it now I hope you can see with hindsight, that everything I said and researched and showed is correct and has either come true or is in the process of coming true. I don't mention this for praise, those that read my blog regularly know I don't work like that, what I hope to achieve by pulling this out of the archives, is to clearly expose what this government are doing and their insane obsession with the private sector and privatising the NHS.

It is a long read, feel free to dib in and out whenever, or read the bits that interest you and more to the point, please share it and tweet it so that the public can see the Tory agenda is to privatise our NHS.

The links and revelations clearly expose how Cameron, Lansley and Hunt have been pushing our NHS ever closer to privatisation.

The Keogh report out today, the press and Sky News have had it Sunday and questions will be raised in the House and answers must be given as to why this report was released to the press at least 2 days before it was due to be released to the public and parliament. Once again Cameron holds the public and the House in complete contempt.

 Our NHS is now under a barrage of attacks from a government and a media hell bent on privatising it DON'T LET THEM!


The information you are about to read has mainly come from research on the internet and is readily available in the public domain and I will list the main sources below, however, some is from direct sources which I cannot list in order to protect them.

 "Liberating the NHS"

Amid other reforms of services crucial to the wellbeing of our people, the Tory-led government are trying to railroad their NHS reforms through parliament, without proper consultation and without the  proper scrutiny of parliament. In fact they have already implemented a lot in the reforms before the bill has even been passed by parliament, showing an arrogant disregard for parliament and the British constitution. Although this arrogant disregard is in itself  alarming enough it is by far not the real cause for concern. It has been an eye opener discovering how the Tories in particular, like to do shady deals with bankers, arms dealers, and hedge "funders" who all incidentally donate to the Tory party, or are connected in some other inexplicable way to the Conservative party, in this report we are going to concentrate on the NHS, and try to show the biggest threat facing the NHS today is coming from the Tories, individual donors with agendas to push and private healthcare providers.

 For this purpose I am going to be using some of the text of a video I came across  to show you the extent of the involvement and connections of our politicians today.  The video is quite the most brilliant piece of investigative work I have come across, but as well as that I am going to include other material I have put together from a variety of sources which I have researched. I aim to keep exposing the Tory party, because I truly believe in my opinion that although no government is whiter than white, this particular Tory government has corruption at its very heart. I will give links throughout the report indicating where I obtained some of the information from.

Anyone writing a blog or any kind of report is absolutely free to use any material shown on this blog, as long as it is to expose the Tories and help rid this country of this kind of bent and twisted government, all I ask is that you provide a link back here, this report has taken considerable effort and research, I don't want thanks, I just want people to be made aware so we can unite and fight for our NHS (and other public services). This coming week is a very important week, George Osborne is set to deliver a budget that will give private firms the right to run just about every single public service apart from our courts and security. Schools, hospitals, the police are sitting targets for privatisation, they call it small government, but what do the Tories actually mean by big and small government?

Have you heard of  "Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein? It is well worth reading and in it we get some sense of what the Tories are actually trying to do to our society, make no mistake, this is no conspiracy, take a look around you, listen to them, really listen to what they are saying, they are manipulating the public into believing something which does not really exist. How else would they be able to get you to accept the most draconian policies? The Tories are trying to get us to accept the dismantling of big government and trying to have us believe that this is a good thing. The Tories hate big government, because big government means taxing the rich to provide services for the majority of people, ie healthcare, education, welfare etc, if none of us paid taxes we simply would not have a welfare state, The Tories have always been looking for ways to get out of looking after people, but they could not come out and say this because if they did they would never have got elected, so they have done it this way, they have used the deficit as a form of shock to get you to accept a whole massive range of measures you would never normally accept. If you think that small government is brilliant and you will have more cash in your pocket that is fine, and you think you can go it alone and buy in all the services your family needs from the cradle to the grave in education, health, welfare etc, good luck to you - the majority cannot afford it. I will show on here that behind the Tories dismantling of the welfare state, education and our NHS etc lies other reasons and these will be exposed as you read through this report, maybe at the end of it and you have seen what is going on out of public view within the Tory party, and how people stand to gain out of your money and your social, mental and physical wellbeing, you may not think that "big government" is such a good thing after all!

What do the the Tories mean when they say they are "Liberating the NHS"?  Simply, "liberating the NHS in Tory terms means unprecedented cuts in quality and quantity of NHS services, job losses and denial of accountability.

How deep does the financial backing of the Conservative party by private healthcare companies really go? I'll provide as much information here in one place and leave you to make your own minds up. 

GPs do not want to undertake this work they are not accountants, so they are being encouraged by the government to outsource this accountancy work to outsourcing companies like KPMG.

The NHS is suffering greatly with this government. People don't realise just what is happening. There have been whole departments just closed and in Liverpool alone so many people will lose their jobs on the 31st of March, in fact this will just be the start of it and this is going to have a huge impact on frontline services everywhere, take a good long look at your local accident and emergency department, it may not be there for you to use freely next time you need its services. What is the reason for this? The reason is that the Tories want to get rid of the NHS as part of their parring down of "big government".

NHS will be competing with the private sector for every bit of healthcare provided by the NHS.

Liberating the NHS is just another name for a radical assault on the NHS. It really means – unprecedented cuts; job losses; denial of accountability and privatisation. It means liberating the NHS budget to hand it over to the corporate sector.

Groups of for profits companies are circling the NHS wanting a cut of that £100 billion pound budget and thanks to the Tories, prime minister David Cameron, chancellor George Osborne, deputy pm Nick Clegg and the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, these Private Commissioning Companies are pretty close to getting what they want.

These companies hire lobbying agencies and think tanks who they pay to push their agenda with our MPs. Lansley's white paper has been heavily criticized for opening the doors of the NHS to private FOR profit companies. The extent of Andrew Lansley and David Cameron's involvement with such agencies is really quite astonishing.

NHS care has always been provided primarily by NHS providers this means that NHS institutions which by their nature are accountable to the public. Hospitals are NHS institutions and are accountable to the public. Unless the Tories are stopped very soon this is going to change to a system called “any willing provider” this means that anyone who wants to tender to deliver an NHS services can put in a bid and that of course in this context this means the private sector. So the NHS will be competing with the private sector for every single bit of NHS care that is delivered. At the same time another major change in NHS care is GPs are going to be handed the lion share of the NHS budget (approximately £80 billion) to buy or commission services/care for their population, the trouble is that most GPs don’t want to do it, don’t have the time to do it and don’t have the skills to do it, so this is yet again another opportunity for the private health companies, which means another opportunity for private companies to come in and get their hands on lucrative NHS contracts, from accountancy firms, legal firms right through to someone selling pharmaceuticals to GPs. Understandably many GP’s do not want to take over this role of accountancy and searching for the best deal, or service etc, so they are being encouraged by the government to give that work to private commissioning companies and outsourcing companies like Serco, Capita and KPMG and Unitedhealth and they will hold that huge £80 billion budget. AS WELL as this, the Tories are forcing the NHS to CUT services by a further £20 billion. I have been told that this £20 billion will come off of the existing £100 billion health budget, so GPs and hospital trusts may already be looking at a £20 billion cut BEFORE they start! Although the Tories want to talk in terms of "savings" and NOT "cuts", CUTS are exactly what these are, do not allow them to lie to you and fool you.

The majority of these big private healthcare provider companies who are circling our NHS are American and these very same companies who have been spending a billion dollars per day to lobby against President Obama's healthcare reforms, why? Simply because they know they stand to lose money if America adopts a system similar to the British NHS. Who has been helping these companies in their war of words against adopting a British style NHS? No other than British MEP Daniel Hannan, who is a close friend of prime minister David Cameron. Who put Hannan up to this? Has Hannan been taking money from lobbyists? Hannan caused outrage in the UK when he began trashing our NHS on American TV and his mate Dave was forced to go on TV and defend the NHS, but it was allowed to drop there, but this did not stop Hannan, he carried on doing this. What TV new network did Hannan appear on in America? Fox News, which is owned of course by News corporation and Rupert Murdoch, both Rupert and his son James are close friends of David Cameron (Google Andy Coulson Cameron's former chief of communications to see just how close!). It is no secret that Rupert Murdoch does not like big government and his close friendship with Cameron could be the reason why he gave over prime air time to Hannan, who used data pre labour's reforms which was out of date to rubbish the NHS and cause widespread panic in America about our healthcare. However, questions and an investigation should be mounted to see if and if so just how much "in hock" to these healthcare providers Tory MEP Daniel Hannan actually is.

Here is a quote from Andrew Lansley when he was in opposition;

In UK there are many ways that these companies lobby our politicians, they employ lobbyists, they employ their own lobbyists, they pay agencies, they pay think tanks, they lobby through trade associations, but crucially they close to our decision makers by employing political insiders and United Health UK is no exception, its vice president in the UK is someone called Simon Stevens who was health policy advisor to Tony Blair and the architect behind New labour’s NHS reforms. Lobbying is a huge industry and lobbyists are engaged in an attempt to manage the political process, they cannot do this without having contact with people inside politics, with ministers, civil servants, MPs, connections to the House of Lords. This means lobbyists want to get very close to them so what happens is that people will move from working as a Labour party researcher, or as a Tory party spin doctor into a think tank, or a lobbying agency as part of their career progression, they might then move back and become an MP or a special adviser, they may even become a minister and at the end of their ministerial career they may move swiftly off to Europe with a big health care corporation like for example Patricia Hewett did with Boots.

Lets start naming some names.

Westminster Advisers, which is a lobbying agency in London which exists to push their agendas with politicians have been hired by the big five big private hospital companies in the UK. They have formed a lobby group called H5, they employ their own political insiders and the person who works on the H5 account is a former Liberal Democrat speech writer to the former Lib Dem shadow cabinet. Westminster Advisers is literally one of hundreds of lobbying agencies that exist in London most who are within 10 minutes of parliament. The lobbying industry in the UK is a £2 billion industry which is overwhelmingly paid for by huge corporations, a large part of this is health care.  Corporations who want to make money out of providing healthcare services and pharmaceuticals etc. will hire a lobbying agency to push their agendas with politicians on the inside of government decision making. Two billion pounds to these large corporations is virtually nothing, they spend it on lobbying companies to enable them to make larger profits.

Edelman Public Relations and Lobbying Company-  it has 55 employees working in its dedicated health department. It lobbies for amongst others BUPA, AstraZenica and Pfizer.  

According to its entry in Who's Who in Public Affairs 2006, Edelman Public Affairs' “vantage point provides clients with the insights they need to shape policy at the national and global level… We help them to form relationships with legislators, officials, special interest groups and sovereign governments to achieve their economic and political objectives… orchestrating a wide range of strategies and tactics including research, coalition building, stakeholder mobilisation, media relations and grassroots activities.

Edelman Breaching the lobbyists code

In September 2007, The Sunday Times reported that Edelman Public Affairs lobbied the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in July 2006 on behalf of a client, Pelcombe. At the time, Heather Rogers, wife of John Hutton, then secretary of state for DWP, was a director at Edelman. Pelcombe subsequently secured contracts with the DWP. Edelman failed to register its relationship with the firm on the Association of Professional Political Consultants’ (APPC) register – a breach of the APPC’s code of conduct.
The Sunday Times reported: “In a proposal drawn up by Edelman in July last year (2006), the lobbying firm offered to fix meetings for Pelcombe’s managing director with MPs and Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) officials “for the joint purpose of building relationships and gathering intelligence on current and future policy”. It added: “Targets are to be selected from the existing ‘political contact list’ as appropriate.” The Sunday Times reports that it was initially told by a source at Edelman that Pelcombe was “Heather’s client” and that she had introduced the firm to the lobbyists. This was later retracted. 
Edelman's failure to register Pelcombe as a client is in breach of the APPC’s code of conduct includes a requirement for member agencies to disclose their clients and consultants.The then chairman of the APPC, Gill Morris, accepted Edelman’s apology for the “oversight” and the remedial action the company agreed to take. Michael Burrell, Edelman’s Europe vice-president is a member of the APPC’s management committee.

 Lobbying can overwhelm the democratic structure of our government, certain interests can dominate by spending lots of money or by being able to populate the area around the decision makers, so of course what our decision makers are constantly hearing is from special interests and not concerns from citizens.

QUILLER CONSULTANTS - Lord Chadlington and David Cameron. Next door to the Queen at Buckingham Gate is a company called Quiller consultants which is own by Lord Chadlington who is a very close ally to David Cameron, it lobbies for among others a private equity firm heavily invested in healthcare and also Capita  which is a huge outsourcing company which is involved in the NHS.  Lord Chadlington admitted priming four private equity leaders before they gave evidence to a highly charged Commons inquiry. Lord Chadlington, who bankrolled Mr Cameron’s leadership bid, helped senior figures from Permira, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, 3i and Carlyle to prepare for an appearance before the Treasury Select Committee on June 20, 2007 Quiller Consultants are the people lobbying on behalf of capita etc. are also incredibly connected to the Conservative party. George Bridges and David Cameron's Band of Etonian Brothers , George Bridges was invited by David Cameron to run his general election campaign, and also employed, is the former chief of staff  of Theresa May and an ex strategist from the department of health, all lobbying for and pushing the agenda of these companies that hire Quiller consultants. Quiller consultants have the ear of the none other than the prime minister through Lord Chadlington. 

CAPITA - On Victoria Street with parliament just down the road is the offices of Capita which is a huge outsourcing company and £3.3 billion of Government (our) money has gone through Capita’s books since the Tories came to power.  Capita is in the running to take over NHS Direct (Now NHS 111)  has donated £1.5m in donations to the Conservatives in the last ten years, it would seem that the odds are stacked in its favour. Although following public outrage at the mere thought of the demise of NHS Direct Andrew Lansley has said it is only the the telephone number that has been changed, that is not quite the truth! There are several pilot schemes of NHS 111 using predominantly untrained staff to man the phones, staff given just 72 hours training as opposed to the years of training and experience of a fully qualified nurse and I am told that already staff are reporting the instances of those being advised to go to their local Accident & Emergency departments is rising rapidly, this will cancel out any savings being made, but nonetheless, it still looks like Lansley is set to ignore that and will award the contract of NHS Direct over to Capita. 

2020health - The idea to scrap NHS Direct was put forward to Andrew Lansley in June 2010 and just barely 2 months later with virtually no consultation he made the announcement, the idea was put forward by a think tank called 2020health who have their offices just up from parliament at 83 Victoria Street. Andrew Lansley has described the think tank 2020health saying; “I have been very impressed with some of the discussions and documents that have emerged from 2020health. They are looking at serious issues and providing valuable impact on future policy”, policies which include giving more NHS work to private sector companies. www.2020health.org describes itself as an independent grass roots think tank, funded by people like you, for people like you. It takes a lot of money from pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer, Novartis, Lilly, and also companies looking to get into tele-health market like BT and *VODAFONE* and it is in an excellent position to influence Conservative politicians on behalf of all these companies, 2020health chairman is a man called Tom Sackville. (You will recall that recently George Osborne allowed Vodafone OFF of paying a £6 billion tax bill it owed to the British Treasury)

TOM SACKVILLE- who in the 1990’s was a former Tory health minister, he is also the UK CEO of  an international network of private health insurers called the National Federation of Health Plans which has offices in Victoria. Tom Sackville is head of the International Federation of Health Plans, which represents one hundred private health insurance companies in 31 countries. In 2010, 2020Health, the centre right think tank with close links to Health Secretary Andrew Lansley was out in force at the Conservative Party conference. It is chaired by  the CEO of a huge global network of health insurers, at the same time as arguing for a greater role for the NHS in the private health sector.



Julia Manning and David Cameron

JULIA MANNING -  FOUNDER of 2020health and CEO. Julia Manning stood as a Tory party candidate. Don’t believe politicians who try to tell you that think tanks are independent, they are not, they are usually set up by  people who have particular and big agendas usually funded by big business. Julia Manning, director of the 2020Health.org think tank and a close adviser to the Tory leadership, claimed that ending free treatment for minor or “lifestyle” illnesses could save £20 billion a year — about a fifth of the annual budget. Examples of this include varicose veins, acne, short stature, IVF, cosmetic surgery and moderate increases in blood pressure or cholesterol.”

The most controversial proposal is to end IVF on the NHS, which is already heavily rationed by health authorities. And who would gain if the NHS stopped giving these treatments and services? Private Healthcare hospitals of course! No wonder Tory founder of 2020health wanted to do this!

The Stockholm Network -  was actually set up partly by Pfizer the big American pharmaceutical company. There is a whole network of think tanks around about our Houses of Parliament, free market think tanks who also sometimes form into networks like the Stockholm Network. which is a network of over 120 think tanks, who are engaged in a whole range of lobbying activities across Europe and here in the UK. Think tanks look to be providing the arena for debate and research, but how objective is it when it is funded by all these companies that have a vested interest in the NHS?  Think tanks allows big business to push their own agendas and their own interests and it is in their own interests to get on side with the minister and have the minister address their own conferences. This is a quote from its website  entitled "The Welfare State After The Crisis" ... "Britain has experimented with aspects of market-oriented reform and with ideas from other countries but such reforms are nevertheless still viewed with suspicion. Yet a new government and a new economy makes a revolution in the way public services are provided in the UK unavoidable. No longer just the territory of think tanks, the debate about the role of the state in public services is now leading the news agenda".

Gesundheit! Issue 8

by Stockholm Network (published 2011)

Gesundheit! is the Stockholm Network’s bi-monthly newsletter that highlights developments in contemporary European health and welfare policy. Issue 8 focuses on the debate surrounding the UK Coalition Government’s reforms of the NHS. Early in his term, health secretary Andrew Lansley laid out his plans for a radical shake-up of the NHS and these plans have now been presented to parliament and are undergoing consultation. The prime minster David Cameron has contended that “fundamental changes" are needed to raise standards in Britain to the levels in other systems in Europe, whilst the leader of the opposition Ed Miliband has said that the health policy has "taken the national out of the national health service".

The full contents of this edition, as well as their contributors, are as follows:

• Commentary: Free Radicals? – Helen Disney, chief executive of the Stockholm Network;
• NHS Commissioning: A Better Way Forward – James Gubb, director of the Civitas Health Unit;
• Drug Pricing Reforms: A Switch to Value-Based Pricing – Paul Healy, senior researcher of the Stockholm Network;
• New Public Health White Paper for England: Lessons for National Public Health Systems, or Things to Avoid? - Dr John Middleton, vice-president of UK Faculty of Public Health;
• Stockholm Network Publication – Sharing the Burden: Could risk-sharing change the way we pay for healthcare?;
• Stockholm Network Event – Patient Safety and Comfort: The challenges of switching medicines.

The Policy Exchange Think Tank and David Cameron and Francis Maude - The Policy Exchange is David Cameron's favourite think tank and the one that is closest to parliament, it was co-founded by Cabinet Minister Francis Maude and it has lobbied for more private sector involvement in providing NHS services. Archie Norman, Francis Maude and their allies set up two separate think-tanks as part of their modernisation project. One, XChange Ideas or simply XChange, would be rebranded as Policy Exchange a few months later. A company limited by guarantee, formed in October 2001, became XChange Ideas on 9 November 2001. A separate company Conservatives for Change was also was set up that October, and was branded CChange. The two were presumably kept separate to allow Policy Exchange to apply for charitable status as a non-partisan organisation.Conservatives for Change supplied the initial funding for Policy Exchange, with a loan of £75,000. Policy Exchange applied for charitable status and was registered with the Charity Commission on 3 March 2003. Registering as a charity can provide numerous tax breaks for think-tanks. Charities do not normally have to pay corporation tax, capital gains tax, or stamp duty, and gifts to charities are free of inheritance tax. They can also pay significantly reduced business rates (e.g. council tax) on the buildings they occupy.

The prime minister’s favourite think tank  and several other leading Tories pay NO corporation tax  and lobby to see more work carried out by private companies, work which is currently undertaken by the NHS.

Policy Exchange was investigated by the Charity Commission after an MP complained in February 2007 that it was close to theConservative Party. The Charity Commission report found no evidence of party political bias but identified a number of issues: One was concerning transparency – The original source of concern was that the Charity was supporting a political party and carrying out political activities. Whilst the Commission determined that there was no evidence of party political bias we determined that there is a need for greater transparency, particularly on Policy Exchange’s website. Information contained on the website following events in 2007 failed to sufficiently highlight or identify the cross-party speakers at events hosted by the Charity

Current and former trustees of Policy Exchange Ltd. as registered with Companies House on 3 January 2010.

Policy Exchange is both a charity and a company limited by guarantee (i.e. without shareholders), meaning that these directors are also the trustees of the charity. Please note that many of these are in fact current financial backers of the Conservative party.

The earliest directors were the Conservative MPs
 David Willetts and Francis Maude who resigned in June 2002 and were replaced by a number of public figures (initially mainly journalists) with less direct connections to the Conservative Party. The most notable of the early trustees was Michael Govewho was appointed Chairman of Policy Exchange. He was then a Times columnist, but would later become a Conservative MP and then a Minister in the Cameron Government Gove resigned in January 2006.

 Other trustees who have since left the board include John Micklethwait, a writer for The Economist, and Iain Dale a right-wing author and blogger who subsequently became a columnist at the Daily Telegraph. 

The 13 current trustees are a mixture of right-wing journalists and wealthy businessmen. Theodore Agnew, Richard Briance,Simon Brocklebank-Fowler, George Robinson, Edward Sells and Simon Wolfson are all British businessmen or financiers who have donated to the Conservative Party.

 Robert Rosenkranz, an American multi-millionaire financier would be precluded from donating as a foreigner but has provided funding to Policy Exchange and Localis  (and the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute) 

Those trustees who are not drawn from the world of business or finance however are all affiliated to Britain’s conservative press. Virginia Fraser is the widow of Frank Johnson,  a former deputy editor of the The Sunday Telegraph (1995-99) and editor of The Spectator  Alice Thomson is a comment writer at The Times and a former associate editor of the Daily Telegraph  and Charles Moore, Policy Exchange’s Chairman, is a former editor of the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, andThe Spectator. 

Policy Exchange’s first director was Nick Boles, a former member of Westminster City Council considered part of the ‘Notting Hill Set’ – an informal group of young Conservatives connected to the Prime Minister David Cameron. Before joining Westminster Council Boles ran a DIY business, prior to which he 'worked for a few years in Germany, Russia and Eastern Europe, helping state-owned industries prepare for private ownership.'  Boles is a former flatmate of Michael Gove  who was Chairman of Policy Exchange whilst Boles was director
One of the companies that Policy Exchange  has taken money from is a company called Tribal, which is looking to getting into the GP commissioning process which is of course taking over work from GPs. One of the directors of Tribal has actually described Andrew Lansley’s reforms as being the”denationalisation of health services in England”. 

The Adam Smith Institute -  known as the grandfather of pro-business, free market think tank’s which is a fierce critic of the NHS, it thinks that the government should only regulate healthcare and that healthcare should be privately funded and privately provided by private sector companies. Its president, Madsen Pirie, has said "We propose things which people regard as being on the edge of lunacy. The next thing you know, they're on the edge of policy".
It was the primary intellectual force behind privatisation in the Thatcher era, and, with the Centre for Policy Studies andInstitute of Economic Affairs, drove Thatcherite policy on privatisation, taxation, education, and health. The Adam Smith Institute was behind the sales of council house stock and the scrapping of the existing local-government tax in favour of a per-capita charge was later implemented by the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, whose government introduced the poll tax in Scotland in 1989, and in England and Wales in 1990. The poll tax was disastrous for the Thatcher government and is widely seen as a complete failure which precipitated the downfall of her leadership.
More recently The Adam Smith Institute said:  Congratulations to the new Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, for what could be the biggest revolution in the UK's state-run National Health Service for 60 years. We knew that the Conservatives favoured GP budget-holding: at one stage, their leader David Cameron made no bones about it.
One comment on their website said: "Make a charge for hospital food, so much per day, or weekly charge. Be reasonable.
Issue vouchers to benefit claimants."

Dr Eamonn Butler is  author of The Rotten State of Britain. The Adam Smith Institute’s co-founder is  Eamonn Butler who said:
(Taken from the Conservative Home Comment  ) : I can’t decide whether David Cameron’s new Big Society idea could become a Big Disappointment or a Big Bully.
Right now, nobody quite knows if the idea is anything more than a damp Steve Hilton marketing squib. And the idea of letting people run their own post offices, libraries and bus services – in just four trial areas of Liverpool, Eden Valley, Windsor and Sutton – is hardly a ‘revolution’.
But whatever it is, Big Society sounds an awful lot better to me than Big Government – unless Big Bureaucracy tries to run it......

 Eamonn Butler is also on the advisory board of another lobby group called Nurses For Reform.

David Cameron and Dr Helen Evans
Nurses For Reform

Nurses For Reform - Director Dr Helen Evans:  Dr Evans is the director of a right-wing libertarian “think tank” called Nurses for Reform, which, according to its website: "believes that the government should re-cast the NHS as simply a funder of last resort alongside an insurance and self-funder based market. It believes that the state should set free – through a range of full blown for and not-for-profit privatisations – all NHS hospitals and healthcare provision."
Along with the Adam Smith Institute Nurses For Reform is also a fierce critic of the NHS, and once it called the NHS a “Stalinist Nationalised Abhorrent". 
Following a meeting in 2008 between Dr Helen Evans and David Cameron Dr Evans said:

"I had been invited by him to discuss NFR’s ideas on the future of health policy and presented a range of ideas. Amongst others, these included the end of national collective pay bargaining for nurses and doctors, the view that the state should not own or have any of its agents manage hospitals, a world of widespread health advertising (to overcome problems of patient ignorance through trusted brands) and a dramatic liberalisation of hospital planning laws. On this latter point, central government should have no say in when and where any hospital is opened or closed."

"If he becomes Prime Minister I have no doubt NFR will meet with him and his policy team again."
So if his party really is committed to the values of the NHS, if he really has distanced himself from the cranks in his ranks who describe the NHS as “a 60-year mistake”, why on earth did he even meet a group that advocates large-scale privatisation of the NHS? An organisation which criticises the American healthcare system for being "a highly planned, regulated and government funded system." 

If like Cameron has said on his campaigns in opposition, "there would be no top down re-organisation of the NHS" why was he meeting with all these think tanks and lobbyists all vying for NHS contracts and for the break up of the NHS? Many of which have strong connections to the Tories and many of which actually donate money to the Tories? Cameron must have know all along what he and Lansley were planning to do to the NHS, but instead of informing people he blatantly lied and mislead the British people. Of course he knows that if he had come clean about what the Conservatives were planning for the NHS they would never have got elected. And of Andrew Lansley Interestingly, there is no mention on the NFR website of the presence of Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley at the meeting. Did Cameron take the meeting on his own, and if so, why? Why would Cameron hold a meeting about the future of the NHS and not take along Andrew Lansley, supposedly the architect of the Tories NHS reforms? 
Dr Evans expounds her views over at the Adam Smith Institute in an article entitled “The micro-politics of hospital privatisation”, in which she calls for the NHS to be renamed the “National Health SYSTEM” (her capitalisation).
In a classic PR move Nurses For Reform claims to be a grass roots organisation representing the views of ordinary nurses but like the Adam Smith Institute it is completely opaque about its funding. It is very difficult to find out about who funds the think tanks because none of the think tanks are transparent about how much they are paid and for what and by whom. How NFR can claim to represent the views of ordinary nurses is baffling, how can they do this, what research have they carried out? 

Reform  - is yet another pro- business free market think tank also set up by a Conservative minister Nick Herbert. Reform has charitable status, it too is pushing for more private company opportunities within the NHS. This means there will be more private companies providing the services that we get and there are Tories behind nearly all of these lobbying companies and think tanks. This is part of reforms Vision statement taken from its website 
"We believe that by liberalising the public sector, breaking monopoly and extending choice, high quality services can be made available for everyone. Reform would remove public services from the escalator of ever-rising costs. It would enable policy makers to aim for a lower level of taxation and public spending which would better suit the UK's current and future economic challenges." Reform’s deputy director is a person called Nick Seddon, who prior to that was actually Head of Communications at a private hospital company called Circle. Nick Seddon was only 31 when he landed this post at the Directory of Social change.

 CIRCLE- has just been awarded the very first contract for a private company to run a whole hospital. The person who replaced Nick Seddon at Circle came straight from Andrew Lansley’s office. He came from the Department of Health to Circle to become their Head of Communications!
Andrew Haw began in operational research for the coal industry and progressed into the Department of Health. Andrew then moved to Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) where he worked primarily on the design and implementation of large-scale systems in the government sector and on healthcare management and IT consultancy. Accenture is the company The company that gave up two failing NHS contracts and then tried to paper over the cracks claiming it had all been a roaring success it is also connected to the Tory party by David T Mowat  who was elected as Conservative MP for Warrington South May 2010. Mr Mowat was a Global partner at AccentureCircle Health Ltd has won the contract to deliver NHS services at Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Huntingdonshire, (Previous Tory prime minister John Major's old constituency) which has been previously managed by an NHS management team and is now nearly £39m in debt. Circle will be the first independent provider to manage an entire NHS acute hospital in England. Circle describes itself as a private limited company that describes itself as a social enterprise.
Mark Aichroth joined Circle from Mercury Healthcare where he was the Commercial Director of Mercury Health and helped win an Independent Sector Treatment Contract worth £214 million from the Department of Health.

DOCTORS FOR REFORM- (Reform mentioned above) actually supports Doctors for Reform and not surprisingly, Doctors For Reform are another lobby group who claim to represent the grass roots. The chief spokesman for Doctors For reform is a GP called Dr Paul Charlton, but he also runs a private centre for cosmetic treatment. Dr Charlton is also director of the think tank 2020health and chair of something calledthe Conservative Medical Society which is affiliated to the Conservative party. Doctors For reform says it is funded by private donations but has actually taken a lot of money off of private healthcare companies eg drug companies, Pru health the health insurer and also the largest private hospital company in the UK called General Healthcare Group. General Healthcare Group funded a reform conference in 2009 which they invited Andrew Lansley to speak and he shared a platform with the CEO of General Healthcare Group as well as Simon Stevens from United health UK.  General Health Care Group is chaired by Sir Peter Gershon who helped the Tories draw up savings (CUTS) in the NHS, this is a direct conflict of interests.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley was interviewed on BBC Radio 2 on March 16th 2011 about GP consortia, hospitals and improving patient care. He spoke to Dr Paul Hobday and Dr Paul Charlton, Dr Anna Dixon from the King’s Fund and Dr Helen Evans from Nurses for Reform.  Note how the names Dr Paul Charlton of Doctors For Reform and Dr Helen Evans  keep popping up? This was taken from the Department of Health website. (You can also listen to the radio interview from here at approximately 1.09 it is a good listen, you really get a sense of exactly what Evans and Charlton are about!) Strangely the Department of Health forgot to mention that Dr Charlton is chief spokesman of Doctors For Reform, it may have looked top heavy and stacking and staging what with Dr Helen Evans also on the programme from Nurses For Reform (Both affiliated to the Adam Smith Institute. (ASI thinks the NHS should be privatised) This radio programme had six people on it and the guests were heavily stacked in favour of Andrew Lansley's reforms, the BBC only invited one doctor and one person from the Kings Trust on who was actually against the reforms. Vine introduced Dr Charlton as a GP, what Vine did not know was that Dr Charlton also runs a private cosemtic surgery clinic and was part of the think tank Doctors For reform who lobby on behalf on private healthcare companies. (DH has Dr Paul charlton down as Charlton, the radio programme introduces him as Charleston, but he is one and the same person)

KPMG has donated at least £500.000 directly into the coffers of the Conservative party.
Recently the KPMG Partnership for Commissioning has won one of the first contracts to support the development of the early waves of pathfinders across NHS London and help them to become commissioners of services in the future.
The partnership, claimed to be the first of its kind, sees KPMG teaming up with UnitedHealth UK, the National Association of Primary Care (NAPC), Healthskills, NHS Primary Care Commissioning and legal firm Morgan Cole. 

The NAPC maintains it is not political, but it is  political it is almost sycophantic in its adoration of the Tories, read it for yourself, it "warmly" backs the Conservatives.  NAPC stands to gain from winning contracts from the Tories radical reforms, how can it be non political and non biased when it has placed itself in a compromising position? One of its *PRIVATE* GPs Dr Johnny Marshall has publicly backed David Cameron, fair enough, but then we should also know that Dr Johnny Marshall of NAPC has also helped UnitedHealthcare a controversial *PRIVATE* US company, win NHS contracts !

Question 1: - Why specifically, was the contracted awarded to  KPMG? 

Question 2: -  Did NHS London run an open tender for this contract *BEFORE* awarding it to KMPG? (This is required by competition law) If they didn't, then this contract is most likely illegal.

Question 3: - Was the problem of conflict of interests with the Conservatives and KMPG taken into account?

Derby City Primary Care Trust has already been put out to tender and has had three expressions of interest;
 1. BUPA; 2. Boots and 3. AN-other.  (The deadline for tenders apparently passed a few weeks ago.) 

Andrew Lansley has said that GP Commissioners will have to honour present contracts. However, I am informed that there appears to be a lot of contracts being signed in a "hurry" but with absolutely no clear evidence of tendering. 

Lord Blyth - Boots Chemists deputy chairman. Tory Donor. Stands to gain from the break up and privatisation of the NHS wants to buy the Walk in Centres.

UK Pharmaceutical Industry Courting the Conservative party -
The UK pharmaceutical industry has also begun gearing up for a change in government, as drug companies have been reshuffling their public affairs teams and courting the Conservative party. The American Pharmaceutical Group handed public affairs briefs to Hanover Communications, who also represents National Health Service (NHS) cancer screening departments, and in December 2009 hosted a meeting on the Conservatives’ approach to regulating business.

John Nash - Hedge fund boss  is one of the major Conservative donors with close ties to the healthcare industry.
John Nash and wife Caroline gave £203,500 to the party over the past five years.
Andrew Lansley also accepted a £21,000 donation for his private office from John Nash, chairman of Care UK.
Mr Nash STILL continues to work as a consultant to the firm, which provides walk-in centres, GP surgeries and other specialist services, after selling his majority stake to a private equity firm last year.
Lansley has been accused of a direct conflict of interest because Care UK makes 96 per cent of its money from the NHS.
At the time the Lib Dems slammed the payments as a “staggering conflict of interest”.
Now the Liberal Democrats are totally ignoring this and helping the Tories vote the decimation of our NHS through parliament.
MORE than a year after a company chairman’s wife donated £21,000 to the office of Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, the same company has been awarded a £53m NHS prison health contract. 
The contract, awarded by the North-East Offender Health Commissioning Unit, has been awarded to Care UK rather than current NHS providers.

Private Health Care -  companies had donated £750,000 to the Tory party, asking: Doesn't  the Prime Minister see the conflict of interest in this?

Sir Peter Gershon - Chair of Healthcare UK and whose company stands to benefit millions from NHS cuts, which Sir Peter himself helped the Tories to draw up! If ever there was a clear cut case of conflict of interests this is it.

Ryan Robson - Major Tory donor who has given the party £252,429.45 his company invests in numerous private healthcare firms including Choice and Christchurch Court, which provide specialist and residential care.
His donations included £50,000 to be a member of the party’s “Leader’s Group”, a secretive cash-for-access club. The would-be MP, who tried but failed to get selected as the election candidate in Bracknell, is managing partner at Sovereign Capital.

Dolar Popat - Nursing and care home tycoon  has given the Conservatives £209,000.
Has amassed an estimated £42million fortune as founder and chief of TLC Group, which provides services for the elderly.
Mr Cameron made the businessman a peer shortly after entering No10 last May, and Lord Popat’s donations include a £25,000 gift registered a week after the Tories’ health reforms were unveiled last July.

Sir Christopher Gent - non-executive chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, (drug company) has given £113,400 to the Conservative Party.

IC Technology- which provides computer services to the NHS, has handed the Tories £70,000 over the past two years.

Philip Scott - chief of the Priory Group, has donated £20,000.
The famous Priory Clinic is private but Mr Scott has revealed in the past most of its income comes from NHS or local council referrals.


The Trichological Clinic Limited - which operates out of Harrods has handed balding David Cameron and the Tories £10,000 last year.

Senior Tories - who helped formulate the party’s health policy in Opposition have had links to private health care and health insurance firms.

Julian Schild -  When in opposition Shadow minister Stephen O’Brien’s office received three payments totalling £40,000 from Julian Schild. Mr Schild’s family made £184million in 2006 by selling hospital bed-makers Huntleigh Technology.

BUPA - Mark Simmonds MP - A second shadow health minister Mark Simmonds accepted a US trip to Boston worth £4,512 from private health provider BUPA.

Lord McColl of Dulwich - Tory health spokesman in the Lords, is a consultant of Endeavour Healthcare. David cameron has previously defended Lord McColl of Dulwich, after it emerged that the peer is a paid consultant to a new private healthcare company that provides a paid-for rival to the NHS's GP service.

Dr Mark Lloyd-Davies - Defeated Prospective Tory MP for Bristol South.
Would have made a valuable addition to the Conservatives’ pharma-friendly team. According to the Conservative website: “Mark is the UK head of the pharmaceutical government affairs and communications team in the world's largest healthcare company [Sanofi-Aventis], so he’s already familiar with the workings of Westminster.”

Mr Heathcoat-Amory- FORMER Tory MP for Wells and a former Treasury minister, registered a payment of "£1,671.08 and health benefit to the value of £86.17" in July from Western Provident Association, which provides private medical insurance policies.

The former  MP also worked as a non-executive director for the firm, which pays him around £20,000 a year, as well as his former duties as a constituency MP.

Helen Whately - Former Conservative parliamentary candidate has shrugged off any suggestion of a conflict of interest, after it emerged she works for the same consultants helping draw up plans which could see the A+E or maternity unit at Kingston Hospital removed.

Her website states she works as a management consultant specialising in healthcare, mainly in the NHS but does not mention her employer McKinsey.

Aventis Pharma - 

Andrew Lansley and Simon Burns  attended an oncology conference in the US paid for by Aventis Pharma.

Norbrook Pharmaceuticals - Millions of pounds donated to the Tories by Norbrook Pharmaceuticals, which boasts its mission is to "aggressively expand" its healthcare business.

Johnson & Johnson - Tory register reveals donations from a lobbying group that works for Johnson & Johnson, the US multi-national health and hygiene corporation.

London Secure Services - Mr Lansley has also registered a donation from London Secure Services, a care firm that sparked outrage after it ran up  £1.24million in debts and made its staff redundant with two hours notice.

It is almost impossible to untangle all the connections and interconnections between these think tanks, lobbying companies, Tory donors and the Conservative party, however what has become clear is that there is certainly room for corruption. If Andrew Lansley goes ahead with his NHS reforms, not only will the Tories cause major disruption and probably deaths in the NHS, it is not only going to introduce the private sector, but it will almost certainly introduce corruption at all levels.

Dr Jacky Davis, the BMA Council member who proposed a motion calling for outright opposition, had earlier received two standing ovations after she warned representatives the Government's reforms could 'destroy the NHS'.
Dr Davis said: ‘If you think the Government will listen to us you’ve probably got fairies at the bottom of your garden.’
‘If we don’t reject this bill it will be a long term disaster. The association will have no future if we have a privatised NHS.’
She added: ’All we’ve got from being inside the tent is a close up view of Mr Lansley’s bulldozer.’

There is a long way to go for this bill and a lot to fight for, we CAN and we MUST STOP this privatisation of our NHS. The privatisation of the NHS should be decided by the people in a referendum, it should not be left up to corrupt politicians, involved with lobbyists, think tanks and health companies, and big Tory donors. The government lied to the people and totally mislead us, they never once mentioned these reforms, they have no mandate for them and they MUST listen to us and STOP this certifiable insane reforms.

I hope I have shown you what is going on behind the scenes with this Tory government, however remember this is but a small snapshot of what I have managed to research.
I believe our government is "institutionally corrupt" and is far too involved with with big financial backers. Cameron, Osborne, Lansley, Gove, and Maude have been totally and utterly dishonest and have mislead us, and as the Liberal Democrats keep telling us they support this government and are part of this government, then they must also be complicit, remember if the all the Liberal Democrats voted against this government, they would NOT be able to bring these NHS Reforms in. Remember this when you vote in the coming May elections!