It’s been a bad week for our family, but, on a brighter scale, a bad week for the Coalition. After a delay of three weeks, whilst competing Hospital Trusts argued out through their bureaucratic channels who should pay for my daughter’s PET scan at Nottingham City Hospital, we have finally got the results. Sarah has lymphatic cancer, and we’re about to embark yet again on a long course of radiotherapy. It is all very depressing, but one wonders how much more so it would be once Lansley and Cameron succeed in their aim to turn the NHS into a ‘business’ with its humanity removed, replaced by Visa/Mastercard/ American Express. Now we know the disgusting details of how the ConDemlition works; slip them a quarter of a million and choose your own profitable policy; now we have another example of blatant lying – ‘I ate a big Cornish pasty in Leeds five years ago …’ (No doubt Nanny was sent out for it, but the shop was closed) then we have the total misfire of the Goebbels – type propaganda drive against the Transport Union – urging panic petrol buying – even when a strike hasn’t been decided upon(!), an absolutely delightful result for shareholders in the oil companies. On top of this, the greed machine rolls on like a Panzer tank through a French barn; Cameron wants to ‘fatten up’ the Royal Mail so that it looks fiscally ‘attractive’ to the rapacious fat cats who are already licking the edges of the bowl.
Is there any glimmer of light or the return of common sense on the horizon? The Respect Party was set up in January 2004. It was formed because of the need for a left-wing alternative to the three established parties - New Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrats. None of those parties represent the interests of ordinary working-class people or those who want a fairer, more equal and just society. When millions marched against the invasion of Iraq, the government ignored us.
When workers and communities take strike action or protest against privatisation, job losses and cuts to our services, they are criticised by everyone – including the spineless Labour Party. The Respect Party is opposed to war, privatisation and unemployment. The Respect Party stands for ‘peace, publicly owned services and a decent future for all’. I don’t know much more about them, but … what’s not to like? Last week I wrote an article about the NHS and submitted it to the Socialist Party’s newspaper The Socialist. (That’s not Scargill’s Socialists – the other one). They didn’t even respond. A rejection would have sufficed. Well, I’ve seen the claims Respect makes on its website, and despite the hideous character assassination George Galloway has suffered in recent years, making even me imagine that he’s slightly unhinged, some kind of borderline political nut, I’m having second thoughts. His amazing victory in Bradford last night with a 10,000 majority confirms that Labour are irretrievably adrift in their own political sewage, and that the ConDemlition ought to be known as the reverse of Galloway’s outfit – the Disgust Party. The awful prospect now is the long wait for the next election, and the crippling damage the ConDems will inflict upon the UK in the meantime. But at least Galloway’s brave and courageous views can now be heard. I think he knows a lot and he’s going to tell it like it is; the truth about Lockerbie, for example, and he’s not afraid of referring to Saint Anthony Blair in the real terms everyone else seems to shy away from. A ray of hope – up there, in Bradford, the people have shown us the way forward. Respect due.
