The ongoing debacle rumbling around Westminster and protestors offices about Andrew Lansley’s fabled and long cherished health bill is continuing, with many points of controversy and disagreement. Looking over all the rhetoric and management jargon, there appears to be a resound fact, for which not even the eventual state of the reforms (if they ever reach fruition) will fully solve. I am declaring from the outset, to be an ardent supporter of the NHS, and the “free at the point of use” concept, as funded through national insurance contributions.

However, I can see the problems we are going to encounter in the future. Aneurin Bevan created what we see as the NHS back in 1948, and our population has increased at an exponential ever since, now standing at over 60 million. His system was never created to cope with this many people, and to use the economics speak, the system suffers from serious diseconomies of scale (i.e. it’s got past the point of optimal efficiency, it’s so large). However as we can see, this would not wash well with the public if told that most likely we would have to buy insurance premiums, and the genius solution that successions of ministers of all political colours have thrown at it, is to pump more money into it, in the hope that the problem goes away (“real term increases in health spending” would have been on a parliamentary buzzword bingo scorecard, under the previous Labour administration). If this failed, then minsters just relied on sheer luck and prayed that the problem of when the system gets too big to support itself just does not happen on their watches.

Lansley wants to strip out the costs of the NHS, and open up the buying of drugs to competition and give the private sector and increasing role. Naturally, controversy and outrage has ensued. Competing local authorities (or the bodies that will replace them) will create postcode lotteries, and the involvement of businesses, will monetize the NHS, installing a profit motive. Many wise souls have told me, this is a classic trick used to get everyone used to paying for something they previously didn’t. Dentists initially had fees of just £1, and when everyone reluctantly accepted this, the fees shot up, to ludicrous levels for such little work (in my case, my dentist looks for about 30 seconds and claims about £20). Likewise, with the holy grail of Lib Dem Policy- tuition fees. They used to be free, then “top up fees” came in, then starting this year, they will triple to £9,000, on the rationale that the system is too costly for the people who use it, and they should pay for it themselves. The same appears to be happening with the NHS. Once money, has its foot in the door, the rest of the body will follow, and prices rise (with it unlikely we will see reductions in National Insurance).

For any chance of remote success (regardless of whether you are a supporter or oppose of the plans) the plans needed to be implemented in their original state. Lansley’s plans are going to be so watered down and eroded so much on their route to the statute book, that in practise the system will probably not see any mass efficiency gains, and like numerous attempts before, they will become a half cocked, expensive, bureaucratic thorn in the side of the government. It’s a common tactic in any negotiation to initially ask for more than you want, then make out you are conceding ground (essentially to the position you wanted in the first place, rather than starting at it, and making concessions from there), but I think the nature of these will take it past this point, and into the list of problems in the previous sentence. Lansley is right to realise that the system is too big, but for the aforementioned reasons I cannot support the idea, as it is not the right solution to the problem in the first place.

Socialism was born out of an age of elitism, hereditary fortunes and strict social divides, and for this I cannot begrudge its early advocate’s grievances and their genuine intentions to attain the parameters in which everyone is afforded the prospects of success. As Isaiah Berlin asked; “What is freedom to those who cannot use it?” and this was a very apt question before the establishment of our welfare state in which now health care, social security and benefits, education and pensions are available to all and free at the point of contact.

However today, in the 21^st century, I find it almost spiteful that many socialists would have everyone live in equal poverty than allow those who are willing to make themselves the opportunity to do so. In my opinion socialism is unsustainable. For all its faults and susceptibility to human error and immorality, capitalism is not the enemy the socialist scaremongers and closet anarchists would have us all believe – the Robin Hood utopia they would have us think is a rational alternative is in fact a fallacy. To tax the prosperous sectors of our economy into oblivion would simply be counter-productive, even in a socialistic outcome; in other words, the socialist’s idea of distributing wealth is paradoxical, by their methods there would be no real wealth left to distribute.

However, I do not deny that the distribution of wealth is necessary. Otherwise, my argument in favour of the wealth generated by capitalism would be contradictory and redundant; the governmental encouragement of productivity must originate, to a certain degree, from the aspirations of a common good. Therefore I do believe that higher earners should be taxed at a higher rate along with corporation tax etc; it is simply logical if we are to sustain our society and allow for the social minimums that pragmatic liberalism prescribes. The recent cases of major companies being found in debt of millions of pounds in tax I have found disgusting and instances such as this will only aggravate the idea of the City oligarchy and tarnish all of the right of the political spectrum with the same brush; that of the elitist and profiteering despot – more akin to the traditional villain in a Dickens’s fable than 21^st century reality.

So how does this transfer to domestic politics in Britain? Currently it is very simple. Increases in public spending, economically founded or not, are vote winners in the short term whereas fiscal stability and selective austerity is not. Look to some contemporary examples; as New Labour showed us, throwing big figures at an ignorant or unaware electorate is an excellent tactic to sustain a government, but not an economy. Equally, Thatcher’s monetarist agenda, the resulting economic Darwinism and the transition from the predominantly secondary to tertiary industry in this country was a phase thoroughly necessary yet similarly resented – and for many, still is today. Taking a neutral stance would prompt me to suggest broad, if not very simplified, solutions to the major parties in Britain. Namely, the Labour party must become more economically responsible and the Conservatives must become more socially adept. Perhaps this may detract from what the parties stand for and is likely to result in a more cemented two party system, but these are separate issues; as in both outcomes a more libertarian and less socialistic society will be accommodated for.

Is this best for Britain? Culturally it is, in my opinion, as socialism is becoming an increasingly detrimental ideology. If we continue to improve the social minimum in this country it will simply result in a further diminishing of aspirations and a greater feeling of entitlement in many areas of this country. Of course there are a plethora of factors that my simplified and compressed argument is neglecting and indeed in a perfect world I would opt for prosperity for all. However, this unfortunately cannot be achieved when the society we are cultivating is breeding generations of state dependants and the threat of a hole we cannot dig ourselves out of. It is difficult not to generalise of course and indeed there is still the issue of elitism and glass roofs in this country, but they are not as Victorian as we are made to believe.

As is the nature of socialism in the UK, the benefits are short term and popular in the immediate but they are myopic. The issues it produces further down the line are never linked and the resulting policies of austerity and decreases in welfare are faced with vigorous opposition rather than widespread acknowledgment of the need of decreased state dependence. Many would have a further increase in uniform tax of the ‘rich’ to solve all our current economic ailments, yet this would merely be another expediential solution resulting in future subsequent issues and we simply cannot adopt this tactic forever. Long term stability must be implemented and ultimately if socialistic policy increased in this country we would be in an even more volatile fiscal situation. Our freedom would be restricted and our lives dictated by the wants of others in this nation – which I find rather ironic as socialism, in the latter half of this century, has also managed to turn ‘patriotism’ into something of a dirty word…

The Department of Health has banned cigarette vending machines in England.

A while ago, I wrote a general piece on the persecution of smokers in the UK, and now I will expand on it again, because this is merely another move towards banning smoking outright, but (hopefully) doing it sneakily enough that nobody will notice.

Except, considering that Andrew Lansley said that smoking was one of the most “stubborn” health problems in Britain, it looks like people are going to cling to their vice whether you remove the vending machines or not.

This time around, the argument for such a move is even more ridiculous than usual. The first statistic thrown out isn’t even much of a statistic, considering there’s no figures involved, but claims that “nearly all adult smokers started smoking before they turned 18.” Considering that the legal age was 16 until recently, that is hardly surprising, and indicative of exactly nothing.

I remember the smoking age being raised: I was just about to turn eighteen, and half of my school year started giving me cigarette money. There you have it: any smoker that started under the age of eighteen and is a few years younger than myself was smoking illegally. Anyone older might not have been. (I am currently twenty-one, so that’s a lot of people smoking who are older than me.)

Regardless of this silly figure, the argument carries on that 11% of child smokers are getting their cigarettes from vending machines, and the ban will protect these children by making the cigarettes less accessible to them.

Considering that the vast majority of vending machines for tobacco are in pubs, what are under-18s doing in there in the first place?

Let’s pretend there is some reason for that (after all, most pubs do allow underage people in with their families, particularly in the south) – it still does not shore up. 11%? You don’t need to have a degree in maths to know that that is a very small number. What about the other 89%? Surely more work is needed to make sure shopkeepers adhere to the ID rules, or children are educated on the risks involved in smoking (or drinking, or whatever else it is that they can’t do), or people are made aware of resources to help them quit once they have started?

Oh, wait, those measures clearly aren’t working.

The tobacco industry has clearly replaced the content of cigarettes with crack. Betty McBride of the British Heart Foundation, used the term “they’re hooked” to describe smokers, and referred to smoking as a “deadly addiction.” Well, it’s obviously not nicotine then, considering the number of people I know who have, quite simply, quit. It really isn’t that hard. It’s not like going cold turkey after ten years on heroin. It’s like being cranky without your morning coffee – and not even that if you buy the chewing gum.

The addiction isn’t the problem; it’s the habit.

Lansley admitted that smoking was a stubborn problem, and here is why: some people just don’t want to stop. Britain still has over eight million smokers, despite all efforts of the anti-smoking brigade to stop them. One comment on the BBC described it as a vice, along with drinking and gambling – and the American prohibition of drinking shows us that vices stick, whether they are bad for you or not. (As does American obesity.)

When I was little, tree-climbing was all the rage (and still legal because Nanny Knows Best hadn’t come into fashion yet in politics). I’m sure you could find a statistic saying, oh, 24% of broken limbs in children are due to falling out of trees.

Ban trees.

After years of speeches and planning at his think-tank and in Parliament, Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, now has a real opportunity to fix Britain’s broken welfare system and it’s absolutely crucial that he should succeed.

When Labour came to power in 1997 Britain spent £55.68 billion on welfare. By the time they were forced out in 2010 that figure had risen to £106.69 billion. That’s an increase of £51 billion – all during a period of economic growth when jobs and money were plentiful. Instead of encouraging people into work at a time when the economy was booming, Labour used tax-payers money to pay people to stay at home instead. Reforming what we spend on welfare is therefore vital if we are to reduce the Deficit and restore stability to the British economy. But Labour’s overspend on welfare wasn’t just economically damaging, it was morally damaging too.

For the truth is that Labour’s welfare policies not only helped wreck the British economy, they undermined the fabric of our society as well. An underclass was created and encouraged to grow. There are parts of Britain today where whole communities sleep in late, where idleness is the norm, and where entire streets full of people are paid for by the hard-working British tax-payer. We have the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in Europe. We also hand out the most in benefits. Coincidence? I don’t think so. With the nation’s credit card maxed out to the limit, we can no longer turn a blind eye to our broken welfare system and the broken society it’s helped create.  

So our first task must be to recognise the scale of the problem we face. Put simply: a large minority of people in Britain today do not work and do not want to work. Worse still, if we’re really honest, too many of us who do work indulge those who won’t which, as far as the work-shy are concerned, legitimises their idleness and leads them to believe that they have a right to spend their lives on benefits. This is of course, utterly wrong. It’s not fair on those who do work: forced to subsidise those who won’t. And it’s not fair on the work-shy themselves: their potential and opportunity, never realised. Furthermore those who won’t work are more likely to produce children who won’t work which means that the spiral of social breakdown continues and the burden on we, the tax-payer, gets heavier. Not just economically but socially as well.

The August riots in London and the inner cities were a wake up call. We can spend all day arguing about what exactly caused the riots but essentially everyone must agree that those who took part in the looting and the vandalism behaved in a manner which demonstrated utter contempt for society itself. Why else would a group of individuals destroy their own local High Street? The fact is that when you’ve never worked a day in your life, why should you spare a thought for the small business owner whose life you’ve just ruined, or the home-owner whose house you’ve just burned down? These are the social consequences of our broken welfare system: a large minority of people who won’t work, who we pay for, and who have no stake, and therefore no respect, for the society which the rest of us are a part of.

That’s why its so important for Iain Duncan Smith to succeed. Not only must we reform welfare if we are to fix our broken economy, we must reform welfare if we are to heal our broken society too. IDS has promised to ‘bend over backwards’ to help people find work; helping drug addicts overcome their addictions and working with problem families for as long as it takes to get them ready for employment. But with the carrot comes the stick. Those who deliberately lose their jobs, or refuse to take work when it is offered to them, will see their benefits cut and if necesarry, removed. And rightly so. For some, the initial return to work will be tough – especially for those whose parents are also unemployed – but they’ll be better off in the long run. Work brings structure, friendship and reward. Work also pays for our teachers, the NHS and a safety net for those genuinely unable to find employment. With the obvious exception of those who are medically unfit, or who care for sick friends or relatives, everyone who can work, should.

If we are serious about reducing the deficit and restoring economic growth, in addition to healing the broken sections of our society, we must back Iain Duncan Smith to the hilt. We can not afford to wait any longer. Those who oppose welfare reform must ask themselves what sort of society they want to be a part of. One where people are paid not to work, where people are excluded and encouraged into idleness? Or one where where each individual takes responsibility and earns their success in life? Ours is the greatest nation on Earth but we’ll only remain that way if we use all the talent available to us. It’s high time we helped those who won’t help themselves by fixing our broken welfare system. 

All Nadine Dorries (and Frank Field, let’s not forget) suggested was a modest amendment to the Health & Social Care Bill: That women considering undergoing an abortion would have access to state-funded independent advice instead of being referred by the NHS to the abortion industry (an industry that is given £60 million to perform abortions).  For this timid proposal Dorries was vilified (but not Frank Field) by the abortion lobby and she was disowned by her useless, amoral leader. Imagine, then, the outrage if someone had said that abortions should be outlawed because it is  murder as contraception.

Like or not, that is exactly what abortion is.

Abortions are overwhelmingly sought because the baby is inconvenient or imperfect. The abortion of imperfect babies conveys a sinister hint of parent-as-eugenicist. Out of 189,574 abortions last year, 2,290 abortions were performed on babies with disabilities. The figure could well be higher as some women are likely to be reluctant to admit to aborting a baby because he or she is imperfect. Not just debilitating or difficult-to-manage disabilities, either, but cosmetic disabilities such as cleft-palates.

We are lied to by the abortion lobby that abortions can’t be abolished because this would unduly put women at risk from ectopic pregnancies. The number of ectopic pregnancies is minute. Between 1967 and 1990, the number of abortions performed to save the mother’s life tallies at a mere 151. This is 0.004% of all abortions.  In the USA, only 4% of abortions are performed because of rape, incest or danger to the mother’s life.

Note that danger to the mother’s life is lumped in with other motives, such as rape and incest victimisation. We can only conclude then, that in the USA, abortions performed to save the mother’s life are less than 4%.

Abortion should be legal for that small percentage of imperilled mothers. It is senseless to permit two deaths. But abortion as contraception is murder. Abortion is the murder of a human being. There is no way around this, unless you are prepared to use deceptive language (it isn’t a baby but a “foetus”) or deceptive imagery (it isn’t a baby but a blob of jelly).

Why are we so accepting of the 24-week cut off point for abortions? Isn’t twenty-four weeks arbitrary and capricious? Does anyone really believe that in the twenty-third week it is jelly inside the womb, but in the twenty-fourth week it is suddenly, miraculously human? A matter of an arbitrarily chosen week determines whether we are puncturing to death a blob or a baby, it seems.

It is known that a  baby can survive outside of the womb at 20 weeks. At nine weeks it is recognisably human. Yet people deceive themselves that because the baby is invisible to them it cannot be quite human. What difference does it make to the baby’s humanness if she is this side or that side of the intrauterinal wall?

It should not matter whether a human heart is the size of a pomegranate or the size of a poppy seed. It is a human heart. That is all that need inform our consciences. And conscience is the problem because, since the 1960s revolution, abortion has been a matter of conscience. Well, we live in a time where consciences barely function because we have been trained, since the ’60s revolution, to think only of ourselves. We are trained to love ourselves to the extent that we cannot love more the things which are of ourselves – babies.

I had a debate about abortion elsewhere and I was caricaturised as an evil dictator who likes to tell people what to do with their bodies. Fine, these are the smears you must expect when you say something unfashionable. But therein lie my opponents’ selfishness and stupidity. Selfishness because they believe that their bodies are objects that must subjugated to their desires (and to hell with everyone else); stupidity because the act of abortion involves someone else’s body. And not just someone else’s body but someone else’s life.

Of course, you can bank on David Cameron and his Conservative Party to back down from a fight that requires the stringiest of backbones. Cameron backed down sharply in response to the tumult over the Dorries and Field amendment. Journalist  Christine Odone explained that a friend warned her that “Cameron’s biggest fear is that people will think he’s a moralising right-winger”. If that’s true, then Cameron’s fears are unfounded. He isn’t moral and he isn’t right-wing.

The upper ranks of the Tory Party is jam-packed with toffs and tin-heads who can’t form an intellectual resistance to left-wing ideology. Largely because they don’t want to. The Party is morally bankrupt and unthinking. Niki Molnar of the Conservative Women’s Group argues that abortions should not be delayed to avoid causing psychological problems to women. If the psychological problems of mothers who have abortions is her concern, perhaps Ms Molnar would care to admit that “delay” is irrelevant. Abortion causes mental distress whether it happens sooner or later. Strange, don’t you think, that Ms Molnar isn’t so concerned about the mental anguish caused by abortion that she is brave enough to call for them to be outlawed? No. Just get it over and done with quickly. Typical clueless Tory.

As for abortion practices to which the NHS refer patients: Of course they are going to lean on women to get abortions.  It’s a sixty million pound industry and that is a very strong incentive to sway the expectant woman to have an abortion, especially acknowledging (the truism) that to work for an abortion clinic you are unlikely to have any ideological/ethical qualms about referring the woman for an abortion. Abortion is a business and businesses are not inherently moral. Are abortion clinics pro-choice or are the really just pro abortion? This is an important distinction alluded to by Olivia Jackson.

And do the feminists (the ones who rage about women being able to do what they want to their own bodies) not see that, in many cases, women will be pressurised not only by abortion clinics but also by non-committal fathers too? The right thing to do is to promote the married family so that there is a right time, within a structured and stable life, for husbands and wives to have babies. This means we must stop subsidising other types of relationships where participants in those relationships are itinerant and random. The types of relationship that perpetuate the bastard industry.

That is not to say that middle-class professional women do not have abortions. Many do because they are pressurised into having a career. Yet the root of the problem is the same: The destruction of the traditional married family owing to the changes of 1960s revolution.

There are curious times we live in. The liberal fashion is to be opposed to the execution of murderers but in favour of killing unborn babies and the elderly and infirm (via euthanasia). What a strange inverted world we occupy: One where the life of a hideously guilty man is worth more than that of the old and inconvenient or of the innocent baby – The baby who we are guiltless about puncturing to death with a needle.

Abortion is murder. It is overwhelmingly performed as an act of contraception. Murder as contraception.

It reads like the script of a film: multi-million pound industry is paid by the government to provide a product, alongside an advisory service potentially pointing people to its profit-generating product. Lone individual takes on industry and finds herself the target of death threats.

Only it’s not a film. The £60 million pound industry is the abortion industry, which is paid by the NHS per abortion performed, and also provides all pre-abortion counselling. The individual is Nadine Dorries, Conservative MP, who is asking that counselling be provided by counsellors who do not stand to gain financially from the outcome. Of course she is not alone, as she is promoting this amendment  to the Health and Social Care Bill with Labour’s Frank Field, but somehow all the vitriol in the media seems aimed at Dorries, not Field. I can only speculate why.

Whatever one thinks about abortion itself (or Nadine Dorries, for that matter), Dorries and Field’s request seems reasonable enough. As Cranmer points out, this is no different from ensuring that GlaxoSmithKline, manufacturers of the MMR vaccine, may not counsel mothers on the need for their children to have the MMR jab, or Pfizer, manufacturers of Viagra, may not counsel men on erectile dysfunction. Both stand to gain from one outcome only.

Abortion providers Marie Stopes and BPAS are only paid when an abortion is carried out, not simply for the counselling. Surely this is a major conflict of interests, especially given that the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) are currently barred from dealing with crisis pregnancy counselling.

It is telling that some commentators have raised the argument that, of women attending pre-abortion counselling with these providers, one quarter decide not to terminate. A whole quarter. In other words, 75 per cent do terminate. The argument would be rather more convincing if the figures were 50/50.

And yet Dorries has been subject to, apart from death threats, endless vitriol and misquotes from media across the political spectrum, denouncing her as a religious nutter, anti-abortion, anti-women etc. I have read articles in which she apparently wants all pre-abortion counselling taken on by faith-based groups. Others have said she wants to reverse the Abortion Act. Dorries has said quite clearly that faith based groups are just as prone to partiality as abortion providers, that she does not wish to reverse the Act, and that counselling would remain optional. It is hard to see how this would ‘delay’ the abortion process or cause women more stress, which several commentators claim. All it would do is give women more choice, not restrict access to abortion.

Currently many women are not offered pre-abortion counselling, and counselling facilities even at BPAS and Marie Stopes clinics are very limited. Adding to the number of counsellors available would offer more support to women in incredibly difficult situations.

As for being anti-women, let’s examine that for a moment. The Royal College of Psychiatrists recently published a report by Prof. Priscilla Coleman. The report stated that “Results indicate quite consistently that abortion is associated with moderate to highly increased risks of psychological problems subsequent to the procedure.”

It goes on to list an 81 per cent overall increase in the risk of mental health problems, including everything from anxiety disorders to alcohol abuse and suicide attempts, which were a staggering 155 per cent higher than the average female population. And yet counselling from those with a vested financial interest is pro-women?

In terms of being anti-feminist, those so vociferously pushing abortion tend to forget that the decision of what to do about an unexpected pregnancy still happens, for the most part, in the context of a relationship. Women are still subject to their partner’s influence. I have heard women say that, quite contrary to being ‘empowering’, all the easy access to abortion did for her was give her no way to refuse her partner’s pressure to abort.

The decision of whether to carry an unexpected pregnancy full term or not is a major one, and not something any woman does lightly. All women in this situation deserve good, impartial advice and support. Yet even the Government have done a u-turn on this one, initially backing the amendment but swiftly changing their minds in the face of the ‘pro-choice’ vitriol. Cameron has even sent an email to all his MPs stating this lack of support, even though abortion is supposed to be a conscience vote in the Commons.

The other part of the amendment Dorries and Field wish to see was also once backed by Cameron. They have asked that, in light of modern medicine’s ability to care for a child born prematurely as low as 21 weeks, the current abortion limit of 24 weeks be lowered to 20 weeks. Given the very few abortions which take place this late, it would have little impact on the number of abortions performed, but from the outcry you’d think the amendment was returning us to an era of back-street abortions.

The Health and Social Care Bill goes to the vote on Tuesday. Lets hope that MPs have the guts to truly vote according to conscience, whatever that may be.

Dorries and Field’s amendment is the ultimate pro-choice move, with a nod to medical advances seemingly unpalatable to the self-styled liberal ‘pro-choice’ lobby. One gets the feeling that this lobby are not pro-choice at all, merely pro-abortion, and utterly illiberal with it. Given the death threats Dorries regularly receives, they seem to have a remarkable enthusiasm for killing.

Pre-abortion counselling. The clue is in the name.

Smoking ban: Too heavily policed?

A group of five American tobacco companies have sued the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over the graphic warnings that are placed on the cigarette (and presumably other tobacco products) packaging. Their argument? The images are part of a wider FDA plan to curb smoking in the US, which requires companies to promote the government’s anti-smoking agenda – which the tobacco
companies are claiming violates the right to free speech.

I am not a lawyer, or even remotely well-versed in US law, nor am I an expert on the US Constitution or the Bill of Rights, so I will say nothing on their argument or objection on legal grounds; however, perhaps it is time that the anti-smoking agenda in the West is challenged.

The US government is hardly alone in promoting an anti-smoking agenda; the UK government pushes the same agenda, and quite probably harder. It is now not only ridiculously expensive to smoke, but only permissible in very limited areas, and almost always outdoors. Over the years, there have even been noises made about prosecuting smokers with children.

We are all aware that smoking is harmful to the lungs. But then, we are all aware that alcohol is harmful to the liver (and the stomach, and the intestines, and the sense of decorum) yet we not only continue to drink, but the government by and large lets us do it. There is very little – if any – talk of prosecuting parents who drink in front of their children. Why, then, does smoking attract such fervent opposition – and why do we stand for it?

People who smoke are not mentally deficient, nor do they become mentally deficient via smoking. They are, one presumes, as capable of making rational decisions and choices as every other citizen in their respective countries. Furthermore, the addiction angle is not only weak as an argument, considering the numbers of people who have, quite simply, stopped smoking and never gone back to it without much difficulty, but further weakened by the availability of nicotine patches, nicotine gum, and so on.

People can also choose to walk away from the company of smokers, particularly in the UK under the smoking ban. Extremely rarely would you be forced into a situation where you could not physically remove yourself from the presence of a cigarette. My favourite objection to this observation is this: “Well, I shouldn’t have to move.” Well, neither should they. If I do not like the smell of greasy onion rings, I walk away from the food van. It is that simple.

So, it seems, people are perfectly able to choose when or if to smoke.

Why, then, are they not entrusted to do so?

The health issue is, of course, a large one – more so for us than for the US due to the taxpayer-funded NHS. Still, the anti-smoking agenda smacks very much of the nanny state: you aren’t rational enough to decide to ruin your lungs, smell like an ashtray, and die.

Yet you are rational enough to eat yourself into an early grave, or drink until your liver pickles.

People are not banned from McDonalds if they are considered to be too fat, and rising obesity rates are also costing the NHS millions. Neither is much done to constrain alcohol consumption, bar a very small (and practically unreadable) ‘drink aware’ slogan in the bottom corner of every bus stop advertisement.

Smoking is still treated with greater contempt.

We do not even have to look at the typical examples. Extreme sports are not banned, despite high injury or even death rates. Combat sports, such as boxing, are not banned despite high injury rates (although less commonly death). Travel to exotic countries with equally exotic diseases and poisonous animals is not banned, despite the permanent hotspot of malaria around the major airports. Simply put: that which is bad for us is not often banned. Sometimes, we are considered rational enough to choose for ourselves.

It is quite simply inconsistent. If the anti-smoking agenda is so powerful, then surely the anti-drinking and anti-obesity agendas should be equally powerful – particularly the former, as I have never heard of a smoker smashing a cigarette packet over a policeman’s head and causing severe injury.

If we are not challenged over our eating and drinking habits by laws banning us from eating in restaurants or requiring us to be breathalysed at every bar, off-licence and supermarket in the city, then we should also be allowed to smoke – whether it’s good for you or not.

The mansion tax has raised its head again

With the riots consuming most of the newsprint and dominating the airwaves, you may not be aware that Bolton are sitting pretty at the top of the Premier League. Harry Raffal brings you the other storylines that may have slipped your notice. 

With the riots in Britain and the subsequent political fallout occupying central stage this week and only broken to bring us the first week of the Premier League and England thrashing India to go 3-0 up in the series, meaning that no matter what the outcome at the Oval we will be the number one cricket side in the world, here are the five stories which have been marginalised.

One:  The Bank of England downgraded its predictions for British growth in 2011 from 1.8% to 1.5%. The forecast for 2012 was also downgraded from 2.5% to just above 2%. This event was widely reported but elsewhere in the economy comes news that France, Spain, Italy and Belgium have banned short-selling in an attempt to ease the force of market pressures. The European Securities and Markets Authority said they the countries had done so to “either to restrict the benefits that can be achieved from spreading false rumours or to achieve a regulatory level playing field, given the close inter-linkage between some EU markets.” However, some market analysts are predicting the move will prompt the markets to fall further amidst suspicions that the move is an attempt to provide cover for real internal problems. In Switzerland this week officials announced that they would be further devaluing the franc in an attempt to maintain their export driven economy. This is the second round of Swiss quantitative easing this year and follows a move earlier this month to cut interest rates in what was also an attempt to drive down the value of the Franc.

Two: In Syria the government has been taking increasingly repressive measures in an attempt to counter the growing dissent within the country. Tanks and armoured cars have been active against the city of Latakia. The action against Latakia has also involved the use of gunboats machine gunning the port and its facilities. Syrian government forces have also attacked Houleh and Deir Ezzor in a week which has seen the Syrian government increasingly active in its attempts to repress the dissent in the country. Meanwhile the US has called for a wider boycott of Syria’s oil which comprise a third of the Syrian governments revenues.

Three: The Liberal Democrats are positioning themselves to capitalise on any decision to reduce the 50p tax band on those earning more than £150,000 by advocating the implementation of a new ‘mansion’ tax should any change take place. This new land tax will levy capital gains tax on any money made on a property sold after the fist £1 million in value. Vince Cable has made clear moves that any reduction in taxation on the rich in one area must be rebalanced in another. The ‘mansion’ tax proved controversial when it was first suggested by the Liberal Democrats some two years ago and if it emerges into any public debate it will likely become so once again.

Four: Kurdish rebels have claimed responsibility for the explosion at a pipeline In the Turkish province of Agri.  The explosion has halted the import of Iranian gas supplies into Turkey country. Kurdish rebels, the armed wing of the Kurdistan Workers Party, have previously targeted pipelines into Turkey as a weapon in their fight for autonomy from Turkey with this the fist major attack since July of last year pn the oil pipelines from Iraq. Tension between the Turkish government and the Kurdish communities in the south-east of the country have recently been greatly reduced compared to the height of the conflict which has so far claimed over 50,000 lives. Iran has also been in the news due to the completion of its Bushehrn plant and the proximity of its connection to the national grid. The plant has suffered severe delays which many have ascribed to a sophisticated cyber attack. Russia will operate the plant and only Israel has been vocal over the risk of any potential proliferation of nuclear material necessary for a nuclear weapon.

Five:  A report published this week by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine has argued for the current efficiency of the NHS. The report has shown that only Ireland receives better value for it health care system when judged with lives saved to pounds spent. The report involves key research undertaken by Professor Pritchard which makes its conclusions difficult for the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley to dismiss as he has previously used research by professor Pritchard in support of his arguments for NHS reform. Of course you can also produce figures to show that pound-to-points Sam Allardyce is the best manager in the history of the Premier League (well it is the first week of the season there did have to be a football point in).

Who's to blame for the cuts?

Before the last General Election, David Cameron invested a great deal of effort to explain his love of the NHS and pledged not to cut its budget. After a year in power the Conservatives are being criticised for curbing NHS spending. However, it is the Coalition that should take the blame, not the Tories, writes Nicola Bradshaw.

The Conservative Manifesto of April 2010 was filled with hopes of a prosperous NHS and spoke with an authoritative tone toward the increase in spending provisions towards the organisation. However, today Labour accused the Coalition government of trying to conceal the telling figures (lost within a Treasury document) which illuminate that NHS spending was curbed by over £1.5 billion to just £101 bn. Whilst achieving their initial aim of combating the deficit, it must be noted that the Conservatives have turned almost 180 degrees on their Election pledge of increasing health expenditure each year they are in power.

Despite much criticism being pinned upon Cameron and his Conservative Party, one must not forget the prominent role of the Liberal Democrats within the Government and therefore they must also hold responsibility for the Tory-led government cutting spending on the NHS in its very first year. The Liberal Democrat election campaign was focused upon the ‘broken promises’ of not only the Labour government, but those of the Conservative party in the years previous. Shadow health secretary, John Healey, accused Cameron of breaking his ‘NHS pledge’, and that apparently the reorganisation proves that you ‘can’t trust the Tories with the NHS’; however he, also, is forgetting that it is a Coalition government not solely Conservative.

Granted, the Tories’ NHS section to their 2010 manifesto read ‘We will back the NHS. We will increase health spending every year’. However, George Osborne suggested that it is a ‘massive own goal from Labour’ as his spending plans for the financial year 2010-2011 were simply continuing the 2007 Labour spending review, as he came into office one month into the financial year. The chancellor reminded the nation that NHS spending fell under the Labour government and that ‘under this government’s spending plans it is projected to rise – people can draw their own conclusions about who they trust on the NHS’.

Regardless of the NHS spending, this is another example of the Coalition government acting and the Conservative Party getting the brunt of the criticism. Nick Clegg also went against his election pledges to put an end to ‘broken promises’, yet the deputy Prime Minister seems to be acquiring a fairly hefty list of his own broken promises.

competition makes us smile

Politics On Toast’s very own A.P. Schrader has been appointed health secretary by Her Majesty’s Government  (yes, really). In his first act he abolishes the Department of Health. Next he razes and rebuilds the National Health Service – one that will compete for our business.  

What would I do if David Cameron appointed me Health Secretary tomorrow? I dare say Andrew Lansley still asks himself that question every night before he goes to bed. Or does he? Jacqueline Davis of The Guardian would have us believe that the Coalition’s apparently Lib Dem-led U-turn “was a fake” and that the Lansley reforms “remain on track”. We can only hope. Even if they are, however, I have serious doubts as to whether the Lansley proposals go anything like far enough, even in their un-watered down condition.

Our National Health Service is facing a funding crisis. We are all living longer and the financial burden on the service is overwhelming. There is a clear case for reforms that allow greater competition among providers and more choice for users. Yet all the Left do is continue to denounce competition, even though the evidence from around the world could not be clearer that competition in the provision of medical services drives up standards. It was Tony Blair who introduced treatment centres provided by the private sector for low-level procedures (which have duly outperformed their in-house NHS counterparts and delivered dramatically reduced waiting times). The notion that we can just carry on blithely ploughing money into an unreformed health service is divorced from reality. That is why the Tory Party’s decision to ring-fence the NHS budget was always absolute folly. We are dealing with the biggest deficit in living memory and other departments face massive cuts. In that context, excluding the second-biggest spending department – with a bloated £100bn budget and employing a quarter of all public sector workers - was simply absurd.

The NHS does many wonderful things but let us take off the rose-tinted glasses for a moment. A great deal of the care it presently provides is also just plain awful. One only has to look at the recent scandal of mentally ill patients being abused. No change, then, ought not to be an option.

So, the Schrader household gets the call from Downing Street and I turn up at Richmond House for my first day on the job. What do I do? Well, the first and most important thing I would do is resign. Having accepted that I simply do not have a clue how to run a health service (as, indeed, did none of my predecessors either), I would use my first and only piece of DH letterhead to write the PM a memorandum outlining my recommendations as follows:

1. Abolish the Department of Health.

2. Abolish the NHS in its current form.

I strongly believe that the DoH should be wound up and the office of Secretary of State for Health downgraded to a Minister of State for Public Health (or even a parliamentary-undersecretary working out of another department). Obviously a responsible government will wish to task a Minister of the Crown to monitor and exercise a proper scrutiny of public health issues but, otherwise, cease trying to micromanage healthcare delivery from Whitehall.

The second part of my radical plans would be to incorporate the NHS under a Royal Charter (not unlike the Bank of England or the BBC). As a corporation, free from the dead hand of the State, its services could be overseen by a Board of Governors (appointed independently), who would regulated the NHS and represent the interests of the British public. NHS Governors would be independent of the Executive but would nevertheless be accountable to Parliament and to taxpayers.

While the NHS would remain a ‘state-owned’ healthcare provider, this new incorporated NHS would be insulated from political interference by a statutory independent governing body. The Governors would approve NHS policy and strategies, set objectives, oversee any complaints and produce an annual report documenting NHS performance in key areas. The Board would have a non-executive chairman and appoint a Director-General to head up the day-to-day management of the NHS. The Director-General would chair an Executive Board responsible for operational management and delivery of services within a framework set by the Governors. I would suggest someone like Lord Darzi of Denham would make an excellent first Director-General of the NHS.

A Royal Commission would probably need to be established to examine the details and, in particular, questions of how we fund a heath service for the future. My own inclination would be to entirely reconfigure the NHS as a funder of last resort alongside a modified national insurance scheme.

Fundamentally, though, I believe in competition. I still want to see the creation of a proper healthcare market in this country. When I stub my toe or accidentally fix my hand to something with a nail gun, I want to see hospitals openly competing with each other for my business. If there’s a bad hospital down my road, I want it shut down or subsumed by a successful one. I want hospitals to have access to a dynamic and enthusiastic labour market. I want to see an end to counter-productive nationalised pay agreements and commercial free speech exercised, with hospitals allowed to proactively advertise their services. Finally, and crucially for any meaningful progress to be made, we need to see the nursing trade unions and so-called ‘representative bodies’ (who only represent the outdated ‘producer interest’) broken, Thatcher-style. These bodies have failed doctors, nurses and patients by frustrating all attempts at substantive reform. They cling to their outmoded agendas and Left-wing ideological baggage the way a shipwrecked sailor clings to the floating debris of a sunken ship. These Left-wing trade unionists are only interested in demanding more taxpayer funds to pour into a financial black hole.

Maybe I am a radical (not to mention short-lived) Health Secretary but I believe that only when healthcare is subjected to the wrath of consumers, rather than the impotent whimpering of a frustrated public faced with the hulking edifice of a public sector monopoly, will it truly become a responsive and sustainable service with the resources it needs to deliver the high quality world class healthcare service the people of this country need and deserve.