Shame on You, David Cameron
I try to engage constructively with the Government on their various policies. But occasionally it’s like trying to collect very loose diarrhoea with a colander.
How can I have a rational argument with a group of people that, in the same breath, argue that it is fair for Bankers to be rewarded for what they do with an obscene salary and a gross bonus, but also fair for shelf-stackers to be rewarded with neither? And then call others “job snobs”!
How can I have a rational argument with a Prime Minister who argues that “we have to make work pay” one month and then defends a workfare scheme that does precisely the opposite the next? That we must value skill above all other assets, then raise tuition fees to £9k a year?
So, I have decided, on the subject dearest to my heart – the NHS – I shall let David Cameron do the talking. Below is a four-minute video of our glorious leader speaking to a rally of junior doctors in March 2007. I urge you all to watch it. My choice quote is:
“There’s a simple truth at the heart of this that all of us have got to understand: You came into the NHS, not because you wanted to get rich, not because you wanted to get famous, but because you have a vocation about treating the ill, about curing people, about serving your communities. Politicians have got to understand that and start trusting the professionals that we train in our Health Service, to run our Health Service. [rapturous applause] Those are the values – trusting the professionals, trusting people – those are the values that inspire me, that inspire Andrew Lansley.”
______________________________________________________________
David Cameron, a year ago, in a speech about The Big Society [HAHAHA! Remember that one?], opened with the following:
“You make a speech, you come up with something, and actually it falls stillborn onto the floor and no one refers to it again.”
Not this time, Dave. I have a record of this stillborn and shall refer to it every hour of every day, until you drop this dangerous bill. I hope you watch it, and hang your head in shame.
sturdyblog 
Dont be misled by smoke screens ………………all you have to do is watch
I WANT THE EARTH PLUS 5% youtube
To treat an illness you have to get to the root its no good messing about with just the leaves !
A lot of doctors go into the profession, actually, because they come from communities where it’s a matter of great pride for the family if they have a son (or even a daughter, nowadays) who is a doctor. In some countries, professions are rationed and the best graduates are required to go to medical school. It isn’t always about vocation; it’s about prestige.
NEWSFLASH: “David Cameron seems to be a 2 faced back-sliding, self-serving politician with all the etical backbone of a 17th Century Opium trader.”. ……. what you already knew this….? Surely there must be a revolution coming soon, even a civilised particularly British one would do for me and we could rid ourselves of this disgraceful little man.
I’m free this summer…. I know, lets all meet in Trafalger Square…. for a party. (Oh and please bring your kite!)
If I buy something from a shop and it isn’t fit for purpose, of serviceable quality, or as described, you are entitled to your money back.
Isn’t it about time those who voted for the ConDems demand their votes back on the same grounds?
There is an idea, that pay is determined by the value a worker produces, and the scarcity of people with those skills. That isn’t a moral proposal, it’s an observation of how markets work.
Both sides of the pay debate want to make it about morals. The right want to suggest that high paid workers deserve high pay because they are scarce, which is like suggesting a lottery winner deserves to be rich because he bought a ticket. They don’t deserve or not deserve anything – they were just lucky.
The left want to argue that it is about morals too, while buying into the market system which divorces morals from reward.
Adding complication, it’s clear that the advanced capitalism has become separated from the physical economy it is supposed to govern, with trading based on microsecond changes in sentiment creating millions while information from the physical economy flows in at monthly intervals.
Similarly, reward for workers connected to advanced capitalism – company boards, city workers, has become separate from the real contribution that they make. Sentiment determines pay – everyone knows that traders should be incentivized heavily so they are, and it’s okay because the work they do is tenuously related to physical things so the near fictitious system can reconfigure to cope.
Let’s stop talking about morals, and consider if the a free market system would really produce such huge rewards for individuals. Any small business owner knows that the market will push down profits to the minimum reward a business would be willing to continue on through competition, with the price of your goods decreasing or your suppliers demanding higher costs until you kept only a reasonable amount.
So where individuals are disproportionately rewarded, we have to see it as a broken market.
The traditional cause of a broken market is regulation, and perhaps these are protected professions, but we see vast rewards to individuals in broken states as well. Perhaps there is a role for the state here. Just as they might identify and break monopolies and cartels in companies that trade in real goods, perhaps they need to break the city cartel.
If, as omgz wants to argue, markets are by definition amoral, then why do they strive so hard to establish relationships of trust with clients to drive their business? Trust is ipso facto a moral bond between two parties and the myth of the amoral market is just that, a myth.
Bloody disgrace the way they wanted to treat young people
Note he only said he would fight for it in opposition!
Ahhhh Dave. These were the days when you were popular.
Of course, these were the days when you could talk a load of shit and never be expected to come good on any of it.
And then you almost, sort of, nearly, a bit, half, won the election, and you are the erm…prime minister.
That’s how it goes.
In Scotland we have a first minister who has pledged to keep the health service public and a Cabinet Secretary for Health who is putting that pledge into operation.
Come and join us. We don’t wast our money like that lot in Westminster.
Alarms bell would have rung for me when he said you have a vocation ‘about’ etc etc. Should have said a vocation ‘for’. Clearly a speech written for him. Has no idea what a ‘vocation’ is! It being, by definition, not a great money spinner!!
Come on all get down to parliament on the 7th March, nothing has been so important to protect than the NHS, History has a habit of repeating itself you only have to look at the railways or the energy market and not forgetting ATOS what a disgrace that is.
Take the day of work ok you may lose a days pay but that is a small price to pay if you consider the costs you WILL have to pay under Cameron’s ideal of a private health service he says that will never happen, but the video above shows what a liar he is.
The Lords failed to vote against this so it is now time for the British public to show in numbers, we have the support of NHS employees in this and if truth matters I believe many ministers are against this bill also.
This bill will not just affect the ill,disabled, it will affect us all at some point in our lives there is no fairer system than the NHS, Indeed it is world renowned and quiet rightly too.
I ask just one question: Do you want a health care system that puts profit before care and the first thing that is asked in hospital is prove of payment or costly insurance?
Indeed this bill is a ticking timebomb that will do much harm to society.
Thank God for blogs like this and for people like Alex. Once again, a master class in how to strip away the offal and spin and show how things really are.
Once in power they seem to take out their brains and replace them with unintelligible repeating cassettes. Actually, in Mr Cameron’s case, it appears to have been a brick.
What I find unforgivable, is how quickly they forgot about the hard working people of this country. Choosing instead, to look after themselves first and foremost and then their chieftain pals in business and the banking fraternity.
Their game appears to be to reintroduce slavery by the back door. As Alex justifiably points out, shame on you Mr Cameron, shame on you. Yet another complete waste of space leader.
Surely, given the bunch of clowns and misfits we have had as leaders over the past 3 decades, we must be in line some time soon to get a descent, respectable and honest leader and political party? Unfortunately, until we get rid of the Tory/Lib/Lad pact that will never change.
@Rob Mcd
No not “once in power” – he was groomed for his position whilst at Eton, if not earlier.
These boys are in the employ of their masters in the Square Mile City State of London and Vatican City State; hence what they do and say once in power is all to do with the agenda(s) of their real employers, which ain’t us
You must begin to see them for what they really are i.e. CEO’s of a corporation – The UK Plc. He and Clegg are current joint CEO’s. The politics is just a smoke screen.