Category Archives: Interventions

Making Social Change Happen

In my forthcoming Healthy Societies: Policy, Practice and Obstacles, I pick up on the longstanding notion that radical change in the United Kingdom in general and England in particular is more than unlikely to be accomplished via parliament. As Ralph Miliband noted many years ago, what we have is a ‘capitalism democracy’; that is, a… Read More »

New Projects – a Manifesto?

I confess that into my 70s my stamina occasionally falters. I find myself pausing, not only unsure how to proceed with what but short of the energy required to proceed per se. This blog eschews further self-analysis in favour of a discussion of alternate ways of committing my time and limited resources. As it happens,… Read More »

Open Letter to my General Practice

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX 8 July 2022 Dear Dr XXXXXXX I am writing to you in the form of constructive feedback, not criticism. I am only too aware of the harsh constraints under which GPs and their colleagues in primary care are currently working and of the wider causes of this, of… Read More »

Marx, Engels & ‘Permanent Reform’

I have on various occasions lauded the merits of what I call ‘permanent reform’, the idea being that pushing relentlessly for a mix of ‘attainable’ and ‘aspirational’ reforms might well be the optimum route to an extra-parliamentary collective mobilisation for social change of a more durable and transformatory kind. This idea is contained in my… Read More »

Do I hate the Tories? Strategies of Class Hatred

I have often of late been tempted – and given way to temptation in the privacy of my home – to spew hatred at the ego-fixated narcissist Johnson and his wooden ventriloquist’s dummy Starmer. It feels like a fully warranted but somehow demeaning emotion. But is it? I am reading China Mieville’s excellent A Spectre,… Read More »

Centene, Operose and the NHS

In what amounts to a fairly prolific series of blogs condemning the Conservative assault on the English National health Service (NHS), I have bemoaned their clandestine advance planning, their ideological subversion, the calculated politics of austerity from 2010-2020, and the two Health and Social Care Acts of 2012 and 2022 (the first of which left… Read More »

Notes on the Health & Social Care Act, 2022

Two themes that have run through my blogs over many years have been: (i) the Tories have long been intent on killing off the NHS and bringing in private providers, and (ii) Lansley’s wordy and often misunderstood Health and Social Care Act of 2012 opened the door for later moves to this end. COVID provided… Read More »

Lockdown Diaries of the Working Class

This will doubtless be a shorter blog than usual, principally because I neither know quite what to say, let alone how to say it. I usually find words come readily enough so it’s a relatively novel experience. The topic is The Lockdown Diaries of the Working Class by the Working Class Collective. This was a… Read More »

Further Thoughts on the GBH

For approximately two decades I have formulated and commended a ‘greedy bastards hypothesis’ (GBH for short). This was done with health inequalities in mind. It asserts that health inequalities in Britain, and indeed in kindred societies, are in large part an unintended consequence of the strategic, profit-seeking and often predatory behaviours of a hard core… Read More »

Thoughts on Hate Speech

I have always had concerns about the emergence and consolidation of the concept of ‘hate speech’ in the UK (and indeed elsewhere). It is obvious that it resists easy definition, so let’s start with the current guidelines proffered by the Crown Prosecution Service. ‘Hate crime’ is defined as ‘any criminal offence which is perceived by… Read More »