Although the criminal invasion of Iraq was the totemic New Labour betrayal, the vote on Foundation hospitals was of longer term significance to the working lives of hundreds of thousands of Unison members.
The sheer inadequacy of our Labour Party work at the time was exposed by the fact that it was members of the Unison group of MPs who gave Blair the majority that forced this attack on our NHS through Parliament.
The foundations laid by Tory Blair are now the basis upon which the real Tories are unleashing the destruction of our NHS (http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gmg/op/sWSQcN1xFDlN0XkxrBkdEvQ/view.m?id=499537&tid=120787&cat=UK_news).
The "independence" of foundation trusts and the handing over of PCT budgets to compulsory consortia of GP fundholders will replace planning with the market and open up opportunities for private profit.
It's fair enough to insist upon consultation - but Unison's response (http://www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.asp?id=1920) needs to go so much further than that.
Keep Our NHS Public (http://www.keepournhspublic.com/index.php) is clearly a campaign whose time has come - and Unison must surely now be front and centre of the fight of our lives to defend the heart of our Welfare State.
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Your simplistic schema doesn't add up.
ReplyDeleteIn Unite the SWP and LRC are not supporting the United Left candidate for GS. Instead (and ironically not unlike the SP in UNISON) they are supporting an individual acting in opposition to that faction.
I'm sure your lifetime's work of acting as a Circus ringmaster to the various ultra left sects in UNISON isn't an easy task.
However, the Unite 'United Left' is no model of unity in action.