“You are no Longer a Human Being.”

In 1946 George Orwell published How the Poor Die, an horrific account of his experience in a French public hospital in the late 1920s.  In this he drew the following conclusion;

In the public wards of hospitals you see horrors that you don't seem to meet with among people who manage to die in their own homes, as though certain diseases only attacked people at the lower income levels. But it is a fact that you would not in any English hospitals see some of the things I saw in the Hôpital X. This business of dying like animals, for instance, with nobody interested, the death not even noticed till the morning—this happened more than once.

Orwell! thou should’st be living at this hour: England hath need of thee; her hospitals are fens of stagnant waters.  OK, my apologies to Wordsworth for my free adaptation of one of his most memorable poems.  But what I say is true: English hospitals, it’s coming to light, are stagnant fens, places were healthy people go to die, at least if the the example of Stafford Hospital can be taken as a benchmark. 

I’ll say more on this dreadful case in a  moment, but first a word on our National Health Service (NHS), the great sacred cow that politicians criticise at their peril.  We have here a system of socialised medicine set up in the immediate post-war period by the then Labour government of Clement Atlee. 

Orwell, a self-defined socialist, though of a unique kind, was a supporter.  What would he have made of the dream if he had been alive now?  Here we are, seventy years on, and English hospitals are reproducing some of the things he witnessed in France all those years ago, yes, including the business of dying with nobody interested.  The horror here is almost impossible to imagine. 

It has been calculated that between 2005 and 2009, a mere four year period, some 1200 patients at Stafford Hospital in central England died needlessly.  Last week an inquiry headed by Robert Francis, a senior lawyer, published its report, the second into the hospital’s failings.  And the failings are truly appalling, a complete abdication of all duty of care, examples of incompetence, negligence and outright brutality, in some ways worse than anything Orwell witnessed in his foreign charity ward. 

Patients were left lying in their own urine and excrement for days.  Those in desperate thirst were forced to drink water from vases.  People were sent home with life-threatening conditions.  One old man suffering from dementia and Parkinson’s disease was pulled from a lavatory in a state of undress, the nurse screaming at him “You are no longer a human being but an animal.  I hate you.”  Not only were the patients unwashed, in some cases for up to month, but wards were shockingly unhygienic, covered in blood, used dressings and bloody needles. 

One woman arrived to find her 96-year-old mother-in-law “completely naked… and covered with faeces… It was in her hair, her nails, her hands and on all the cot sides… it was literally everywhere and it was dried.”  Another was so concerned about the welfare of her mother, who said she was frightened of the staff, that she mounted a 24-hour vigil by her bedside.  She was horrified by the things she witnessed;

Patients were screaming out in pain because they could not get pain relief. Patients would fall out of bed and we would have to go hunting for staff.  It was like a Third World country hospital.  Things were so bad on the ward that I started feeding, watering and taking all the other patients to the lavatory. It felt like it was not just my mum I watched dying, but all the others as well.

Those who complained were dismissed with contempt by senior management.  A twenty-year-old man was sent home with painkillers after a serious fall from his bike.  Doctors completely failed to diagnose a spleen injury.  He bled to death at home in agony.  The hospital’s chief executive, later reacting to complaints from his mother and family, wrote to them, saying that they should “put the matter behind them and move on.”  

Well, now we have moved on; now we know exactly what was involved, a culture of turnarounds, tick boxes and statistics, all encouraged by the government of Tony Blair, a culture of quick fixes and negligence, encouraged by those who trumpeted the endless virtues of our ‘much-loved’ NHS. 

Charles Moore, writing in the Telegraph, rightly said if negligence on this scale had been discovered in the private sector the management would be sacked and criminal charges would quickly follow.  But with the ‘much loved’ NHS a different culture prevails.  What happens?  Why, nothing, merely reports that take years to produce and end by blaming nobody.  The latest instalment effectively concludes, after much pious hand-wringing, that those in charge should stay in charge.  It was all a ‘cultural failure’, you see, not a question of individual responsibility .  That must be a great comfort to the relatives of the dead.

No sooner was the latest tome published than Sir David Nicholson, the chief executive of the NHS, was interviewed by the BBC.  This man in a previous life was head of the West Midlands Strategic Health Authority between 2005 and 2006, and thus the senior figure responsible for the Stafford Hospital.  In a previous life he was also a member of the Communist Party.  He was “shocked,” he is “sorry” for past ‘cultural failures.’ No matter; he is staying, backed by the present Health Secretary and David Cameron, the Prime Minister. 

In a public statement launching his report, Mr Francis began by saying: “Many will find it difficult to believe that all this could occur in an NHS hospital.”  No, quite frankly, I don’t.  Stafford may be an extreme case but it is by no means an atypical feature of our rationed, managerial-conscious and patient-negligent ‘much loved’ NHS.

The point is, as Moore also says, this dreadful bureaucratic monster was never about patient care; it was about taking charge of delivery by centralised diktat.  It was for people who produced the service, not those who received it.  The truly shocking thing is we now see that those like Nicholson, effectively responsible for the death of hundreds of people, can escape blame for fear of ‘scapegoating.’  Could this happen in any country that is not called Cuba or North Korea?  It has happened in England.  It must be of some benefit to have a former communist in charge. 

Pleased do not think the Stafford case is an isolated incident.  Other hospitals and other NHS trusts are now under investigation.  It’s estimated that a further 3000 patients have died needlessly elsewhere over the past two years.  Inquiries – more delaying tactics – have been ordered into hospitals where death rates are persistently high.  Solicitors are preparing to act against nine trusts accused of neglecting elderly patients.  You might like to remember all of the above facts in considering the alleged virtues of rationing and socialised medicine.  Come to England; we know how to do it, we know how to deliver health care with dignity and comfort.  There again you might be better advised to go to a charity hospital in France. 

The dread of hospitals probably still survives among the very poor, and in all of us it has only recently disappeared. It is a dark patch not far beneath the surface of our minds. I have said earlier that when I entered the ward at the Hôpital X I was conscious of a strange feeling of familiarity. What the scene reminded me of, of course, was the reeking, pain-filled hospitals of the nineteenth century, which I had never seen but of which I had a traditional knowledge.

Ah, George; the future is not a foreign country; we do things pretty much the same here. 

The Flames of Homophobia

There is an odd resemblance between Lynne Featherstone, the Equalities Minister in the present coalition government, and Argentina’s President Christina Kirchner. It’s not just the colouring and complexion: they both have a washed-out Botox look about them, faces that seem to be on the verge of collapse. Politically speaking there is also a resemblance: they are both provocateurs.

There is Kirchner, in this anniversary year, making waves over the British ‘occupation’ of the Falkland Islands. There is Featherstone, frantically waving her gay marriage flag, warning church leaders not to “fan the flames of homophobia” in their opposition to this absurdly unnecessary measure.

She clearly has no conception at all what marriage means, no conception of its significance in Christian thought and practice. Gay ‘marriage’ is a joke, a parody of the real thing, just as the black sabbath is a parody of the Christian mass. There is no prejudice here on my part; this is simply a statement of the facts, an understanding that marriage, since the earliest times, was conceived of as a union between man and women for the procreation of children.

Personally I can’t work up any particular energy over this issue; I do not understand why homosexuals need the final step of ‘marriage’ when civil partnerships already exist. Politically the whole thing is just so, well, patronising, a perfect example of the worst kind of trendy gesture politics. Actually I can work up some energy over an increasingly loud-mouthed lobby, one determined to advance its agenda, no matter the cost. I can get worked up by a Conservative government, yes, Conservative, seeking to undermine an important part of the social fabric, as if it has not already been seriously damaged.

Cost, yes; I can also get worked up about the cost implications of Featherstone’s proposal, which will see a Nineteen Eight-Four style purge of all official documents referring to husband and wife. Existing marriage certificates could even be threatened. In future we shall have spouses and partners, though I’m not at all sure who the spouse is and who is the partner!

According to the official analysis released alongside Featherstone’s recently published ‘consultation’ paper (consultation, what consultation?) the cost of this red tape revolution will run into millions. Oh, well, we have money to burn, do we not, in these economically vibrant times? We certainly do, bombing Libya into a new Islamic dark age at one point, introducing gay marriage and undermining Christianity at another. Oops, there I go, fanning the flames of homophobia!

Actually, no, but I am fanning the flames of Liberalphobia, expressing my contempt for all those knuckle-heads like Featherstone who have no greater cause than to interfere in the lives of others, forcing people to accept one fashionable ‘progressive’ cause or another, whether they want it or not. The sad truth about our present coalition is that a predominantly Conservative government is pursuing a social policy agenda that is being set by the Liberal minority.

I welcomed the advent of David Cameron, a refreshing change to the bleak years of New Labour, a refreshing change to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, those sleazy and morally debased ogres. But what a disappointment he has turned out to be, how weak and how vacillating. He is turning out to be a silly, frivolous, inconsequential little man, a politician of no real stature, a man nervous of his own shadow, a shadow in the shape of the risible Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Gay marriage is to be in place by the next general election, to be held, so the gay government marriage agreement goes, not before 2015. Stalin once asked sarcastically how many divisions the pope had. I ask how many people who vote Conservative are in any way enthused by gay marriage. Not many, I would hazard.

There is also, ironically, the illiberal tone of the debate, the terms of which are being set by Featherstone. It’s not about airing views; it’s about silencing dissent, as Simon Heffer argued recently in the Telegraph. It’s about the use of language. ‘Homophobic’ is just another of those words like ‘racist’, a slur to foreclose the argument. It’s being used even so far as churchmen, whose opposition to gay marriage is driven by scripture and canon law, not bigotry. Abuse, vilification and unreason, these are the small coins of a small and feather-brained mind. England does not love coalitions. How right Disraeli was.

The Mirror of Mediocrity

Virtually the first column I make for when the Spectator thumps through my letterbox on Fridays is that by Rod Liddle, whom I once described as the thinking woman’s chav; yes, I’m the thinking woman and he is the chav! I may not always agree with what he says but he writes in a compelling, trenchant style, invariably telling it as it is, no punches held, no holds barred, no kicks disallowed.

Last month he wrote several pieces I most assuredly agreed with, all in the aftermath of London’s August madness. I’m thinking in particular of an article headed Our children urgently need less self-esteem. In this he takes his departure from the assumption that has haunted educational and social policy for decades, namely that there is no such thing as failure, that children, regardless of potential, or lack of potential, need more self-esteem. No, they do not, he wrote, they need to have the self-esteem sucked out of them because “they have way, way too much of it.”

It begins with schooling, or what passes for schooling in the abysmal public sector. Teachers are in retreat, more and more circumscribed in what they can do and say. They dare not tread on self-esteem. Children, Liddle writes, are not corrected when they misspell, not told that they are falling short of a standard because there is no standard for them to fall short of. Emphasis on hard knowledge is giving way to soft interpretation, to a gloss all too often of simple ignorance.

Apparently a former teacher wrote to the Spectator, complaining of the climate of lies in which “children believe that they can get away with anything.” In other words, if anything goes wrong in their lives it’s someone else’s fault: their teachers, or the police, or society. They are the victims of an educational philosophy based not on learning and the discipline of learning, not on what is right and what is wrong, but ‘bringing out’ even if what is brought out is arrant rubbish, all choices being equal. Here, Rod, speak for yourself;

This is a statement of what is wrong with our schools, but it is not much of one, and it exists alongside the insistence that any form of elitism must be wrong by definition, because all outcomes are sort of perfectly OK.

This is the kind of thing that really makes me mad, this lowest common denominator approach to life, the celebration of idiocy and the damning of excellence. I believe in elites; I do not accept for a moment that we are all born equal; some are meant to be lavatory cleaners just as others are meant to be rocket scientists.

We have, if you like, a kind of Brave New World which serves neither cleaners nor scientists, for all are reduced to a lumpy medium. There are no Alphas any more and no Epsilons; just a mass of undifferentiated Gammas. It’s the world of ever increasing academic inflation, a world in where university entrance is believed to be a right rather than a privilege, the world of Big Brother, and I mean the ghastly TV show, holding up the mirror of mediocrity, a reflection of what we have become

I’m offering Rod the final word with thanks for the inspiration, thanks for telling it like it is. Right on, comrade!

So by my reckoning the last thing we want is top raise the self-esteem of the inner city kids who might one day end up smashing down their local JJB Sports shop and nicking the trainers. None of the hooded imbeciles I heard seemed terribly short of confidence or self-assurance or self-esteem; it oozed out of them like pus, along with self-righteousness. They still do not think that they have done anything wrong; they are unfamiliar with the concept that something can be ‘wrong.’

Beer and squirrels

I always keep a look out for the more unusual news items and one of the most unusual came recently from Russia. Beer, it seems, is to be classified as alcohol. Beer is to be classified as alcohol?! What was it before: apple juice, perhaps? No, it was food. Seriously, Russians quaffing a glass or several were just having a jolly good meal!

This comes as part of the Kremlin’s latest anti-alcohol campaign, the toughest since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Russians have long had a serious problem here. In communist days a combination of cheap vodka and personal despair over the frustrations of life in the Soviet paradise led to a huge upsurge in alcoholism. The last serious attempt to tackle the issue was in the time of Gorbachev, an anti-alcohol drive that caused the last of the communist puritans to be nicknamed Lemonade Joe.

Now the special status of beer is to be ended, a special status that has given many Russians the impression that it’s actually a soft drink - apple juice with attitude! Actually, they may not be quite alone here. I remember reading that F. Scott Fitzgerald, the American writer, in battling with his own alcoholism gave up spirits in favour of beer, consuming the latter by the crate load! But when Russian teenagers can be seen during school intervals downing a can or two in the local park something really has to be done.

President Dmitry Medvedev recently declared that Russia’s drinking problem was a “national disaster.” There is really nothing new here; it always was a national disaster in a country where people are estimated to consume thirty-two pints of pure alcohol per capita per year, more than double the World Health Organisation’s recommended limit, and where some 500,000 die annually form alcohol-related diseases.

But there is an added dimension, an added worry; for Russia is dying, the Russian people are dying. Between 1991 and 2009 the population of ethnic Slavs fell by over six million. Federal estimates suggest that it could fall by a further fifteen million between now and 2031.

So something has to be done, but what? The reclassification of beer is one solution; the other is to warn Russians of the adverse effects of overconsumption, no matter that they have resisted the message in the past. They didn’t respond to the lectures of Lemonade Joe. Perhaps a squirrel might serve better. A squirrel?! Yes, that’s right, a drunken squirrel, which made its way into the television screens last December.

I’m not quite sure if it’s managing to achieve the ends the Kremlin intends, but the said squirrel has acquired a huge cult following across the world, now with well over three million hits on YouTube, my own included! I don’t speak Russian but I’ve been told that he’s ranting on about chasing spiders up the wall and offering to kill his neighbour’s wife because she is the devil.

The mad squirrel was not chosen by chance. The Russian slang word for delirium tremens, that condition of deep alcoholism where people start to hallucinate, is belochka, meaning little squirrel. It’s now to be seen if Little Squirrel is any more effective than Lemonade Joe, who was mad for other reasons altogether. God save Russia, because Russia may not be capable of saving itself.

The dead hand of welfare

The one certain consequence of aid, of any kind of welfare, is poverty. Look at this country, look at the dreadful Dependency State, a financial burden that has crippled us for years and resulted in a form of entrenched, institutionalised socialism, almost impossible to shift, no matter the political complexion of any given government. Billions of pounds have been spent and we are not a step closer to ending poverty.

No, instead we have created welfare-dependency ghettos peopled by a sub-class; places where one’s expectations of a meaningful and fulfilling life are low to non-existent. Instead time passes with cheap alcohol, a haze of cigarette smoke, visits to the doctor, daytime TV and endless ennui, only relieved by an early death; it’s the subterranean world of the Morlock. America look to Britain; look to your socialist future.

I’ve expressed these views before, so there is nothing really new here. But I was inspired to take this path again by an article in the Sunday Telegraph about the work of Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian-born economist who has previously written Dead Aid, a book pointing the extent to which African economies have been crippled by foreign aid programmes, just the reverse of the outcome intended.

Now she has published How the West was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly – And the Stark Choices Ahead. In this she accuses the West of squandering its economic advantages by a series of wrong-headed policies. America, she believes, is in danger of losing all entrepreneurial edge and becoming a “bona fide welfare state” as the century progresses.

Her warning is timely. England and America both built their power and greatness on free enterprise, on a buccaneering economic spirit. In this country a growing lack of self-confidence, a sharp decline in forms of nineteenth century self-belief, resulted last century in a major shift in economic and social priorities. No longer able to do things for ourselves the state had to do them for us, to remove all of the dangers and risks that make work and enterprise worth doing and life worth living.

Our suicide was planned. American freedom and American enterprise, in contrast, are in danger of dying by slow and haphazard degrees. “The US”, Moyo argues, “is on a path to creating the worst and most venal form of welfare state – one born of desperation from many years of flawed economic policies and a society that rapaciously feeds on itself”.

I have to say am both amused and bemused by the irony of some of our present economic and political realities. If one wants to look at our past look to the Indian and Chinese present, countries advancing by the most imaginative forms of investment and enterprise, countries unburdened by huge state expenditure on welfare, by any state welfare, for that matter. What a supreme irony it is that China, a country ruled by communists, has become a perfect example of classical capitalism!

I think it worthwhile to take Moyo’s thesis, advanced in her two books, as an intellectual continuum. In other words, to take the British example, successive governments have treated the country as if it was holding out a Third World begging bowl, with welfare expenditure in the place of foreign aid. This has involved the transfer of productive to unproductive sectors of the economy to nobody’s benefit, especially not the poor. Welfare, in other words, cripples, just as aid cripples.

It’s not all black, though; there is time, Moyo believes, to address these problems, if one is prepared to make difficult choices. The Republican victory in the mid-term elections will go some way to reversing the socialism of the White House, though it has to be seen if the long term drift can be halted.

Here our present coalition government – which was never my ideal – is taking a path of austerity, absolutely necessary in our circumstances, not just a sustained legacy of wasteful welfare spending but a crippling burden of debt bequeathed by a criminally incompetent Labour administration. There is resistance and the will to change may yet be broken, though I believe the consequences will be dire. Our problem is more deeply based than that of America. We have to change not just economic policies but an attitude of mind, an attitude that says the state will always provide. It will not; it cannot.

Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves

Here I am, mounting the scaffold, ready to put my head in the noose once again. Ah, but it is a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done…:-))

I found myself smiling when I read David Barrett’s report in today’s Sunday Telegraph on gypsy camps (Minister’s ‘bullying’ on gypsy camps). Why, you might ask, since these camps will cost the taxpayer £100 million pounds; yes, that’s right £100 million. It’s not really that funny that they are being forced by our wretched Labour government on people and communities that simply don’t want them, including the people of Earsham in Norfolk, who’ve had to put up with an illegal camp for some time, with all of the inconvenience this entails.

So, why is it funny? Well, just think of all that lovely money, just think of all of the contactors queuing up to get their hands on it, especially in times like these, so hard for the building industry in particular. But, you see, they don’t want the work! Indeed they are so reluctant that the Department for Communities and Local Government has issued guidelines saying that, where no bids are received, the gypsy project should be made part of a general building work, lumping in the good, the bad and the ugly. Kurt Calder of the National Federation of Builders says this is a clear attempt to force contractors into unpopular projects.

Seemingly one builder in northern England is refusing to bid on the unreasonable grounds that when he last worked on a gypsy camp he lost £30,000 in the theft of equipment and supplies. One simply has to laugh!

On an entirely unrelated point I’m a late convert to the Telegraph from the Times, our family paper by long tradition. I switched because of the tremendous job the paper has done in exposing the scandal of Parliamentary expenses, showing the true value of a free press in a democracy. And, no, I’m not an editorial plant!