RAMZY BAROUD on how Israel’s narrative collides with military failure
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Covid and the private hospitals: the great bed rip-off
To ease the pressure on the NHS, private hospital chains were given state money to take care of non-Covid cases — the problem was, they only did half the work, explains SOLOMON HUGHES
ROGER McKENZIE explains how Ibrahim Traore has sparked the flames of hope across Africa, while the Western powers seek to extinguish all attempts to build true sovereignty in the long-exploited continent
DANIEL GOVER considers the procedural complexities awaiting a Private Member’s Bill in its passage through Commons and Lords
JAMIE TUCKNUTT reports on an initiative that brings together two epochs of the city’s anti-fascist struggles
Just as German Social Democrats joined the Nazis in singing Deutschland Uber Alles, ANDREW MURRAY observes how Starmer tries to out-Farage Farage with anti-migrant policies — but evidence shows Reform voters come from Tories, not Labour, making this ploy morally bankrupt and politically pointless
KEITH FLETT traces how the ‘world’s most successful political party’ has imploded since Thatcher’s fall, from nine leaders in 30 years to losing all 16 English councils, with Reform UK symbolically capturing Peel’s birthplace, Tamworth — but the beast is not dead yet
With turnout plummeting and faith in Parliament collapsing, BERT SCHOUWENBURG explains how radical local government reform — including devolved taxation and removal of party politics from town halls — could restore power to communities currently ignored by profit-obsessed MPs
IN 2020 the NHS signed a £2 billion deal with the big private hospital chains to get extra help during the Covid pandemic. Matt Hancock described the deal as “great news” for the NHS and the “hospitals and staff doing everything they can to combat coronavirus.”
But it turned out to be mostly great news for private health businesses, who were paid for all their beds but only used about half for the NHS. They had all their costs met by the public sector but carried on doing paid-for private operations with the other half of their now completely subsidised capacity. This is one of the biggest private-sector Covid rip-offs.
In March 2020 the NHS signed a deal negotiated with the Independent Healthcare Providers Network, paying around £2bn for the entire capacity of England’s 200 private hospitals to help with the Covid pandemic.
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Labour’s pop-loving front bench have snaffled up even more music tickets worth thousands apiece, reports SOLOMON HUGHES
Secret consultation documents finally released after the Morning Star’s two-year freedom of information battle show the Home Office misrepresented public opinion, claiming support for policies that most respondents actually strongly criticised as dangerous and unfair, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
SOLOMON HUGHES highlights a 1995 Sunday Times story about the disappearance of ‘defecting Iraqi nuclear scientist.’ Even though the story was debunked, it was widely repeated across the mainstream press, creating the false – and deadly – narrative of Iraqi WMD that eventually led to war
Despite Labour’s promises to bring things ‘in-house,’ the Justice Secretary has awarded notorious outsourcing outfit Mitie a £329 million contract to run a new prison — despite its track record of abuse and neglect in its migrant facilities, reports SOLOMON HUGHES
