Jeremy hunt
Jeremy Hunt is fortunate, in that bigger stories like Windrush and the local elections have relegated the breast cancer cock-up to being something of a media also-ran.
But that may have changed this morning, following a Sky News interview with a breast cancer awareness expert. She told the news station that on Hunt's watch, the Government controlled Public Health England (PHE) had in fact changed its policy on breast cancer screening and that - in her view - this was a bigger factor in resultant deaths than computer algorithm "faults".
Everyone potentially culpable for the oversight/software/policy change has spent the last 48 hours trying to present a moving target for those in search of accountability:
It was reported by several media outlets that PHE had known about the issues as early as March last year. The Times, Daily Mail and BBC said two NHS trusts had alerted PHE to the fact that letters were not going out to some women, but were told it was a local matter rather than a national one.
PHE itself says, "The problem was identified in January 2018 whilst reviewing the progress of the age extension trial (AgeX). It then became apparent that a similar impact has resulted from long term problems with the routine programme as well. It too blames software errors.
Hunt himself told the Commons the problem resulted from a "computer algorithm failure", which led to some women not receiving their final breast screening.
The Sun says, 'Hitachi Consulting is based in Dallas, and was awarded the contract to run the software in 2015....The company refused to comment as to why the firm dismissed concerns flagged as far back as March 2017 - having logged them as "local issues"
PHE has now conceded that the breast cancer screening error was flagged by up by three NHS trusts 14 months ago.
Tom Kibasi, director of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) says it was “profoundly misleading” for PHE to “spin” the error as a “computer glitch”, adding that a fall in breast screening take-up in England should have flagged up concerns.
Most damaging of all for Hunt, the charity boss interviewed by Sky this morning said the glitch was "a red herring", and that the failure was part and parcel of a change in PHE policy.
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Obviously, emerging information leaves a lot of unanswered questions for the Health Secretary to answer:
Why was the view of NHS Trusts ignored for a year before Hunt's department admitted there was a problem?
Who signed off and initiated the appointment of Texas-based Hitachi consulting?
Why did PHE, which reports directly to Hunt and for which he has direct responsibility, blatantly lie about when the problem came to light?
What does the IPPR know (that we don't) to embolden its boss Tom Kibase to describe blaming a computer glitch as "profoundly misleading"?
How exactly did PHE change its policy in 2015 and who initiated the change?
We're heading into a long weekend. But after that, I think we need to get the Health Secretary who defies Prime Ministers back in front of the Commons to explain these odd discrepancies.
No doubt he will once again perform his Uriah Heep impression, and whine that he "has done nothing wrong". But this time, his peers, we the People and the media should decide.
To lose a Home Secretary in three weeks is careless, albeit self-expulcatory. To lose a Health Secretary barely three weeks later might be deemed a disaster. On the other hand, the PM might relish giving the Great Dissembler a push along the plank towards the sharks.
As you might imagine, I am in floods of tears at the thought of Jeremy's demise
Posted by jeffrey davies on 04 May 2018
Florence on the Sanctions System and its Architect, Yvette Cooper
A few days ago I posted up a piece about the death of Jody Whiting, another victim of the sanctions system. Whiting had been sanctioned because she missed a jobcentre interview. In fact, she was in hospital at the time, being treated for a cyst on the brain. In despair at having no money to support herself and her children, she went into a local wood and hanged herself. She joined hundreds of others, who have died of starvation or taken their own lives.
Florence, one of the great commenters on this blog, posted these observations on how the system contravenes UN human rights legislation, and is scathing about its architect, the Blairite Labour MP Yvette Cooper.
Under the UN Treaty on Human Rights it is illegal to use starvation as a punishment, I understand. Yet this is exactly what the sanctions are designed to do – it is stated in the DWP Handbook which state that sanctions will produce physical and mental “discomfort”.
(And while Yvette Cooper is being lauded for her “Windrush” success by the RW journalists and PLP (ignoring Diane Abbot, David Lammy and the others who have done all the work – racist much?) she was the one who designed the DWP system much as it is today, persecuting the people who need the Social Security safety net. Yes, the Tories have made it worse, but she gifted them this system of assessments and sanctions. Yet even after the UN report on the abuse of human rights by the DWP, she made election promises to be “harder than” IDS on the ‘scroungers and frauds’. I hope that she is not proposed again as a contender for the Labour Leadership, she is unfit on that very simple, human test.)
The sanction system has gone far beyond physical and mental discomfort, and is responsible for real suffering and death. Medical doctors and psychiatrists have reported how it has pushed patients into depression and anxiety, and made those, who already suffer from it worse. Much worse.
As for the media ignoring the attacks on the Windrush deportations by Diane Abbott, David Lammy and others to concentrate on Yvette Cooper, this does show racial bias. The right-wing media hate Diane Abbott and do everything they can to attack and humiliate her, because she is left-wing and passionately anti-racist. David Lammy, I believe, was one of those responsible for Operation Black Vote in the 1990s. This was to encourage more Black people to vote in elections, so their issues would be taken more seriously by politicians and there would be more BAME people elected to parliament. Which is certainly enough to bring down the rage of the Sun and the Mail. And I can remember how racist the right-wing press were in the 1980s, and their attacks on the Black MPs then elected to parliament, like Diane Abbott.
The media has also been constantly promoting and supporting the Blairites against Corbyn and the real Labour moderates. It's because the Blairites are all Thatcherites, and share their hatred of nationalisation, workers' rights and the welfare state. A little while ago when the Blairites looked like they were facing the threat of deselection, the Torygraphy/Mail journo, Simon Heffer wrote a piece claiming that they were 'thoroughly decent people' being bullied and undermined by the evil Fascist Trotskyite Marxists of Momentum. I've no doubt they'd like to promote her as the British version of Hillary Clinton, just as they were supporting all the female candidates against Corbyn in the Labour leadership elections. If one of them was elected head of the party, it would be a success for women. Despite the policies they stand for - more austerity, low pay, privatisation, including that of the NHS, and outsourcing harming women the most.
Cooper's statement that a Labour government would be even harder than the Tories on the unemployed showed just how out of touch she was with the realities of life on the breadline. It also showed that whatever they were, the Blairites aren't 'thoroughly decent people'. They did everything they could to smear and undermine Corbyn and his supporters. Heffer and the right were claiming that Momentum is some kind of far left entryist group, and compared them to Militant when that group was intriguing against the right-wing members of the Labour party when Kinnock was leader. But Momentum represents traditional Labour politics and voters. The real intriguers, who have constantly been trying to rig everything in their favour, are the Blairites.
Cooper isn't solely responsible for the sanctions system. As Jo, another of the great commenters on this blog said, the Tories didn't need to pick it up. But they did, and massively expanded it. So there is now something like a quarter of million people, who can only get their food from food banks because of the deliberate poverty the Tories have inflicted through the system.
Cooper and the Blairites are a disgrace. They should either back the real Labour activists and supporters standing behind Corbyn, or else they should resign and go to a right-wing party, that better ref
Posted by jeffrey davies on 04 May 2018
