Astute followers of The Guardian may have noticed that I have a response piece in the paper today, as a retort to Zoe Williams’ article of 13th October about the role of 38 Degrees – the campaign organisation – in debate on the Health and Social Care Bill.
I have already received one or two angry responses by email, by those who only read The Guardian’s sub-headline which calls 38 Degrees “crass”. I didn’t use that word, as closer readers of the article will see.
Of course, what I do say is that we need a more fruitful form of dialogue with the public than a lot of one-click emails, filled with simple assertions. In the end, as regular readers know, I think elections to the Lords are essential to that end. In the meantime LordsoftheBlog is a good start!
Lord Tyler,
This is is perhaps a bad precedent as I am reproducing an a st yet unpublished comment of my own from another LOTB post addressed to another commenter but it seems relevant:
“Lord Blagger,
I will not ask you if your nom de plume is a contraction of blackguard and blogger and if so why, but I do wonder about it at times. I feel you most respond to my comments and I dread deeply trying to cram a ten year argumentative discussion between acquaintances who disagree into a blog comment stream.
However, I think that this is an issue that goes very much to the depth of one’s cosmology, political paradigms and anthropology in the broadest sense. The tenor of your comments indicates that you do no believe that diverse learned people trying hard can achieve in prolonged discussion a wisdom which is far beyond mere expertise. But for others like myself that kind of sustained dialogue is one of the most important human pursuits.”
I am perhaps reproaching (perhaps not) LB who has the courage to write in prose at length on the LOTB. It seems so much more true a criticism of the many voices of the world in which LB lives. Conversation is an art which is either valued or not and the consequences are profound….
Here is the Guardian response of Lord Tyler.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/20/38-degrees-lords-nhs-bill
And here is Zoe Williams article.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/12/lords-nhs-reform-vote
What I thought significant was the delectable Earl Howe threatening the failure of this bill to make it through if it isn’t sorted and quick.
Well, dear me! Wouldn’t that be a disaster?
Not!
I seem to be fairly way left of the Labour party at the moment but my views on Health services in UK are reactionary and privatising.
We could well go as far one way as US Obama wants to go the other.
In the language of simple assertion, if you don’t pay for it, it’s much harder to sue.
(What do you expect?)
If you do pay for it, you can write your own contracts as you go along, not one size fits all.
How interesting.
But on the real issue of the week, how are you doing persuading your Commons LibDem colleagues to vote in favour of keeping at least one of their manifesto promises – a referendum of our membership of the EU?
Oddly, the LibDem EU referendum campaign site, viewable only yesterday, has now disappeared.
As a senior LibDem, you’ll surely have a busy weekend, twisting arms, trying to salvage what’s left of your party’s reputation.
“Elections” to the House of Lords will not improve multi-way, two-way, nor even one-way (upwards from ‘people’) democratic communications nor communicativities.
“In the meantime LordsoftheBlog is a good start!”
is almost a phantasmagorial pipe-dream;
simply because LOTB is the ONLY “democratic two-way cum multi-way ‘participatory-democracy’ or ‘further-democratisational’, ‘discussion’ and ‘submission'” site !
Importantly tol me, submissions for the Health (? and Social Care ?) committee must be in by this coming Wednesday, the Guardian also said (Society GVuardian 191011 “Social Care”)
but gives no address nor facilitation for the (such as JSDM) citizen to get even a “keywords or headlines only” submission in on time.
I thought I replied to this but it obviously did not arrive.
Yes, it must be pesky to have the public – to whom peers are of course unaccountable – bothering one with communications, many of them ill-drafter, uninformed and some plain rude. There is a solution. If you cannot stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen!
My own preference is only rarely to sign a petition, for the same reason I dislike referenda. I prefer to write the text myself rather than have someone else frame it. Likewise I dislike template emails and template letters even if you are urged to adapt them by putting in personalising touches. But it has to be said the public are very angry about threats to the health service, and the mass re-assessment of entitlement to welfare benefits such as those relating to invalidity.
I receive emails from 38 Degrees and sometimes feel I ought to act on the missives they send me, but each citizen should communicate in their own way and style.
Dear Dan Filson,
Thanks for your comment.
I have received a number of emails on this, and am replying to all of them. If you let me have an email address, or get in touch at tylerp@parliament.uk, I am happy to correspond directly with you too.
With best wishes,
Paul Tyler
Lord Tyler, as one who both contributed to your party funding and leafleted for it at the last election I feel I have a right to voice an opinion.
Neither the LibDems or the Tories had the privatization of the NHS in their manifesto. It was therefore a surprise to the British electorate that Camerons “advisor” was happily telling the US Private Health Care Industry OUR NHS would be opened up for cherry picking.
Clegg and the rest of your ( no longer my ) party failed to halt the Tories in their tracks. That’s why 38 degrees is getting financial support from people like me (and we’re pensioners).
The NHS is the finest outcome from politicians in my 67 year lifetime, and I and 500,000 others don’t intend to see a cabinet composed of the 1per cent destroy it for the rest of us.
At the next election the Lib Dems will take direct blame for failing to act, and they certainly won’t get a cheque or help in canvassing from the likes of me and my wife.
Call us crass and misguided at your peril.
John Keith
(currently in Chicago where My family make me fully aware of gross disadvantages of the American system of healthcare – for those who are lucky to afford it)
Dear John Keith,
Thanks for your comment.
I have received a number of emails on this, and am replying to all of them. If you let me have an email address, or get in touch at tylerp@parliament.uk, I am happy to correspond directly with you too.
With best wishes,
Paul Tyler
NHS would be opened up for cherry picking.
==============
Bonkers.
If the private sector can provide operations cheaper than the NHS, that frees up money for other things.
What you’re arguing for is higher costs when a lower cost alternative is available.
Along those lines, I want to replace my 24 year old car. I trust you will fund me an Aston Martin, and all the costs. After all, it does the same job, but it does cost a tad more to run, insure, and depreciation.
However as one of the best cars in the world, its exactly in line with the NHS philosphy. Best at this, best at that, best at killing patients ….
@Lord Blagger:
It has now be estabblished that as a matter of ‘fact’ the cost of the NHS is less than is paid out by most other countries in their health care kitty, including that great super power, the USA.
In fact, the NHS is not only less expensive than others, but, even with a smaller fund manages to take care of and cure more than those countries that spend more.
How do you reconcile that with your accounting, and of course, compassion.
hy. Best at this, best at that, best at killing patients
Coomenting as I have done on the choice of death of Qaddaffi, (by oral writ a few weeks ago) we do all choose our own death warrants.
We have to sign for it, and if we are in an NHS hospital, there is no way of knowing how much duress is placed upon the patient by “care”, and lack of it, to sign for the last morphine jab, in the preceding days and weeks.
All I am is a former director of the UK’s largest undertaker. I don’t know what has gone before!!!
Dear Lord Tyler
Your comments in a recent article in the Guardian newspaper will undoubtedly have done damage to 38 degree members campaigning.
Your phrase, ‘rent-a-mob’ is insulting bearing in mind the articulate nature of the commentary contained to letters issued to the Lords.
Many of these letters, if not the majority, are well crafted by articulate individuals who are actually involved in the practice of the NHS.
Your article clearly evaded the overwhelming thrust of the 38 degrees campaign which says that if the Bill passes through the Lords in its present form, it will manifestly change the core nature of what the NHS is all about. Of course the NHS will still be there but not in the form that we know and love.
You also failed to point out that at the core of the campaign is the tremendous anger at the duplicity of both Conservative and Liberal Democrats in presenting a manifesto which blatently sought to mislead and lie to the electorate.
We were not told of any intentions to change or modify or reform the NHS. Nor were we told that tuition fees would treble to £9000 per annum (a separate issue but still very pertinent regarding the duplicity of government.)
This coailiton government has no mandate to impose so-called ‘reform’ of the NHS. As such the House of Lords should not be involving itself in the interstices of a Bill which is an unsult to the democratic process.
The House of Lords should be questioning whether or not it is right and proper for a tenuous government to impose its will upon an electorate who have not chosen the policies upon which it has embarked.
As a famous and respected Lord once said, this is nothing short of an elected dictatorship.
A dictatorship by its very nature seeks to impose its will upon the people regardless of whether or not the people wish for it.
Please give that thought some consideration Lord Tyler.
Having read your voting directions I see that you are a man of integrity and true Liberal mindedness. Please in future try to avoid smearing the most effective lobby group that the general public have at this point in time, namely 38 degrees.
Yours sincerely,
Alan Mattinson MA