nigglynellie If anyone is becoming unpleasant, it is you. Because someone puts forward a view with which you don't agree or responds to a statement with which they don't agree, it isn't "shouting down" or a "pathetic playground argument" it is what is known as debate. Some people believe that the cut in tax credits is wrong because it targets people who are already struggling. If supporters of the cuts feel so strongly that they are a good idea, why not put forward your reasons for thinking that way.
My husband and I were part of what you and others have so charmingly described as "rent a mob". We left home at 8 a.m. and didn't get back until 12 midnight because we wanted to join with other like-minded people to express our disgust at this Tory government's attack on the poor of this country and on our valued institutions such as the NHS. The "I" reported that there were an estimated 100,000 people at that demonstration and, from what I saw, people were well behaved and good humoured. If an idiot spat at a journalist, that is to be deplored, but one or two idiots don't represent the people of all ages and backgrounds who demonstrated yesterday. As for the egg-throwing incident, there is a suspicion that the whole thing was rigged - one would not expect a young Conservative to be ostentatiously present at an anti-austerity demonstration and yet it appears someone conveniently had a raw egg about his person to throw at him.
The conclusion of the march ended in speeches and, unlike two years ago when a largish park area was allocated, this year a very unsuitable space had been allocated which could in no way contain the huge number of demonstrators. It was to the marchers' credit that, when the police stood across the road to prevent any more coming into the space where the speeches were being held, there was no trouble.
A group of young doctors addressed the audience to express their concerns at privatisation and the new contracts which will involve them in working more hours for less pay and which will inevitably put patient care at risk. These are not hot-headed "far-left" firebrands - they are professional people who have studied for many years to do a highly responsible job - and they fear that as more and more young doctors leave the country the NHS will implode.
In the Guardian on Saturday, Gavin Francis - a GP - wrote about the way in which private healthcare companies load work and expense onto the NHS. IN his long article, he gave some examples.
One of his young patients had had two bouts of tonsillitis and his father insisted that he be referred for a tonsillectomy. The GP explained that there are specific criteria for this (which had not been met). There is a risk of haemorrhaging and infection after this surgery and so it is only done when deemed absolutely necessary. A private healthcare company, however, agreed to do it, despite normal evidence-based practice. The patient went on to need NHS hospital admission to address the subsequent complications (bleeding and infection) and several of the GP's own clinic appointments were used to deal with the aftermath. Gavin Francis then went on to detail several other ways in which private healthcare impacts upon the NHS, amongst them:
"They [private healthcare companies] can use NHS facilities and NHS staff to care for their sickest patients when their own facilities are not up to standard."
"Prices in the private sector are kept artificially low because, in the UK at least, private providers can avoid paying for the fall-out of their mistakes - the NHS will follow up any post-operative problems and if anything goes wrong an NHS ambulance can be called ....... their success is predicated on the existence of a robust NHS."
These are the sorts of issues that the people on that demonstration were concerned about.
www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/02/profit-not-patients-risks-private-medicine
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