An Invitation to Contribute to Our Work
David Green, 16 September 2006
Some deep-seated problems, including high crime, falling education standards, unsustainable immigration, the low quality of the NHS, and rising welfare dependency are not being properly confronted by our political leaders. In particular, political discussion of public services like health and education still seems wedged halfway between the age of collectivism and a more consumer-friendly alternative.
Discussions are taking place across the political spectrum about the next steps and Recalibrating the Right is our contribution. It argues that we need to re-think the guiding principles of a free society, the obligations we owe each other and the traditional values we should uphold in order to discover the beliefs we should embrace in the immediate future. What’s good about our country – and there’s plenty to admire – and what’s gone wrong? How can we come together to fix the problems that our political leaders are afraid to confront? What should be the relationship between a people and its government?
The first chapter sets out the guiding principles for reform and we are publishing it online to give our supporters a chance to contribute to our emerging work. We invite anyone who is interested to contribute their thoughts before the draft is finalised and published as a book. There are two ways to contribute: you can email us at this address or you can comment via this blog.
Governments of all persuasions appear interested only in taking more of our money to fund pet projects, which are intended only to further careers.
Let us take education as an example. Each year, teachers are hit by multiple whammies from central government, local government, examination boards etc., etc., Each agency sends instuctions for change and each one is interested only in the progress of its own initiative.
Imagine the picture from the other end. One initiative after another flies in and teachers ignore them at their peril. The result is educational chaos brought about by people who know very little about education but think they know all there is to know because they have been to school.
Add to this picture only health and law and order, and you have a recipe for disaster. We appear to be on the brink.
Stan must speak from a position of good health. Regarding his ‘vouchers’ idea: I am in my 30s but was born with a congenital heart problem so my £800 a year voucher wouldn’t go very far, and I and my wife (both tax payers) would soon be bankrupt. Private health insurance ain’t an option either when you’ve got a pre-existing condition – just try getting a quote.
No, the solution is to stop the NHS being a free health service for foreign nationals and immigrants. And the only way to get back control of such things as borders is to LEAVE THE EU. Never mind trying to ‘reform’ it – this is impossible. I wonder whether this truth will dawn on political leaders in my lifetime..? I doubt it.
First of all, the situation has to be recognised by all countries in the EU and any measures agreed should be implemented universally and audited by external commissions.
Secondly, national borders need to reintroduced and controlled.
Third, establish the money trails to banks in the like of countries such as Switzerland, Lichtenstein and other financial sanctuaries that are scattered around the world and freeze the assets of the fundamentalists and their organisations.
Ban the introduction of new Muslim Charities, Fudamentalist groups or organisations and intensely scrutinise the accounts and activities of the present ones.
On the domestic front, stop all immigtation with the exception of EU nationals with required skills and or the means that will be of benefit to the UK.
With hold state benefits for the first five years of residence.
All persons in the eg the UK to hold a UK passport only (No dual Nationality), and only then on condition of providing a DNA sample.
Reduce family allowance to benefit the first child only.
Reintroduce 2 years National Service for all males/or even femfales, between 18 and 25.The concenpt of a service to you nation does not necessarily mean in the military sense. It could be involvement with border security, humanitarian aid, domestic civic projects; any thing that would instill intop our youth the concept of national/collective Euripean identity.
In return nations could offer free education to universities, trade skills and other vocational reoutes.
I have responded more or less with off the cuff statements or suggestions but hope that with your profeesional experise you could remould or rephrase my respones if necessary. But if the future is as bleak as some of my fears, I take comfort in knowing that when this country was last fighting to survive, it did take extreme measures, stood its ground to give my generation at least, one of the best standards of living, social development and security than anywhere in Europe.
I’d like to make some comments about the NHS if I may. First of all, we need to consider what the NHS is for. Is it supposed to deliver high quality health care to the people of Britain or is it supposed to be a massive employment service for foreign as well as British workers?
I ask this because it is not clear to me which is it’s primary objective. Surely, if all that mattered was that the service was “free at the point of delivery” and delivered high quality care then it would not matter whether it was provided by the private or public sector would it?
The other thing to consider with the NHS is that the national treasure that it once was was largely the same health service that existed before it became the NHS. All those local services, cottage hospitals plentiful beds and superb nurses were largely there already – as were the supporting services including training. it was only once it became the NHS that it turned into a gross bureacracy dedicated to closing hospitals and limiting service.
Thirdly, the NHS costs around £80 billion a year. That’s around £1300 for every man, woman and child in Britain. Why not just issue every person in Britain an annual Health Insurance voucher for, say, £800, to buy their own health care needs? As many people would be able to buy a family policy for a lot less than it would be for each of them individually and as many people already have private health insurance this wouldn’t cost anything like the £48 billion it adds up to in theory.
We could then sell off all the hospitals and back end services to private health care providers – makiing a tidy sum from that – retain the front end service of GP and midwifery as state managed services along with an A&E and maternity hospitals and fund these out of the remaining £30 odd billion. I doubt that it would need that much. I don’t know what we’d need to run maternity and A&E services, but I know that GP’s used to earn around £85K a year and there were about 29000 of them, so that’s around £2.5 billion. I guess their staff costs and running costs may double that to £5 billion and add on the cost of prescription drugs – around £8 billion – and the grand total for the state run GP network is around £13 billion. Could we provide an efficient A&E and maternity service for less than £20 billion? I would hope so.