"If you don't like our policies for the NHS, why don't you go and vote Tory?"
That was the aggressive and uncompromising message to astonished trade unionists and campaigners from Sheffield who travelled down
lobby Parliament November 1 against cuts, closures and privatisation in the
Far from seeking to placate or concillate those concerned at the threat to their local services, many Labour MPs rounded on the protesters, armed with dodgy facts and figures furnished to them by Patricia Hewitt and the Parliamentary Labour Party.
In at least one instance when the Mrs ran out of answers, a tame union official was wheeled in to parrot the government's line and dispatch the frustrated lobbyers empty-handed back to their localities.
Just days later Hewitt stuck the boot in, rubber-stamping controversial plans to downsize services in Huddersfield and Calderdale which had triggered big demonstrations, a 40,000-strong petition, the election of a Save Our Hospitals councillor, and opposition from three of the area's five Labour MPs.
This makes it quite clear that whatever the rhetoric, Hewitt's NHS 'reforms' are nothing to do with 'Patient Choice.
Such a level of arrogance and indifference is astounding from a government that has more than doubled spending on the NHS, but done so in such a way that just 14% of voters in a recent Guardian/ ICM poll thought the extra money had been well spent.
Meanwhile in wacky reversal of roles the Tories, wno nist natcnea up tne laca ot the Private Finance Initiative, have revealed that the NHS is paying through the nose for its PFI hospitals, and Is sel to lork oul a staggering £53 billion in payments to finance £8 billion of new investment, lumbering future generatons with a massive dead weight of inflated costs.
And Tory MPs with little or no previous public profile The government has more than doubled spending on the NHS, but done so in such a way that just 14% of voters in a recent Guardian/ICM poll thought the extra money had been well spent. have managed to put themselves at the head of largescale local protests and demonstrations, while Tory shadow ministers have called for Trusts and Primary Care Trusts to be given much more time to balance their books -while New Labour is pressing for draconian action now.
David Cameron can hardly believe his luck, taking a clear lead in opinion polls Labour's one-time strong selling point - the NHS.
Faced with dozens of strongly-rooted fighting to defend threatened hospitals and services, the situation has become so desperate that health unions and professional bodies have been brought together in a unique alliance, Together, which staged the November 1 Lobby. www.keepournhspublic.org.uk
In response a 7-page "confidential" PLP Brief tried to whitewash over the growing toll of job losses and to present New Labour's justification for its controversial and costly use of private sector providers.
On job losses ministers hotly denied reports that over 20,000 jobs have been put at risk, and claim that just 903 jobs are to go.
That's because they interpret job losses only as "compulsory redundancies" though they admit that Trusts across the country have been axing hundreds of jobs at a time through natural wastage, voluntary reaundancies, and freezing vacancies.
Ministers appeared most sensitive on the issue of the new, costly and ineffective Independent Sector Treatment Centres (ISTCs), and resorted to the most grotesque manipulation of statistics, claiming that: "400,000 people have been taken off hospital waiting lists since 1997. 114,000 - 1 in 4have had their operation in an ISTC...".
The figure is wrong: the Part of the Oxford delegation on November 1 sport their Keep Our NHS Public T-shirts waiting lists since 1997 transparently ridiculous.
The tiny number of operations carried out in ISTCs at inflated costs must be set against the resultant loss of revenue from NHS Trusts, which is even now destabilising local NHS orthopaedic, ophthalmic and other departments.
25 ISTCs were either up and running or shortly to be operational by January 2006, with a further four under negotiation, at a cost of £1.7 billion.
But a second phase, worth £3.75 billion, was announced in March 2005 and is currently being rolled out -despite warnings that the new units are not needed and will undermine local NHS services: one new chain of ISTCs announced in South London threatens the viability of 1l NHS Trusts.
When it comes to the Private Finance Initiative the Brief floats off into a parallel universe or aenlal, Clalming that "There is no evidence to suggest that PFI schemes are driving NHS Trusts into deficit".
Local managers, staring down the barrel of massive deficits and sky-high overhead costs - but receiving only a fixed tariff of payments for treatment under the new "payment by results" system, know different.
One thing is clear from the November 1 Lobby: ministers still have not seen the light, and are not in any way intimidated by the less than radical challenge from the neato unions.
Hewitt is more or less taunting the unions to come on over if they think they are hard enough.
Will they?
As the November 1 lobbyers return home to face the mounting crisis and wait for the unions to name the date for Ine promised national NHS Together demonstration in the new year, a new autumn round of cuts is taking shape.
The question is whether the union leaders will pick up the gauntlet, and raise the stakes in their stand-off with ministers, or allow Blair's team to carry on regardless, smashing up the party's core support, infuriating the union members wnose contributions have funded Labour, and driving HOIC VULCIS towards the cynical Tories.