He Just Doesn't Cut It..

Do you remember this guy? The one that promised four days ago that the NHS would be his priority?

Well, it has been his priority- for a whacking great cut. Gordon Brown's bum has barely warmed the seat of number 10, and he has just cut the English NHS buildings and equipment budget by £2 billion- just over a third of the total budget, the Financial Times reported. Not only that, but the Times is getting rather heated over at Roy Liddles, because Scotland and Wales' budgets have not been cut in the same fashion. This is because health is a devolved issue, and Gordon Brown doesn't have direct control of health, of course, but you can't blame them for being hacked off about it.

I told you I didn't like Gordon Brown. Now you know why. Grr..

It All Makes Sense

Last night, after musing on the naffness of Kirkcaldy High's school motto, a verse from my childhood floated into view.

'I promise that I will do my best;
To do my duty to God;
To serve the Queen and help other people;
To keep the Brownie Guide Law.'(Brownie Guide Promise)

Does that mean that Gordon is a secret Brownie?

Kirkcaldy High Needs a New Motto

Gordon Brown gave his inaugural speech today as Prime Minister. He talked about his willingness to serve and how he had been at Kirkcaldy High and had taken their motto to heart. We waited with bated breath. The motto? 'I will try my utmost'. Gee whizz.

It brought to mind the 'There's a lot Glasgowing on' that died a death approximately a week after it was launched; 'What's it called? Cumbernauld' and my personal favourite, the 'Cote-du-Bridge' campaign for Coatbridge, that was accompanied by a picture of the canal with a swan on it. (They just managed to keep the shopping trollies out of sight.)

Whatever happened to arrogance? Insouciance? Confiance? My old schools' (and no, i'm not going to tell you what one I went to) mottos were the thoughtful 'Not for school, but for life we learn'; the magnificently arrogant 'I was born for greater things' and Coatbridge itself has the very Calvinist motto, 'Laborare est orare' ,'To work is to pray'.
C'mon Kirkcaldy, you can do better than that. Get some fire in your belly. Send your suggestions in here.

The Poisoned Chalice - the NHS

Ok, I have finally succumbed to vulgar popularism, to add my thoughts on Gordon Brown's appointment as Prime Minister. What is it going to mean for the country and the NHS?

I am afraid that I do not like Gordon Brown. I do not like him, because in 1997, he introduced double taxation on company pension shcemes; that is, taxing pension contributions as they were paid, and then taxing them again on maturity. He removed at a stroke, £5 billion per year from pension funds and overnight, people were left with pensions that were not worth the paper they were written on. Some of the Clyde workers found their pensions reduced by 80%.What was this money used for? Tax cuts and our membership of the EU.

I also do not like him, because he is holding onto National Insurance contributions, while the NHS is crashing down about our ears through PFI debt. At the moment there is a £37billion surplus in NI. That surplus is not static; it has increased year on year by £4-6 billion.

Having said that, I do not envy him. Brown has been handed a poisoned chalice, both in terms of Iraq and the NHS. It is interesting that he has singled out the NHS as one of his priorities for government. But it leaves him in a uniquely difficult position.

At the moment, every member of the Cabinet has a hospital cutback or closure happening in their constituency. Four of them are Scots; Gordon Brown, Alasdair Darling, Des Browne and John Reid. Labour has just been thrashed at the polls in Scotland and Remedy UK, the new junior doctors protest group, is gathering momentum, as a possible threat and source of political challenge. If he does not address the closures in these constituencies, Labour could lose very badly. But the only way that the situation is going to be remedied, is if Brown grasps the PFI thistle, and makes central government take over the funding for PFI projects. That is going to cost a lot of money. So what will he do?

Well, the answer's right here. Use the £37billion NI surplus. Use the £50 billion from pensions and give us a decent health service. And do it before PFI spirals out of control. Never mind tax cuts at election time Gordon; give us a decent NHS with some decent spending on it. And please lose your friends from the private health sector like Chai Patel, who have not done you or your party any favours. Who knows, you might win the next election on it, if you're lucky.

The Crime with No Name

Hi there,

Back after a few days away from the blog. I was looking at NHS Blog Doctor and the latest post is on Madeleine McCann. Or rather, some of the blog posts that have been left about Madeleine McCann. Some people are getting bored with the story. Some think her parents should give up and go home. Some think it was the parents' fault anyway for leaving her alone, so why bother us with it? You should just accept just punishment and not bother the rest of us with your grief. Blog Doctor thinks this is attitude stinks and so do I.

We in Coatbridge know only too well the price of complacency with regard to child abduction. 40 years ago, Moira Anderson, a wee 11 year old girl disappeared in a snowstorm. She had gone to buy a Christmas present for a relative at Woolworths and she took a Baxter's bus for this journey. She was never seen again and her body was never found.

At the time it was put about that it was a stranger abduction. Motor cars were becoming popular and it was generally thought that some paedophile toff had whisked her away. Life moved on and the Andersons were left alone in their grief, not knowing what had happened. It looked like Moira would be forgotten, until in 1992, Sandra Brown, a woman who had grown up in Coatbridge at the same time as Moira, went to a family funeral. A chance remark about her father, Alexander Gartshore and that he had been a suspect in the Moira Anderson case, led her to investigate and reopen the whole issue.

The trouble was people didn't want it. When a friend of Gartshore's, Gallogley, died in jail in 2003 and left behind a detailed dossier saying that Gartshore had murdered Moira as part of a paedophile ring operation, the police wouldn't release it. Apparently some of the people named included figures in the police and the Crown office and they wouldn't have it. Gallogley named a burn called the Tarry Burn, as the place where Moira's body had been dumped. The police made a half hearted attempt to drag it over two days, and then gave up on the excuse that it would take a month to drag the burn properly and they might not find anything. Moira had been missing for 36 years at this point, and they couldn't take a month to check out a fresh lead. Now there are calls again for the dossier and the case notes to be made public; it's high time they were.

As it was with Moira, so it is with Madeleine. This is quite obviously an abduction; the window of the room that she was sleeping in was forced open. It has obvious that this was an organised operation; the McCanns were checking on their children every half hour; someone must have been watching and waiting for a while, before they moved. And yet we have people who say that we should all give up, that it happens, what's the point, I'm bored with this story and that wee girl's face. This, despite the evidence that this is an organised ring that struck.

But there is something deeper at the bottom of this laissez faire attitude to child abduction.Child abduction and paedophilia is the crime with no name. Up until the 1960's, it was only hinted at in fairy tales about changelings and wicked stepfathers. As we progressed, we first blamed strangers, then people at one remove such as teachers, clergy and social workers. We still have not admitted that the abuse and murder of children is usually visited upon them by someone they know. And that is why we don't like to talk about it. You can warn a child about stranger danger, but how do you warn them against danger from a relative or friend? How do we cope with this kind of evil within? It is 2007 and we still have not faced up to this; we have not looked this evil squarely in the eye.

Moira Anderson was let down by by our town and I am ashamed of it. The same will happen to Madeleine McCann if we do not keep her in the public eye and insist on answers. I am going to add my own poor effort to the search by posting her picture on this blog, and it will stay there until she is found. I am also adding the Moira Anderson website to my blogroll. Maybe, at the last, justice will be done.

Carer's CV

One of the main themes of the Selfish Pig, is that people, including carers, do not regard caring as a real job. It's done in a house, not an office, so it's not a real job. You don't get paid for it, so it's not a real job. There are 'professional carers' who do caring as a 9-5 job and get paid for it, unlike the unpaid carer, who does it all hours of the day and night, so they are a professional and you - well, you're not, are you?

This got me to thinking about caring as a job. What skill set goes with being a carer, and what would a carer's CV look like?

I am a quick thinker in potentially lethal situations.
Examples; Shutting the passenger door of a car that has been opened accidently while driving at 70mph on the A9.

I have highly developed extra-sensory perception.
Example; If a gale is blowing outside, I'll sleep through it. If a pneumatic drill is going outside my window, I pay no attention. If I hear the sound of water running through the pipes, I am out of my bed and downstairs in two seconds, before the turned-on taps flood the bathroom.

I am an expert on buying and selling.

Example;Houses, antiques, car boot sales, property makeovers; I can tell you anything that's on daytime telly.

I am very good at multi-tasking.

Example; Can eat own meal with one hand, feed mum with the other and use my third hand to hold onto the dog, so that he doesn't steal all of Mum's food.

I am very good at diplomacy.

Example; how we managed to get out of Spar without that brickie punching us, when Mum said his face needed a good wash, I'll never know.


Ok Sir Alan; am I hired or fired?

The Selfish Pig's Guide to Caring

Another short post, but if you are a carer and you haven't come across this book, then go get it now! It's a life-saver and it's the only carer book I have read that doesn't patronise and doesn't leave things out -it goes into all the dark corners of caring. You can flick through the book here.

Cate Devine- Living with Dementia

Just a short post to recommend this blog to you. Cate Devine is a columnist for the Herald, her mum has dementia, and she is keeping a blog on the subject. The posts so far are sensitive, funny and true. Have a look.

Who Cares?

This week, 11th-19th June is Carers' Week. Bet you all knew that. Nope? Well, as the devil said to the damned, ye ken noo. Seeing as I'm one of the army of 800 000 who look after someone, I thought I would do some posts on caring and so my natural starting point was- Katie Hopkins.

For those of you who have been living in an igloo at the North Pole for the past few weeks, Katie Hopkins is the bullet crunching Thatcher's child off the Apprentice. She admitted that she would lie and cheat to get her way, that she had an affair with a married man because she wanted him, and bitched about every contestant on the show with her. And yet..

Last week, Katie fell on her own sword. She had been offered a place in the final, and Sir Alan had turned to the other two contestants, when he noticed that Katie was looking down in the mouth. He turned to her and said, 'You look rather glum for someone who's got to the final.' Earlier on, he had questioned her about her willingness to move, along with her two children and her parents, to where he wanted her to work. She had initally said that she could do it, but was beginning to realise that she couldn't. And dramatically, Katie withdrew from the Apprentice, because she couldn't juggle the two commitments. Katie the bitch, 'lips shaped for sin' is a carer.

If you care for someone, whatever you do, has to be related to those you care about. So you become vulnerable and in short, you lose control of a part of your life. In our society, care is valued, but the people who do the caring are not. They are looked on as society's losers. Because your life is not completely under your control, because you don't earn a high income, you are weak, you are a loser.
If you don't believe me, look at the way that carers are portrayed on BBC dramas. They are ugly,sexless, wear shapeless stripey jumpers and always end up getting shafted. There's one particular actress called Janet Dubovski with bulging eyes, and she always plays those kind of parts. If I ever see her in the street, I swear I'll banjo her with a box of
Attends...

Anyway, back to Katie. All through the show, people wondered about her motivation. What was an alpha female like Katie, on £90k, doing on the Apprentice? Quite simply,it was beneath her. I realised as soon as she started to talk about motherhood. She said how much she hated the image of motherhood, 'all flousey and blousey'. It's what you do when you've got nothing better to do. It's what you do when you're not a high achiever. It's what you do, because you're not good enough for anything else. Katie was out to prove them wrong. Her reason for being on the Apprentice was to show that what she was doing was a choice. She would not endure pity from anyone. She would shaft the others especially the men, win the Apprentice and then walk away.

The only person who really understood her was Sir Alan. He saw the motivation, the full motivation and got her to bow out. He's been called sexist, but I don't think he is. I think to the contrary he saw where she was coming from, let her prove what she wanted to, and then gently pushed her back.

I wish Katie well. She may not like where she is just now, but I think over time she will realise that being a mother, a carer, is the one thing that has kept her human.It's a cliche, but it's a true saying, that who we are and what we become, is shaped by those we love.

Legend in My Own Lunchtime

Don't mean to boast but..

Well, ok seeing as you're dying to know, I was on the front page of the Herald today, along with two doughty women who were on our campaign, Morag and Mary. They might look sweet. I can assure you they would make grown men cry. Anyway, one wee incident made me laugh. I went down to Tesco to get my shopping, and at the newstand, a pile of Guardians had very carefully been placed on top of the Heralds, obscuring the paper. So I looked round, then very carefully placed the Guardians on top of the Sun (it was needing obscured, believe me) and turned the Herald the right way up. Haven't run into this, since uni, when the Christian Union had running poster battles with the Socialists, to see who get one (poster)over the other..

Oh Happy Day!

The sun was shining, the birds were singing, Monklands and Ayr got reprieved and Andy Kerr had a face like a sour meat pie. Perfect!

However, this is where the real work begins. Why Monklands and Ayr? What about the other A&Es being downgraded? Grant on Tartan Hero was asking about Stobhill. He's right. It would be madness to shut Stobhill; it acts as an overspill for the Glasgow Royal. How about St John's Livingston? Vital for accidents on the M8 and severe cases of trauma. What about the Victoria, which is being downgraded and replaced with a wee diddy ACAD posing as a hospital?

Then there's the economics. Where's the money going to come from then? We get a block grant from Westminster. Will they increase it or can we find a way of reorganising services up here that will allow things to run properly? Here's the way I look at it.

1. We have a surplus of doctors chasing specialities at the mo. It really should not be a problem getting staff, if we really want them.

2. If we stop using PFI for everything, we can save a lot of money. It would mean that hospitals would not need to employ the army of administrators, lawyers and accountants that go with being in private business. It would mean that if you have to change a lightbulb, you can do so without advertising in the European Journal for a lightbulb changer. It would mean that we would not get tied into stupid contracts like Stracathro, where the private company gets £15 million over the next 3 years, whether they do the set number of operations or not.

3 At some point, central government is going to have to bite the bullet on PFI payments and take fiscal responsibility for them, off local authorities and health boards. There's no way round it. Local authorities have been paying for these debts in kind, by selling off land and day hospitals. Now they're at general hospitals. It's got to stop here. The government should assume responsibility and do some serious re-negotiation over the contracts, especially where companies have made a fortune by re-financing and not passing on the benefit to the hospital.

4. Re- consider the position on capital charging. This is where a hospital is charged tax on the value of their buildings and land. The effect this is having, is driving hospitals out of central city sites (ie Yorkhill and the Queen Mum in the West end of Glasgow) to relocate on the periphery of civilisation (the Southern General, beside the sewage works).

Right, now that I've sorted the NHS, I'll go and bake a cake..

You're Not Worthy..

Your intrepid blogger and friends were at another conference recently and came across several crates of the pictured beverage. After drinking several bottles, we found that we could talk for two hours without stopping, snarl convincingly at hecklers, tell porkies without blushing or blinking and have an urge to use words like 'synergy','rationalisation','unity in the community' and 'fit for the 21st century'. We would highly recommend it to anyone who needs to announce job cuts- sorry, 'rationalisation'.Sadly we drank it all, but we have decided to launch a weekly 'Arrogant Bastard' award on this blog, to whoever catches our attention for all the wrong reasons(or all the right ones, if you're a right arrogant b****.) The honour of our inaugural award, goes to Patricia Hewitt,the health secretary, for sheer vindictiveness on insisting on court costs from Remedy Uk, the junior doctors' pressure group. Cheers Patrica!
Send your nominations in for next Friday, for people who you think are worthy..