Gavin Webb: Libertarian councillor for Stoke & Trent Vale

Hello everyone.  Apologies for not posting for a while, but today, I post a message from the Leader of the Libertarian Party, Chris Mounsey:

My friends

We are broke.  Our country — whatever it may once have been — is now laden with debt. And this isn’t “the government’s debt”: it is our debt.

The government has no money but what it takes — what it extorts — from us.

We have gone beyond consensus politics: if a man were to come to your door, with a gun, and demand half of everything that you earned — on pain of severe punishment, on pain of the total ruination of your life — would you not protest?

For a moment, lay aside those dutiful thoughts of those starving millions beyond your gate, and think, instead, of those within your own household — within your own family: would you not rather protect them first?

Of course you would: they are your kith and kin and you would expect — would you not? — that everyone, like you, would defend theirs against you were you the one holding the gun.

The government has now utterly removed from you the means of protecting yourself and your family against the man with the gun: indeed, you dare not defend yourself because you fear that it is you, not the mugger, who would end up in the dock.

For the government is the man with the gun, demanding tithes from you: the government is here, at your door.  But not randomly.

No.

The government has gone out and bought itself nice things — plasma TVs, second homes, duckhouses, moats.   And jobs, and votes.   All of those things that you could not afford — because it has been here before: at your door, with a gun.

Five years ago, it was here — threatening you with prison if you did not pay up — for the sake of all of those children who were not yours.  You paid, because you had no option.

Four years ago, it was here — threatening you with prison if you did not pay up—for the sake of all of those unhealthy who were not yours.  You paid, because you had no option.

Three years ago, it was here — threatening you with prison if you did not pay up—for the sake of all of those uneducated who were not yours.  You paid, because you had no option.

Two years ago, it was here — threatening you with prison if you did not pay up — for the sake of all of those feckless bankers who were not yours.  You paid, because you had no option.

One year ago, it was here — threatening you with prison if you did not pay up — for the sake of all of those MPs who had no duck-houses or second homes or moats.  You paid, because you had no option.

And now the government has spent everything that you had to give, and more, on its pet projects — on buying its second homes, on buying its duckhouses, on buying its votes — and none of it benefited you and yours.  Not even by one iota.

The government didn’t care that you couldn’t afford to give any more: it didn’t care that you had no money.

The government didn’t care that you had lost your job: the government didn’t care that all of those thousands of pounds it took in National Insurance payments translated into a few hundred when you were in need.

And now, when you are getting back on your feet — back in a job that is not as good as the one the government destroyed, back struggling to look after your family on the pittance you are paid, back paying off your debts — the government, too, is back: it’s back with the gun.

The government is back — demanding half of what you broke your back to earn — because it has more grand schemes, more votes to buy, more trinkets to deliver to its favoured ones.

Will you so willingly hand over the sweat of your brow?  Will you so willingly condemn you and yours to penury?  Will you capitulate again?

Or will you fight?

Join us — and help us to stop the extortion.

Join us — and understand that providing for you and yours is not a sin.

Join us — and realise that a society that pulls together is a society that stays together.

Join us — and help us fight for a future in which people help each other voluntarily, because it is right and fitting to do so.

Join us — and help to build a future in which men, women and children take back their work, their birthrights, their dignity and their compassion from a government that cares nothing for you.

Join us.

Because — whether the government is Tory, Labour or Lib Dem — soon you will have nothing left to lose.

Chris Mounsey
Leader, Libertarian Party

You might like to read Chris’ own blog, The Devil’s Kitchen.  It’s a little sweary so don’t click the link if you are of a sensitive disposition.

If you want the very best, of course you’ll have to go private.  We just do what we can do with the resources we have!

That’s pretty much what my local NHS dentist said to me on Friday.  Despite paying plenty of tax, every single taxpayer who accesses NHS dentistry can only expect to receive a poor to mediocre service.

Since March I’ve had a problem with one of my back teeth, and during that time I’ve been dealing with both NHS and private dentistry.  I had not been to see a dentist for over sixteen years and generally my mouth is in good condition (or at least that’s what the private dentist told me.  The NHS dentist gave me no such feedback, even when questioned).

The difference between the private sector and the NHS is startling, and I don’t mean just in terms of the equipment like the little mouth-cam that allows you the patient to see around your mouth, or that takes pictures of your mouth and teeth for future reference; or the x-ray machine that upon your initial visit takes a full mouth x-ray to see if there are any other problems.  No, I mean more fundamentally in terms of the overall attitude of the private sector.

You are a customer.  You are at the private surgery spending your money.  It is in the best interest of the surgery to ensure that you get a good service, for if you don’t you won’t return nor will you recommend the surgery to your friends and family.

As the customer I felt engaged with my treatment.  I knew exactly what was going to happen and I knew – having seen it with my own eyes – what a shocking job the NHS dentist had done with my second filling that a) hadn’t even been properly moulded to fit my tooth, nor b) wasn’t actually, as I had been led to believe, a final filling.  Indeed, the private dentist was rather disgusted by the job.

Of course, one could argue that this was mere dentist/dentist or public/private sector rivalry – but having seen NHS work myself, followed by the job carried out by the private dentist, you can imagine where my trust ends up going.

The filling I now have is only a temporary one until I get a root filling, but despite this I haven’t been in any pain or discomfort.  Unfortunately, I can’t afford to have the root filling carried out in the private sector, and despite paying my National Insurance contribution, I have no choice but to spend it in the NHS.

It is surely a disgrace to in the first instance have money forcibly extracted from you in taxation, and then to add insult to injury, have no choice as to where to spend any of those ‘redistributed’ monies.  Our universal healthcare system allows politicians and bureaucrats – many of whom are on healthy salaries that are more than enough to pay for private healthcare – to dictate the standards of healthcare we the mere proles receive.

When I see campaigns such as the #WeLoveTheNHS Twitter campaign, my blood boils.  I understand that most people want other people to be able to access healthcare if they can’t afford it – I share that sentiment too.  However, I believe the Love NHS campaigners are deluded.  Their NHS is in no way the best way to achieve ‘excellent’ service, and it’s not just service users like me who have come to this conclusion.  Increasingly, NHS doctors and nurses have reached that conclusion too.

The only way in which healthcare services will improve in the UK is to undo the virtual monopoly that is the NHS.  Even if we were to say that taxation will be with us forever and that there will be universal healthcare provision, at least allow service users take their share of their healthcare money wherever they please.  Greater competition in healthcare provision will help bring prices down and will improve services, and as a consequence, more people will be able to afford ‘private’ healthcare standards.