Union calls out Starmer’s health spokesman over donations from private health interests
The National Officer for health of the giant Unite union has written to Keir Starmer’s Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting to challenge Streeting over his connections to private health interests. As Skwawkbox revealed, Streeting accepted £15,000 from a hedge-fund founder with almost a billion dollars’ worth of investments in a US private health corporation at the heart of the privatisation and break-up of the NHS into units incentivised to deny treatment and cut costs.
Colenzo Jarrett-Thorpe’s letter tells Streeting:
Re: Donations and Conflicts of interest
I am writing to you on behalf of Unite the Union to express our concern regarding a recent donation you accepted from Mr John Armitage for £15,000.
As I am sure you are aware, Mr Armitage is a wealthy Hedge fund manager, who has donated millions of pounds to the Conservative party over recent years. The hedge fund he developed has a significant stake in U.S. private health care provider, United Health, an organisation that wants to make inroads into the English NHS. This donation therefore raises alarming questions about conflicts of interest in your role as Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Care and Unite believes that it requires an explanation.
Unite and other health trade unions have campaigned vociferously against the increasing privatisation of the NHS under the Tories. Data shows a growing share of England’s NHS budget going to private and non NHS organisations over the past 12 years. The Department of Health and Social Care’s annual report shows a rise of almost 20% spend between 2014 -15 and 2019/20 from £8.1bn to £9.7bn in 2019/20. An Oxford University study, published in the Lancet this week, has shown that the rise is strongly linked to a drop in patient care,[5] as widely predicted by trade unions.
The Labour Party is the party of the NHS. This proud legacy was founded on the Bevanite principle that healthcare should be available to all that need it, without the barrier of payment in order to serve all strata of society. United Health are an organisation that explicitly seek to make profit out of our citizens’ illnesses and Unite believes there can be no place for organisations like United Health in our NHS.
A Labour Party that aspires to get back into government must commit to restoring the NHS as a truly universal public service, publicly run, properly funded and resourced to meet the public health challenges of the 21st Century. This is what Labour Governments have legislated for in Wales and Scotland.
Our concerns are significant and we would like to meet with you as a matter of urgency to discuss these points.
Wes Streeting did not respond to a request for comment when Skwawkbox published news of the donation.
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Watched PWC on Channel 4
Still waiting, forever waiting, waiting an eternity, for the love of God give us a policy worthy of the Labour party, Unions, Members and Supporters
Still waiting
Seen i meself , dougal.
Was made soporific by the greased bore so was barely able to cringe or rage. It was exactly like reading the wee twunts posts on here.
Same tired arld shite. But I did notice there was NO denial – even when outrightly labelled boring TWICE.
The gobshite knows full well he’s the human equivalent of zopiclone, he seems to revel in it ffs
Smarmer the fucking dullard on ch4 new asked about NJlHS privatisation
What we need is to fucoid on preventative measures….when I was DPP…😴😴
Boring cunt sounds EXACTLY like the Cameron toerag government.
And called boring twice by Newman, he didn’t deny it, bit rather repeated the rehearsed line of”the only thing that’s boring is being in opposition’
Yeah…where you’re gonna remain because you have ZERO persona.
As for screeching. Another papier-mache head with zero scruples or charisma. Braga a out writing for the currant bun as much as keef does about openly supporting de piffle’s clique.
Oh, I forgot. He’s GAY, isn’t he? So criticism of the twunt makes.me a far-right homophobe…Or soon will do. 😒
Literal Bandit and fake fucker extraordinaire gets cornered! Took them long enough !!!
Starmer was at Wimbledon.
Looking at his entry in the Register of Members’ Interests, it would seem unlikely that he bought the tickets himself:
https://members.parliament.uk/member/4514/registeredinterests
The beauty of two Thatcher/Reagan flavoured Neoliberal Parties, while one is in power the other deals under the table.
It’s like a capitalist jackpot win on both sides of the Isle. Without pulling the ‘one arm’!
I suppose “The Office” thought it would be good for his corporate image.
It doesn’t surprise me at all Streeting has accepted money from a hedge fund manager who has interests in United Health. Didn’t he spend a few days on a trip to another country to check out how their privatised, or partly privatised health service is run.
BackofBeyond, yes he did. I take it you’re referring to Martin Taylor? That guy as well as Chinn and Hollick bankrolled Starmer for the leadership election. They were the three backers who Starmer refused to reveal until after the result came in.
So a Leader of a Political Party takes money from three Private Health Investors, do you reckon they’re good mates, or want something in return? Shall we ask Starmer?…….
Good mates, GIVING £500,000, or some other hefty sum? Blimey you must have closer, and richer, good mates than I ever have done. If I had that sort of money to give, I’d certainly want something in return. Probably the opportunity to get all of it back and more besides!
True cost of US healthcare shocks the British public
PW the worse thing is that on top of the prices people paid for Health Services in the US when they don’t have medical insurance is that the State subsidise the privatise health system by spending on health over 19% of their GDP while the UK spend on health care less than 10% of GDP, basically the NHS is 50% cheaper to the tax payer than the US healthcare..
On top of that pensioners in Northern States regularly travel to Canada to buy medication and those in Southern States to Mexico.
It is criminal that both Tories and most Labour MPs are singing the praises of privatisation in the US when in their hearts they know it isn’t going to save money from the government budget, is just a question of where most of the money goes:
1- To provide a free service to the public with nobody allowed to make a profit out of providing a service
2- To line their pockets by milking the cow the NHS represent to privateers.
Streeting has already said he would use private providers, he claims they would cut waiting NHS lists. Making a nice profit no doubt. £15000 looks like a sound investment.
This whole parliamentary system of “in your face bribes” stinks to high heaven and is as putrid festering cancer on not only parliament but the moral character of those that feed in the trough of this so called democracy.Tear it down like Christ did in the Temple….The greed of humanity tests even the son of God let alone the victims ordinary people on pathetic crumbs off the table and even that is threatened.by parliament.
No-one who has stood in a pharmacy queue in
the US would want their sort of health care. The
times Ive stood behind someone who has been
denied a prescription because it is “not on your plan”
.. where this is often because they are only allowed
a “clone” and not the more expensive brand.
My daughter needed some antiB for my granddaughter and
she had to pay a lot more for her prescription for some
weird reason. I was disgusted – she had pay something
over £100 for a 2 year olds medicine .. Luckily they CAN
pay for this ..