Thread by @AndrewAtter

#covid19UK #NHSheroes Let’s spare a thought for the really big losers of 2020 - the paid grifters and faux researchers @KateAndrs & @@K_Niemietz of @iealondon
By 2019, we were all eating out of their hand, especially @bbcquestiontime as they conditioned us for NHS privatisation

They didn’t call it that, of course. They referred obliquely to their “research” on alternative “systems, fit for 2018/19) etc. inserting the word “insurance” into almost every interview.
Yes, folks, we now know all about psych ops &conditioning don’t we. Cambridge Analytica RIP

Their “research” was based on the mysterious @K_Niemietz a lesser known academic, who clearly found publishing in peer reviewed journals tiresome. Especially as he wasn’t exactly marked out as a neutral and impartial observer on these matters 🤔

Dr Niemietz hasn’t yet replied to my numerous tweets inquiring as to how he compared our own UK NHS with Swiss and other European schemes, based on either means testing, exclusions, user fees etc.
The ever charming @KateAndrs simply touted the line that they were more efficient

Not once will you see the @IEA “researchers” acknowledge that they real difference is in significant differences in funding, with the UK barely matching EU average let alone benchmarking with the very best.

See 2017 comparisons + health spend as % GDP a good proxy

And how much time has the @iealondon ace researcher @K_Niemietz spent in public health?
Which peer reviewed journals has he published in?
Who funds his research?
Has he spent a single day on an NHS Ward?
He won’t say.
Has a @BBCNews journalist ever asked him? I doubt it.

I wonder if their silence isn’t just because our socialism-in-action NHS is currently heroically saving thousands of lives, #PPE or not.

Is it because cleaners and nurses are doing this out of altruism, with no thought of personal self interest.

Like De Spock, observing some strange life form, the Ayn Rand inspired @IEA hedge fund backed grifters can’t explain what they’re observing.
“There is a society after all”, declares the Prime Minister, after a political career declaring the exact opposite.

Real question is, along with thousands of decent people, of all ages, will #COVID19 cleanse is of the ideological virus of libertarianism and survivalist-of-the-fittest eugenics, with a final realisation that there is an objective social reality that can be proven.

The ideology espoused by @iealondon has been responsible for the deaths of thousands.
Causal link between poverty and inequality, and death, is a social fact. It’s not up for debate by non specialists, and certainly not from tainted sock puppets like @K_Niemietz & @KateAndrs

When we come out of this, the desire to work together globally, to fund our healthcare with the very best, to celebrate those who acted altruistically and with a community spirit, will be overwhelming.

The @iealondon has no place in that world. It’s silence is golden.