Thread by @docrussjackson

A #THREAD on free-market fundamentalist ex-banker Sajid Javid's recent grotesque & condescending speech to the opaquely funded free market think tank, the Centre for Social Justice: "The hidden costs of #COVID19: the social backlog"

gov.uk/government/spe…

The 'Centre for Social Justice' is another opaquely funded free-market think tank, co-founded by IDS, Tim Montgomerie, Mark Florman & Philippa Stroud, specialising in generating moral panics which demonise the poor using 'decision-based evidence making'.

archive.discoversociety.org/2014/05/06/the…

He starts off with condescending & insensitive remarks: "I’VE faced some challenges in MY time in government. The crisis of rough sleeping. The tragedy of #Grenfell. The injustice of #Windrush" - disgraceful episodes, caused primarily by deregulation & the Culture War Tory Govt.

He then brags about removing sensible COVID restrictions, which resulting in thousands more deaths: "I had to face tough decisions from the start. The first was: should we remove the restrictions – restrictions that we know have saved thousands of lives? I knew that we had to."

He describes the "backlog": "More than five & a half million people are on the waiting list for elective treatment, a record high... I admit that even I was a bit shocked when officials told me that figure could rise to 13 million."

We have 22,000 fewer #NHS beds since 2010.

He starts building a narrative supporting further #NHS privatisation: "300,000 fewer urgent cancer referrals than were expected... nearly a quarter of a million people waiting for heart-related surgery – up by over 40%. I think we can all understand why the backlog has grown."

"Doing nothing would be inexcusable. It cannot be business as usual. The responsible thing to do is to act now."

So what did he propose? A wealth tax to fund the #NHS? End poverty? More public health campaigning? End deregulation of food, safety, consumer & worker protections?

He outlines that the funds generated from the controversial Health & Care Levy will "initially go into the health service", claiming "It shows we’re serious about tackling the challenges that we all face – & serious about our responsibilities to the #NHS & social care."

Really?

Despite the Government commissioning a partial, misleading & skewed Race Report, which explicitly denied structural & institutional racism even exists in the UK, he says "We’ve seen that Black & Asian British people were more likely to die from COVID19 than White British people."

He rubs more salt in other wounds: "We’ve seen that our mental wellbeing & our mental health can be so fragile when the scaffolding of our daily lives is taken away.. horrific incidences of domestic violence & child sexual abuse" - other areas despicably underfunded by the Govt.

He then euphemistically describes "the social backlog" - without mentioning the key contributing factor of a near decade of #austerity: "we’re actually facing 2 backlogs. The first is the waiting lists. But the second is a social backlog – in mental health & public health."

He returns to structural inequality based on ethnicity, but being a Tory, refuses to describe it in these terms: "Despite making up less than 14% of the UK population, Black, Asian & minority ethnic groups made up more than a third of critical care admissions from COVID."

Javid resuscitates an at least a decade old phrase: "These are symptoms of a different disease: the disease of disparity."

Free-market capitalism depends on, thrives on & embraces inequality, itself an inevitable consequence the brutal free-market economic system Javid promotes.

The goal of the brand of Libertarian inflected free-market fundamentalism which Javid has spent his entire career praising & pushing, is the reduction of "Big Government", which in reality means more deregulation, & slashing welfare & consumer, worker & environmental protections.

He disingenuously claims that the Govt's "next logical step" is "ensuring everyone is given the same opportunity to live healthy & happy lives. That’s what levelling up in health means to me."

But wealth & health disparities inevitably increase under neoliberal Governments.

With no sense of the tragic failures of nearly a decade of #austerity, he says "8 of the 10 most deprived neighbourhoods in England (are) right here. 40% of the neighbourhoods are classed as ‘highly deprived’." People in these areas have been ignored largely by Govts for decades,

In 2018, the Sunday Times reported that "Britain was the only western country other than the US in which life expectancy has continued to fall after a bad flu outbreak in 2014-15, in a pattern which researchers said was reminiscent of post-Soviet Russia."

thetimes.co.uk/article/uk-s-f…

In 2019, it was widely reported at home & abroad that for the first time in modern history, Britons in some areas are living shorter lives, with poor lifestyles, depression & budget cuts the leading causes.

nytimes.com/2019/08/30/wor…

Also in 2019, the ONS reported that while there were small increases in life expectancy at birth in the UK between 2013-15 & 2016-18 (0.2% men & 0.1% women); the size of these increases was substantially smaller than those observed during the first decade of the 21st century.

Across all regions, gains in life expectancy at birth between 2013-15 & 2016-18 were much smaller than in the two previous six-year periods for males & females. In England, the lowest healthy life expectancy for females at birth was in Nottingham (54) & the highest Wokingham (72)

Javid claims that "While life expectancy is rising across the UK, here in Blackpool, it’s been declining."

The pandemic contributed to life expectancy in England falling last year to its lowest level in almost a decade, according to PHE - the lowest life expectancy since 2011.

Javid shifts to mental health, making yet more promises unlikely to be kept by our Government of serial liars: "We’re ending historic injustices by updating our Mental Health Act, ensuring people in acute mental distress are still met with the compassion and choice they deserve."

Adopting the tone of a naïve & condescending upbeat 'infuencer', he says "We know that 1 in 4 people living in deprived areas has a common mental health disorder, so we need to look at everything that’s holding people back from living their very best lives!"

He says "Our Long Term Plan commits an extra £2.3 billion a year to transforming mental health services by 2023".

This is a drop in the ocean. In July 2020 it was reported that cost of mental ill health in England reached £119 billion.

centreformentalhealth.org.uk/news/centre-me…

In a banal, dumbed down soundbite that sounds poorly scripted, he claims "I value mental health as much as I value physical health. I believe in the ‘parity of esteem’. Because when you’re healthier, you’re happier; and when you’re happier, you’re healthier."

Yippy-fucking-do.

"From 1 October, public health work in England will be led by a new body. We originally called it the Office for Health Promotion", but he prefers "Office for Health Improvement & Disparities, or OHID" seemingly unaware this acronym already exists, & Óhíd is a village in Hungary.

Javid confesses that "we need to do more to understand & tackle these (health) #inequalities... (&) work with partners right across government & beyond... Because we know our health depends on so many factors: your job, your house, your environment, your education..."

Following the imposition of ideological #austerity, council funding has been cut by 49%.

Essential public services have either been privatised or replaced with faceless profit-motivated corporate outsourcers, with only a superficial concern for the places in which they operate.

The Tories have spent a decade cutting local authority funding & wrecking the kind of local/regional joined up thinking Javid now pretends to enthusiastically endorse, replacing it with soulless profit-driven corporations, devoid of local knowledge.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1400385327483740164

He finishes with a eulogy to Britain's public services - public services which he & his fellow free-market fundamentalists have spent their adult lives systematically destroying, in the absurd belief that the profit motive reduces the "disparities" he pretends to seek to address.

"Whether it was being with my Mum in that #NHS waiting room, or going to the local library because there wasn’t enough space to study at home... it was our public services that have shaped me & the course of my life." Since 2010, 800 libraries have closed.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1359445206316290048

"Even before COVID-19, too many people felt the system wasn’t working for them. We may have heard the pandemic described as a ‘great leveller’. It was anything but. It’s made things harder. It’s exacerbated our disparities."

It most certainly fucking has Sajid, it really has...