David Wilson articles, 2000 - 2020

Me & My Pizza Pal Pavarotti, Camden New Journal, 29 August 2020

LEFT FIELD, now offered FREE online here

The NHS is Our Shield, Public Reading Rooms, 20 July 2020
Where is My Vote, Peoples Campaign for Corbyn FB,  06 January 2020 
El Pepe, Peoples Campaign for Corbyn FB,  02 January 2020
In Defence of Simplicity, David Wilson website, 02 December 2019 
The Crucible Re-staged, David Wilson website, 27 November 2019
Manifesto of Hope, The London Economic, 21 November 2019
Between the Wars, David Wilson website, 21 November 2019
Meeting Ken, David Wilson website, 9 November 2019
No More Tweedles, David Wilson website, 7 November 2019
Who Will Fight for the NHS, David Wilson website, 27 October 2019 
Brexit Jokers, David Wilson website, 27 October 2019
Winning the Election is Easy, The London Economic, 20 July 2019 
What Isn't Reported about Julian Assange, The London Economic, 16 April 2019
Corbyn must stand strong against attacks on Israel, The People's News, 28 August 2018
Palestinians have Right to Return and Live, The People's News, 20 May 2018
Israel's Act of Terror, The People's News, 14 May 2018
Giving the Finger to the DWP, The Canary, 11 May 2018  
Disabled Tribunal Victory, The London Economic, 10 May 2018
Disabled victory in courts: The People's News 9 May 2018  
Labour Party Remains on the Up, The People's News, 4 May 2018
Theresa May + husband + war = profit, The People's News, 26 April 2018
Criticising Israel is not anti-semitic, The People's News, 23 April 2018
The Pornography of War, The People's News, 12 April 2018
The Overton Window, The People's News, 6 April 2018
The Overton Window, The Internattional Times, 19 April 2018
Corbyn is no Anti-Semite, The People's News, 26 March 2018 
Corbyn Wise not to Spoil for Fight , The People's News, 15 March 2018
Disabled Man Taken off Disability Allowance, The People's News, 14 March 2018
The Calabash Tree, having a heart operation, 17 Feb 2018
NHS Privateers, The London Economic, 2 Feb 2018
Why Boris Johnson, a Face to be Punched, Public Reading Rooms review
My Disabled Son Stripped of Benefits, The London Economic, 24 Aug 2017
The Fool is for the Many, Jaroslav Hašek's novel The Good Soldier Schwejk, 14 July 2017
Music of the Spheres, Heathcote Williams play, 18 June 2017
Them or Us in the Election, The London Economic, 7 June 2017
Exposing Corruption in Charities, Guardian article about charity corruption, 16 April 2017,
Abandoning Refugee Children, The London Economic, 11 Feb 2017
In The Living Years, for Stand Alone under pseudonym, 16 Sep 2016
Who Speaks for the Refugee Children, Counterpunch after visit to Calais, 20 May 2016
Planet Zembar, Subdural Haematoma article in Huffington Post, 17 March 2015
Famous anti-Zionist Jews, Stop the War Coalition, 12 Aug 2014
What a Strange Way to Protect Civilians, article for US antiwar website about depleted uranium weapons, 16 April 2011
Bush in London, Counterpunch, 18 June 2008
The Collapse of Iraq's Health Services, Counterpunch article about collapse of Iraq's health services, 14 Oct 2006
Depleted Uranium Weapons, Future Trust, 2006
Gloucester Weapons Inspectors, Counterpunch, 30 Jan 2003
Music and War, as published by the European Journal of Intercultural Studies, Vol 10, issue 3, 1999 and in The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, University of Kansas, Fall 2000, Vol. XV, No. 8 & re-written for a chapter in Left Field



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BrianEno interview



david@davidwilson.org.uk

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Fighting Health Cats

In 2010 Defend the Whittington Coalition (DWC) was set up to stop the closure of the Accident and Emergency, Intensive Care, Maternity and Paediatric departments at the Whittington Hospital, North London. The closures were stopped. Success

In 2013 the DWC campaigned to stop the sell-off of half the hospital, including maternity services. The sell-off was stopped. Success.

More recently Whittington Hospital was told by the government to sell off land and buildings. The Whittington Board offered Ryhurst, a subsidiary of Grenfell ‘refurbishment’ contractors, Rydon, the contract to manage this project. Following another DWC campaign the hospital withdrew the offer. Success.

BUT … Rydon is now suing the hospital for breach of contract. If succesful this will result in the hospital having to pay a fine, from our health monies, to this company. The fight continues - support the Defend Whittington Campaign at Royal Courts of Justice on 9 December.

Throughout these campaigns local MP, Jeremy Corbyn, has played an active and vital role.

On Friday 29 Nov 2019, and in the middle of his busy election campaign, he arrived outside the hospital as part of his continued support.

 

 Jeremy Corbyn with Ben Gelblum of The London Economic

If you live in North London join with the DWC and defend this hospital. Wherever you live join local campaigns in defence of your hospital and oppose cuts and privatisation of our National Health Service. And for your future health vote Labour on 12 December.

The DWC banner was made by the indomitable Alice Kilroy, who despite serious illness, was there to support her local hospital.

On my way to the hospital for the rally a woman passed by and asked if I was a Labour party member. When I said 'yes' she proceeded to rant about the 'Jews' 'sabotaging' Labour's election chances. I attempted to explain the distinction between 'Judaism' and 'Zionism' Not easily done on a cold November morning when she was heading for her hospital appointment. 

When I got home I read that the Israeli President had joined the UK Chief Rabbi in attacking Jeremy in the name of the UK Jewish 'community'. This is where Zionism takes us. In attempting to stop a socialist government which would recognise Palestine, Zionists increase anti-semitism. The Israeli state is everything to them so I doubt they worry about that. I do as do Labour-voting Jews. One of these is Shirley Franklin, Chair of DWC and, like Alice Kilroy and Jeremy Corbyn, an indomitable fighter for the NHS. I am proud to stand alongside them in this struggle.

 

 JC with Shirley Franklin, Chair of DWC and Paul Mackney, ex-Gen Sec of NATFHE, today UCU

Between the Wars. The Labour Party 2019 manifesto

 

 A shorter version of this blog has been published on The London Economic

“In the twenty odd years I have known Jeremy Corbyn he has been consistently reliable, with great integrity, patience and an unassuming manner. He has neither the bombast of a Churchill, nor the slickness of a Blair. But are those the qualities we want in a leader today? Amid all the excitement of policy exchanges, his presentation of a leader for the twenty-first century as someone who is able to listen was possibly the most important point. Add to that Jeremy's capacity to feel the pain of others and to share in the joy of their amelioration and you have a much better model of leadership - one which befits a modern premier much more than the one we have experienced up to now.” Paul Mackney

 

“The game you are supposed to play in British politics is feathering your nest by feathering the nests of others. Those who refuse are denounced in the billionaire press as unfit for government. … I know the Labour party is imperfect, but what I see is a group of people seeking to solve our massive problems – environmental, political, economic, medical and social – rather than appeasing press barons and queueing at the notorious revolving door between politics and money-making." George Monbiot

 

 

I am writing this on the day Jeremy Corbyn launched the Labour Party manifesto for the December 2019 election. It is very personal for which no apologies. Some of you know me well enough to know what I think politically. Skip to the song. Some of you know me and don’t like what I think and say. Skip to the song. Some of you don’t know me and will quickly skip to the song. Some of you will read this blog and be conviced by my arguments. Enjoy the song.

 

“Trusting Johnson with the National Heath service, is like letting a python loose with your pet hamster”

former Tory PM John Major

 

This has now become the most important election of my lifetime. I was alive when the 1945 Atlee government introduced the NHS, but was too busy soiling my nappy to have been conscious of that one.

 

Until recently I have never been a member of any parliamentary political party. I agreed with Ralph Milliband that Labour was an anti-socialist party and remember attending a trade union demonstration in the 70s and agreeing with the speaker opposing a march to parliament on the grounds of not wanting to disturb the dead. But today I am one of the half a million, mostly new, members of the Labour Party because the Corbyn leadership has returned the party to its socialist roots. To quote Milliband, “In all countries, there are people, in numbers large or small, who are moved by the vision of a new social order in which democracy, egalitarianism and cooperation - the essential values of socialism - would be the prevailing principle of social organization. It is in the growth in their numbers and in the success of their struggles that lies the best hope for humankind.”

 

“This election is beween one guy who doesn’t give a fuck if you died and another who is trying to make sure you don’t die and some people think this is a hard decision” Anon

 

 

 

I am happy to join those who believe that the struggle for a new social order is taking place in this election and that the NHS is taking centre stage in that.

I have now had a few years of close relationship with our health service. I am alive because it is there and well aware of how much I have cost it. If I was living in the USA that cost would now be in excess of £250,000. Here it is free. At least for now. I am also well aware of the importance of its personnel. Who they are, where they come from and the skills that have kept me alive. My brain surgeon (subdural haematoma) was Nigerian, my heart surgeon was Egyptian, my Stroke consultant Glaswegian. Today I count one of my nurses, a Filipino, as a personal friend. This is the public health service I have benefited from and which Jeremy Corbyn defends and argues for.

 

“It’s not just Boris Johnson’s lying. It’s that the media let him get away with it” Peter Oborne, former chief political correspondent, The Daily Telegraph

 

I appeal to all those still reading this blog to join me and vote for a Corbyn-led Labour government. Your vote on 12 December is as important today as it was to the voters 74 years ago. Indeed your very lives may depend on the result.

 

"The one statistic that really hits home is that you’ve got four million children living in poverty in the UK and three out of every four of those have got a working parent … The scale of it is extraordinary and the fact is, people are working and still can’t survive .... Boris Johnson is a lout and a bully.” Ken Loach

 

I am writing this the day after it was reported in The Guardian that The NHS s running short of dozens of lifesaving medicines including treatments for cancer, heart conditions and epilepsy. As someone who has had to take heart condition drugs my response to that news is tell me why I should not vote Labour? 

Recently Michael Rosen wrote this; “I have a dream that one day I and others will walk hand in hand to the polling station and be able to vote in an election that is about the NHS, education, benefits, wages, climate change … “

On 12 December Michael’s dream becomes reality. We must all make sure that that reality does not leave us living in a nightmare.

 

It’s Time for Real Change: 2019 Labour Party manifesto

Jeremy Corbyn introducing the 2019 Labour manifesto: “This is a manifesto of hope. A manifesto that will bring real change. A manifesto full of popular policies that the political establishment has blocked for a generation.

Over the next three weeks, the most powerful people in Britain and their supporters are going to tell you that everything in this manifesto is impossible. That it’s too much for you. Because they don’t want real change. Why would they? The system is working just fine for them. It’s rigged in their favour.

But it’s not working for you. If your wages never seem to go up and your bills never seem to go down, if your public services only seem to get worse, despite the heroic efforts of those who work in them, then it’s not working for you … The US president who led his country out of the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt, had to take on the rich and powerful in America to do it. That’s why he said: “They are unanimous in their hate for me, and I welcome their hatred.” He knew that when you’re serious about real change, those who profit from a rigged system, who squirrel away the wealth created by millions of people, won’t give up without a fight … So I accept the implacable opposition and hostility of the rich and powerful is inevitable ...I accept the opposition of the billionaires because we will make those at the top pay their fair share of tax to help fund world class public services for you. That’s real change .. I accept the hostility of the bad bosses paying poverty pay because we will give Britain a pay rise, starting with a real living wage of at least £10 an hour, including for young workers. That’s real change ...I accept the implacable opposition of the dodgy landlords because we’ll build build a million homes, empower tenants and control rents. That’s real change ...I accept the hostility of the big polluters because we will make sure they pay their fair share of the costs of their destruction, create huge numbers of climate jobs and build the healthy, green economy of the future. That’s real change … I accept the fierce opposition of the giant healthcare corporations because we will stop them sucking out profits from our NHS. That’s real change … I accept the hostility of the privatised utilities companies because we will stop their great rip off by bringing rail, mail, water and energy into public ownership and running them for the people. I accept the implacable opposition of the private Internet providers because we’re going to give you the very fastest full fibre broadband for free. That’s real change.”

This is a summary of the Manifesto on the NHS; The National Health Service is one of Labour’s proudest achievements … A decade of Tory health cuts and privatisations has pushed it to the brink. Our hospitals are crumbling, equipment is outdated, IT systems are inadequate and community facilities are neglected. There are 100,000 staff vacancies in NHS England, including a shortage of 43,000 nurses. There are 15,000 fewer hospital beds … Priority is to end NHS privatisation … stabilise our overstretched A&E departments … improve stroke, heart disease and cancer survival rates by providing earlier diagnosis and improved screening rates … introduce a moratorium on bed cuts. … bring subsidiary companies back in-house … protect the rights of EU workers, other migrants and refugees … With less than one in four A&E departments having the facilities to deal with people experiencing a mental health crisis invest £2 billion to modernise hospital facilities and end the use of inappropriate, out-of-area placements …. improve access to psychological therapies … ensure provision of 24/7 crisis services … place the NHS at the forefront of the development of genomics and cell therapies so that patients can benefit from new treatments for cancer and dementia … establish a generic drug company with secure access to generic versions and abolish prescription charges.

The full manifesto can be found here

My blogs and articles on the NHS

NHS Privateers

Health V Wealth

Health Rats

Who Will Fight for the NHS

Other blogs / articles on the election

No More Tweedles

Brexit Jokers

Why Labour

OpenYour Eyes

MeetingKen

Winning the Election is the Easy Part

Them or Us

Why Labour?

All articles and blogs

 

As promised no politics without music so here is 

Billy Bragg & Between the Wars

 

 

 

 

 

Galloping NHS Privatisation

27 August 2019
 
In an article I wrote for the London Economic in February 2018 I claimed that in the years from 2010 – 2018 the NHS was no longer the public health service this country had once been so proud of. That Aneurin Bevan's claim that, “Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune, the cost of which should be shared by the community” no longer held true. That in those eight years companies such as Bupa, Virgin Care and Care UK had won more than 130 NHS service contracts worth £2.6bn to provide NHS services. 33 companies in total.

In April of this year 21 NHS contracts worth £127 million were out to tender – 19 in the two months alone of February to April 2019. These included a £91 million contract to run an NHS assessment service in the South East, a £16m deal to provide health services in Leicestershire and a £6m tender for a GP surgery in High Wycombe (source: House of Commons Library)

I do not have figures for the twelve months following my TLE article (February 2018 to February 2019) nor for the most recent four months. I can only fear that the list is growing exponentially. My GP recently sent me for an eye test, not to a hospital opthamology department, but to Specsavers. I imagine others reading this will be able to add to the list.

Can anyone tell me why I should not remain a member of the Labour Party and supporter of Jeremy Corbyn for PM?

No sane and certainly no ill person can continue to vote Conservative.

The Lib Dems anybody? Their new leader, Jo Swinson, voted to remove the restriction on the amount of income a foundation trust can earn from private charges and in support of the Government's NHS reorganisation, wth its emphasis on further privatisation. She famously backed tightening benefit sanctions in exchange for a 5p plastic bag charge.

Robin Beste - tribute and funeral notice

I first met Robin at the Stop the War Coalition. Like me, he had completed his working years and was happy to spend many hours as a political activist.
Outside office hours, I liked my pints and curries, music and a good film. Robin only had interest in the last two. He seemed to regard eating as a necessity and drank nothing stronger than tap water.
When I watched him open his lunch box of biscuits and cheese, waving his hand to reject the offer of coffee the rest of us tanked up on, I wondered if he'd always lived such a spartan existence. It did cross my mind that he might have left behind a once-dissolute life filled with drunken evenings and ribald songs, leaving him like those medieval hermit-monks who retreated to their caves to do penance.
Robin never spoke much about his life before arriving in London as a teacher, but when he did, he dropped the odd clue. When I told him I had been a devotee of The Pretty Things and found The Rolling Stones too tame, he said The Pretty Things had played at the club he once ran. When I said I had seen Muddy Waters on his London visits, it turned out that Robin, too, had been there. 'Chuck Berry in 1964 at the 100 Club?' Yes that too.
When I told him I was unable, post-stroke, to play my guitar he recommended I get myself a harmonica. There then followed a detailed email with suggestions of where to buy my Hohner Marine Band in C and suggestions for the best online tutorials with links.
Despite our shared love of Blues and Rock 'n Roll, we disagreed about Scott Walker. Robin said that he was a fan of his “in all his incarnations, including his later avant-garde albums”.
Robin was always the 'go to' person for me on what films to watch. He was a devotee of American film noir and would send me emails with lists of 'not to be missed' films. I did watch Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep, but confess that I still have a long list of films to be ticked off his recommendations. I promise him, posthumously, to track them down and view.
At his prodding I occasionally wrote for Public Reading Rooms. Among my contributions was A Face to be Punched about Boris Johnson. Recently he tried to get me to review The Deceit Syndrome written by Paul Hobday. Google Books says, “Becoming more and more alarmed about the extra misery and sickness he sees on a daily basis, his concern turns to anger when he realises this is a direct result of Government policy.” Robin said about it, “Even as a graduate with a degree in English literature, I'm obviously not the person to do this review.” At 600+ pages and on a subject I am over qualified to comment on I agreed. I turned the job down. This was not a task for me either.
Despite my occasional refusals, Robin and PRR would promote articles I had written for other online publications and generously offered me a sales platform for my memoir, Left Field.
When I was in hospital after my heart operation and again after my stroke, Robin would visit me. I was to find out later that he too had a heart 'condition' but he rarely spoke about himself and was more eager to bring his politics to my bedside for discussion.
Our political 'platforms' had taken the same route as our music; ex-SWPers but never anti those we recognised as involved in the same fight. With Jewish ancestry he was incensed by the Zionist attacks on Jeremy Corbyn and helped me with my article for The London Economic on the plight of Julian Assange. I will miss him badly from these ongoing struggles.
A few weeks after Mick Jagger had a heart operation, Robin wrote to me, “Being rich, the procedure was by trans-catheter aortic valve replacement. The technique was used to cure Tony Blair of the condition. I have atrial fibrillation. Not being rich, I was refused the procedure under the NHS.”
That was the first I knew he shared heart problems with me. We were in that fight together as well. I am so sad that he lost that one so tragically.
RecentIy I have lost a few friends to that ‘dark night’, but Robin's parting has been exceptional. When I look at his photo I not only see the man, I hear him speaking. And I cry. Something else exceptional. Manuela tells me that one minute after his last child, his son Sam, joined Manuela and his sisters at Robin's bedside, he died. They say he had been unconscious for several days with no electrical activity in his brain. Really?
I used to ring him two or three times a week. Although our conversations started with the political struggle they soon moved on to music. I enjoyed interacting with his caustic sense of humour which made him seem curmudgeonly to some people. But once your metaphoric eyes adjusted to his emotional headlights you became aware of a wonderful soul who was trying to take those around him out of a very dark tunnel. He was, in fact, lighting and enlightening the way. I will miss his headlights.
Robin is survived by his wife Manuela, daughters Dany and Alice and son Sam. Unlike Robin and me, Sam doesn't just talk music. He was a keyboard player for Amy Winehouse and today performs with his own group, Hejira.
Anne and I send our love, our condolences and our tears to them all.
I never asked Robin if he liked Lennon's'Imagine' – but I know he would have agreed with the lyrics. After all, he lived them. I can see him walking beside these two down that path, but he would have turned back at the door and refused the offer of a drink. Watch this, listen and think of this dear friend of mine.


ROBIN BESTE FUNERAL
Tuesday 11th June 2019, 11:00 - 13:00
The West Chapel, Golders Green Crematorium  62 Hoop Lane Golders Green LONDON NW1 1 7NL
No flowers. Donations to Medical Aid for Palestine (MAP) - a cause dear to Robin’s heart. 

If attending please email - manuelabeste@icloud.com