A letter a day to number 10. No 1,415
Wednesday 27 April 2016.
Dear Mr Cameron,
In your 2015 manifesto you stated the following: “We want England to be the first nation in the world to provide a truly 7 day NHS. Already millions more people can see a GP 7 days a week, from 8am-8pm, but by 2020 we want this for everyone. We will now go further, with hospitals properly staffed, so that the quality of care is the same every day of the week.”
Jeremy Hunt told the House of Commons: “No trade union has the right to veto a manifesto promise voted for by the British people… a seven-day service will help us turn the NHS into one of the highest quality healthcare systems in the world.” It already was one of the highest quality healthcare systems in the world before you started ripping it apart for privatisation.
Why is Hunt not providing proper staffing for his ‘truly 7 day NHS’, whatever that means, and is instead demanding that existing staff be stretched to cover his plans. That wasn’t a manifesto pledge, quite the reverse. Hunt is lying as usual, the BMA and junior doctors are not attempting to veto a manifesto promise, instead Jeremy Hunt is not honouring your manifesto promise and the BMA and junior doctors are rightly holding him to account.
Some ministers are apparently describing the dispute as ‘a miners’ moment – a dispute we cannot lose’. Some of us are old enough to remember what Thatcher did to the miners and coal mining, she destroyed both, so ministers should be very wary about drawing parallels with Thatchers wanton destruction and the brutality she unleashed on the miners, especially Hunt.
Hunt has said that, “The reason this has happened is because the government has been unable to negotiate sensibly and reasonably with the BMA.” That’s absolutely true, he hasn’t been able to negotiate sensibly or reasonably with the BMA due to his bloody minded intransigence. The BBC reported that government sources have said, “the BMA (is) trying to topple the government and other unions (are) watching the dispute “like hawks”. It is absurd to think that junior doctors, amongst the hardest working and hardest pressed workers in Britain have hatched a plan to topple the government, that is obscene propagandist nonsense, however, other unions should be watching like hawks because your government cannot be trusted to even tell the time of day honestly.
To be honest, your government should topple, and soon, you have alienated the nations junior doctors and their equally hard working colleagues, you have betrayed their trust along with millions of others, teachers, ambulance paramedics, the police, the fire service and every low paid worker to whom you have duplicitously given a New Living Wage which is anything but. And let’s not forget your heinous crimes against sick and disabled people and your relentless war on the poor.
All we get from your government is lies and there isn’t a single one of you who can be trusted. Hunt is behaving like some feudal overlord, it is time you all woke up and smelt the coffee, instead of being feudal throwbacks, and learnt some respect for the people and democracy.
Fear and Loathing in Great Britain 
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