CAMPAIGN Poltical fund ballot Dalek invasio


Thatcher’s daleks are out there. We meet just three of the top rights crushers, NHS destroyers and economic illiterates


BY DAVID HENCKE


Back in the 1980s Margaret Thatcher’s government brought in a raft of anti-trade union measures designed to silence the independent and democratic organisations that successfully brought about positive change for working people.


This included the need for trade unions to re-ballot on their political funds every 10 years. And so far every trade union has maintained this key to its campaigning voice.


But today there are still many within the Conservative Party and beyond that appear not to have the rights of hard-working people at their hearts. These people are no more than “Thatcher’s daleks” – and if nothing else, they certainly emphasise the need for Unite to retain its political fund.


We meet some of the prime culprits.


Jeremy Hunt MP Health secretary, former culture secretary


Jeremy on the NHS Jeremy co-authored a book with another right wing Tory, Daniel Hannan, who described the NHS as, “a 60 year mistake” on US TV.


And before entering government, with two other Cabinet ministers – Michael Gove and Greg Clark, he contributed to a book calling for the health service to be dismantled. In Direct democracy the trio claimed it was “no longer relevant”. The book added, “Our ambition should be to break down the barriers between private and public provision, in effect de- nationalising the provision of health care in Britain.


He said he was, “incredibly encouraged by the example set by the England fans. I mean, not a single arrest for a football- related offence, and the terrible problems that we had in Heysel and Hillsborough in the 1980s seem now to be behind us.” He then had to apologise.


“I know that fan unrest played no part in the terrible events of April 1989 and I apologise to Liverpool fans and the families of those killed and injured in the Hillsborough disaster if my comments caused any offence.”


Francis Maude MP Minister in charge of transparency and privatisation across Whitehall


Francis on privatisation Old-time Tory Francis made an extraordinary speech to right wing think tank Policy


14 uniteWORKS January/February 2013


“We should fund patients, either through the tax system or by way of universal insurance, to purchase health care from the provider of their choice.”


But Douglas Carswell MP who heads the Direct Democracy think tank claims Hunt never wrote this on the NHS – it was his words. But Hunt is still a co- author of the whole work.


Not surprisingly this book seems to have disappeared from public view – not even searchable on the internet. But the fact was reported in The Mirror – visit www.mirror.co.uk/


Jeremy on the Hillsborough tragedy Jeremy gave an interview following England’s exit from the World Cup, where he applauded the behavior of fans.


Exchange on March 12, 2012. These are some of the quotes.


“Labour’s nanny state sought to mollycoddle and to micro-manage from cradle to grave. But a controlled people can never be free. And that’s why the Conservatives needed to break down the concentrated power of the state and through de-centralisation return power to the people.”


“Today more than £1bn of NHS services are already provided by mutuals. No longer should we be imprisoned by a binary choice between public services being delivered by bureaucratic monolithic public sector monopolies on the one hand; and or straight outsourcing or privatisation to commercial providers on the other. Mutuals, cooperatives and social enterprises offer ways to provide services well beyond these simplistic opposites.”


“The state is an inherently monopolistic entity and a state monopoly can be the enemy of enterprise. Within the public sector there is a legion of entrepreneurs, fired with the public service ethos but deeply frustrated with the constraints imposed by the monolith within which they are imprisoned. Liberating them as leaders of a new cohort of public service mutuals will create a whole new enterprise sector in our economy.”


Lynton Crosby Tory Party election adviser appointed by David Cameron


Former Mayor of London Boris Johnson’s adviser, now advising David Cameron, this Australian-born “Thatcher dalek” certainly has form. As adviser to right-


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