beyondclicktivism

By Tim Hardy

It was exciting to see the number of signatures on the epetition to drop the Health and Social Care Bill hit the 100,000 needed to qualify for a possible debate in parliament – but it is not going to achieve anything in itself.

The one thing the bill has already seen is debate. And the one thing we know about the coalition is that they’re not listening.

Rather comically, the Labour leadership’s immediate response to the popularity of the petition was to ask people to petition Cameron not to ignore the petition. One assumes that the absence of a privacy opt-out for people signing it reflects a certain incompetence in his digital strategy team rather than being a cynical attempt to build up a mailing list. Nonetheless, it can hardly be described as effective campaigning.

The value of the old fashioned, paper-based petition is that it forces people to go out on the streets and start knocking on doors and talking to people about the issue. It is the personal contact and the conversation that matters, not the numbers of names on a list that will be ignored.

With an epetition, this does not happen. Effortless campaigning is ineffective campaigning. Indeed, epetitions are embraced by government so they can pretend that they’re listening and when they continue with their original plans unabated they will claim that our input gives them a mandate to do so.

In her analysis of why “in an age celebrated for its communications there is no response” Jodi Dean has written on how digital campaigning provides “the fantasy of activity or participation”, displacing real activity:

My point is that the political efficacy of networked media depends on its context. Under conditions of the intensive and extensive proliferation of media, messages are more likely to get lost as mere contributions to the circulation of content. What enhances democracy in one context becomes a new form of hegemony in another. Or, the intense circulation of content in communicative capitalism forecloses the antagonism necessary for politics. In relatively closed societies, that antagonism is not only already there but also apparent at and as the very frontier between open and closed

Cultural Politics 54 (pdf)

Joss Hands rejects the pessimism of such a view, while acknowledging its truths, suggesting that “connection, organisation, and antagonism can, and do, exist – and, indeed, should be sought in and through digital networks.” (@ is for Activism, p.190).

Digital campaigns tweet-storming companies – such as the recent ones coordinated by Boycott Workfare and belatedly repeated by Liberal Conspiracy – are effective because these organisations are invested in their identity in the digital domain and a threat to their brand is a threat to their livelihood.

Such campaigns are less likely to work against politicians – not least when they know there are several years until the next election and they’ll have plenty of opportunity to throw a few tax cuts as bribes to voters before then.

What we need is an open-source toolkit for campaigns that uses the power of digital networks to connect and organise people to act in ways that are more effective than just emailing, tweeting, facebook messaging or digitally signing documents. Ideally, those with the most limited means of physical participation would be able to contribute by helping craft a common message, collating and refining information relevant to the campaign, providing intelligence and communication skills. Those better placed to campaign in person would be provided with a template for their own, local, autonomous actions. Such a toolkit would look something like UK Uncut at its best but without spokespeople. We don’t have one yet. There isn’t much time left to build one.

By Tim Hardy

Just days after Cameron’s attempt to railroad through the Health and Social Care Bill by inviting only those who backed it to a meeting at Number 10, The Royal College of Paediatricians and Child Health called for the bill to be scrapped, saying most members are concerned it puts children at risk.

Even while the pressure is mounting against the coalition with the overwhelming majority of health professionals now opposed to the reforms, this week sadly saw a minor defeat for opponents of the bill.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has twice broken the law by refusing to publish the risk register and is now stalling so he can put it off until it is too late for the information contained in this report to be made available to MPs voting through his reforms.

Fourteen Liberal Democrats joined seventy other MPs in signing an Early Day Motion, EDM 2659, demanding Lansley publish the risk register related to the Health and Social Care Bill. Credit is due to Dr Éoin Clarke who mobilised a team to put pressure on MPs to vote for the EDM.

Sadly, once the press had run with the “defiant Lib Dem rebels” story, only four Liberal Democrats had the principles to actually vote for the motion.

The overall vote was 299 to 246 giving a Government majority of 53.

During the debate, shadow health secretary Andy Burnham pointed out that the regional and local risk registers which have already been published contain worrying predictions for the future of health care, including poorer treatment for cancer patients.

The NHS Lincolnshire report identified a risk to “the continuation of the cancer service improvement, cancer network and the achievement of cancer waiting time target”. The risk was rated 16, which meant it was “extreme, likely to happen with major consequences”.

MPs reject NHS risk register pleas

The coalition’s continued refusal to publish the risk register suggests that horrors like this and worse are predicted nationally as a result of Lansley’s reforms.

The Liberal Democrats continue to pretend to the press that they’re opposed to the bill even though their voting record says otherwise. Today it’s Tim Farron’s time to play Mr Nice Guy, a performance lapped up by the Spectator and others as the coalition play their good cop, bad cop routine to let the junior partners save some face while they continue to vote through the Conservative changes.

As Farron plays to the gallery, the bad cops are digging in with a report bringing news of a bunker mentality at number 10 as the Conservatives warn of chaos if health reforms are dropped.

Meanwhile on a local level, Labour party members in East Riding and Hull have been challenging Lib Dems on their stance and in Hackney North and Stoke Newington, Sarah Teather has come under pressure to speak out against the health bill. Rachael Saunders has created an online petition to save Tower Hamlets health services from coalition cuts and reforms, warning

Tower Hamlets is facing a merger of our hospital services, major cuts, and primary care commissioning support slashed as our award-winning primary care trust is abolished. Tower Hamlets Labour Party is campaigning to ensure these unnecessary changes and cuts don’t take .

If the rewards of helping save the NHS aren’t enough in their own, John Ashton who is being bullied by his state employers for speaking out against the NHS reforms has promised a pint of bitter to whoever outs the Department of Health coward behind the attempt to silence him.

A BMJ report shows that, contrary to the scare stories being trotted out by the Tory press recently, the NHS already works “remarkably well” compared with health services of other countries and does not need radical reform. Indeed, as NHS campaigner Rolfe Pearce highlights, the NHS has the lowest percentage of medical or other errors in the world

The UK had the lowest percentage of patients who had experienced medical or other errors in the past two years, as well as the highest percentage whose prescriptions were kept under review.

The Morning Star gives a rousing reminder of the importance of this fight, not just in itself but as a potential turning point in the ideological war being waged by the coalition

If the Bill is defeated it could mark a turning point which sees the Con-Dem anti-public sector blitzkrieg grind to a halt.

While the government has rightly been challenged on other matters – pensions, redundancies, reform of disability allowance, opposition to academies and rising unemployment – the opposition to the implementation of the Health and Social Care Bill has become a rallying point for opponents of the Con-Dem cuts who have formed a formidable defence line.

Let us hope that the “battle of the Bill” becomes the Stalingrad of the coalition government.

More sedately, the New Statesman lead editorial urges Clegg “to stake his claim to be the last defender of the NHS” claiming it is now up to the Lib Dems to prevent the “denationalisation” of the NHS.

Given the Liberal Democrat record, I won’t hold my breath.

By Tim Hardy

While it’s cheering to see #LansleyOut trending on twitter, it’s not going to make a slight bit of difference.

Indeed if you look carefully at those now calling for Lansley to be kicked out, it’s not because of what he’s doing to the NHS – it’s because he’s not manipulating the media message well enough to keep people compliant.

A Conservative source suggests Lansley be “taken out and shot” and immediately the spin machine starts up, attacking the left as violent hypocrites for their jubilation at Tory language.  This way critics of the bill are smeared at the same time as they are distracted

Cameron has no loyalty for his fellow ministers: he’ll gladly sacrifice Lansley and while critics are celebrating a minor victory at the fall of a hated minister, the bill to open up the NHS to privatisation will pass without effective opposition.

It’s up to us to kill the bill and to work out where best to put pressure. I was glad to see Ed Miliband finally making some noise about the bill but as leader of the opposition he needs to deliver more than comment in the Sunday papers: a firm promise backing Burnham’s pledge to reverse the bill if passed could make a difference; until then, he’s just posturing.

The following are the Liberal Democrats who voted for Lansley’s reforms the first time the Health and Social Care Bill passed through the commons.

Steve Webb,
Menzies Campbell,
David Laws,
Mark Williams,
David Heath,
Stephen Lloyd,
Norman Baker,
Roger Williams,
Jo Swinson,
Don Foster,
Gordon Birtwistle,
John Thurso,
Stephen Williams,
Nick Harvey,
Norman Lamb,
Ian Swales,
Tom Brake,
Danny Alexander,
Bob Russell,
Paul Burstow,
Duncan Hames,
John Hemming,
Simon Wright,
Andrew Stunell,
Edward Davey,
Michael Moore,
Stephen Gilbert,
Simon Hughes,
Alistair Carmichael,
Tessa Munt,
David Ward,
Lorely Burt,
John Leech,
Sarah Teather,
Alan Beith,
Alan Reid,
Chris Huhne,
Jenny Willott,
Mike Crockart,
Vince Cable,
Nick Clegg

(Source: Hansard.)

You may recognise many of these names from those who voted for the Welfare Reform Bill.

These are the people who in theory are most likely to change their minds.

Clegg justifies breaking his promises to the electorate and sacrificing his values on the grounds that there isn’t a Liberal Democrat majority (which begs the question, what the hell are they doing backing the Conservatives in a coalition if doing so means they cannot stand up for their own values?). On putting pressure on the peers, he states:

Let’s be blunt: I am asking, day in, day out, Liberal Democrat peers to vote on things that they wouldn’t do in a month of Sundays if it was a Liberal Democrat government. So I don’t think people should judge the Lib Dem peers too harshly. I think they should be judged on what is finally decided. So, for instance, on the health bill, frankly I am incredibly grateful that people like Shirley Williams dug her heels in on the health bill because it’s a whole lot better than it would have been otherwise, a whole lot better. On this latest one this last week [welfare reform], I think you will find that the concern they expressed about… the transition with which, the manner with which you implement the [benefit] cap, were totally legitimate concerns.

Clegg interviewed by House Magazine.

Clegg appears to realise that he has committed too many crimes to change his mind and, like Macbeth “in blood / Stepp’d in so far”, is grimly committed to furthering the Conservative party agenda and his own eventual destruction. His fellow ministers, however, may be less happy to go down in history as the quislings who killed the Liberal Democrat party in the UK, brought shame on the democratic process and destroyed a health service built by heroes.

Those who want to lobby ministers to stop this bill might be advised to focus on these names first and also to look closely at the votes recorded in Hansard to see if any of the Conservatives who voted Aye might be convinced to change their minds. Not all Tories are free-market zealots. Many must have serious reservations about the impact of the reforms. They may not speak out in public but they won’t be so stupid as to ignore the almost unanimous opposition from the medical profession. No matter how many times Cameron lies at the despatch box claiming the opposite, health professionals overwhelmingly oppose the bill.

I’m too aware of the tactics Cameron uses to see this latest development as anything more than a distraction. There are less than three months left to save the NHS. Let’s keep our eye on the real target and not let the Conservatives sacrifice a pawn to win the game.