UK
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Hospital closure clause – day of action 27th February
Fight to protect your local hospital from fast-track closure! A day of action in London on Thursday 27th February. Continue reading
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Drone Wars: UK Becomes New Pakistan? Live Drone Training Flights Target Local Residents
Drone Wars UK understands that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) will announce on Monday (24 Feb) that live training flights of the Watchkeeper drone will begin over Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire. Continue reading
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Moazzam Begg a Political Prisoner Again By Craig Murray
Moazzam Begg has not been arrested for terrorism in Syria. He has been arrested to stop him digging for further evidence of complicity in torture by senior politicians and civil servants in the UK. Continue reading
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The David Miranda ruling and the attack on press freedom By Julie Hyland
The formulations employed by Lord Justice Laws, Mr. Justice Ouseley and Mr. Justice Openshaw in their judgement last Wednesday go far beyond this one incident—itself an unprecedented assault on journalistic freedom. They point to the outlawing of any notion of a “free press.” On the spurious grounds of “anti-terrorism” and “national security”, no one is… Continue reading
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NHS privatisation: Compilation of financial and vested interests
This list represents the dire state of our democracy. The financial and vested interests of our MPs and Lords in private healthcare. Continue reading
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UK: Refugee women in the UK: fighting back from behind bars By Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi
The experience of female asylum seekers is distinct to their gender, particularly when survivors of rape and torture, perpetrated by male state officials, are imprisoned and guarded by men here in the UK. Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi reports on the campaign to set them free. Continue reading
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The land of the living dead: Jeremy Paxman and Max Hasting’s Britain By Gerry Hassan
Britain’s elite is telling misleading stories about its noble history because for the majority of British people there is little hope for the future. The UK has become a state obsessed with the power of the past – but a re-imagined past created to mask the exhaustion of the older, positive accounts and the wanton… Continue reading
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Don’t close our hospitals on the quiet, protesters tell Health Secretary By Jos Bell
From Yorkshire to London, hospitals are under threat – and the government is trying to make them far easier to close on the quiet…Lewisham Campaigners were in usual dogged but polite mode when they dropped in to see Jeremy Hunt. He can’t say he wasn’t warned. A year ago he had hidden from a Valentine’s… Continue reading
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medConfidential Bulletin, 21st February 2014
As you will by now be aware, on Tuesday afternoon the Director of Patients and Information at NHS England, Tim Kelsey, announced a second 6 month delay to the uploading of data from GP practices across England. The first delay to uploads last September was only achieved after medConfidential had alerted the Information Commissioner’s Office… Continue reading
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Police State UK: UK ruling against David Miranda escalates assault on democratic rights By Robert Stevens
In what was clearly a politically motivated judgment, the High Court in London ruled Wednesday that David Miranda, the partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald, was detained lawfully when he was held for nine hours last August at London’s Heathrow Airport. The 28-year-old Brazilian was in transit from Germany to Brazil when he was arbitrarily detained… Continue reading
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All washed out: What floods reveal about UK political elite By Neil Clark
The terrible impact that the ongoing floods have had over large parts of Britain – and the government response to the disaster – tells us much about the political system we now live under and in whose interests our government acts. Continue reading
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Police State UK/US: Authoritarian Regimes (Like the U.S. and Britain) Treat Reporters Like Terrorists
It is widely known that authoritarian regimes use “anti-terror” laws to crack down on journalism. But this extreme tactic is becoming more and more common. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported a year ago that terrorism laws are being misused worldwide to crush journalism: Continue reading
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NHS IT boss Kelsey wrongly claims care.data leaflet sent to 100% of homes By Jane Fae
Confidence in NHS England’s commitment to transparency and openness received another blow this morning as a full and frank explanation of yesterday’s events by NHS IT Director Tim Kelsey made two more inaccurate and misleading statements about the care.data leafleting process. Continue reading
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NHS England delays share of personal data By Jane Fae
As criticism of the controversial care.data scheme reached a crescendo last night, and with at least two possible legal challenges now under way, NHS England finally gave in to critics, announcing a further six month pause to the project – and yet more money to be spent on publicity campaigns. Continue reading
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On Brighton beach: austerity, alienation and the battle for democracy By Adam Ramsay
The neo-liberal project has purged democracy from almost every corner of our lives. In doing so, it has changed our understanding of the world, and so who we are. A council tax referendum in Brighton would be a signal that England’s democratic soul is still alive. Continue reading
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Statewatch News Online, 18 February 2014 (04/14)
18 February 2014 — Statewatch – e-mail: office@statewatch.org Thanks to all those who made a generous donation last month. It would be really appreciated if other Statewatchers could make a contribution this month. Kind regards, Tony Bunyan Continue reading
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Autoasphyxiation – Who’ll stop the market suffocating the NHS? By David Zigmond
The toxic burden of the market is dooming the NHS to disintegration and depersonalisation – yet GPs coralled into Clinical Commissioning Groups aren’t even allowed to question it. Continue reading
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Snowden’s lawyer: ‘Lawyers targeted in ‘democratic countries’ on the basis of who they represent’
Questions must be raised about the integrity of a judicial system that allows attorneys working on someone’s case to be harassed and intimidated on the basis of whom they represent, Jesselyn Radack, Snowden’s lawyer, told RT. Continue reading
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Top Brit docs wade into GP data grab row, demand ‘urgent’ NHS England talks By Kelly Fiveash
Pressure is mounting on NHS England to stall its incoming data grab of GP-stored medical records, after another health body said that the government needed to improve public awareness of the controversial scheme. Continue reading
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Widespread abstention in UK’s Wythenshawe by-election By Julie Hyland
The Wythenshawe and Sale East by-election held Thursday was a lacklustre affair marked by widespread abstention and the absence of any popular base for all the competing parties–the coalition government in particular. Continue reading
