HnH attack UKIP health policy - what does this have to do with racism or fascism, and why do Smeeth & Lowles find alcoholism funny?

Hope not Hate have just posted an attack on a statement by UKIP Health Spokesman John Stanley, a surgeon and UKIP candidate, as part of their 'Purple Rain - putting UKIP under the magnifying glass' series.

Nick Lowles - finds alcohol
dependency funny

Stanley had earlier released some thoughts on how to shorten NHS waiting times particularly in A&E departments and this has included the option of patients paying to be seen where they had been triaged by a clinician as 'non-urgent' cases.

HnH have reposted an article which first appeared on the 'Left Foot Forward' blog which simply outlined the policy proposal, although Lowles couldn't help but add several snide digs at UKIP which don't appear in the original article.

We take no position on whether UKIPs suggested approach is right or wrong: that is not our purpose. Equally, interfering in debates on health policy does not appear to be Hope not Hate's purpose either, unless there is some racial dimension we have missed. It seems to us that if HnH wish to enter into a debate on healthcare and the NHS, they should have some proposals of their own to offer.



Ruth Smeeth - doesn't care that 21.8%
of A&E admissions are drug or alcohol
related

The main purpose of HnH was to rubbish suggestions that people presenting at A&E with alcohol related problems should be made to pay for their own treatment. Although HnH find this uproariously funny and suggest that several UKIP MEPs would end up forking out, had they bothered to think before publishing they would have discovered that according to a report by the NHS Confederation, a 4 month study at St James University Hospital in Leeds showed that 21.8% of admissions via A&E were alcohol related. The report further states that in a trial at St Mary's Hospital, London, a test - the Paddington Alcohol Test - was used on patients believed to be presenting with alcohol related conditions and this resulted in 46% seeking treatment for alcohol addiction problems.

Alcohol and drug additions are serious and growing problems for the NHS. Hope not Hate may find them hilariously funny and useful as nothing more than a political football, but we see precious little sign of HnH offering any positive solutions, only plenty of mockery about a condition which is not funny, and which neither they, their Labour paymasters nor their union bosses are interested in dealing with.

If Nick Lowles, Ruth Smeeth and their friends want to play at serious politics, perhaps they should come up with some alternative policies? At least then they could offer some hope to those who are suffering. Meanwhile, John Stanley - who as a surgeon has first hand experience of these problems - should be applauded for trying to find a workable solution which reduces the misery of those in the iron grip of such addictions.

 

Hope not Hate Warrington meeting report

An interesting report has been received regarding the Hope not Hate meeting in Warrington last night. We're not entirely clear whether this was a 'Stand up for HOPE' tour date, as the dates and venues of this 'public consultation' have still not been published, despite them being due 'early next week' on the 18th May.

Whether it was or wasn't, it was clear from the start that this was the point of the meeting. Attendance was sparse: the Chairman, two aides, our informant, and 5 members of the public.

The meeting itself was confused; perhaps not surprisingly as at one point the Chairman himself said that 'even in the office they can't agree on whether to go after UKIP or leave them alone'. Despite this, it was quite clear that the Chair was definitely of the opinion that they should 'go after' UKIP, and the whole direction of the meeting was clearly geared to achieving this end.

There seemed broad agreement to the idea that UKIP weren't fascist. There was less agreement on whether UKIP were racist: there was some anecdotal evidence of casual racism, and much was made of former BNP members found to be members of UKIP. The irony of this appeared to escape those attending a meeting of an organisation whose head of intelligence is ex-National Front activist Matthew Collins.

The Chair repeatedly claimed that ex-BNP members were 'fleeing' to UKIP. It was clear that either he was not aware or was not telling that up until the split between Searchlight and Hope not Hate UKIP had actively worked with Hope not Hate to try and prevent just this, a policy begun back in 2005 and continued until Hope not Hate fell under the leadership of Nick Lowles.

The meeting moved on to discuss the stream of 'racist remarks' from UKIP members. As can be seen on our Facebook page, this is not a problem which is limited to UKIP: currently half of the Labour councillors in Harrow are sitting in an Independent Labour group due to institutional racism in the Constituency Labour Party, but naturally this was not mentioned.

There was some discussion of - and disagreement with - wider UKIP policy backed up by the usual misquotes, misunderstandings and faulty logic.

These included that:

• UKIP is a single issue party
• UKIP is only interested in Europe
• UKIP would strip workers of all rights
• Where UKIP stand there is a rise in racist attacks
• UKIP leaflets are racist
• UKIP don't throw out racists quickly enough (!)

The Chairman was forced to concede that opposition to immigration is not the same as racism.

Our informant's comment perhaps best sums up the meeting: "They weren’t a bad bunch of people just misinformed and most definitely being lied to as to what UKIP is all about."