Day seven. Denial. (7/1/19)

(Soundtrack: New Order's debut 'Movement'. For two reasons; 1) the feature in this month's Uncut 2) I really need some of the fury of the early 80s right now. 'Movement' doesn't sound furious but it puts me back in 1981)

Theresa May came to Liverpool today.

Theresa May came to Liverpool.

Think about that. Think about the sheer stupidity that takes. Think about the level of hubris required for her to appear on our streets. Behind the tinted windows of a car in the midst of a convoy. Think of the sheer arrogance and ignorance that would allow her to think that, somehow, in some universe, she was welcome in this city. After acquiring, through default and the cowardice and stupidity of all other supposed contenders, the leadership of the party that has done more harm to this city than any other organisation or event in history, she dares to show up here?

Really?

Her presence was required to launch her government's new initiative to pump much needed funds into a failing NHS. Strangely, the NHS wasn't actually failing until her party took power. Labour had an NHS which still obviously needed attention but was, by and large, fit for purpose. Some may argue that stance. After all, I'm not backing it up with figures. I am, however backing it up with cold, hard experience.

As a family we've had a lot of experience of the NHS over the last twenty years. We have seen our sons born under an NHS managed, guarded and treasured by a Labour government. We have seen my father and J's mother pass away in the same hospital under an NHS struggling from funding cuts brought about by the Tories under the pretence of creating efficiency. We have seen the obvious fact that care has been cut. Not the concept of care but the practicalities. The staff working in the NHS are there because they care. The level of staff in the organisation has suffered from the NHS's treatment at the hands of a government who do not care for a system that sees people provided with healthcare that is, and always should be, free at the point of need.

We know of the number of staff who have left the system under the Tories, no longer able to cope with the stress of working under unbearable pressure brought by the cuts that the Tories will swear blind have never been made. We have had the anecdotal evidence first hand: the lady who drove the ambulance to Aintree Hospital when J's mum went in for the last time was the same who had taken my dad on his last occasion two years earlier. We both recognised each other immediately. I recognised her because it's not the kind of thing that fades too readily from your mind. She recognised me because she, like so many others, was bloody good at her job and stayed in her job because she cared about the health of her patients and their families.

We didn't acknowledge that we recognised each other at first. She was doing her job, brilliantly, with the dedication that we expect from our nursing and ambulance staff. We had plenty of time to talk later though, while we queued in a corridor for three hours. A corridor filled with beds from ambulances filled with patients waiting to see the over worked under staffed doctors in triage and emergency; none of the ambulance crews able to leave until their patient was with a doctor. Not enough doctors to process patients quickly enough. Ambulances not able to take to the road again until their previous patient was fully admitted. A&E filled with the people who would previously have visited their GP, GPs struggling to cope with the people who would previously have received home visits and social care. All the victims of an organisation that had been deprived of any kind of joined up thinking.

She was more than open with us, able to describe how bad the job had become, how many people had left. Lured away by easier jobs with better pay and preferable hours, how many had moved abroad where their skills were more valued, how many had gone against their instincts and moved into private medicine because it would afford them a better life in better conditions.

It was a long conversation. We had a lot of time.

I won't describe the experience of the wards and the issues caused by a lack of experienced staff leading to the NHS having to pay for agency staff to cover gaps, leading to money that could be spent on recruiting and training staff being wasted on paying agency commission as a quick fix. I won't give you details as they're personal. Suffice to say, the care from the dedicated full time staff is still as magnificent as you could wish, under trying conditions, but the physical state of the wards is a long way from what it used to be, from what it should be. And a million miles away from what you'll see in private medicine.

The Tories have always hated the NHS. I don't care what they claim, it's in their DNA. The idea of free universal healthcare? Looking after the poor? With no profit? It's so far from their ideology it's not even funny. They've been desperate to privatise as much as possible for decades. And, yes, I know, Blair introduced outside agencies into the NHS. Trust me, I don't forgive him for that either. The Tories though? How much have they sold to Richard Branson so far? Virgin Care runs Ormskirk and Southport's community and walk in service already. It's taken control of services across the country. It sued the NHS for not giving it a contract it thought it should have. Virgin sued the NHS. Does it get any more low than that?

The Tory plan has been obvious since they wheedled their way back into power by accepting Nick Clegg's soul as sacrifice: ensure that they could point at the NHS, say "it's not fit for service" and suggest that privatisation might be necessary.

Then sell it to their mates, their funders and American investors to make a profit from something that is ours by right. Like they have with every other bloody thing this country has ever owned.

Theresa May chose Liverpool to launch her NHS plan as the new Alder Hey children's hospital is a state of the art development.

She chose it because she could point at Alder Hey, opened under Tory government but commissioned under Labour, and say "this is what we have achieved."

She chose to launch her new 'caring' NHS policy, providing much needed funds, much needed because of the damage her party has done to the greatest invention this country has ever produced, in a hospital which was built with £50m of European funding. An achievement which will no longer be possible as she drives us toward a Brexit that no sane person wanted.

Honest to god, you can't make this stuff up.

The media attended. Theresa had a little list of the reporters she would take questions from. Our local paper was allowed in the room. To listen.

And nobody pointed out that a few miles away the Royal Liverpool Hospital is falling apart while the shell of the building that was supposed to replace it stands unfinished and unused because this government commissioned Carillion to carry out the work and then watched as a company that didn't have the resources to complete such projects went out of business with no way of filling the void.

Please god, get these hypocritical, lying bastards out.