{"id":2252,"date":"2014-11-18T15:38:19","date_gmt":"2014-11-18T15:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=2252"},"modified":"2014-11-19T18:00:37","modified_gmt":"2014-11-19T18:00:37","slug":"shameful-gains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=2252","title":{"rendered":"Shameful gains"},"content":{"rendered":"
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While the Tories may argue that NHS privatisation can secure funding for the beleaguered health service, a new Unite dossier reveals that the only funding the Tories care about is lining their own pockets.<\/p>\n

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In a shocking expose, Unite found that 71 coalition MPs \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 64 Tories and seven Liberal-Democrats \u00e2\u20ac\u201c had links to private health firms which will benefit from the Tories\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 NHS reforms.<\/p>\n

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All 71 MPs listed in Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dossier, including top leaders such as prime minister David Cameron, health secretary Jeremy Hunt, deputy PM Nick Clegg and business secretary Vince Cable, voted in favour of the 2012 health and social care act, which opened the NHS to billions in contracts from private firms.<\/p>\n

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These same MPs have benefited to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds in donations, share options, and other deal-sweeteners from the private health care industry.<\/p>\n

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Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said of the dossier\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s findings, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe sheer scale of this conflict of interest is staggering, but it is the ongoing sell-off of our NHS that makes this the real scandal for our democracy.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bFrom lobbying links to investments and in some cases direct donations, scores of coalition MPs who voted for the NHS sell-off had links to the very private healthcare companies which stood to profit,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

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Former health secretary Andrew Lansley, who was the chief architect of the act that prepared the NHS for future sell-offs to private firms, received a \u00c2\u014121,000 donation in 2009 from John Nash, the former chairman of Care UK.<\/p>\n

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Lansley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s successor after his 2012 sacking, current health secretary Jeremy Hunt, followed in his forerunner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s footsteps\u00e2\u20ac\u201dHunt received more than \u00c2\u014120,000 from hedge fund baron Andrew Law, a big investor in private health care.<\/p>\n

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Law has also donated over \u00c2\u01411m pounds to the Tory central office between 2008 and 2014, including two donations directly to Hunt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s constituency.<\/p>\n

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And if you think money won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily buy influence, think again.\u00c2\u00a0 Their brazen nepotism is shameless \u00e2\u20ac\u201c prime minister Cameron, for example, made nursing and care home tycoon Dolar Popat a peer shortly after he came to power in 2010.<\/p>\n

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Popat, on his part, has donated more than \u00c2\u0141200,000 to the Conservative party, including a \u00c2\u014125,000 gift registered only a week after the Tories\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 health reforms were revealed last July.<\/p>\n

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Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s research has also found that Popat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wife, who now runs the nursing and home care company, TLC Group, has reaped over \u00c2\u01414m thanks to the new commissioning groups set up in the health and social care act.<\/p>\n

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Despite the clear conflict of interest, Lord Popat was allowed to vote on the bill that made the act a reality.<\/p>\n

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Other Tory and Lib-Dem beneficiaries of the private health care industry lying in wait to destroy the NHS include:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u02d8\u00c2\u00a0 Work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith has share options in hygiene tech firm Byotrol, which sells products to the NHS.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u02d8\u00c2\u00a0 Leader of the commons William Hague accepted \u00c2\u014120,000 from MMC Ventures, part-owner of The Practice plc, which runs 60 GP surgeries.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u02d8\u00c2\u00a0 Culture secretary Sajid Javid received \u00c2\u014111,000 from Moundsley Healthcare Ltd.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u02d8\u00c2\u00a0 Deputy PM Nick Clegg accepted a \u00c2\u01415,000 donation to his constituency office from Alpha Medical Consultancy.<\/p>\n

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Additionally, seven Tory MPs have received funding from Robin Crispin Odey, whose hedge fund Odey Asset Management part-owns health giant Circle. Aside from running the first fully privatised NHS hospital at Hinchingbrooke, Circle have won a \u00c2\u0141120m contract to run musculoskeletal services in Bedfordshire.<\/p>\n

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McCluskey went on to argue that the dossier proves the extent to which the Coalition government is hell-bent on privatising the NHS.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSince the vote to sell-off our NHS, over \u00c2\u014113bn pounds of our local services have fallen into private hands. It is time to scrap the health and social care act and veto the NHS from TTIP,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For a full list of MPs\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 links to private health care, see Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dossier available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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While the Tories may argue that NHS privatisation can secure funding for the beleaguered health service, a new Unite dossier reveals that the only funding the Tories care about is lining their own pockets.   In a shocking expose, Unite found that 71 coalition MPs \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 64 Tories and seven Liberal-Democrats \u00e2\u20ac\u201c had links to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[29,81,44],"wps_subtitle":"Exposed: Coalition MPs financially linked to dozens of private health care enterprises","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2252"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2252"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2258,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2252\/revisions\/2258"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}