UK

In this abridged article published by the London Daily Mirror and based on his 1975 film, ‘Smashing Kids’, John Pilger describes how class remains the most virulent disease in Britain, resulting in record levels of child poverty.

The Dirty War on the NHS was first broadcast in Britain on the ITV Network on 17 December, 2019. It was shown following the general election that saw Boris Johnson become prime minister – even though the future of the NHS was a major issue in the campaign.

The remarkable prescience of the film became clear when the COVID pandemic struck, and the NHS, crippled by bed shortages, the starvation of resources and accelerating privatisation, could not cope. This was the film’s warning – a warning also delivered in 2016 when a full ‘drill’ for a pandemic showed the NHS would barely survive such an emergency. The politicians and managers did nothing; the report of the results of the drill was suppressed.

The ideological assault on the world’s first public health service continued at the height of the COVID crisis with inept private firms given lucrative contracts for PPE and mass testing. The Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, an arch privatiser, announced in August 2020 that in future most GP consultations would be be online. Hancock’s association with the tech company, Babylon Health, is dealt with in The Dirty War.

WATCH THE FILM

The film’s website is www.thedirtywaronnhs.com

The following review by Jean Shaoul appeared on the World Socialist Website- www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/12/10/dirt-d10.html

As the Tories plot to get rid of Prime Minister Theresa May, John Pilger analyses the alternative Labour Party, specifically its foreign policy, which may not be what it seems.

In this investigation, John Pilger raises questions about the role of the British ‘deep state’ in the atrocity that killed 22 in Manchester on 22 May 2017.

John Pilger argues that the referendum result represents a deeper, more dynamic anger than the reasons rehearsed by politicians and the media and offers a glimpse of hope.

The prime minister’s “we are at war” statements are irresponsible in
the extreme. It is said that some of his senior officials understand
this, as do many MPs: thus the messages of “restraint” now being
whispered to journalists.

Today is a day of shame for the British military as it declares the
Iraqi city of Basra, with a stricken population of 600,000, a “military
target”.

John Pilger describes the disenchantment with parliamentary politics as the British “coalition” government pursues its devotion to ‘an extreme political cult of money worship’. He suggests there is only one course of action now.