Hospitals' Dirty Secrets Uncovered

The dirty underbelly lurking beneath New Labour's shiny new temples to the NHS has been laid bare in a shocking indictment of patient care riddled with Third World filth and neglect.

The NHS may well be "world-class" when it comes to treatment but when it comes to standards of care, it's down there with the dross.

An urgent review of basic hospital care is being demanded by a leading patient lobby group after a major report exposed "appalling" NHS standards.

Relatives told the Patients Association how patients, often the elderly, were left lying in faeces and urine and were not helped to eat.

The horrifying report focused on 16 harrowing accounts of basic nursing and domiciliary care which the association says are just a tip of the iceberg. 2% of patients surveyed felt that their care was unacceptable.

Government-blessed nursing bosses and quango kids were quick on the defensive, arguing the NHS treats millions of people every day and the vast majority of patients experience "good quality, safe and effective care".

Never mind the vast majority - what about the silent minority? The proportions still represent hundreds of thousands of patients. Even two per cent is too many.

The hospital standards watchdog reckons its surveys show just 93% of patients rate their overall care as 'good or excellent'. So that means 7% are not happy with the service.

Every patient deserved to be treated with dignity. But relatives told of problems getting help from nurses and how patients were left with sandwiches or drinks in packaging which they could not open.

Treatment at the hands of some nurses was tantamount to cruelty.

Grave lapses in standards of care were highlighted earlier this year at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust which families described as "Third World" conditions, with some patients drinking water from vases and lying for hours in soiled bedding.

That kind of appalling treatment could be found across the NHS.

The group's president, ex-nurse Claire Rayner, called for "bad, cruel nurses" to be struck off. Fat chance.

Using the tired old excuse, nursing bureaucrats have repeated the bullsh*t mantra that the report may undermine public confidence in the "world-class" (sic) care and dampen staff morale.

The Orange Party is sure where the blame lies and it is not at the feet of the nursing profession.

Hospitals are bogged down with a management structure obsessed with targets and obsessed with making ends meet to pay for the legacy of a PFI build.

Something has to give and that's patient care, cleaning and the basic standard of care one would expect from the NHS.

Politicians were quick to fall over themselves professing their undying love for the dear old NHS as it was dragged into the US healthcare civil war. At a stroke that stifled the need for a proper debate over the future of the NHS and health care. The NHS has lost its way.

Once a byword for "free" medical care for all at the point of delivery, billions of pounds are now squandered on useless PR health puffs. Cash which should be going into patent care is being used to prop up and massage the egos of government ministers and quango cronies playing politics with the NHS and people's lives.

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Mandy's After Dinner U-Turn On Pirates

Naughty nautical Mandy is at it again, threatening to cut off movie pirates in their prime. Who was he lording it up with while running the country and sunning himself in Corfu? Step forward US Hollywood mogul David Geffen. There's no business like a bit of showbiz business.

Revelations in the Sunday Times that Mandy ordered officials to draw up draconian regulations on internet piracy just days after he had a private dinner with a Hollywood mogul who is a critic of illegal file-sharing, brought howls of denial.

And a sharp intake of breath after reading such a long sentence.

There had been no discussion of internet piracy during the Corfu dinner, said a spinner.

But an ever reliable Whitehall source was quick to put the boot in: “Until the past week Mandelson had shown little personal interest in the Digital Britain agenda. Suddenly Peter returned from holiday and effectively issued this edict that the regulation needs to be tougher.”

The Times smells a rat with Mandy's U-turn a sign of caving into lobbyists.

What is it with the unelected and unaccountable deputy prime minister-in-all-but-name and his summer jaunts with the rich kids?

Everything Mandy touches ends up mired in a dodgy mess. What with Gaddafi the Younger and that Russian billionaire bloke, the fall-out is popping up all over the place. His hols should be banned as a political public health hazard.

It's all a remarkable coincidence. Mandy’s intervention comes after dinner with Geffen, the billionaire producer who co-founded the DreamWorks studio with Steven Spielberg.

The chance to cut a few deals with guests of the super-rich members of the Rothschild banking clan at the family’s luxury Corfu holiday villa was too good to miss.

Until the Mandelson edict, the most serious sanction planned against internet pirates was a tickle on the torrents. Now the clampdown, in a so-called Digital Britain bill, could see people who illegally download films and music cut off from the net with regulator Ofcom given greater powers to tackle pirates. ISPs are up in arms.

Cryptically the BBC reports: "It is believed that Business Secretary Lord Mandelson has intervened personally to beef up the policy." Well shiver me Long John Silvers.

That's what happens when you leave an unelected peer with a BlackBerry in charge. Old Blairite habits die hard.

Wasn't it Blair who rushed back from a freebie holiday with Sir Cliff, the Peter Pan of Pop Song Royalties, to bang on about extending the royalty time-limit at a Cabinet which should have been discussing high affairs of state?

Will the download crack-down make it to the statute books? Many back-benchers believe anything that has the mark of Mandy has the kiss of death.

The Orange Party doesn't know what all the fuss is about. All that fiddling about with CGI effects putting black patches over one eye and dubbing everyone with rough Ooh-arrghs - just to make a pirate DVD.

Top picture: Mandelson greets Geffen on the 'Rising Sun' luxury yacht in Corfu (Mail)

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Voters Won't Stomach More Bouncy Brown

Bouncy Brown is back on the ropes. Hopes of a summer fight-back have been dashed with a snapshot summer poll showing Labour voters prefer delectable Dave to the struggling Supreme Leader. Even the Party faithful are deserting in droves. Brown-beaten voters haven't the stomach for yet another fight-back.

Analysis of opinion polls are best left to politicalbetting and UK polling but every now and again one comes along which brings a smile to the face and wipes the smug smile of the faces of the cronies who are crippling the country. The Guardian/ICM poll does just that.

Asked, regardless of individual party preferences, whether a Tory government under Cameron, or a Labour one under Brown, would be best for the country, most people backed Dave.

And it gets worse. A Cameron government is the clear preference of most LibDems.

For a short while it seemed people were been taken in by the great big grin and believed the summer spin.

Despite relentless policy attacks from the summer stand-in Supreme Leaders in waiting, the row over who loves the NHS most and the muddled mess over the hopeless Afghan war, has seen the Tories extend their lead to 16 points.

Now even 24% of current Labour voters think the Tories would improve the NHS. The Tory lead on other policies, including education, is bigger.

That should come as no surprise but it does raise a smile and raise a real fear.

The great muddled mass in the middle are finally making up their minds. The Tory lead will grow stronger as sure as eggs is eggs as voters make a positive decision to vote Tory rather than a disillusioned protest vote against the New Labour government.

Nick Cohen has already hit the nail on the head: “The campaign will be a massacre. Four weeks of Cameron - whom you can’t help liking even if you disagree with him - vs Brown - whom you can’t help disliking even if you agree with him”.

The Orange Party has long banged the drum for an early election, ever since bottling Brown, well bottled it in the heady summer of love. Not out of dotting love for Dave and the boys and girls in blue but out of love for a Labour Party highjacked by Blairite lies, spin and deceit.

That early election view was shared by some political strategists but not by New Labour politicians who want to hang on until the bitter end in the hope that something would turn up while they scrabble around to feather their own nests.

A new Party may rise which is not in the pockets of big business and which is not paying lip-service to civil liberties and meddling with peoples lives. But voters should be careful what they wish and vote for.

The government has lost the August battle. Now the phoney war is hotting up with tight-lipped Brown crawling out of the woodwork reportedly ready to issue a shopping list of spending cuts in a desperate bid to reign in self-inflicted public debt.

What is the point of an autumn 'fight-back' when all the trust has gone up in smoke and mirrors? Give it a rest and give up. The Party might pick up a few votes.

The proverbial parrot of the New Labour project isn't resting. It's dead. While licking its wounds, the Labour Party has a chance to purge itself of Blair-lites. The Party can return to its roots and rediscover its once popular purpose.

New Labour deserves a good kicking at the election but the total wipe-out which is on the cards makes for unhealthy politics. The fear is that will leave a Party so demoralised, so disillusioned and so roundly beaten, it will not even make the grade as a credible opposition. It will be 1997 all over again but with the tables turned.

The Orange Party is the first in the queue to volunteer as cheerleader for the demise of New Labour. But at this rate it will take another decade before a credible Labour Party is ready to fight again, leaving a decade of a Tory government to do whatever takes its fancy.

That is the Brown legacy and the legacy of a fag-end government which refuses to put itself or the country out of its misery as it clings on for its own selfish and arrogant ends.

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Macavity Brown's Masterstroke Of Spin

Scotland is the fall-guy in the fall-out of the release of the Lockerbie "bomber" in a masterstroke of spin. The Scottish parliament is recalled to defend its decision. But it's the UK parliament which should be recalled and Macavity Brown called to account.

You have to hand it to the New Labour government. It is pulling-off a masterstroke to get SNP arch-enemy Salmond in the frame to take the flak and smooth the way for the UK to strike oil.

A masterpiece of government spin is managing to turn the tables, blaming the Scots for the dastardly decision to release al-Magrahi on compassionate grounds.

A spectacular wave of American outrage has swept across the Atlantic. The SNP and justice minister MacAskill seem to be under fire from all sides.

But in the US, it is bunkered Brown not Salmond who's in the firing line. Influential website Drudge screams with a large picture of Brown and the question: "YOU DID WHAT?!"

Former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, has called for a congressional hearing into how the US government lobbied the UK over the release.

Pictures coming out of Libya splash al-Magrahi whopping it up with Gaddafi and his son.

But if pictures tell a thousand words then it is those of Blair with Gadaffi and the shameful 'deal in the desert' and Brown shaking hands with his new best friend that are the more telling.

The whole squalid charade stinks. Scotland is just a pawn in the diplomatic shenanigans. Someone's playing politics over Lockerbie. In the world of diplomatic spin, Whitehall has pulled a fast one over Holyrood.

Weekend disclosures in the Observer and elsewhere reveal Brown at the centre of detailed discussions with the Libyan dictator and a foreign office endorsing the Scots' decision. But bunkered Brown has steadfastly refused to speak publicly which once again calls into question his leadership.

Mandy too is in the frame, meeting Gaddafi the younger twice in the past four months with a "fleeting" discussion about al-Megrahi while sunning himself in Corfu.

Al-Megrahi's release was "on the table in all commercial, oil and gas agreements" and other dealings with Britain, according to Tripoli.

Misplaced outrage over the release of the Lockerbie Libyan and the wave of political posturing are hiding the shameful dealings in the aftermath of the atrocity.

Lockerbie's dirty secrets are only slowly beginning to unravel. Deals stuck over trade and oil are only part of the plot.

Al-Megrahi’s release has been on the cards for some time in a carefully orchestrated plot to stop a hugely embarrassing appeal, hide the truth over the bombing and to get a hold of Libya's oil and gas. That appeal would have laid bare failings in the original verdict and the manipulation of evidence.

The Orange Party has long held the view the casualty here is justice and the truth about the bombing of Pan Am flight 103. With no appeal, only with a full public inquiry demanded by the bereaved families of some of the victims, would that truth be known. But for the moment that remains a side-issue.

The heat is on many politicians to explain their involvement in the controversial decision to release the Lockerbie "bomber", who was serving a life sentence for the mass murder of 270 people in 1988.

Former US ambassador Bolton said: "I'm appalled by the decision of the Scottish government. But I'm more appalled by the decision of the British government apparently to see commercial advantage for the UK in having this mass murderer go free. We wait to hear from Prime Minister Brown what he thinks."

Bolton may have to wait a while for tight-lipped Brown. Downing Street is sitting tight. In the spinning world, it the wrong Scot who is taking the flak and the wrong parliament which has been recalled.

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Lockerbie's Dirty Secrets Ignored

Misplaced outrage over the release of the Lockerbie Libyan and the wave of political posturing are hiding the shameful dealings in the aftermath of the atrocity. The casualty is justice and the truth about the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 which now will never be known.

US relatives of victims of the 1988 bombing were quick to express their anger and disgust after Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill released the 57-year-old Libyan, who is dying of cancer, on compassionate grounds.

But that is in sharp contrast to some of the victims’ families here in the UK, who believe there has been a miscarriage of justice and an appeal would have been the only way to find out the truth.

Al-Megrahi’s release has been on the cards for some time in a carefully orchestrated plot to stop his appeal, hide the truth over the bombing and to get hold of Libya's oil and gas.

That appeal would have laid bare failings in the original verdict and the manipulation of evidence.

Blair's slimy 'deal in the desert' with Libyan dictator, colonel Gaddafi, started the ball rolling. The deal was sealed when Libya formally admitted responsibility paving the way for al-Megrahi’s release.

Justice minister Jack Straw rushed through the prisoner transfer deal. Brown and Obama rushed to be Libya's new best friend in a rush to grab the oil. Mandelson was caught out in cahoots with Gaddafi's son who also has ties with Prince Andrew.

Everything hinged on cosying up to Libya to secure trade, oil and gas deals. Al-Magrahi told Libyan TV his release was tied to those deals according to The Times.

But an appeal would open up old wounds. Halting the appeal in its tracks would prevent a major embarrassment to both the UK and US governments and Scottish justices who returned the original guilty verdict.

Any hopes that an al-Megrahi appeal would go ahead in his absence was never going to be allowed to happen. Dutifully he dropped his appeal in return for safe passage to Libya to die with his family.

Theories over the motives and perpetrators centre on who was behind the bombing and which country was pulling the strings. A CIA intelligence report from December 1988 makes no mention of Libya. Instead it points to a pro-Iranian group (opposite, click to enlarge).

One of the most widely held theories is Iranian revenge using Syrian-based terrorists in retaliation for the shooting down of the Iran Air Airbus by USS Vincennes in 1988. Libya was only later brought in the frame when both Iran and Syria needed to be kept on-side for the US-led Iraq-Kuwait war.

Al-Megrahi’s trial and conviction was a travesty of justice based on spurious circumstantial evidence.

Doubt on the conviction has been cast by some families of the bereaved and some journalists, most notably by investigative journalist Paul Foot. Attempts have been made to re-open the case amid allegations that Libya was framed.

Key testimonies of two witnesses in the pay of the CIA were crucial. But one was a notorious liar and paid informer, the other a dodgy Maltese shopkeeper who allegedly identified al-Megrahi as the man who bought clothes said to have been packed round the bomb.

Some forensic evidence appeared to have been tampered with and evidence withheld, including a serious breach in security in Heathrow at the Pan Am baggage area on the day of the bombing.

None of these disturbing issues have been aired in the media frenzy and political outpourings of outrage following al-Megrahi's release and jubilant welcome home. Tory leader, David Cameron is demanding to know why Macavity Brown is keeping his head down and hiding away from the diplomatic fall-out.

The deep outrage, anger and disgust would be better directed towards the UK and US governments and the justice systems that have conspired with years of hypocrisy and deceit to deny the full facts over the Lockerbie bombing.

Eleven Lockerbie residents were killed along with 259 air passengers when the Pan Am flight exploded in mid-air, at the time the worst mass murder in UK history. Without a full public inquiry demanded by the bereaved families of some of the victims, that truth will never be known.

Picture: Al-Megrahi in Libya with Col Gaddafi's son, Seif al-Islam Gaddafi.

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Bursting The Inflated A-Level Bubble

Mickey Mouse A-levels and dumbed down exams. Too many fresh faces chasing too few places. Thousands of anxious pupils await the fickle finger of fate with yet more record results and record straight As. The inflated A-level results bubble lets everyone down.

After jumping through hoops it's time to jump up and down before the smile is wiped away and harsh reality kicks in.

The goal posts have been moved. The rules of the game have been changed. Dumbed-down exams do no-one any favours. Hard-working students know it's all a con but are forced to go along with the ride.

There are plenty of students who've studied their socks off to win a place at a proper university. The Orange Party takes its mortarboard off to them. But for most it's a reward for failure. Youngsters are left demoralised and fearful of a future with nothing to look forward to than a life on the dole and mountain of student debt.

The system breeds failure. Those at the bottom are given false hope and unrealistic expectations with a dodgy course at scum-bag poly. Those at the top are not being stretched and steered away from 'hard' subjects to 'soft 'studies' so schools and politicians look good.

No doubt Ed "Didn't I Do Well" Balls or one of his minions will be shouting the results from the rooftop. Never mind the quality feel the quantity. Another record pass rate from the most hard-working, cleverest pupils in the world. But there's nothing "progressive" about cheating deprived children out of a proper education.

Balls' cock-eyed schoolboy experiment in social engineering has been a miserable failure. The pipe-dream to improve social mobility has had the opposite effect.

Far from closing class divisions, New Labour policy is widening the gap with a system bending over backwards to be so 'equal' it fails almost everyone.

Youngsters deserve more than dumbed down exams and moving the goalposts to massage pseudo-educational credentials and ministers' egos.

State schools are shunning traditional academic subjects, as the government encourages bog standard schools to take ‘soft options’ with 'studies' in the title. More state school pupils should be going to proper universities to read proper subjects. But the system drives down standards.

A-levels are becoming 'Mickey Mouse' qualifications, according to the think tank Civitas, failing to stretch the brightest youngsters and the government is in the thick of it.

Teachers said better marks were not due to improved lesson standards or more talented candidates. The rise in A grades is because exams are easier to pass and students are granted multiple re-sits blamed in part on the 'modular' system, with courses broken up into bite-sized bits to boost scores.

The system is a shambles. The standard now so low it’s a national disgrace. No-one trusts A-levels not least students, parents, employers and universities.

Times are tough. Universities have been forced to cap places and forced to entice over overseas students to make ends meet. This year some 60,000 will find no place and no job to fall back on.

Ministers should have thought of that before setting off to cloud cuckoo land to get 50 per cent of teenagers into university.

Tories are determined to do something about dumbed-down exams promising to toughen up the examinations system, with a focus on harder questions and more credit for youngsters studying 'hard' subjects rather than the 'soft' options.

That's a welcome start but for years politicians of all colours have dabbled in the education game and A-levels have been reduced to a numbers game.

Today that's to be expected from a stalinesque government department of education, schools, dinner ladies and whatever which has built its fortunes on a lie.

The rot trickled down from Whitehall to Town Hall, as an ideological battle was fought between the do-ers and do-gooders. Rigourous study of an academic subject gave way to idealistic babble about the rounded individual.

Exams have no place in that School of Life. Teachers have been turned into learning support workers. Inspiring teachers imparting a body of knowledge to young, eager minds willing to learn are becoming a thing of the past.

A whole generation is being lost in a sea of confidence tricks, false hopes and unrealistic expectations. Just what is the point of giving everyone a worthless piece of paper? Call it a day and dole out a school leaving certificate.

Reward students with success in proper exams by scrapping crippling student fees and loans. Put more money into funding more places at proper universities for proper subjects.

Leave the universities to set their own entrance exams with their own exam boards. Isn't that where A-levels first started?

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Barmy Obama Loses His Marbles-Shock

Americans have woken up to the shocking news their beloved president Obarmy is just that. Nutty as a fruitcake. Where's the smiley salesman who the US took to its heart and took voters for a ride? The Messiah has lost his marbles.

A side-ways snipe at beloved Barry? Hey man, the Orange Party read it in the Daily News:

"Where have you gone, Barack Obama? Where is the sunny-side-up young man who promised to inspire and unite an unhappy nation? Let's find him quick because the whole nation is paying the price for this impostor's irrational exuberance. Or hubris."

More and more Americans are feeling fed-up with the ever expanding big government, mountain of debt, a crazy civil war over health care and a more crazy war in Afghanistan.

Yet Barry is bouncing back the only way a slick snake-oil salesman can, by going back to grassroots fans to win over hearts and minds on a born again healthcare campaign trail.

But the public's not buying it. Recent Gallup Polls show the superstar's star is starting to fade.

The backlash over the health reform plan is spreading like a rash. Even pseudo-liberal media commentators who sold their soul to hitch a ride on the Obama bandwagon have started some serious soul-searching.

The Manic Messiah has turned into a Desperate Depressive throwing everything at the campaign expect the White House puppy.

Whatever happened to that smooth-talking rock-star superstar and the carefully stage-managed teleprompter president?

The Onion has an explanation for the two-faced fakir's demented demise - the guy's gone nuts:

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Young Jobless Left With Legacy Of Despair

A legacy of despair is being left behind by a fag-end government with a lost generation of youngsters sinking in a sea of despondency and destined for a life on the dole. After a decade of dire jobs drivel, shocking figures reveal the true extent of a government paying lip-service to any pretence of working 'Labour' credentials.

A Policy Exchange think tank report based on official DWP figures over the last ten years makes grim reading. The true extent of the jobs figures sham highlights a shocking 6 million poor souls on out-of-work benefits.

And that comes as embarrassing official figures reveal record numbers of Neets - the 18-24-year-olds not in school, college or work so beloved of jobs figures manipulators.

According to quarterly figures, there are now more than 100,000 more 18-24-year-olds Neets - not in education, employment or training - than there were a year ago. That's now a disgraceful 835,000.

Given half a chance very few people would choose to live on state handouts. But when you are being screwed for a job left right and centre there's little choice.

Pride gives way to despair as hope is abandoned for all those who try to enter a dwindling jobs market. And with forced unemployment comes crime and punishment from a society of the fortunate few.

Hiding his head in the sand for the last ten years, chancellor Darling spins the government pre-election line that the government will do "all it can" to avoid the "lost generation" of young people.

But manufacturing has been deliberately decimated, putting all the eggs in a financial services and media/creative basket now on its last legs. Cheap slave labour has been imported to do the dirty jobs to give the country a false sense of economic security. Billions of pounds have been squandered on useless non-job creation schemes.

The Orange Party's big concern is that away from all the worthy, worthless rhetoric, governments have a nasty habit of keeping a pool of workers on sedation on the dole.

Bosses too can keep a lid on a workforce scared stiff of losing their jobs, forcing pay cuts and forcing down working conditions, in return for fat profits and bonuses.

The usual lame excuse is trotted out blaming the rapid rise on the recession depression and a lack of jobs for school and college leavers. Ministers worth their salt should have seen it coming and made plans instead of sitting idly by and waiting for the jobless to be thrown on the scrapheap?

Hiding behind the spin of a global recession cuts no ice. The government is still trying to dig itself out of an economic hole of its own making.

What isn't needed is Sugar-coated apprenticeship gimmicks from a celebrity-obsessed government nor dumbed-down Mickey Mouse qualifications to push disillusioned youngsters into useless college courses to put off the dreaded day of a life on the dole.

Tories are driving home the point accusing ministers of making "empty promises" and driving home a message which chimes with the public.

Petty party politics apart, what is certain is that the country cannot and must not lose a whole generation of young people to unemployment and underachievement nor breed a culture where jobs are the exception and hand-outs are the rule.

Most Neet youngsters are likely to have low skills and a lack of real experience of real jobs in the real world.

Meaningful training, apprenticeships and work is the answer, not the current mishmash of half-baked uselessness 'courses' and non-jobs which just act as a stopgap before the dole queue beckons.

Time will tell whether the Tories will turn it around and whether the new People's 'Progressive' Party lives up to its name or lives down to the hype.

What is clear is that after more than a decade of deceit, whoever put the 'new' into New Labour should hang their heads in shame.

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