The Extreme Centre Quotes

“Youssef El-Ginghly, a Tower Hamlets GP, writing in the Observer in March 2013, described how the NHS is being dismantled and concluded: This is what saddens me: what were once the NHS’s strengths – resources, expertise and the united focus on the patient – are being replaced by a fragmented and atomized service, bound not by a duty of care but by a contract and driven, not by what is best for the patient, but by the cost of the encounter. It will be a slow, insidious creep but it’s coming. Be prepared. This is the way the NHS ends: not with a bang but a whimper.”
― Tariq Ali, The Extreme Centre: A Second Warning

“The first three decisions made by New Labour were highly symbolic, designed to show the City of London that this was not an old-style Labour regime. They had made their peace with free-market values: the Bank of England would be detached from government control and given full authority to determine monetary policy. A second determining act on entering office was to cut eleven pounds a week in welfare benefits to single mothers. The savings for the state were minimal. The aim was ideological: a show of contempt for the ‘weaknesses’ of the old welfare state, and an assertion of ‘family values’. The third measure was to charge tuition fees to all university students. This was a proposal that had been rejected more than once by the preceding Conservative government, on the grounds that it was unfair and discriminated against students from poor families. New Labour apologists were quick to point out that students in real need would not be charged, but the overall effect has been to discourage working-class children from aspiring to higher education.”
― Tariq Ali, The Extreme Centre: A Second Warning