Neoliberalism is directly opposed to the ethos of the NHS

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Healthcare, correctly delivered, is not and never can be a commercial undertaking (Getty)

The fact that 3 million patients face the loss of GP surgeries in 2019 will come as no surprise to many, both within and without the profession.

I loved the job of GP and was sad to leave at 55. The job that I joined to do and trained to do was great but every man and his dog, especially in Westminster and in the burgeoning managerial hierarchy that developed, thought they knew how to do it better. They hadn’t and still haven’t a clue about what healthcare is or how to run a health service. The private sector is exactly the wrong answer. The loss of professional autonomy and the insistence on service wide homogeneity is very damaging too.

The practice of medicine is only one of the professional occupations that has been wrecked by ideological folly, managerialism and the intrusion of the private sector. This is an active and planned destruction, not a policy glitch. Neoliberalism views the whole of life as an opportunity for profit, hence the amoral, asocial seedy barbarianism that passes for civic society today.

Healthcare, correctly delivered, is not and never can be a commercial undertaking. It is a public service that every citizen of every country should demand as a reasonable expectation if not actually a right. In private healthcare how can the patient tell if the proposed treatment is optimal for them or for the company bottom line? Many clinical decisions are of a complexity that tests professional judgement, the laity will struggle to make the choices that offer the desired outcome – even with maximum information provision and discussion.

Steve Ford​
Haydon Bridge, Northumberland

Preserve public space

The excellent article on the right to food by Geraldine van Bueren raises a vital point about land usage. At a time when people are going hungry there must be a legal duty on the owners of land to use it for productive purposes.

In wartime we demanded that land be used for food production and now as an impending war against hunger looms we need to resurrect this policy. I am not arguing that land used for public leisure should be taken for food, but none should occupy an unproductive farm used solely for personal leisure.

Allotments should be sacrosanct and immune from development. Urban gardens and food orchards should flourish. Agriculturalists and horticulturalists employed in food production should be treated with the respect that they deserve. They are life savers.

Francis Beswick
Stretford

Have TV effects gone too far?

Robert Fisk makes the point that when viewing Peter Jackson’s film They Shall Not Grow Old we are not seeing a distortion of history as presented in the grainy, scratchy original film shot during the First World War; without the sound of bombs and human screams but through modern media technology we become aware of a new experience. The men look “real” and the sound sounds “real” and as such we relate to them in a heartbreaking way as we know that most of them were destined to die. The film elevates these men to people we think we know. Is it justifiable that we use technology to adjust a viewpoint?

The same could be said of David Attenborough’s Dynasty series. It could be argued that it “Walt Disneyfies” wild life, turning wild animals into players in an established human narrative drama. Well, yes it does. It is a subjective exercise produced deliberately to involve a general rather than an academic audience in wildlife issues using all the skills and experience of the camera and editing crews involved. And all those sounds of animal language; mews, roars, screams, wind and rain? Most if not all laboriously added in the editing suites in BBC Bristol. Jackson’s film looks at humans as cannon fodder, Attenborough’s films looks at animals nearing extinction because of humans. Means justify the ends?

Mike Dodds
London

A rule change

While there is huge debate about what question or questions should appear on any second referendum paper, I’m unaware that anyone has mentioned whether there should be a mandatory proportion of votes cast for the outcome to be binding. Had that been the case first time around, I doubt that we would be in today’s mess.

Lyn Owen
Cardiff

Education is in trouble, despite what some MPs think

It’s incredibly concerning that a third of MPs don’t believe there is a funding crisis in our education system (One in three MPs do not believe schools are in funding crisis, despite repeated warnings over austerity).

With parents having to buy pupils’ pens, school buildings in disrepair and headteachers marching on Downing Street, it couldn’t be clearer that our education system is under enormous financial strain.

Surely MPs will at least accept there is a funding crisis for children with special educational needs and disabilities. If not, perhaps they could explain this to the 82 per cent of parents of deaf children who feel there isn’t enough education funding in their area or the 94 per cent who fear for the future of their child’s support.

In the meantime, they could also speak to parents living in areas run by the one in three English councils planning to cut deaf children’s services by £4m this year.

Jo Campion, deputy director at the National Deaf Children’s Society
London

May’s hostile environment has stoked up racism in Britain

In a wonderful gesture of anti-racist solidarity an estimated £130,000 has been raised by an online campaign for Jamal, the 15-year-old Syrian schoolboy who was attacked in Huddersfield recently.

Theresa May has described how this act of solidarity “from the British people shows our true spirit and shows we are a welcoming people”.

That may be true of the people who donated to support Jamal and are disgusted by what he has endured but the fact is that Theresa May has been anything but welcoming to immigrants and refugees.

Theresa May has devoted her political career to creating a “hostile environment” against immigrants in the UK. Theresa May, who was behind the disgusting “racist van” campaign specifically designed to tell immigrants to “go home”. It was Theresa May who promised parliament she would “deport first and hear appeals after”.

Theresa May’s enthusiasm for persecuting and vilifying immigrants was directly responsible for the Windrush scandal.

And she is not done with stoking up racism, which remains her political strategy of choice. Only a few weeks ago she tried to sell her shoddy Brexit deal on the grounds it would prevent immigrants from the EU “jumping the queue”.

So when Theresa May says that she “…thought it was absolutely terrible ... what [Jamal] went through. Our thoughts are with him,” she is being disingenuous. The attack on Jamal is a consequence of Theresa May’s racist policies.

Sasha Simic
London