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Private hospitals get mega-bailout from the NHS
The privateers facing a huge loss of business because of Covid-19 were happy to snaffle up a ‘cash positive’ deal thanks to block booking of beds, whether they were used or not, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
Nurse Ashleigh Smith wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) washes her hands at work at the Littlefield practice at Freshney Green Primary Care Centre in Grimsby, Lincolnshire

WHEN talking about the danger of NHS privatisation, we should remember how much NHS privatisation has already taken place.

Both “New” Labour and Tory ministers had a simple but crude way of hiding NHS privatisation: they treated the NHS as a “brand” and stuck the big blue-and-white NHS logo on the front of private health companies.  

So many operations people think are run by the publicly owned National Health Service are actually handed over to private firms.

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Features / 3 October 2025
3 October 2025

The new angle from private firms shmoozing their way into public contracts was the much-trumpeted arrival of ‘artificial intelligence’ — and no-one seemed to have heard the numerous criticisms of this unproven miracle cure, reports SOLOMON HUGHES

TORY HIGH SOCIETY:  Sir John Ritblat
Features / 19 September 2025
19 September 2025

It is rather strange that Labour continues to give prestigious roles to inappropriate, controversy-mired businessmen who are also major Tory donors. What could Labour possibly be hoping to get out of it, asks SOLOMON HUGHES

Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks as he hosts a VJ Day commemorative reception in the garden of 10 Downing Street, London, August 14, 2025
Features / 5 September 2025
5 September 2025

Keir Starmer’s hiring Tim Allan from Tory-led Strand Partners is another illustration of  Labour’s corporate-influence world where party differences matter less than business connections, writes SOLOMON HUGHES

Defence Secretary John Healey (third left) and his French counterpart Sebastien Lecornu (second left) view a long-range air-launched Storm Shadow cruise missile, during a visit to MDBA in Hertfordshire, July 9, 2025
Features / 22 August 2025
22 August 2025

MBDA’s Alabama factory makes components for Boeing’s GBU-39 bombs used to kill civilians in Gaza. Its profits flow through Stevenage to Paris — and it is one of the British government’s favourite firms, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES

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When privatisation is already so deeply embedded in the NHS, we can’t just blindly argue for ‘more funding’ to solve its problems, explain ESTHER GILES, NICO CSERGO, BRIAN GIBBONS and RATHI GUHADASAN

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Features / 20 December 2024
20 December 2024
Behind a facade of flimsy restrictions, the man who was Tony Blair’s privatisation champion is back in an advisory role, despite the fact he already works for firms that will profit from the selling off of the NHS, writes SOLOMON HUGHES