MIKE COWLEY welcomes half a century of remarkable work, that begins before the Greens and invites a connection to — and not a division from — nature
Latest editorial
Sweet like chocolate: Alan Milburn’s new deal
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
Alan Milburn speaks at the first national conference of the Social Enterprise Coalition, January 25, 2005
ANDREW MURRAY recommends a volume of essays that nail the visionless, racist and neoliberal character of policy under Starmer’s Labour Party
JONATHAN TAYLOR appreciates how, for a black British musician, to walk onstage can be a rebellious act
Since 2023, Strike Map has evolved from digital mapping at a national level to organising ‘mega pickets’ — we believe that mass solidarity with localised disputes prepares the ground for future national action, writes HENRY FOWLER
Like dictators of the past, Trump is seeking an enforcement agency answering only to him, asserts CJ ATKINS
From tens of thousands left abandoned to a militarised ‘looting’ crackdown, Hurricane Katrina laid bare racial inequities and government neglect, writes NATALIA MARQUES
HEALTH Secretary Wes Streeting says he put Alan Milburn, who was health secretary under Tony Blair, onto the board of the Department of Health “to help government fix health and care.”
But Milburn can’t talk about anything relating “to nutrition, diet, and food, including any work related to the department’s sponsorship of the Food Standards Agency” on that board because he has a part-time job working for Mars Inc.
Appointing someone who works for the firm making Mars Bars to the Department of Health board in the middle of an obesity crisis shows how Streeting values corporate interests above public services.
Milburn was health secretary under Blair from 1999 to 2003. He oversaw the wide-scale privatisation of the NHS. He continued the Margaret Thatcher and John Major governments’ plans to privatise NHS “support services” like cleaning, catering and building management, with the disastrous PFI scheme expanding on his watch.
Milburn also broke new ground by privatising “clinical” services by buying in private operations or giving NHS money to set up privately run clinics. Milburn then cashed in his experience by leaving government and taking on lucrative corporate jobs.
Milburn and his family get around £1-2 million a year from his “advisory” firm, AM Strategy, where all the funds for his “advisory” jobs are collected. Streeting clearly admires both Milburn’s record of privatisation when he was a minister and his highly paid post post-ministerial corporate work.
The Department of Health says Milburn will give up his job as an adviser to Mars Inc at the end of this year, so next year, he will be able to forget all about working for Mars Bars and start discussing obesity.
But Milburn will hang on to more important corporate jobs. He will remain an adviser to, and shareholder in, Bridgepoint Capital, a private equity company with important health investments.
More from this author
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
SOLOMON HUGHES asks whether Labour ‘engaging with decision-makers’ with scandalous records of fleecing the public is really in our interests
Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
