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SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 13
The
CONTENTS ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Opening 03 Private Finance Iniatives
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Junior Doctor speaks ...
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Published online by www.handoverfistpress.com
Humber Super Snipe
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The key ...
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Cover: re-worked cartoon. Photographs, words and artwork sourced from ‘found in the scrapbook of life’, no intentional copyright infringement intended, credited whenever possible, so, for treading on any toes ... apologies all round!
Negative Credit
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Letters
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Edit & Design: Alan Rutherford
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Artwork: Fifth Column
There is no deadline for submitting articles to be included in the next issue, it will appear whenever, or in your dreams! Articles and all correspondence to: alanrutherford1@mac.com
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OPENING Blah-blahblah-blahblah––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Hello, Welcome to magazine number 13. Trying to ignore the media circus, lies and bullshit that parades as news ... misdirecting our attention, here is a magazine produced freely to be read freely.
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All articles and artwork supplied, or found in newspapers lining the bottom of the canary cage, were gratefully received and developed with love, enthusiasm and sympathy here at Hand Over Fist Press. Nobody got paid. Perhaps that is the problem? Anyway, ‘Sheep in the Road’ will now appear sporadically and occasionally rather than monthly. Artwork: Meridith Stern
a luta continua!
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PFI If you think there is no money for NHS funding you’d be right – Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) has sucked it dry
Up and down the UK, Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) are destroying public services. Introduced by John Major’s government and expanded by New Labour, the Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) policy was designed to use private financing to build and run public sector infrastructure projects. Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) consortia consist of bankers, construction companies and facilities management firms. The projects work like a mortgage, with repayments on the work completed made over decades. There is just one snag: the interest rates for Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) agreements are scandalously high.
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Artwork: John Phillips
The total UK Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) debt is over £300bn. To put it more simply: this debt would cover the entire NHS budget for approximately two and a half years The NHS has more than 100 Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) hospitals. The From the Independent original cost of these 100 institutions was by Yousef El-Gingihy, around £11.5bn. In the end, they will cost who is the author of the public purse nearly £80bn. The total How to Dismantle the NHS UK Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) debt is in 10 Easy Steps over £300bn for projects worth only £55bn. published by Zero books This means that nearly £250bn will be spent swelling the coffers of Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) groups.
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Just imagine what could buy for that in a time of supposed austerity. My rough calculations suggest it would cover the salaries for all the nurses, all the consultants and all the GPs needed to serve the NHS for 10 years – and you would still have billions left over to train the next generation or two of surgeons, build 80 state of the art hospitals, and treat tens of thousands of cancer patients for a year.
around £1bn; instead, it will end up costing £7bn by the time repayments are complete in 2049. The difference of £6bn will go to PFI consortium Skanska Innisfree and partners. To put these figures into a more digestible format, Barts is paying over £2m a week in interest, which adds up to over £120m a year, before they see a single patient.
To put it more simply: it would cover the entire NHS budget for approximately two and a half years.
Innisfree chief executive David Metter was paid £8.6m in 2010. It’s no surprise that a majority of NHS hospitals are now in deficit with Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) as a major factor. And you thought your mortgage was bad. Just imagine if they could spend that money on patient care.
We are constantly told that there is no money left; that we cannot afford the NHS as it is currently run, or to fund high quality public services. Yet there is plenty of money for the banks and for Private Finance Initiatives (PFI). And the UK Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) debt is four times the size of the budget deficit used to justify austerity. In other words, austerity is a political choice rather than a necessity. Innisfree, a small finance company based in the City of London, is one of the biggest players in the Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) market. One of Innisfree’s flagship projects is the largest NHS Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) scheme at St Bartholomew’s and the Royal London hospitals in London. This could have been publicly financed for
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The majority shareholder in Innisfree is Coutts, the Queen’s bank. Coutts UK, in turn, is owned by RBS. RBS thus effectively has a controlling stake in hospitals, boosting its profits whilst simultaneously running public services into the ground. It is worth recalling that the combined bail-out and losses of RBS since the crash amount to £95 billion. This is almost equivalent to the NHS budget for a whole year, yet it is still extracting profit out of the NHS.
£
HSBC also has a controlling stake in many Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) schemes, and even owns PFI hospitals outright. HSBC was caught red-handed laundering money for Mexican drug cartels, organisations linked to Al-Qaeda, Russian gangsters and sanctions busting. Yet HSBC is also profiting from the dismantling of healthcare. The Treasury building upgrade is a Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) scheme, and HMRC is renting offices from a company registered in an offshore tax haven thanks to a Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) scheme. You really couldn’t make this stuff up. In fact, publicprivate partnerships have even been exported globally including to Iraq and Libya. Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) has been such a roaring success that George Osborne was rolling out Private Finance Initiatives 2, the blockbuster sequel, before he got the chop.
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Artwork: Thomas Nast
Some smaller hospitals have already been able to buy their way out of Private Finance Initiatives (PFI), and there are multiple precedents for taking services back into public hands when the private sector fails. So it’s time for the Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) debt to be cancelled and the introduction of a future policy of financing public infrastructure directly.
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NHS Solidarity – supported by doctors, nurses, teachers, Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and several unions – is calling for the renationalisation of the NHS. Wake up Britain!
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As a junior doctor, it mystifies me why Theresa May didn’t take the opportunity to sack the incompetent Jeremy Hunt Junior doctors are traditionally loath to take strike action and on the centre-right of politics. Hunt managed to unite them all against the government. That is no mean feat There is no denying the volatility and unpredictability of British politics over the past month. It feels like every man and his dog has resigned, with no one accepting the challenge of the difficult passage ahead. For many of us working in the NHS the silver lining in this very dark and dismal cloud was the anticipation of removal of Jeremy Hunt as Health Secretary. From the Independent
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Never has a Health Secretary been so incompetent, disliked and uncompromising. For many, it has felt like he singlehandedly impaired contract negotiations by his relentless opposition to any concession. I am incredibly tired and frustrated with the government and its inability to listen to its electorate after trying to deal with him over the last few months.
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Hunt has succeeded in uniting doctors in a front against the government, a move few could have predicted considering doctors’ usual reluctance to strike and historical support for centre-right politics. He has allowed services to be stretched beyond breaking point. He has triggered the biggest exodus of doctors, many of which are from struggling specialties, and has acted as a walking advertisement for Australia. Contributing to a brain drain wasn’t supposed to be part of his job description.
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Even in terms of speaking to patients, our Health Secretary has been left wanting. In February of this year, he was criticised by a meningitis charity for making a “serious error of judgment” after he seemed to recommend that parents worried about a rash their child have should look on the internet and compare pictures rather than visit a doctor. It is about time politicians were held properly accountable for their actions. As medical professionals, if we are found to be dangerous or personally difficult, we have to answer to the General Medical Council, who will review our registration. Hunt has been dangerous and difficult. Policies that harm patients and the medical staff who treat them have been introduced under his watch. He has been obstinate during contract negotiations and is reluctant to listen to or
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accept any criticism of his imposed plans. This is a minister who has been previously been implemented in the BskyB scandal, he has demonstrated previous arrogance and dishonesty. In 2012, he was caught up in the BSkyB scandal, where many called for him to resign and the Guardian stated that “he appears to have blotted his copybook beyond repair.” It took him just three years to involve himself in a scandal of even bigger proportions. Hunt will go down in history as a person with astounding abilities to cling onto power despite reaching record levels of unpopularity. It was an unprecedented move when 98 per cent of junior doctors voted to go on strike last year, one followed by marches in support that were attended by record numbers of the general public. The fact that Theresa May kept him in power beggars belief. I can only think that she wants him to sort out the mess he created. Hunt is working on his legacy; he wants to be known as the man who changed the NHS for the better. But if he wants to succeed, he needs to open his eyes and he is ears because currently, he is failing. I fear we needed new blood in the cabinet to achieve this, and that nothing can save the NHS if Hunt is allowed to continue. I hope that he can prove me wrong.
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A bag of bones, blood, shit and piss, ever weary muscles giving it motion at the whim of a calculating brain. Criminally wasteful energy and money spent in maintenance, image definition and self importance. Ever thought that maybe the actual ‘you’ was elsewhere using some sort of glorified bluetooth to control that robotic body of yours …
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HUMBER SUPER SNIPE:
Did it really happen? When I was a boy, living down Manor View Road in Hillary I remember an occasion when all logic and sense left for one day. This may seem a strange thing to say about 1950s South Africa where all logic and sense had already abandoned the country long ago … but, well, I am speaking here of an incident witnessed by a boy of 8 so, in my memory, it was a crazy day. Mr Van der Beer, often left his car half way up his drive, doors open and keys in the ignition when he had been out drinking. It was a 1952 Humber Super Snipe, black and shiny with a running board that some of the older kids climbed on when Mr Van was not about. There were not many cars down Manor View Road and Mr Van’s was the best, seemingly admired by all.
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Anyway, one Saturday morning a group of us kids found Mr Van’s car in the road, up on bricks and all four wheels missing. Seemed to us that Mr Van had not even made it to his driveway and someone had stolen his wheels … we wondered why whoever had taken the wheels had not just stolen the car which was open to the world with keys in ignition.
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Over an hour of deliberations we kids had come up with a theory that the wheels had been taken by some of the black people who lived in Cato Manor. Cato Manor could be seen from the end of our road, it was a black township in theory but in reality was a ghettoshacksville for the black workers of Durban … and all ills in the white community bordering it could be blamed on them without the slightest whiff of evidence. A group of us were still hanging around the car when Mr Van came wandering up the road, his face all red and looking shocked, his car, all black and shiny but no wheels. He stomped about a bit, we watched … he was inconsolable.
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There must have been about twenty kids now following Mr Van as he knocked on doors up and down Manor View Road. ‘My wheels have been stolen by the bleks, get your gun and lets go down to Cato Manor and get them back’, repeated Mr Van to each man who answered the door. Eventually there were around 30 armed men bumping bellies with manly enthusiasm, Mr Van now seemed concerned at the hornet’s nest he had disturbed and was trying to calm them down. We kids stood by and watched as an agitated group of our fathers and neighbours got pumped up by Mr Van’s new suggestion.
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‘If you guys will help me, maybe we could carry the car to the garage to get new wheels?’ A lot of muttering followed. The local garage was about a mile away on Essenwood Road, it wouldn’t be impossible to do this … and by now the wives had arrived on the scene. The women made it known they did not want people going down to Cato Manor with guns, their domestic servants may take umbrage and leave their employ … so they agreed to the absurd logic of their men carrying Mr Van’s car to the garage. It all happened quite quickly I suppose, but even I could see it would be easier to buy the wheels and bring them to the car, but I was only a kid and the men were all well into oiling up their muscles, flexing biceps and winking at each other … and the admiring women.
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This was going to be a day to remember. The men, now stripped to the waist, gathered around the car, each taking a position and looking for a hold on the car’s chassis … Mr Du Plessis, who was by far the strongest looking, took command with ‘Lift!’ and the car rose from the blocks. As they moved off up the road, Mr Van kicked over the blocks, we noticed he wasn’t part of the carrying team, and could only look on in open mouthed surprise as he rushed between the rear carrier’s legs and crawled under the car. Could this day get any weirder?
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Us kids ran alongside shouting and pointing at Mr Van as he crawled, staying under the car. As the men realised there was a problem they looked to Mr Du Plessis for guidance. Annoyed at this strange twist, several ploys were enacted to rid the car of its crawling ‘passenger’, Mr Du nodded his head back down the road and the men quickly did a back step. Unfortunately Mr Van had been watching their legs and whichever way Mr Du sent the men he managed to stay under the car. We kids, and now it seemed the whole roads’ residents, watched the choreographed moves in amazement, deceptively the car looked light as a feather as it floated about 2 feet off the road … we could see Mr Van darting this way and that, his knees red with blood, his face even redder. How would this end, the men had become enraged at Mr Van’s actions and were frustratedly wasting time and their energy in trying to expel him from his position beneath his car when, after all, they were trying to do him a favour … the situation just could not go on. We could only think Mr Van had convinced himself that his neighbours would soon tire and drop his car, so he was trying to make it impossible for the men to put it down (with him underneath and all).
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Increasingly the car was being danced about the road by the frantic and wild-eyed sweating men, the troupe being led by Mr Du and his nodding head swished this way and that, Mr Van now leaving a bloody trail as he ground his knees into the road. The large group of onlookers looked on in silence, none volunteered to take over, to build new blocks to rest the car on … or help drag Mr Van out. A scene of absolute madness, the only sound being 30 pairs of shoes soft-shoe-shuffling, the weighty car sailing this way and that. This went on for what seemed like forever. To us kids it was the funniest thing we had ever seen, rivalling any short reel of black and white twenties slapstick comedy that preceded the main feature at Saturday Morning Kiddies Club at the Odeon … and then the pop as they dropped the car on Mr Van.
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Shit, that ‘pop’ man …
Nala Drofrehtur not afraid to appear backward
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TRUMPCLINTON & MAY FACE THE WORLD IN FANCY DRESS LUNACY
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So .... just when you thought you may have found the key to life on earth; to unlock the power of the inner mind; to give you control of your destiny ... it turns out to be a key to more spam ... schizen!
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NEGATIVE CREDIT, CULTURALLY … A while ago I was happy and fortunate to be asked to prepare artwork for the reprint of an acknowledged photo/art book (a classic some would say). The reprint of the classic 1990 photobook turned out fine. It was an interesting project and I did get ‘paid’ for my services, but, as usual when I like a project (and also when I heard the photographer/author is ‘precious’ about his work), I did push all buttons to overload on my input to ensure everyone would be happy with the resulting book. Hopefully they are?
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Here is something I wrote at the start of the process: “This book deserves to be reprinted. Apart from the photographs, it is the historical commentary, that makes it a document worthy of greater dissemination … it is a valuable resource.
Artwork: Alan Rutherford
The publisher wants quality (to please author and publisher’s reputation) but also wants cheap (to please unit price and make book price a reasonable £25 or so) … In ideal terms it should be a prestige 4 colour print job which should have a posh specification of papers to make up for the fact that it is a facsimile … and it should be priced around £40. Facsimile … How to achieve a good quality reprint today from a book printed to so-so quality in 1990, while being constricted by unit cost and being steered
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towards a printer offering a very cheap price. Obvious to me that, if left to market concerns only, materials and print quality will be suffering in this choice.
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Compromise: To reprint a photobook printed in 1990, using that book as a source, is a compromise. In this instance the offset Litho printing in 1990 used a coarser screen of dots to print than today’s offset litho printing process. Page scans will need some fiddling with to descreen the the book’s photographs and then to try to keep some of their integrity. For an artist or photographer to be ‘precious’ about their work, is possibly understandable in other circumstances (maybe), but when being reprinted using an old book as source material is ‘foot-stomping’ crazy! To add pressure to this process by also wanting to keep costs down while wanting quality is one of those ugly and purely capitalist vices. Compromise is needed from all to achieve a reasonable product at a price that will be feasible in today’s ‘Amazon’ marketplace. Compromise: Reprinting a book of colour and black and white photographs using a book printed in 1990 as source may, with some great effort, fiddling, magic …, give a reasonable end result, but it is a compromise. To also be pressuring the manager of the project to use a ‘cheap’ but good printer … and get the end results to please a ‘precious’ photographer is a nonsense. Compromise: Its a fucking compromise, I’ll do my best, the printer will do his best … a compromise will have to be accepted for this project, in its present constricted configuration, to see the light of day.” Interestingly, since its publication, the reprint has received some healthy praise in that it has boosted (and revived) the reputation and standing of its photographer/author. And well, that’s probably how it should be,
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but also the publisher has been applauded … for his visionary role in being clearsighted enough to believe in (t)his product and this particular photographer (who he has championed). And also, again, thats probably how it should be. All healthy stuff, I think. In the upside-down-world we live in, in any mention of ‘their’ product (in this case, a book), it is the owners of the means of production (and in this case that is the ‘publisher’) who are the beneficiaries, getting all the back-slapping and (maybe) financial rewards. Whereas it is the invisible workers behind the scenes (artworker, typesetter, proofer, screenmaker, printer, guillotine, finisher, packer … apologies to all I have missed on this brief list), whose time and sometimes beyond expected efforts are what have created that fucking gloriously crafted item in your hands, a beautiful, beautiful book, albeit a reprint.
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I suppose you could argue ‘well, they have been paid!’ … but even then, in order to make any profit out of this product/book the ‘behind the scenes workers’ cannot be paid their true worth (its called capitalism!). It cannot be denied that without the critical and necessary participation of these slaves to the rhythm this project would have failed, so it is quite a sleight for them to be so evenly and haughtily ignored by all in the cultural/arts media … almost like a ‘fuck-them’ … Those involved in the production of this book can scour any review of this book vainly looking for any mention of their skills, their inconsiderable and laboured effort (‘vainly’ used here without apology, and pointedly adopting its double meaning). A book is so much more than its contents or the brand stamped on its spine, get off your perch you arty-farty playthings … credit where credit is due, and some!
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THE EVOLUTION CODE
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capitalism just does not work, i’ve just spent all my wages and i’m still not pissed ...
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Artwork: Alan Rutherford
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Writing worth reading Photos worth seeing
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http://www.coldtype.net
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WAFFLE LETTERS
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Dear Editor ... Absolutely damaged by the swiftly decaying state of the nation ... Words fail me, what is the use of words when the person you are saying them to is unable to grasp your, and their, meaning? Worryingly, we have left even that irrational road, the one where stupidity reigns, and where basic facts and knowledge acquired over time are being replaced by entrenched banal myths, hearsay and superstition. The shit-faced fudge of complacency and mad spouters will now be defended to the death by a renewed Trident. Reason cannot be relied on in the present or near future (if ever?) and its utterly terrifying. Just who are the terrorists? For evidence of this I direct your (still giggling but increasingly alarmed) attention to Donald Trump and his campaign to become US President. As Britain’s government is a happy lapdog of US mischief in the world ... and a blindly loyal follower of US foreign policy, what will our May/TweedleDum/ TweedleDee/Johnson government do if Trump suceeds and begins his Term of Ignorance?
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Whilst I remain optimistic about the future I am absolute in my scepticism about whether the business-arses and their sycophantic political stooges, Blairites and Tories – or the US presidential circus and their flunkies – will come up with anything remotely of benefit to anyone other than the rampantly corrupt ruling class wankers intent on fucking us all.
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SHEEP IN THE ROAD Vol. 2 Alan Rutherford 2015
SHEEP IN THE ROAD Vol. 1 Alan Rutherford 2014
KAPUTALA The Diary of Arthur Beagle & The East Africa Campaign, 1916-1918 Alan Rutherford Updated 2nd edn: 2014
IRISH GRAFFITI some murals in the North, 1986 Alan Rutherford 2014
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Sheep in the Road as a magazine has writing, photography, cartoons and odd assemblages of ideas, rants and reviews ... eminating from a socialist and thoughtful core. Contributors included: Brian Rutherford, Rudi Thoemmes, Joe Jenkins, Robert Arnott, Cam Rutherford, Steve Ashley, Lizzie Boyle, Chris Dillow, Chris Hoare, Joanna Rutherford, West Midland Hunt Saboteurs, Chris Bessant, Craig Atkinson, Martin Taylor, Martin Mitchell ... A pleasure to produce ... thank you
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