Coronavirus: NHS privatisation and the US second wave

Comrade Ranjeet Brar (@Rango1917), leading British communist and NHS surgeon, talks to George Galloway on his Mother of All Talk Shows (MoATS) about the latest developments in the world pandemic.

USA: why has there ben such a failure to cope with the virus in the world’s most powerful country? With the economic crisis, an incredible 100 million people in the richest country on earth have no access to healthcare.

China: As the world is submerged in a sea of poverty, the pandemic has exposed the true state of affairs that existed in our neoliberal world.

Even the United Nations rapporteur for extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, has pointed out:

“The coronavirus has merely lifted the lid off the pre-existing pandemic of poverty. Covid-19 arrived in a world where poverty, extreme inequality and disregard for human life are thriving, and in which legal and economic policies are designed to create and sustain wealth for the powerful, but not end poverty. This is the political choice that has been made.”

Alston has made it clear that the only nation that has bucked this trend is China, which has lifted 700 million people out of poverty, while almost everywhere else in the world people have been getting poorer. Under these circumstances, it is simply perverse to mount a campaign that accuses China of being the power that is abusing human rights in this world!

Quite the reverse is true. It is US imperialism, and British and EU imperialism, that are plunging the world into poverty. All the furore and fake news surrounding the US/British campaign of destabilisation in Hong Kong and elsewhere must be seen in this light.

Finally, Ranjeet points out the extent to which NHS privatisation is conditioning the poor response and poor ‘science’ surrounding Britain’s response to covid.

This discussion was originally broadcast on Sunday 12 July 2020.