Abolishing Arriva and NSL’s Ambulance Profiteering

“Arriva Transport Solutions and Ambuline: a great partnership.” – Arriva Web Site, 2012.

From 1 July 2012 Arriva Transport Solutions and Ambuline Ltd have been providing non-emergency patient transport for Leicestershire, Rutland, Nottinghamshire and Bassetlaw — Ambuline being a subsidiary of Arriva, and Arriva itself being a subsidiary of German transport giant Deutsche Bahn. This is a dire state of affairs as the previous report by the Leicester Socialist Party made all too clear.

In our world, which for the time being is misguided by ruling class drones who ensure that profits trump humanity, it is perhaps fitting that the chairman and CEO of Deutsche Bahn (since 2009) is the former chairman of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS). This is fitting because EADS is a major global defence contractor which manufactures Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, otherwise known as drones, the like of which are used to reign death on civilian populations all over the world.

Moreover on a local note, current EADS board member, Sir John Parker, presently serves as the deputy chairman of DP World (Dubai), which is a majority shareholder in Dubai World Group — which is the co-owner of Europe’s biggest warehousing and distribution park, Magna Park (in Lutterworth). [1]

Arriva itself hardly basks in humanitarian glory either, as for five years prior to their acquisition by Deutsche Bahn (in 2010) they counted long-standing G4S chief executive Nick Buckles as one of their directors. Likewise the man who chaired Arriva’s operations from 2004 until 2010 was Sir Richard Broadbent, who in 2010 similarly retired from his position as the deputy chair of the determined tax-avoider Barclays and is now the chairman of Tesco’s — the company who have just imposed a two year increase in pension age on their increasingly angry and organised employees.

One might add that Arriva’s former senior independent director (2004 -10) was Steve Williams, who is now a board member of chemicals company Croda: here he sits alongside Alan Ferguson, who is the former chief financial officer of the murderous Lonmin. Furthermore, the chairman of Croda is Martin Flower who is a board member of Morgan Crucible Company ― a longtime haunt of one of the world’s most experienced warmongers, Richard Perle; while the current chairman of Morgan Crucible (Andrew Shilston) is a board member of healthcare privatiser Circle Holdings.

Finally, it is not only Arriva who are profiting from the butchering of the NHS service in the Midlands, because as reported by the Socialist Party in February, contracts for the East Midlands Ambulance Service have also been awarded to NSL Ltd. The extreme perversity of the decision only become apparent when one realises that since 2008 NSL Ltd’s chief executive has been a man named Mark Underwood. Significant because just prior to joining NSL, Mr. Underwood had been the president of international services for the second-largest for-profit prison operator in the United States, GEO Group — which is a subsidiary of the infamous Wackenhut Corporation, which in turn is a subsidiary of none other than G4S.

Now is the time to fight back. The NHS is being dismantled at an every increasing rate; handed over, no less, to the very bankers and political elites whose actions are imprisoning and murdering countless millions of the working class all over the world. Nothing less than a socialist alternative will do, and this of course is something that the Labour Party resists at every turn.

So what to do? For a start, demand that your trade union withdraw their support from the Labour Party so they can support a genuine working class political party, like perhaps the germinal Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition. And then why not think about joining the Socialist Party, so you can join us in the collective struggle to campaign for a better world for all.

Notes

[1] Just last month Argos workers took strike action at Magna Park, and as detailed in my previous article, close connections can be drawn between the ruling class management of Argos and those of various South African mining companies, not least the murderous Lonmin. Here one might add that the aforementioned Sir John Parker is also the chairman of mining giant Anglo American, just one of many company’s that workers in South Africa are currently on strike against.