No, time is up for the England-only dismantlement
of the NHS, begun under Blair and continued by his Heir. That was what caused the problems in Mid Staffordshire and elsewhere.
Only in England is the NHS being dismantled. On
this as on so many issues, people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are
still permitted to live in a recognisably British country. Given the option, so
would people in England. What is happening to our Health Service was not in the
Conservative or the Liberal Democrat manifesto in 2010. Had it been in the
Conservative one, then there would have been a Labour overall majority.
Therefore, Labour ought to demand an
England-wide, England-only referendum on the Coalition’s plans for the NHS. Not
in 2017, but this year, and as early as possible this year. This is, in point
of fact, about the constitutional status and the fundamental identity of
England as a British country. The easily predictable result would properly
banish once and for all the presently ubiquitous Loony Right. With its
immediate access to both parts of the present Government.
And with its highly favoured access to Any
Questions, Question Time, Newsnight, the Today
programme, The Daily Politics, and so on. Those might then have to give
space to some authentically British voices, of One Nation politics, with an
equal emphasis on the One and on the Nation, and which not only understood that
the two were inseparable (the Loony Right fully understands that, just as the
Loony Left did 30 years ago), but which celebrated each precisely by reference
to its inseparability from the other.
The Coalition has dramatically increased NHS spending. Did you know that?
ReplyDeleteYou're the embodiment of the boring, unthinking Left, so encased in outdated ideology as to be utterly unable to comprehend any alternative to the dreadful status quo.
Leftists like yourself have always lied that the only way to provide healthcare 'free at the point of use' (the principle of the NHS) is for it to be a bureacuratic state-run monolith where patients pay enormous taxes but are disenfranchised and powerless, with absolutely no choice over how long to wait, what medicines they get, what doctor they see at what hospital, or anything else.
It should be memorialised as the single Greatest Lie of the Left.
That free healthcare can only be provided by a state monolith.
If this is the case, why do we spend far more than the OECD average-yet have far lower cancer survival rates than the OECD average.
Vintage Blairism.
ReplyDeleteActually, vintage Glasman.
ReplyDeleteHe apparently hates Labour's nationalisation more than me.
He said on Radio 4 that the 1945 model left ordinary people "disenfranchised and powerless" and that, despite Labour's lavish public spending "people kept getting fat, teen pregnancy kept going up, and and crime kept rising"
Sounds like your idol is closer to the truth than you are.
He's yet to make the necessary leap-and turn his back on that dreadful anti-British scum of a party he currently inhabits.
Maurice was not talking about the NHS, and you are misrepresenting what he did say.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, the root of all these problems is Blair's application of Thatcherism to the NHS, which Thatcher herself never did, but which the Heir to Blair is continuing and extending.
He was talking about Atlee's model of nationalisation-he said it failed British industry and education-true, he never specifically mentioned the NHS, but one would presume the same logic applies?
ReplyDeleteHe also said the benefit system kept obesity and pregnancy rising, because it didn't empower people to change their lives.
All ideas that could have come straight from the mouth of a conservative UKIP voter.
I quite like Glasman's idea of schools being de-nationalised and run as partnerships between parents, businesses and other stake-holders-although any successful system must include selection by academic ability.
And granting parents choice (as Glasman wants) cannot begin until the repeal of Labour's 2006 Education Act, since that totalitarian Bill bans parents from setting up grammar schools.
You are right to say Thatcher never did anything to the NHS, as you surely know (despite the left-wing mythology which portrays her as some sort of Pinochet) she increased NHS spending by 32%.
one would presume the same logic applies?
ReplyDeleteOne would presume wrongly.
The same logic that applies to giving workers control over the running of state industries and giving parents control over the running of schools, doesn't apply to giving tax-paying citizens control over what medicines, doctors and hospitals they get?
ReplyDelete