The Fifth of July, which is the anniversary of the creation of the National Health Service, ought to be the United Kingdom’s National Day, and it ought to be marked as fulsomely as the United States marked the Fourth of July.
Anyone who doubts quite what was has been lost by accession to the European Union, and by the never-ending aftermath of the Callaghan Government’s consequent turn to monetarism in 1977, should consider the Durham Miners’ Gala of 24th July 1948, when, in addition to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the speakers included both Aneurin Bevan, a mere 19 days after he had found the NHS, and Sir Hartley Shawcross, making a detour from his service as the British lead prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal.
It is once again time to matter that much.
Anyone who doubts quite what was has been lost by accession to the European Union, and by the never-ending aftermath of the Callaghan Government’s consequent turn to monetarism in 1977, should consider the Durham Miners’ Gala of 24th July 1948, when, in addition to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the speakers included both Aneurin Bevan, a mere 19 days after he had found the NHS, and Sir Hartley Shawcross, making a detour from his service as the British lead prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal.
It is once again time to matter that much.
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