'CLEAR'
Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley goes one step further,
"There are millions of people who are grateful for the care they have received from the NHS.
"It does them and the NHS a disservice for Daniel Hannan to give Americans such a negative and partial view. That we can access healthcare free at point of use, based on need, is something others envy.
"Our task is to ensure that the quality of care is consistently excellent. And the service is efficient and responsive to patients. Choice, competition and information, focused on outcomes, will deliver this".
What is it with the NHS that makes it such a political 'untouchable'? We all know it is flawed and there are other far superior schemes in other countries.
How refreshing would it be for one of the mainstream parties to state the truth. They don't have to criticise, I don't think the sheeple are ready for the brutal truth, just tell it like it is.
update - may I direct you to CF's rather excellent post
13 comments:
Agreed. I blogged on this earlier today too.
For once, Labour have the upper hand - the NHS is a brilliant dividing line, so they're pushing this as hard as they can.
If callMeDave dared to disagree, the Labour party (and their tame media) would have a stick to beat him with for months.
This is fuck all to do with the NHS - its all about cynical political opportunism.
I agree completely. Having been personally involved with treatment for myself and other close family members, terminal in some cases, the nursing staff & some of the Dr's, who could be understood, by a simple Englishman, were fine. The problem lies with the same fault as in everything at the moment, Govt interference, top-heavy management, buearacrats and facless do-gooders. Sucessful business is not run as a collective socialist/communist experiment, it has a leader, who is answerable to someone. Shareholders, or in the NHS the people.
I wish people would stop using 'free at the point of entry' its only free for the millions who have never paid into the system, I pay through the fucking nose for the NHS.
I keep forgetting Cameron and Co exist, they're so bastard anonymous.
I've little doubt that the excellent Daniel Hannan will be ostracised very soon, because he's the only one with an opinion that the rest of us tax paying saps, whole heatedly agree with.
I've got a sound bite for Cameron, (for free) that he can use as the main stay of his Parties sloganism in the run up to next Year.
"Neutrality, Neutrality, Neutrality. Vote Tory, because we have fuck all to do with Gordon Brown".
Just about sums things up me thinks...
Cheers for the link Rab. You and me, we think alike ;-)
(congrats on this, by the way.) Neck 'n' neck again!
The NHS, even now is a wonderful institution. As anonymous says, it is hardly free for UK taxpayers but trust me when something unexpected happens you will be grateful you can go somewhere and get some treatment. It is not the same in many countries. The problem with the NHS, apart from the bureaucracy and top-heavy management structure is that at a certain population size free treatment is unsustainable. The National Insurance system is basically a giant ponzi scheme. Unfortunately the immigrants who tend to arrive requiring more immediate treatment and also reluctant to commit to payments to the system bypass the traditional ponzi scheme mechanism and go straight to the payout stage. Does anyone actually know the true cost of the NHS to the UK. I would imagine it is around £80billion per year, so less than the cost of bailing out the banking sector but I should think that properly run an efficient NHS could operate on around £30-40 billion a year, which when all the numbers come in is probably what the UK will end up spending on the Olympics. And when the last of the Olympic Village apartments is sold as a prime piece of East London real estate and the profit is given entirely to a property development company that will probably have no connection to Tessa Jowell, apart from some meaningless link to a shell company in the Cayman Islands, we will all forget it and look for the next headline about Jordan.
Fuck me, my 'A vote for Rab entitles you to a free punch at Gorgon's face' offer must have worked!!
Cheers all!
And killemall, when are you gonna get your finger out and get your site going?
I watched this story develop into the entirely manufactured controversy that it is with great amusement over the course of the day. By the time i got home in time for the 6 O'Clock News i could only snort when the bint anchorman opened with something along the lines of "David Cameron has been forced to defend the NHS..." as the BBC continued to push a 'controversy' they had pretty much invented. Quite what Cameron thought he gained by caving in and dancing to the tune played by the MSM i have no idea. His insulting put down of Dan Hannan - who with every passing day looks more out of place in the preposterously misnamed Conservative Party - will have won him no new voters and only further alienated genuine Conservatives and right wingers.
I can only hope, and hope in vain no doubt, that whatever Toryish types they have on the later news programmes will take the BBC to task over inventing a story based on the musings of a very minor politician with (sadly) no clout in the Conservative Party. "Will the BBC be consistent and now also hold Brown and the Labour leadership to account for every and any whittering of the various extreme leftwing/communist nutters like Dennis Skinner?" is something that needs to be asked of them, live on air, but which won't be.
I'd be more likely to find a crock o' shite at the end of a rainbow than to hear a Tory spokesman come out fighting for proper conservativism on this issue.
Cameron just looked pathetic today whereas Dan Hannan looked like he was being honest.
I was ready to be angry at Hannan but after watching his performance on youtube he did make some good points. But the NHS is still far superior to the system in the US and costs half as much in GDP. A serious clear out of the overpaid underskilled management would save a fair bit of money.
I was at a hospital visiting a relative today. She was busy picking her meal for the next three days. About 4 choices for each meal. When I left she was about to get a cuppa before going to the tv room. And the hospital looked clean enough to me with plenty of staff going about. It was a stroke unit so being Scotland was pretty full up.
I had to use the NHS a lot over the last few years and at least in Ayrshire the care I've had has been excellent. Full Stop.
Aye, DL. I heard Ailsa is good! Seriously, my missus is pregnant and the wee one is unwell and will need intensive care when born. The care she is receiving is top class.
There are about one and a half million voters working for the NHS and the same again married to them or related to them.
So, Dai Cameroid can't let the Gorgon put around the idea that he wants to 'disband the NHS'.
He doesn't. He wants to excise the Lexus-driving smug suited tapeworms that infest its bloated management structure, and let the real staff (doctors and nurses and orderlies etc) do their jobs without haiving to spend half of every working day filling out forms.
At least, I hope that's what he wants. If he doesn't, I have a collection of bottles I'll gladly insert in him and then break them with a hammer. He can get a quango to pick the bits out. With pliers.
Dan Hannan's comments were right, mostly, but he should have qualified them with 'NHS management' rather than 'NHS'. The Gorgon's party is on full spin cycle now, close to the end of their run, and Hannan must realise this.
They'll grasp at straws. Don't give them any.
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