Following his whipping in the recent local Council elections and the heavy loss in the AV poll, Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg evidently feels that he must be seen to be more hostile to the Coalition in which he sits. So he takes that unadulterated object of BBC worship – the NHS – and says he is opposed to the Coalition plan to improve it. The BBC lines up with Clegg on this one since it sustains the meme that the evil Conservatives want to introduce competition into the NHS and as we all know the BBC does not like the concept of competition. It continually misrepresents the very concept of free market competition in true neo-Stalinist style, always suggesting it is about fat-cats trying to make as much money as possible without delivering any advantages to anyone. There’s an interesting debate here on Today you should listen to if you get the chance. I thought Peter Bone did well, mind you. At heart, we all can see the BBC doing what it can to bring about the fall of the Coalition fall – so any chance it can get to chisel out cracks within it are taken up with great relish.
CLEGG GETS MUSCULAR!
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I would agree that Peter Bone did well. He didn’t let the Lib Dem away with falsehoods, such as trying to claim they voted for NHS change so they could vote against it later. Huh?
In my experience it’s a myth brought about by the BBC that no-one can touch the NHS. Even here in socialist Scotland I’d say people just want to receive prompt treatment, free of charge and they’re not too bothered whether it’s from a private source or not. It’s just that whenever change is suggested, the BBC stirs up trouble by seeking out loud-mouthed rent-a-gobs who are allowed to spout with barely a challenge whilst any minister who tries to defend it is questioned aggressively.
The battle cry I keep hearing is that it’s a sin to bring the idea of evil profits into health care. Why that’s more important than allowing evil profits to made from even more basic human needs like food and shelter has always been beyond me. But it’s an emotional position and not a particularly logical one so it won’t be challenged by the BBC.
David P,
Yes, funny, you never hear Beeboids clamouring for restaurants and hotels to be nationalised. I wonder why?
On the NHS, it shouldn’t take a FoI query for the BBC to reveal how many Beeboids use private health care. I can’t picture Polly Toynbee lying on the floor all night in A and E surrounded by drunks and druggies, however much she loves the underclass.
Roland,
Yes, I know lots of people here in Scotland who complain about the NHS but, somehow, they never seem to make it onto the BBC. I wonder why ?
Very true – it’s more the BBC than the SNP which is the problem. Can’t we become independent from it 😎
This was the lead item on the Radio 4 6am news today. Sadly none of the interviewers thought (or even had the brains) to ask Clegg why he is opposing something he wrote that he wanted in his famous Orange Book. If interviewing him I would have had great fun reading out a paragraph he wrote in that book and asking him what had changed his mind.
I’m no big Cameron supporter but the Lib Dems really are something else aren’t they.
1327,
Yes, however much I despise the Tories, when I think of the Lib Dems I get areality check !
1327,
Yes, however much I despise the Tories, when I think of the Lib Dems I get areality check !
I might have missed it but, despite a good put-down of the Harris/LibDem position that nothing can beat public sector delivery of health services (or anything else for that matter), Bone failed to cite the example of the French health system – arguably the best in the world and infinitely superior to the NHS – which is happy to cough up for private suppliers of health care. Even the French socialists apparently have no beef with that.
I don’t expect the BBC to argue or provide an analysis against a monopoly on state health provision but, I have yet to hear debating points made by “Conservatives” to the effect that 1. the NHS is so wonderful that no other nation in the world has used it as a template for the provision of health services; 2. the French system (as above) is not locked into a monolithic 1.4 million employee behemoth to provide superior health care to the French; and 3. in reality, the NHS is not a complex system or, rather, it has been made needlessly complex by insisting that not only is it financed by the taxpayer but that it’s run by the usual managerial know-nothings who flock to the public sector to exercise their incompetence free of the constraints of commercial discipline and (in many cases) common sense.
Sure the NHS is big but “big” does not always imply “complex”. In the NHS the complexity is at the sharp end: the actual treatment of the patient by medical professionals. The back-up services (provision of hospital buildings, plant, ancillary staff, drugs) is, in effect, the small change of the (private sector) hotel business. However, don’t expect many politicians to say this or, if they were minded to say it, be allowed near a BBC microphone. There may be a justification (or at least an understanding) of why politicos are silent here (total ignorance of the commercial world + 1.4 million votes) but none at all for the BBC failure to allow any discussion of the NHS (or anything else) outside the usual “cuts” narrative.
Umbongo,
I saw a survey recently ( Unesco ? ) which placed the NHS at 18th in the world.
I have personal experience of the Turkish and Gambian health services , both vastly superior to the NHS, but , of course, if you are not insured, you have to pay, which is a problem for poorer people.
The hospitals and clinics I have been to in both these countries have all been spotlessly clean, apart from anything else.
Yes, that seems to be the key stumbling block for the Beeboids and their fellow ideologues. Even if there’s no out-of-pocket cost to the patient for quality health care, the very idea of evil profit involved is an anathema. They simply can’t allow it, quality of service be damned.
Call MeDave doesn’t help much by starting his speech with, ‘I love the NHS’.
Bupendra,
But is he telling the truth ?
Funny that Evan Harris is the LibDem of choice to pipe up on the NHS.
Isn`t he an ex-MP?…so this idea that he speaks for the grass roots of the party hardly holds does it?
Still he`s the BBCs man for such tripe-is there no LibDem MPs able to defend this policy -or are they attacking it today?
The idea that Nick could be “robust” on anything-that they fell for their own Cleggmania is their issue,not ours!