How safe will our NHS be under the Conservatives?
Last year Conservative MEP Dan Hannan became flavour of the month amongst right wing commentators and Conservatives when he poured scorn on the NHS and dismissed it as a sixty year mistake. His party, which earlier that year had worked so hard to get him re-elected to the European Parliament, distanced themselves from him and assured us that he didn't speak for party policy.
More recently it emerged that a Conservative pressure group called Nurses for Reform had secured an hour-long meeting with Conservative leader David Cameron in the House of Commons. Nurses for Reform have branded the NHS a "Soviet-style calamity" and wish to see much greater commercialisation of our health service. Commercialisation is code on the right for "privatisation".
Now it emerges that there are other groups with strong links to the Conservative Party who also despise the NHS. This week the press has widely reported that leaders of the Young Britons Foundation (YBF) have been espousing similarly unsavoury and extreme views about the NHS (and a lot more).
The YBF chief executive, Donal Blaney, has penned an article entitled "Scrap the NHS, not just targets" in which he askes "Would it not now be better to say that the NHS - in its current incarnation - is finished?"
So what has this got to do with Cameron's "Compassionate Conservatives" you might be asking? Well, all these groups have strong links to the senior echelons of the Conservative Party. Indeed, the YBF's ties to the Conservative frontbench are so close that both Conservative Party chairman, Eric Pickles MP, and the shadow defence secretary, Liam Fox MP, spoke at the annual YBF parliamentary rally at the House of Commons, which was chaired by Blaney.
Blaney, incidentally was sacked from being chair of Conservative Future for being too right-wing: quite a feat as anyone who knows the background of the Young Conservative movement will be able to attest.
But with people like Blaney pulling the strings behind the scenes, if the Conservatives win the next election, how safe do you think our NHS will be?
More recently it emerged that a Conservative pressure group called Nurses for Reform had secured an hour-long meeting with Conservative leader David Cameron in the House of Commons. Nurses for Reform have branded the NHS a "Soviet-style calamity" and wish to see much greater commercialisation of our health service. Commercialisation is code on the right for "privatisation".
Now it emerges that there are other groups with strong links to the Conservative Party who also despise the NHS. This week the press has widely reported that leaders of the Young Britons Foundation (YBF) have been espousing similarly unsavoury and extreme views about the NHS (and a lot more).
The YBF chief executive, Donal Blaney, has penned an article entitled "Scrap the NHS, not just targets" in which he askes "Would it not now be better to say that the NHS - in its current incarnation - is finished?"
So what has this got to do with Cameron's "Compassionate Conservatives" you might be asking? Well, all these groups have strong links to the senior echelons of the Conservative Party. Indeed, the YBF's ties to the Conservative frontbench are so close that both Conservative Party chairman, Eric Pickles MP, and the shadow defence secretary, Liam Fox MP, spoke at the annual YBF parliamentary rally at the House of Commons, which was chaired by Blaney.
Blaney, incidentally was sacked from being chair of Conservative Future for being too right-wing: quite a feat as anyone who knows the background of the Young Conservative movement will be able to attest.
But with people like Blaney pulling the strings behind the scenes, if the Conservatives win the next election, how safe do you think our NHS will be?
Labels: Conservatives, health
posted by Stuart King at
07:59
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