Independent TV news has just reported that Tony Blair has been admitted to hospital with a suspected heart irregularity.
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Get ill soon.
BBC are reporting that he’s returned home to Downing Street.
By bailing out under the guise of “Ill health due to a heart condition” he avoids getting dissmissed by the Queen over the EU nonsense thereby retaining his pension.
I heard about this on television a short time ago. Much as I hate the guy, being someone who was born with a heart condition myself my initial thoughts were to sympathise with a fellow human being. By the time ten seconds had passed I had started to wonder whether this was yet another piece of spin designed to detract from Blair’s problems with the EU constitution. I simply don’t believe anything he says.
Tony Blair has a heart?
Who knew?
‘suspected heartlessness irregularity’ surely?
Spinnety spin spin spin. I trust him as far as I can spit a rat.
Zack,
How far can you spit a rat? How did you find out?
Oh come off it. You can’t spin a supra-ventricular tachycardia. Give the guy a break.
Okay, who wants to hire the brass band to march up and down outside?
You imagine yourself to be humorous. Your sentiments are merely repellent.
Did Blair go through the normal NHS channels to get his procedure done?
Nope… no waiting six months for Our Tony.
There must have been a vacancy in the queue — or else everyone in the queue had already died of neglect.
It was John Smith’s heart attack that gave him his big break. It would be nicely ironic if his own heart finished it for him.
I guess now he’s a pretty irregular guy.
Well, it’s a start. And it tells us that despite all that bouncing around, he is not fit. We now know his (physical) weakness – and so does he.
You do NOT have to wait 6 months for treatment for supraventricular tachycardia whoever you are; the same way you don’t have to wait 6 months to be admitted to hospital if you crash your car.
Anthony writes:
“You do NOT have to wait 6 months for treatment for supraventricular tachycardia whoever you are…”
Rubbish. Presumably you have never heard of ambulance delays and waits in A&E in excess of 14 hours?
Leaving aside questions of taste, the point people have been making is both accurate and historically relevant. Labour ministers have a long and hypocritical history of enjoying the benefits of private medicine, while condeming the rest of us to Third World treatment in the name of idealogical purity.
Waiting on a trolley for a bed in a ward for 14 hours (which I agree is not good) is not the same as waiting for 14 months (or 6 months as was suggested) for treatment for treatment for supraventricular tachycardia. As for ambulance delays, I have have yet to hear of one lasting 6 months.
Sorry about that I meant to Put the G Cooper at the start of the comment, not in the author field!
Anthony writes:
“Waiting on a trolley for a bed in a ward for 14 hours (which I agree is not good) is not the same as waiting for 14 months..”
The point still stands. Bliar received the customary privileged treatment demanded by our rulers.
Joe Soap might have died under this country’s increasingly pathetic ‘health service’, to which he and his fellow travellers condemn the rest of us.
I’m sorry Mr Cooper having a supraventricular tachycardia promptly cardioverted is not a privilege. When you can demonstrate that Joe Soap would be left untreated with this condition 95 times out of a 100, then you will have proved your point.
Anthony writes:
“When you can demonstrate that Joe Soap would be left untreated with this condition 95 times out of a 100, then you will have proved your point.”
Are you denying that Bliar received privileged treatment? Clearly your admiration for the man has clouded your judgement.
I am saying that if you went into hospital with a supraventricular tachycardia I would expect you to be treated similarily and, despite your best thrashing about in indignation that Blair has been treated efficiently, you have yet to demonstrate that his treatment was anything other than normal. The NHS is quite good at acute treatment like this, it normally gets hammered over more chronic conditions that attract waiting lists and arguments about rationing. The NHS may have problems, but it is not useless all of the time. Don’t let your hatred of Blair get the better of you.
In any case, I would want the leader of the country, regardless of the party they are a member of, to receive prompt treatment.
I had a SVT episode three weeks ago. Ambulance came in 15 minutes and took me straight to A&E where I had immediate attention. No waiting, no queues, just fast, efficient, appropriate treatment.
I sat on a bed for 24 hours in Wrexham, Wales with a broken femur, waiting to have a rod put in. Even through the morphine, I could feel the edges of my bone grating against one another every time I moved. My wife sat next to me with a broken wrist and near concussion and wasn’t even given anything more powerful than an aspirin.
FUCK THE NHS. Any scum who defends it should be forced to undergo it. Tell you what; I’ll beat you with a piece of rebar to help make that happen.
The real tragedy is that as an American, I have private health insurance and could have gone to the nearby private hospital and had my insurance pay for it, but I didn’t know that and got stuck in the NHS hellhole.
Well, at the tremendous risk of catching hell from you firebrands out there, I hope the Prime Minister gets better. Yes, I dislike his policies on Europe etc as much as any, but somehow I also find it amazing how little space in our national life there is for good manners these days. Sheesh.
And although having Gordon Brown as PM would forcibly remind us of how utterly dreadful socialism is, I’d rather we did not have to do so.
Johnathan Pearce writes:
Well, at the tremendous risk of catching hell from you firebrands out there, I hope the Prime Minister gets better.
And so do I.
I accept that Mr Blair was indeed taken ill. What I found interesting was that thoughts of spin flashed through my mind as soon as I heard the news. That wouldn’t have happened with any other politician including Gordon Brown.
Not wishing to inflame things but…
I sat on a bed for 24 hours in Wrexham, Wales with a broken femur, waiting to have a rod put in.
I assume they had first ensured that your condition was not life threatening?
If you had been suffering from a subdural haemtoma or similar I’m pretty sure you’d have seen the inside of the Operating Theatre in pretty quick time. Likewise SVT etc…
The real tragedy is that as an American, I have private health insurance and could have gone to the nearby private hospital and had my insurance pay for it, but I didn’t know that and got stuck in the NHS hellhole.
Highly unlikely.
The private sector only just openned the first private A&E this year.
The only time I’ve been to hospital with something which was life threatening I was in theatre within 4 hours of arrival.
Whenever I’ve been to A&E with something non-life threatening but unpleasant, I’ve been stuck for hours suffering. Not ideal, I accept, but if your life is in danger you’ll probably be ok.
Jonathan Pearce – Good manners? We should wish Joe Stalin a nice day? This man intends to sell 59m freeborn Britons down the river. Surely ‘good manners’ would dictate that he ask them first? Good manners? Sheeesh!
He is simply not in the same category as Stalin. It isn’t taking Stalin’s evil seriously to suggest he is.
Anthony writes:
“you have yet to demonstrate that his treatment was anything other than normal.”
Bliar was rushed from Chequers to Stoke Mandeville hospital, from where he was then rushed to the Hammersmith for treatment.
Just the sort of experience the average person can expect, somewhere in the depths of Merseyside or South Wales.
Now tell us that was ‘normal treatment’ – it’s always rewarding to start the week with a good chuckle.
Natalie, just goes to show that the right and left both have their nutters. For the left Hitler equals Bush and for the right Stalin equals Blair. What is it about people who live in liberal democracies that they cannot get a appropriate perspective on their politicians.
Mr Cooper, from the looks of Stoke Mandeville hospital coronary care unit it appears that they may not be tooled up for cardioversions. It appears that patients might have to go to John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford to undergo cardioversion, so it may have made perfect sense for the head of our elected government to go to a hospital nearer his place of work. Of course, I can’t be sure what would normally happen in these cases in Stoke Mandeville, but then I’m not labouring a cheap political point. Ring up Stoke Mandeville Hospital and ask them what normally happens to patients who present with supraventricular tachycardias at their hospital and find out the extent of special treatment Mr Blair received. Perhaps they got out the chocolate biscuits for the worried John Prescott while while he sat waiting and perhaps the security services didn’t obtain a pay and display ticket in the car park. I’m sure you can find lots of irregularities to get your own heart racing.
If you hadn’t noticed already Blair is treated unequally to the rest of us on an everyday basis, being quite commonly driven around by a chaffeur to important engagements, being allowed to live in Downing Street, and getting to meet Chirac (Well, it can’t all be fun can it?).
Anthony writes:
“If you hadn’t noticed already Blair is treated unequally to the rest of us on an everyday basis…”
Thank you for finally admitting the point.
Bliar, like the rest of this pack of thieving hypocrites, is simply the latest ‘socialist’ to expect one standard for himself and his kind, while impeding the goal of similar treatment for the rest of society.
Prior to this, we have had countless Labour ministers (not to mention a fair few union leaders) receiving private health care, sending their children to private schools, owning multiple homes – the very social ‘evils’ they like to pretend they stand against.
Hypocrites, the lot of them – and fools, those who are taken in by it.
Anthony – “being allowed to live in Downing St and getting to meet Chirac. Well, it can’t all be fun, can it?” No, but we must prevail upon Jacques to be courteous.
Mr Cooper, you have taken satire to new heights!
On reflection, I take Natalie’s point that my equating Blair with Stalin was unjust and frivolously dismissive of the real evil that Stalin did. However, I make no apology for not wishing Mr Blair well.
Interesting information on how Mr Blair was not given specialist treatment.
Mr Blair has his good points… he also has some extremely ugly, and pernicious points… one of which is spin. When a bad story pops up- suddenly he goes into a tale spin. It is very difficult to believe a word that comes out of his….(hmmm, so many words to choose from)… “office”.
It is mighty odd that this story about his heart appears on headline TV news right when his head may be on the block… which could mean that the story is both for real and depending on the level of heart problem.. spun completely out of all proportion. The misrepresentation and blatant lies from his office have reached such a proportion that it is impossible to believe anything he says without verifiable confirmation from a neutral third party.
As to the question of jumping the hospital queue… a very close relative of mine called in for this exact treatment- 18 months after they’d done the initial heart test… and then the NHS couldn’t correct it anyway and stopped treating them on the basis of: ‘You’ve survived this long so its “probably” best if we leave it alone’….hmmmmm!
Sorry – that should say ” a very close relative of mine WAS called in by the NHS..”
Well chaps! After a hard day at surgery I entered ‘F*ck the NHS’ into Google and this is where I find myself. Pretty good huh! Yes, I agree with all of you! Blair [and his buddies] are sh*th*l*s and I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could kick him [and I haven’t worked out recently, no time!] The worst if he pegs out, we get Gordon instead! Oh Christ!! More taxes for the middle-classes! Yes, OK, the NHS is still just about functional with acute problems but totally lousy with anything non-acute or semi-acute; as an NHS GP and hospital practioner, I’d certainly not use it myself if I could help it. Answer? Privatise? How many could afford? I suspect a lot could, but a lot couldn’t. Doctors need to face economic realities [Greedy, disorganised s*ds most of them/us!] and cut private fees. One of my patients flew to Malasia for an MRI scan and with the air fare it was still cheaper than a private consult and scan down the road in the UK! Too many human beings on the planet, what matter a few early demises? Heaven is supposed to be quite nice, for those who believe. Go to Hell and you will doubtless sooner or later meet Tony [and his boyfriend Peter and frustrated ex-boyfriend Gordon! Poor Cherie, but then, she’s always got Carol! Talk about a lavender marriage!] Depends what you want in life! And after! Heck! We only have to put up with it all for 70 years or so! I don’t know too many answers!!
Eric