The Tories continue to reinforce my view that they are just Labour-lite by saying they ‘believe’ in the socialist National Health Service. So presumably David Cameron will soon want to extend this wonderful thing that he ‘believes in’ to other areas of the economy. If command economics are the best way to provide something as important as healthcare, why is that not also the best way to build cars, run banks, make computers etc.? Surely if the Tory party believes socialism works, why are they not planning to introduce it more widely? Is this what comes next?
They talk in terms of how they can be trusted to ‘run’ the economy, as if the economy was something that requires politicians to function. And what is the ‘legacy of Thatcher’ if not the move away from a more command oriented economy? Well Cameron says he is breaking with that too.
So, if the Tories are a party which can appoint Michael ‘a touch of the night’ Howard as leader, probably the only man in British politics today even more authoritarian than David Blunklett, then clearly voting Tory to protect civil liberties from the predations of Blairism is utterly pointless (sort of like suicide for fear of death)…
…and now we see they are also a party which followed with a new leader who is promising to adopt Blairite economic policies, it does not really matter a whole lot which of those two parties actually end up in 10 Downing Street, does it?
Why vote for Tory Blairism when you can vote for the real thing, Tony Blairism?
Perry de Havilland writes:
“Why vote for Tory Blairism when you can vote for the real thing, Tony Blairism?”
With Brown waiting in the wings, frothing with impatience, a vote for Cameron is the only way of getting a Bliarite in power. Something an awful lot of Islington thinkers really, really want. Despite the evidence of the past few years!
Verity might be interested to know that Dave has now moved into overdrive to use his disabled child. He was posing on BBC TV news tonight with the ambulance crew who take him for his treatment, so as to demonstrate his love for the NHS. It is well known that in backward countries without an NHS, disabled children are rendered into Soylent Green.
Luckily we escaped that fate when in 1948 Mr Bevan nationalised our health service. His legacy, based on the prejudices of a class warrior whose attitudes were formed before the Great War, marches on into the 21st century. Amazing. Quite amazing.
John K writes:
“…. Dave has now moved into overdrive to use his disabled child. He was posing on BBC TV news tonight with the ambulance crew who take him for his treatment, so as to demonstrate his love for the NHS.”
Strange. Weren’t we being accused of some kind of inhumanity a while back when several of us pointed out Cameron’s use of his child’s handicap? Apparently it never happened and we’d invented it.
Damn fine post, Perry. “Committing suicide for fear of death …”.
I have kept my mind firmly shut regarding this disabled kid, but what’s wrong with it? Is it a boy or a girl? What “treatment” does it get and why is Dave burdening the NHS – the envy of the world – with it when he can well afford private treatment?
Things are moving awfully fast. First Dave writes the Conservative manifesto, and two months later, tears it all up and say, “Just kidding!” Has anything this bizarre ever happened before? I mean it’s not even as though he’s had time to have an epiphany on the road to Jerusalem. It was just two months ago …
I think Perry’s suggestion that Dave could be motivated to move on from “controlling” the economy to controlling other things.
Anyway, this low opportunism with that kid is vomit-inducing. Tony must be kicking himself.
The problem is that Brown is a Blairite too – he is the co-architect of New Labour. He basically believes the same things as Blair, but thinks that there’s less scope for the private sector to be involved in health and education. So I fear any Conservatives hoping Labour will lunge to the left will be disappointed.
This leaves the electorate with a choice between New Labour and a Conservative Party which has surrendered every argument, and accepted every totem of social democracy. And what’s the point of that?
Cameron and his allies use that poor child in a way that borders on the immoral. During the leadership election, whenever anyone said Cameron was privileged or out of touch, either Cameron or one of his friends would mention his child.
Well, Howard was basically an interventionist. Like Heseltine, he’d intervene morning, noon and night. The only difference was the focus of their intervention. It looks like Cameron is the same – a man with a faith in the power of governments – a technocrat.
James Hellyer writes:
“During the leadership election, whenever anyone said Cameron was privileged or out of touch, either Cameron or one of his friends would mention his child.”
Indeed, and as several of us here pointed out at the time. At which point some of those self-same supporters denied it was happening.
It’s hard to know which is the more objectionable in some of Cameron’s followers: their mendacity or their opportunism.
Uh? Two pops at the blairite Cameron in quick succession from Mr Perry? Is there a Groundhog day vibe going on at Samizdata? At least you didn’t re-iterate the Vote UKIP or Lib Dem line like last time. Funny, at the last election the loony lefties were saying vote Lib Dem or Respect. People are having a go at Charlie Kennedy but that’s one hell of a broad church he’s building. And it is filled with people who are not really serious about political power.
Good post Perry.
Mike, you guys just don’t quite understand the problem. The problem is that Britain now has at least three centre-left parties with Cameron ditching practically anything visibly Tory. That hardly gives the electorate much of a meaningful choice in the next election. This is bad because all that happens in elections is that one bunch of careerists gets replaced by another lot.
Of course, Cameron may not be tacking to the left to hoodwink the electorate into voting for a rightwing party but that strategy is bound to be rumbled eventually.
Politics needs a diversity of choices to stay healthy. Why cannot you guys see that?
Johnathan asks:
“Why cannot you guys see that? ”
Because they don’t want to. They want to maintain the totalitarian rule of the ironically soi disant social democrats.
Nick Assinder, on the other hand, (one of the very few BBC journalists worthy of the name) certainly can and says the following in his News Online analysis today:
“Never mind the “Blair Lite” tag, if David Cameron continues as he has started he will attract the label “Blair full strength”.”
GCooper: “Strange. Weren’t we being accused of some kind of inhumanity a while back when several of us pointed out Cameron’s use of his child’s handicap?”
I started it, and got dumped on by several tender-hearted ‘let’s give young Dave the benefit of the doubt’ suckers.
Cameron is basically a pampered Westminster wonk whose sole business experience was shilling for Michael Green’s Carlton Communications, the lousiest network company in ITV’s history (and a lousy investment too). The disabled child is about DC’s only point of contact with 90% or more of the electorate, so he was pimping it out to the human interest sections of the meejah for quite a while before he made his leadership bid. (Cf Michael Gove’s ‘I was a foundling’ and Douglas Hurd’s ‘my dad was just a humble tenant farmer’ when he was a Witney MP trying to become leader.
The more empty of ideology party politics becomes, and the less attached to any genuine interest (e.g. Capital versus Labour), the more politicians have to ‘reach out’ to voters by irrelevant sob stuff. As if that made them any less degenerate power maniacs…
For the first time, possibly ever, I agree with every word of Luniversal. I need a drink.
There, there, Luniversal, I didn’t dump on you, because I found it all hugely amusing. And now the kid’s back in the news! I still want to know what’s wrong with it.
Anyway, Cameron wants to make sure it gets free treatment for its mystery ailment for life.
How did politics get so derailed that it has come to the two major parties slugging it to be the most compassionate? How did it stop being about policies?
There’s a real slugfest going on over on the Beeb’s Have Your Say. The Beeb’s highly original question is: Has Political Correctness Gone Mad? And the readers are, to my amazement, letter rip. If you go there and click on “sort by Recommendations” and you will see the first comment had 146 people agreeing with him when he said that time and again the BBC endorsed minority views and minority cultures.
One hundred and twenty-eight people agreed with the next poster who said political correctness was designed to smother debate. And on and on. Quite heartening.
While all you astute politically savvy guys are rearranging the deck-chairs I bring to your attention an article I read, within the last few days, in, I think, “The Christian Science Monitor”……….I’m sure you’ll be able to find it…..about DEBT in Britain. Prof. Hawking would have some difficulty with the astronomic numbers.
“Why cannot you guys see that? ” I can and do see that. But in a sophisticated, large democracy compromises are often required. Cameron’s the current best bet.
Luniversal writes:
“I started it, and got dumped on by several tender-hearted ‘let’s give young Dave the benefit of the doubt’ suckers.”
There you go, being charitable again! I had them tagged as mendacious party loyalists who’d have supported Caligula as long as he’d got them back in power.
And yes. I agree with every single word about Carlton! What a thoroughly awful company!
Woe, and much gnashing of teeth.
I wish Davis had won…
And of course those generous hearted samizdata souls seem suspiciously keen to bring Cameron’s disabled son into their abuse. You guys! Such a lovely bunch of libertarians!
Cameron is basically a pampered Westminster wonk whose sole business experience was shilling for Michael Green’s Carlton Communications, the lousiest network company in ITV’s history (and a lousy investment too).
Jeff Randall’s a journalist whom I trust. He said that after dealing with Dave when he represented Carlton that he wouldn’t trust him with his daughter’s pocket money. I’d believe him before Dave, a man who’s dropped every policy he stood on just six months ago. He’s the Richard Rich de nos jours. David Davis must feel absolutley sick right now. I feel his pain.
Douglas Hurd’s ‘my dad was just a humble tenant farmer’ when he was a Witney MP trying to become leader.
Now that was hilarious, you must admit.
But in a sophisticated, large democracy compromises are often required. Cameron’s the current best bet.
Some compromises in the real world are of course required, agreed. But there has to be a remaining difference that you can see, like different approaches on tax, public spending, the proper role of the state, civil liberties, foreign policy, etc……So far, we have had nothing like that at all. Nada, zip.
Mike writes:
“And of course those generous hearted samizdata souls seem suspiciously keen to bring Cameron’s disabled son into their abuse.”
It’s hard to know whether you’re missing the point through cluelessness or obtuseness.
What’s being objected to is Cameron using his child’s disability to score points.
Spin doctors – what are they like?
The best bet for what exactly? Seems to me he is the best bet for continuity with the great majority of Tony Blair’s policies. So where are the compromises you are talking about? I was rather under the impression that simply adopting the enemy’s ideology was called ‘surrender’, not ‘compromise’.
OK Perry. Government is too big and has to be inceasingly privatised/outsourced. This will happen across western democracies over the next 30 years. Blair knows this and wants to do it but either doesn’t know how or has a fractious party and the dead hand of Brown to hold him back. The Tories under Cameron are the best bet to follow this through. But smartly, Cameron (like IDS , Willetts, Ferdinand Mount and other senior Tories) realise the importance of ‘Social Justice.’ Samizdata types can comfortably quaff champagne and talk about meta- contexts (by the way what is that?) but too many in Britain’s inner cities are living on sink estates with burnt out cars and casual thuggery. Don’t dismiss it as pinko nonsense. The strong should help the weak. The Tories are bang on to play this card and follow it through.
It was Cameron who threw his kid into the ring, gambling it would inspire sympathy. He took a chance. Some people may be sympathetic, but I will bet you at least 50% of Brits, and maybe more, will think that was a sleazy move. This shows you how well he understand the British people. Those he has actually spoken to.
Mike, I half agree with some of what you say. Of course the situation of people living in sink estates and enduring casual thuggery is bad and should not be dismissed as pinko nonense. I have written about the problems of the Welfare State before, the disasters of mass public housing in France, and so on. And there is a body of opinion – you name some good people – who are trying to figure out a way to deal with such things. But the worry I have about Cameron is that he has – so far – avoided any sign of radicalism in this area.
So far the signs are that he wants to retain Big Government. Now he may be bullshitting for good PR, but how long can he keep up this act before people smell a rat?
Samizdata types can comfortably quaff champagne
Yes indeed, a bottle of Krug a day at the very least.
but too many in Britain’s inner cities are living on sink estates with burnt out cars and casual thuggery.
And they’ll be voting for Dave will they?
Don’t dismiss it as pinko nonsense.
Would you mind very much if I did?
The strong should help the weak
Do you harbour even the slightest doubt about the failure of the post-war model of the welfare state? Who are the “strong” exactly? Wage slaves who are already paying for six million civil servants who get better pay, conditions and pensions than they do.
The Tories are bang on to play this card and follow it through.
To oblivion.
Mike writes:
“…too many in Britain’s inner cities are living on sink estates with burnt out cars and casual thuggery…”
Sink estates dreamed-up, planned, built and run by socialist thinkers of one sort or another, lived in by people cultured cradle to grave by a socialist welfare system, whose children (inevitably educated by deeply socialist teachers) are the very ones who burn out the cars and commit the thuggery.
And you want more of this?
Johnathan, I think he has to bullshit. Government is run by powerful and reactionary trade unions. They also contain a hell of a lot of voters. As the famous man said, if the people got good government they wouldn’t like it. But you don’t win elections by pissing off the electorate.
Anti-intellectual and proud of it, eh? Metacontext (I prefer without the hyphen, pace Mr. de Havilland) means the frames of reference within which people form and express their views.
Hmmm. Mike, don’t forget the great H.L. Mencken saying, which I think goes like this: “People vote for the kind of government they want and get it good and hard.”
The strong helping the weak, as you put it, invariably involves subsidising the very behaviour that is depreciated.
The best way to help the weak is to stop taxing them, stop indulging predators with socialworkers, stop strangling under-capitalised local entrepreneurship with local regulations and ideally, let the ‘weak’ buy 9mm handguns.
Of course I realise advocating such a radical injection of rationality puts me on the lunatic fringe.
Thought that meta was Greek for ‘beyond’ not ‘within’ but I appreciate the explanation. And I think GCooper forgets that the socialists who ran Britain from 1979-1997 may have had an influence on the sink estates too. But no, I definitely do not want more of this. I’d like to see it tackled robustly. Labour just haven’t tackled welfare reform head on.
Mike writes:
” Labour just haven’t tackled welfare reform head on.”
Indeed they haven’t. And from all that we’ve seen of him thus far, a vote for Cameron will just deliver more of the same – in no sense of the word, a radical change from 1940s social welfareism
Which rather brings us back to where we started.
Wow Perry. You think you’re on the lunatic fringe? Interesting. I never said that.
Also, I never said we should subsidise bad behaviour. Wonderful how you guys attribute stuff to me. Think you’re doing the same with DC too. Which rather brings me back to where we started G.
I don’t care whether Dave’s telling the truth or he’s lying to insinuate himself with … uh … the LibDems? The Labour voter? The point is, he’s shedding Conservative voters by the minute and this, in the leader of the Conservative party wouldn’t appear to be a good move. The Labour voters will vote for the devil they know, not a wannabee. The leader of the Conservative party should be studying the wishes of the Conservative/libertarian thinkers among the population who want a much smaller state, while figuring out a way not to frighten the Labour and LibDem horses.
Mike writes:
” Think you’re doing the same with DC too.”
No, Mike. You’re just being facetious now. All we’re doing is that most egregious of things: taking a politician at face value.
When the boy Cameron troubles the Daily Telegraph with promises to fight global poverty, ‘reduce the gap between rich and poor’ and reduce carbon emissions as his main priorities, why on earth should I disbelieve him?
Or…. you’re not saying he’s a liar, are you?
and ideally, let the ‘weak’ buy 9mm handguns.
That’s a bit cruel. Surely they should be allowed .40’s and .45’s as well?
Now then GCooper, how about this from Irwin Stelzer in yesterday’s Guardian ‘America’s conservatives realised that it takes a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. So we found Reagan, whose geniality made the curative powers of conservative medicine – lower taxes, less regulation, unambiguous defence of the realm – go down.’ In the words of the great Michael Winner, calm down dears.
Sorry Mike, Cameron’s natural enemies on the meejah Left are close to swooning at his policies. No one is fooled: he’s just another of those ‘One Nation’ Tory patricians, who were never really Conservatives in the first place. Except even further to the Left, tainted as he is with eco-warrior lunacy. A sort of toff’s Swampie.
And Irwin Stelzer in the Guardian? Is this an irony-free zone? You’d be better reading Heffer’s take in the Telegraph.
Let’s see what happens when the Xmas break is over, shall we? I wonder how long it will be before the boy wonder splits the Tory party from top to bottom?
‘America’s conservatives realised that it takes a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down.
What medicine? All Dave seems to have to offer are policies to the left of Blair’s. He seems to think that if he is more Blair than Blair he will attract NuLab voters. But why would any Conservative supporter wish to vote for such vapid imitation of the true master of spin and nothingness?
Eco-warrior lunacy. “The toff’s Swampy!” That is so fine. Oh, god, that’s funny.
And William Hague’s on record as having said on TV (before being invited to join Swampy’s shadow cabinet) that he didn’t agree that the Germans had a problem relaxing in holidays abroad, saying: “If anyone’s got a history of making themselves at home in other people’s countries, it’s the Germans.”
Dennis McShane – some euro-person – has already said it’s “saloon bar humour”.
John K – You make a point that puzzles me too. Why would any Conservative voter want to support a vapid imitation of everything they loathe in the current regime? Cameron is not boxing clever; he’s boxing stupid. Never a good sign in a leader.
Tory Boy – Me too. And as someone else said, I also feel Davis’s pain. Davis would have made a good fist of it. To have lost to this is a tragedy.
Perry asks:
Presumably, because the dour Scotsman at No 11 is unlikely to carry on Blair’s reform agenda in the public services with anything like the same enthusiasm. As I said a couple of weeks ago, people like me are thinking about Blairism after Blair. My worry about the Labour Party is that once it goes into opposition it might shift sharply to the left (which has been the pattern after previous Labour administrations – e.g. 1970-73, 1979-83). It’s a serious mischaracterisation to say that Cameron, or Blair for that matter, represents the status quo in relation to the NHS. Both want to advance a “choice and competition” agenda: if this represents ‘no change’, then why are sectional interests in the NHS so opposed to reform (the same applies in education)? What you really mean is that the policies are not as radical as you would like – not the same thing as ‘no change’. Reforms often have to be incremental. Ever heard of the expression, ‘only Nixon could go to China’? Well, only Labour could be trusted to begin the comprehensive reform of the NHS (Blair went further than Thatcher and Major).
The Tories’ strategic problem has been that Blair was doing what they would have wanted to do in government, which left them with little to contribute. Cameron has solved that problem by agreeing with Blair and seeking to isolate him from the left-wing conservatives in his own party. He’s also depicting Brown as a block on reform, preparing the ground for when Brown finally takes over as PM. Then Cameron will campaign in 2009/10 on the slogan, “New Conservatives versus Old Labour”. It’s smart politics – to anyone who doesn’t think that national salvation lies with Ukipper.
Because they don’t loathe the current regime’s policies – they’re just fed up with the governing party, including its increasingly fractious nature. The same happened (on a more dramatic scale) with the Major government: its policies were not unpopular – people were just sick of the scandals and the smug faces in power. Blair adopted most Tory policies and won two consecutive landslides.
I never said you did, my point was that is always the reality when people carry out policies based on the notion of the strong (i.e. the state with taxpayers money) helping the weak.
I am sure you do not want to subsidise bad behaviour and I have no reason to doubt your motives… but that is always what such notions end up doing.
Got those chairs lined up properly yet?……..and guns, visit Kim du Toit, a self-confessed Anglophile, who will fill you in on the technical details.
Kim is a righteous dude, but I don’t know that he’s an Anglophile in particular.
I’d like to ask a question. Given that the available parties don’t seem to satisfy, why isn’t there a Libertarian Party available in the UK? If the manifesto was something like that of the US Libertarian Party it would surely be much more closer than Labour or Conservative to the goals of those who might read this site. If Monster Raving Loony can be on the ballot, why can’t Libertarian? I know there’s little chance of such a party attaining power but at least those who desire such reduced governance would have a voice.
Something to do with money Simon,
I suspect.
Tomahawk, I can see why you might assume that DC is a better custodian of Blairite social democracy than the gloomy Scot. That may be true, though some have argued that Brown, in his way, was every bit as crucial to New Labour as Blair. Brown was behind the very smart move to make the BoE independent, in my view the best thing this government has done (the Tories should have done this years ago. Lawson tried but was refused).
But while Blair might want to be more radical than his party allows, much of his actions have been deeply authortarian. On civil liberties – something this blog writes about constantly – the record of this government has been even worse than when Michael Howard was Home Secretary, if that were possible. I don’t see Cameron offering much opposition to this on a principled basis.
Now of course Cameron may turn out much, much better than the early leftish posturing suggests, but he needs to reassure traditional voters that he is not about to scrap a low-tax, pro-free enterprise set of ideas.
The reason I will never make a successful politician is that I find it impossible to say I believe things I don’t believe or to make commitments that I intend to break, simply because I know the public will like them. I find it difficult even to distribute a local leaflet that appeals to populism against reason or humanity. But politicians in the successful parties do it all the time.
A popular franchise demands mad lies. On some subjects the people quite generally believe things that are nonsense, or would rather hear things they know to be nonsense because it is not respectable to approve of people saying something true.
The new Tory position on the NHS can only be explained by an entirely premeditated move to neutralise their political weakness in the public mind on the NHS. There is no other explanation. Because the position is entirely crazy and utterly unsustainable. Nobody who has noticed that medical care works well in the British private sector or in other countries with entirely different ways of doing things, thinks the NHS is “the envy of the world” or that its Stalinist structure is sacred. This is about being seen to be “caring” in an abstract sense. It can have no policy meaning, but it has big political meaning. Since it is just parrotting what a lot of people seem to want to believe, it may yet work.
It is very difficult to see what happens next. Where is the presentational conflict with New Labour? There has to be some, or why should anyone vote Tory rather than New Labour? And the strategy is clearly about getting back those people who felt safe to go over to Tony and now have to be safe to come back to Dave. Will we see Cameron stand up for civil liberties and social tolerance–against the Respec’ Agenda?
We should find out shortly. Tony Blair’s New Year message to Labour Party supporters announced that in January there will be a further new strategy launched to control ‘antiscocial behaviour’.
Tory traditional voters are much like the Labour traditional vote–they have nowhere to go, and are not very mobile. Most voters never change their vote, ever, though they might conceivably abstain. In Britain, most people are voting against not for.
Is this the same Stelzer article that attacked Cameron’s consensual style, and argued that he should offer the electorate a choice at the next election, and not an echo of Blairism?
Yes James that one! But I think his close was a bit tongue in cheek, don’t you? ‘Unless – but this is too cynical a thought when we are dealing with a man of such obvious sincerity – Cameron plans to run left and govern right.’
I think only Cameron’s right wing supporters actually think that he’ll talk left and govern right. Oh, and Gordon Brown. He thinks that too.
The moderate COnservatives who support Cameron seem to think he’s genuinely moved towards the centre. Certainly putting the likes of Ken Clarke and Stephen Dorrell in charge of policy groups would tend to indicate a support for big government and the status quo is all we’re likely to get.
There’s an interesting article by David Green, the Director of Civitas, in the Telegraph(Link). He says that the think tanks don’t intend to spend much time on these policy groups as there’s no point – the policies for health, education and social services (55% of the budget) already seem to be fixed.
Thanks James. This is interesting. Also worth a look is the Adam Smith Institute’s recent paper on Health Reform at http://www.adamsmith.org/images/uploads/publications/health.pdf. If we want to take DC at face value, he’s said nothing that contradicts their view.
But surely core Tory voters do have somewhere else to go, namely UKIP. Of course UKIP stands no chance of becoming the next government, or indeed of winning a single parliamentary seat. But I believe at the last election there were around 20-30 seats where the UKIP vote exceeded the margin of Tory defeat. If young Dave continues in the present vein, this number is likely to greatly increase as Tory votes haemorrhage and this in itself is likely to offset any gains through votes captured from the LibDems.
It seems to me his strategy is not even good practical politics, never mind admirable in principle.
I agree with Guy Herbert.
The Tories are not trusted on public services because they allowed themselves, Labour and the lefty media to paint them as such. The Tories cannot currently win on the economy because they screwed it up in 92 and Labour haven’t since. It is because New Labour (despite all their strangulating regulation) have not yet ruined the economy that they have been given a free pass by the electorate (and it has to be said an half asleep Tory parliamantary party) in all sorts of other areas damaging to this country (make your own list).
So the new Tory strategy appears to be we can’t beat them with the economic stick, the voters aren’t sufficiently interested in the other issues of burning importance, so let’s position ourselves on Labour’s turf. But repositioning of itself will not work because it implies a mere change of image and not actual product. That won’t work as potential new voters will see through it. So policy will have to change and to be fair that’s pretty much what was to be expected. I voted for DD because I was not prepared to take a gamble on DC dishing up policies which I predict are likely to be unacceptable. So fair enough, let’s have an honest debate about the issues upon their merits. Let’s avoid spin and pretence. That way we will all know whwre we stand and whom we should vote for.
Guy Herbert’s argument is probably the sanest I have seen thus far.
Part of the issue lies in the fact that we live in relatively prosperous times and the sort of things we worry about – such as the growth of a surveillance state – don’t get a lot of traction with a public that cannot see beyond the next month’s mortgage payment. As parties squeeze in to the supposed “centre ground”, it gets harder and harder to get people to show interest in these things. That partly explains why I find Cameron’s behaviour so depressing.
Agree, Jonathan. And they are not in the “centre ground”, as I believe you think as well as you put it in quotes. They are on the left, but have supinely allowed Labour to define what is the centre. Against all human reason, I might add.
For anyone who thinks David Cameron himself does not have some genetic defect, what about the chocolate oranges? Is he crazy?
He walks into W H Smith and demands to know why they’re selling half-priced chocolate oranges instead of real oranges. (Link)
(Maybe because they’re a private commercial concern, Dave, leader of the Conservative Party, and they can sell whatever they feel like selling as long as it’s within the law?)
He said chocolate oranges are contributing to Britain’s “obesity crisis”. WHAT??? He adds, “So many consumer businesses could do more to promote healthy diets and lifestyles. It simply requires corporate responsibility to be matched by marketing creativity.” Those of us who dubbed Tony Blair the ultimate interfering authoritarian nitwit must beg his pardon. Cameron is clearly a loon. A spokesman for W H Smith said they found his attitude “perplexing”.
Today’s Telegraph has a good editorial on Cameron’s NHS speech.
In some ways, his speech was good. I concur with his assertion that the Tory policy should be designed not to exclude the poorest and favour the rich and middle classes. The Tory policy to give patients that go private 60% of the cost was never satisfactory as it leaves the poorest without the same choice despite the fact that their taxes have also been taken to pay for the NHS.
But as the Telegraph points out (somewhat more mildly than I would have) many of the things that he has ruled out in advance of his policy review are exactly the things that should be given careful consideration if he is to achieve his aims of giving the less well off a fair chance and freedom from the failings of the NHS monopoly.
Overall I was appalled by the content of his speech as opposed to the tone (which I liked).
HJHJ – I didn’t see the speech, mainly because I can no more bear to watch Cameron than I can to watch Blair, but I would say, enough with the social justice awready!
Global warming, global poverty, wind turbines, and now not improving the NHS because it wouldn’t be “fair”.
HJHJ, you note: The Tory policy to give patients that go private 60% of the cost was never satisfactory as it leaves the poorest without the same choice despite the fact that their taxes have also been taken to pay for the NHS.
I would maintain that “the poorest” are people who don’t work and are on welfare, benefits, entitlements, allowances, whatever. Money hasn’t been taken from their taxes, because they don’t pay any. (I am speaking in general. There may be some genuinely poor people who go out to work.)
You say it leaves the poorest without the same choice. The poorest also don’t have a choice to fly first class or buy a car off the showroom floor. So what?
I would also argue that, if people who can afford it and want/need immediate treatment took up the offer of 60% to go private, that would free up a lot of facilities for “the poorest” who have been on waiting lists for the last couple of years.
Of course, it would be best to destroy the NHS entirely, but this not being feasible in Britain, where they are not just tolerant of, but quite pleased with, the tenth rate, I thought this was a good idea. Gives people who can afford it choice and frees up space for those who have no choice. Someone explain to me why that is bad.
I beleive the point was that these people were paying extra to go private, and in so doing were relieving demand on the NHS and saving it money. If you keep the NHS system, all not having such a policy does is deny more people the ability to go private (lots of people can – and do – afford single operations, but can’t afford insurance).
James Hellyer – Precisely. Someone please explain why this is not a good idea. And yes, Chocolate Orange Inspector, I am looking at you.
Yes, how dare a newsagent’s not be a greengrocer’s! Think of the children!
It’s just such a silly argument. Lots of shops have moved their confectionary displays away from tills because that’s what their customers wanted. Smiths keeps special offers there. If their customers want them, what’s the problem? Or does Dave plan to stop all shops selling chocolate oranges in case demand is met from elesewhere?
Becasue the Labour Party says it means Conservatives want to deny poor people medical care – because they’re evil!
I think that’s the basic objection…
James Hellyer, with respect, you are missing the point. It is not Cameron’s business what a commercial enterprise decides to do, as long as it is operating within the law. Even Tony Blair isn’t freaky enough to try to stop shops selling chocolate. Cameron has absolutely no business to go around publicly criticising a commercial establishment. It wouldn’t matter if W H Smith decided to put a shelf next to the till for Victoria’s Secret underwear with a free giant box of chocolates with every purchase. It is not his bloody business.
It’s also not his business what people eat. There is also no “obesity crisis” in Britain. What the hell is an “obesity crisis” anyway? And even if there were, it still would not be preachy, authoritarian Cameron’s business. This guy is completely disconnected from reality.
Let’s have less fretting about chocolate oranges, Dave, and hear your plans for tax reform, reducing the size of the state, dealing with terrorism, details on how you’re going to be the first person in 50 years to successfully reform the monstrous NHS, let’s hear your intentions for loosening the chains of the EU, reducing the public sector. Let’s hear your opinions on global free trade.
Thanks, Dave.
I know, hence the point about the market being self-correcting and thus none of his business. If he doesn’t like the shop, he can either withdraw his custom or complain to their managment as anyone else would have to.
You are right. Quite apart from the commercial naiveté, it is crashing arrogance that irritates me. Why does he imagine his opinion is of consequence to W H Smith and their shareholders? No wonder the company spokesman said they found his comments perplexing.
Charles Clarke, whom I loathe but on this evidence could warm to, said somewhat more trenchantly, “the Tory leader understands nothing about nothing.” I think that about sums Dave up.
Charles Clarke, on the other hand, knows everything about nothing–which is preferable how?
After his comments about the DNA database this morning, to the effect that everything is fine as long as government use follows government rules–implicitly regardless of what those rules are, or any contingent facts–I’m not warming to him any time soon.
Verity and James Hellyer,
When I said “The Tory policy to give patients that go private 60% of the cost was never satisfactory as it leaves the poorest without the same choice despite the fact that their taxes have also been taken to pay for the NHS” I did not say that, in the circumstances, it was completely wrong, merely unsatisfactory.
Why? For a start it could be (and was) caricatured by NuLabour as a policy to benefit the better off only.
Secondly, it didn’t tackle the fact that you’d still have to pay privately in addition to being compelled to pay for the NHS. If the NHS – supposedly a universal service according to NuLabour – can’t or won’t treat you, why the hell shouldn’t you go elsewhere and have the NHS pay? Didn’t Gordon Brown say that the NHS would be “the best health insurance in the world” – if it’s insurance it should pay the full cost and NuLabour should have been challenged on this.
Verity – when I say poor, I mean too poor to pay twice. A large proportion of the population could afford their own health insurance if they didn’t have to pay for the NHS too.
Verity and James Hellyer,
When I said “The Tory policy to give patients that go private 60% of the cost was never satisfactory as it leaves the poorest without the same choice despite the fact that their taxes have also been taken to pay for the NHS” I did not say that, in the circumstances, it was completely wrong, merely unsatisfactory.
Why? For a start it could be (and was) caricatured by NuLabour as a policy to benefit the better off only.
Secondly, it didn’t tackle the fact that you’d still have to pay privately in addition to being compelled to pay for the NHS. If the NHS – supposedly a universal service according to NuLabour – can’t or won’t treat you, why the hell shouldn’t you go elsewhere and have the NHS pay? Didn’t Gordon Brown say that the NHS would be “the best health insurance in the world” – if it’s insurance it should pay the full cost and NuLabour should have been challenged on this.
Verity – when I say poor, I mean too poor to pay twice. A large proportion of the population could afford their own health insurance if they didn’t have to pay for the NHS too.
HJHJ – I take your points. Yes, if people didn’t have money extracted from them to pay for the rubbish NHS, they would be able to pay for private insurance. And you are right to say that 60% isn’t good enough. If they can’t provide the treatment that someone needs, they should pay the entire cost of them getting private treatment. I hadn’t thought of that, and you’re right.
Obviously, Cameron wants the NHS to lumber on because he wants his son to be treated free for the rest of his life, on other people’s contributions. Why he, a nominal Conservative, doesn’t feel compelled to pay for his son’s treatment himself tells us a lot about young Master Cameron.
Finally, there are whispers that they will start sending people to India, where there are chains of hospitals that are the equal of hospitals in the United States. The cost is around 1/4 to 1/3 the cost of the same procedures provided privately in Britain. There would be a saving of well over 50%, even taking into account the airfare.
So in other words, if the NHS couldn’t treat someone in a timely manner, they should spend 50% of what the procedure would cost them, and send the patient to India. I understand these private hospitals in India are sparkling clean, as well.
Verity, you asked elsewhere about editorship of the Spectator, now that Boris has gone. If you can stomach it, read Peter Oborne this week. The wretch works himself into a long love letter to Cameron, even likening him to Disraeli, on the grounds that Dizzy was good at outflanking the-then Liberal Party by tacking to the left. Oborne has lost it.
The Spectator is an important organ of opinion and it needs a firm hand, from someone who is not narrowly doctrinaire but who is broadly in sympathy with conservative-liberal values. The best editor in recent years was Charles Moore. Maybe he could be tempted back.
I will read this week’s Speccie with a whisky and soda at cocktail hour, but I was disappointed to read that Oborne is a Cameron fan. I will read his piece first. Yes, Charles Moore was an excellent editor, but so was Frank Johnson, in a different way. Boris has been simply dire.
But I think the Barclay brothers may go in for another wet. This would be Matthew d’Ancona. My favourite to win is Quentin Letts because he is funny – he has the light hearted humour of Frank Johnson. But he’s very conservative in his values, so I think that lets him out.
I just wish the Speccie could be a fun read again. And that new website is absolutely impossible to navigate. You can’t tell what’s current and what was from last week, or even from other publications. What a mess!
At least Peter O is anti-war, even if he has owed me a tenner since 1988. Peter has been out to Afghanistan and Iraq and seen the mess for himself.
So far the Barclay brothers have perpetuated Conrad ‘Brother can You Spare a Fortune’ Black’s policy of permitting severe criticism of the Krazy Krusade in the Spectator, while the Telegraphs go on neoconning… to the bafflement and disgust of most of their Tunbridge Wellsian readership.
I volunteer to be editor of the Spectator. I would rather enjoy it in fact.
I didn’t realise Oborne was anti-war. I like him a little less now.
BTW – Melanie has joined the debate re the NHS and Cameron.
Verity,
Apart from the editorial, there is also an excellent piece in today’s Teegrpah by David Green of Civitas about Cameron’s speech and what he could have said.
Most people in the UK are woefully informed about the US healthcare ‘system’. They think that those not covered by insurance are routinely bankrupted or left without treatment whereas, in fact, even those without insurance tend to do better than the poor here under the NHS. Unfortunately, the downside is the high cost to the taxpayer of medicare and medicaid in addition to private insurance in the US. From a cost-effectiveness point of view the US doesn’t score that well – the medical profession cartel has much to do with this.
This cartel is as bad, if not worse, in the UK of course, dominated as it is by producer interest. Doctors here have seen huge wage increases in recent years whilst retaining most of their restrictive practices and in many cases reducing their service (most GPs now get over £100k and no longer offer out-of-hours cover). So we have unemployed doctors simply because local PCTs can’t afford to employ new staff – at the same time as shortages.
If you want an illustration of the problem, just look at the letters in the papers about people who have been told by doctors that they will have to wait a year for NHS treatment but can have it immediately (from the very same doctor) if they pay privately. It rather explodes the myth of selfless overworked doctors in the NHS, when they have plenty of spare to time to treat you privately for extra lucre over and above their already inflated salaries. The Guardian printed a list of prices for common procedures in he UK and other countries not so long ago – it was consistently hugely higher in the UK.
Few people here realise this – the myth of underpaid overworked medical staff still exists. In fact a recent Sunday Times report clearly illustrated that medical staff here are paid hugely more here than in the rest of Europe.
This is why the international market in medical procedures that you mention is to be applauded and encouraged. Many people industries and businesses in the UK are expected to compete internationally whilst paying the inflated costs for the medical (and other) closed shops, immune from such competitive pressures in the UK . The sooner they face such competition, the better. There have already been many reports in the UK of individuals taking themselves off to India and other countries for treatment at a fraction of the cost here when told that the NHS wouldn’t provide and private treatment here was prohibitively expensive. If there is a glimmer of hope in Cameron’s policy, it is that he intends source treatment abroad if necessary to undemine the medical cartel here.
HJHJ – Thank you. Actually, I had read David Green’s piece in The Telegraph and, of course, agreed with it.
Yes, everyone in the US is covered one way or another. If you are taken to a county hospital and absolutely cannot pay, you will be given the best of treatment anyway, but it will be in a ward, not a private room, and you won’t have a phone or a TV or get to choose your own menu.
If you are poor, but have a job, you will have to pay something every week (but nothing like the real cost of your treatment. But you have to make a contribution, which, in the real world, is a perfectly normal expectation).
Brits who’ve never been to the US think that if people have no insurance, they won’t be allowed in a regular hospital, but they are all required by law to take in every trauma case that turns up. They cannot, by law, inquire about insurance until the patient has stabilised. If they don’t have insurance and it will not be dangerous to transport them, yes, they will be transferred to a country hospital. But the first (closest) hospital that the ambulance takes them to must treat them until they’re stabilised.
Yes, HJHJ, I have read of adventurous Brits, one a Yorkshireman of 74 who needed a heart operation, taking it upon themselves to go to India for their procedure. It’s 1/4 of the cost and Indian success in coronary procedures is very slightly above American success. Something like a quarter of a percentage point. This fellow was so pleased with his private room the cleanliness, the pleasantness of the staff, the skill of the nurses and doctors that he said he would unhesitatingly come back. But the NHS should be covering this cost as it is NATIONAL Insurance and people are required by law to pay into it in the expectation of being treated. No one said where. Why not India?
(BTW, can you imagine food in an Indian private hospital? You would die of happiness!)
Re India, interesting that so many Americans, normally the most insular of people, are going to India. The reason is, non-resident Indians themselves go “home” to India for treatment and when they come back with their new smiles and their hip replacements and successful fertility treatments, their workmates perk up and pay attention. And there are so many Indian medical practitioners in the US, as there are everywhere, so people tend to trust Indians.
It’s a fascinating phenomenon.
The American healthcare system will be increasingly shot as the population moves towards one-quarter black and one-quarter Latino by 2050. Most of these folks are low-IQ and cannot take as good care of themselves as whites, Jews and orientals. As Prof. Gottfredson has shown, many low-IQ people cannot understand medical instructions and fail to follow doctor’s orders.
America has the worst of three worlds in medical provision– entitlement plus insurance and a grossly indulgent lifestyle– so that moral hazards are enormous. In many states you can be cleaned out and fare worse if you joined Blue Cross than if you panhandle on some well endowed county hospital. The GDP percentage absorbed by healthcare is much higher than in Europe. But that, as I have said, is partly because the average intelligence gap between Western Europe and the USA is widening. (This also means that ERs in black cities and ghettoes are full of incompetent, lazy black doctors and nurses engaged under racial favouritism schemes.)
Bush has got no further squaring this circle than that of social security, and now he’s a loser in Iraq and a lame duck he is unlikely to get any substantial reforms through. Hillary will have to grapple with the yawning deficit, pressed by America’s Chinese and Japanese creditors. Oh dear.
Oborne’s opposition to the war seems to be borne as much out of snobbery and gut anti-Americanism as it is out of a principled hatred of war and violence, from what I read of his comments over recent years. I also suspect that it is also a function of his understanderble hatred of Blair. If a Tory PM had supported the overthrow of the disgusting Taliban, I’d bet that Oborne would be all for it.
Luniversal is of course correct that a lot of traditional Telegraph readers are unhappy with the neocon agenda of spreading liberty and democracy. Some feel this way because they take a sort of Hayekian view that there is a “fatal conceit” in any form of intervention, including interventions to deal with rogue states; others feel this way because they are snobs who hate the U.S.,; and other traditional Tories opposed the war because they probably had a sneaking regard for Saddam, whom they saw as a sort of latter-day General Franco or Pinochet. A good example of the latter is John Laughland, who seems to have lost the plot in recent years.
Well, there are none so blind as those who don’t want to see. I read every piece I come across by Oborne and I’d never noticed that he was anti-war . Yes, it could be part of his anti-Blair mosaic, which is one reason I like him so much. Interesting thoughts, though, Jonathan.