Of government, genital warts & the National Health Service
Not so long ago the Westminster Village was awash with posturing political types claiming that they were the natural party of good government…
(Cue the badly muffled sound of unbridled mirth from the audience at this point)
…without spotting the inherent irony of using the word ‘good’ next to the word ‘government’. A few years on & having made such an utter hash of said ‘government’ in all of its many nefarious forms, they have now decided we need a couple of extra tiers of it – & in dear Blighty, we all need more government like we need a dose of genital warts.
Whilst that is something of a somewhat unsavoury thought, it does rather neatly even if in a slightly contrived fashion, brings us onto this morning’s topic of the National Health Service.
What the hell is it with the National Health Service that every political party seems to now want to claim credit it for it? It’s not like it actually works. In fact even the most cursory glance at any of the statistics reveals that the only thing that seems to be going up, other than the amount of money that the taxpayer has to spend on the whole damnable socialist edifice, are the rates of post-operative infection.
To my (admittedly jaundiced) mind, all that the NHS has successfully achieved (other than the aforementioned spunking away of untold billions of the taxpayers money) are the successful development of increasingly drug resistant strains of superbugs & the biggest UK job creation scheme since Emperor Hadrian, after a surfeit of home makeover shows, decided to turn his hand to a spot masonry.
Maybe it is the ultimate indictment of our leach like political class that no matter the enormity of our public health system’s failure & that failure is truly vast, we are never short of posturing MPs wanting to take credit for it: how very very very British!
The Conservatives have the chance to replace Labour as "the party of the NHS", Tory leader David Cameron says. In a speech to mark the 60th year of the NHS, he pledged to "work tirelessly" in 2008 to achieve that.
The other worrying thing here is that Spliffy Cameron is now going to be ‘working tirelessly’ to save the NHS. Rather like the concept of ‘good government’ the idea of politicians ‘working tirelessly’ is one that fills me with dread. Experience dictates that it would be a lot cheaper for every family in the UK just to burn a big pile of money because it’s a lot cheaper in the long run that having it extorted by the Treasury & then frittered away on failing NHS Trusts.