Why is this surprising? We’ve just been through a massive recession, a global debt crisis and have a massive budget deficit. Is it realsitic that NHS spending keeps increasing at the same rate?

I’ll cut the NHS not the deficit.

Do you think Cameron would even be in a coalition if that was what he said.

Just how high do you want spending to go? Additional spending is not a virtue in and of itself and given that Labour hosed money at the service for little return a period of reflection seems pretty sensible.

Just noticed: “Clearly Cameron’s funding is less than if the Blair/Brown spending had continued at the same rate”

Which clearly it wasn’t planned to do, or are you claiming that the coalition set out the spending plans for that dip in 2010? I think that green line needs to move.

Hang on – let’s not forget that Labour’s policy is to cut NHS spending, which was not ring-fenced in their spending plans.

We can be sure they mean this as they HAVE cut NHS spending in Wales.

Besides, wouldn’t it meet every definition of crazy to maintain the same rate of growth in spending that was seen in boom years during a downturn?

So it turns out that the Tory vermin are using a crisis to push their agenda of destroying the NHS and are even willing to engineer a double dip in order to justify the final demise of the NHS? And people are shocked because?

Vote Tory, get Tory.

We are not broke, we have a wealth distribution crisis. There is plenty of capital that could go to social spending, but it is concentrated into very few pockets. Any conservative govt (especially Thatcher’s) would use an economic crash to argue for dismantling of welfare state, because it’s something they are ideologically opposed to. In that case you would hope that the opposition would be pointing out that the “crisis” was phoney and a pretext for destroying principled solidarity with disadvantaged people. Unfortunately that position can find no expression in the current parliamentary system. I think if Labour were in power, the cuts would still be happening and opposition considerably muted by well-meaning left-of-centre folks saying “Shhh! we don’t want to get the Tories back in”. Look at how far the right has been able to push their agenda in the US with a neutered democratic administration. I think the solution is to campaign against the cuts and encourage a culture of resistance/solidarity and try to see parliament as it is: a vehicle to serve its constituents. At the moment those constituents are big business, as they would be if Labour were in power. Learning from history, civilising cultural changes (end of fuedalism, suffrage, women’s rights, LGBT rights, civil rights, ending apartheid, you name it) came about through organised popular struggle from severely repressed people. Surely we can save our NHS and welfare state, with or without (“new”) Labour.  

Why is this surprising, it’s the tories.

Honestly some of the comments are laughable.

NHS spending increased under Thatcher/major.
It increased faster under Blair/Brown, arguably without the comparable improvement in service.
It is inceasing a tiny bit under the coalition, after the biggest recession since the 30’s.

The articles title is FACTUALLY INCORRECT. The coalition is indeed spending more money on the NHS than Labour did – as the chart the OP himself put in this article shows.

The thing that has changed is the RATE of spending increase.

That the OP either doesn’t understand this, or willfully misrepresents this is pretty shocking. That several posters seem to think that a slower rate of increase in NHS spending actually means cuts is more shocking. Maybe some of that money would be better spent on education – some peoples maths is a bit lacking.

Labour doubled NHS spending in real terms. Did the service get twice as good? If it did, I haven’t noticed.

Phil Hunt @ 9

The question you should be asking is what State the NHS would have been in had Labour not put all that extra money in.

What has happened to waiting times since the Tories got in?

Tyler @ 8

Weasel words from the Tory. You cunts despise the NHS and are openly trying to starve it of resources so that you can watch the whole system collapse. Real terms spending are down as demands for the NHS services go up. You can swindle the figures all you want; everyone knows you cunts want to destroy it. Why pretend otherwise?

And the reality is, as people will find out as I did 4 weeks ago, that going to A and E with a brolen wrist, in tears, meant a 7 hour rate and staff, as they said, in meltdown due to lack of staff, especially doctors and nurses.

@ 11 Jim

At least cunts like me can do simple maths. Cunts like you don’t even seem to ne able to read a simple chart.

The first chart in the article shows real terms spending on the NHS. I ask you, does that chart show spending falling?

We can put it another way. The 105bn spent on the NHS per year means about 1500 per head spent for the 70m people in the UK. My private medical insurance is abot 40% of that cost (600 quid for you Jim – I know you struggle with the numbers). Even my aging (72) Father’s private medical insurance is cheaper. Both our insurance is fully comprehensive and covers me for anything.

Admittedly the NHS provides a couple of things private doesn’t, notably A+E, the difference in price does not account for that (and you can quite easily find out how much A+E costs the NHS iKm sure – anyone?).

So where does all that extra money the NHS costs over private medical go? Having unfortunately made extensive use of both, I can tell you for free its not because the NHS is better.

But Jim, I’m sure this rational argument won’t breach the abrriers of your socialist ignorance.

@ 12 patricia

I’ve had exceptionally long waits in A+E as well, much much longer than yours…though mine were during the Labour govt years when no-one was saying the NHS was underfunded. Now the coalition is slowing the rate of funding increase are you saying suddenly its got lots worse, basically overnight??

The truth is that A+E priortise, and as painful as a broken wrist is it isn’t very serious. If there were more emergency cases you will simply get pushed back.

Tyler I take it you have medical trainig and know about triage. No, it was not priority, they simply forgot to put me on the system and I myself thought they were doing what you said. And please will the moderator look at those who are using a term I find anti women and offensive and delete those comments.

patricia roche @ 14

they simply forgot to put me on the system

Yes, that happens a lot.

You can spend a lifetime in bureaucratic limbo at A & E if that bloke at the computer terminal sits twiddling his thumbs rather than looking at the sheets in his tray.

It happened even more often under Labour, when A&E was the focus of the target culture. What happened was that waiting times magically reduced by the simple expedient of not entering a patient’s name into the system until they’d been sitting there a few hours.

A neat trick, no doubt developed when cruder ones – like keeping patients in ambulances outside the doors of A&E – got rumbled.

All a bit like Labour’s approach to waiting lists: put someone on a waiting list to go on a waiting list and the waiting list durations are shorter. Brilliant. But bogus.

Prime Minister Thatcher did cheat over NHS spending though. She abolished the Crown Properties, so all the money that was originally funding the hospital buildings through another budget suddenly appeared in the NHS budget (and you couldn’t say that she had reduced Crown Properties by x% because it didn’t exist any more). In real terms, NHS spending went down under Thatcher and that included massive investment in armies of accountants.
Prime Minister Cameron and his shiny twin may have a different agenda. If they can utterly destroy public services, then we shall be forced to buy healthcare (and other services) privately. I worry about the day when healthcare spend in UK is 16% of GDP (as it is in USA) – not a good deal at all!

So does increased spending mean better results? No

Is there increased expenditure in some life-saving departments? Yes

Are year on year increases sustainable? No

There are so many other questions you failed to answer.

This article is the dumbest thing I’ve ever read on the internet.

@17 – And who directed you to troll here? I’d like to return the favour.

PS, Heard of this thing called “inflation”?

We did expect the cuts to come in the collapse of the Labour vote that resulted in the Con Dem coalition. In the months preceding the election we were told to expect overall cuts that would make even Thatcher sweat.

That we have a bunch of right wing vested intersts hellbent on taking DH expenditure into private hands is a sideline that will benefit those vested interests but fail those the NHS was set out to protect (ie everyone bar those who elect to take private doctoring such as … those providing the privatised care) is also to be expected given we have a government that would privatise the entire state given the chance.

As with most policies and practices that come in this era of right wing governance, it is both sad, and not unexpected.

What else do you expect from a liar.

@ 16 Hugo

By the same token Brown spent massively on the NHS using PFI, allowing capital expenditure to move outside the NHS budget but the payments for it back into future budgets.

You miss the point though. We are already buying healthcare through the taxes we pay, and its not parrticularly cost effective.

@18 – perhaps you should read the y axis label – “2010/2011 prices” – which rather suggests that inflation has been taken into account.

NHS not cost effective?

“Not only was the UK cheaper, says the paper, it saved more lives. The NHS reduced the number of adult deaths a million of the population by 3,951 a year – far better than the nearest comparable European countries. France managed 2,779 lives a year and Germany 2,395.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/aug/07/nhs-among-most-efficient-health-services

…and…
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2011/06/06/the-nhs-a-stunningly-cost-effective-supplier-of-high-quality-healthcare/

…and many more.

Tyler @ 13

You can dress it up anyway you want, but spending in real terms is going down. If you increase a budget by ‘x’, yet the actual prices in the NHS goes up by ‘x+y’ then you are still have ‘y’ shortfall. That means you have to cut services.

Are waiting times going up? Yes.
Are medical treatments being withdrawn? Yes
Are bed and wards being lost? Yes.

All the shite about spending more than last year is smoke and mirrors of time because the at the end of the day, the service is worse and it is worse because services have been cut.

Services have been cut because the Tories hate the NHS and are trying to discredit in order to scare people who can afford private health insurance to abandon the NHS and then it can be safely disposed of.

Fucking Tory vermin.

@ Jim

Look. At. The. Chart.

REAL terms spending going up slightly.

It was labour who actually wouldn’t promise not to cut real terms NHS spending pre-election.

But tell me, how muc extra spending should the NHS have?

Oh, and I’d rather be tory vermin and be able to think for myself then be a bigoted, myopic socialist, green with envy and taking whatever populist pripaganda a lefty shouts as the truth. It’s people like you, who think they are owed something and somehow the world is unfair to them that really disgust me.

@Tyler

Socialists like me need the state health and social care services to intervene effectively so I can join the ratrace with Tory filth and beat you at your own game. By destroying the health and social care system you keep people like me from being able to recover effectively and have to keep our mouths on the state’s tit.

Tyler @ 25

Is the NHS doing more or less? The answer is it is doing less beecause the NHS is being cut to fufill the Tory target of closing it down.

You want to attack the Labour Party’s record on the NHS? Be my guest. However, it was the Tories that said they would not cut the NHS, yet here we are with waiting times longer routine operations cut back or simply removed. We see the number of beds in some areas cut and in some cases wards closed. We see A & E waiting rising and we see even simple care being withdrawn.

Juggle the figures around as many graphs as you want, but the results are the same; people are waiting longer for treatment and the level of that treatment has got worse.

The Tories opposed the idea of the NHS and have been trying to close it down since Thatcher’s days. You couldn’t get away with then and now you bastards are slowly starving it to death.

Oh, and I’d rather be tory vermin

Just as well really.

I, in common with most of the decent people in this Country are capable of thinking for ourselves and we understand far more than you people give us credit for. We can see a service failing thanks to Tory cutbacks, cutbacks that your leader told us were not going to happen. Yet here we are your politically motivated cuts have ended in deaths and pain for normal, decent people, not envious of anything, just sick of being lied to by the most despicable political group of people in Western Europe.

Note to decent humans everywhere. If you complain about the NHS cuts, if you are in any way, shape or form dissatisfied with your lack of treatment within the NHS you are envious of the Tory vermin and unable to think for yourself.

27 Jim. In my area our A/E has been downgraded and two wards closed.
Local people have fought, and still are fighting tooth and nail to preserve what’s left of our local hospital, but I think it’ll be closed before long.
Patients are being diverted to larger hospitals 20ish. miles away in three directions covering 2 counties and with not even a suitable available bus service to cater for those without a car to visit their sick relative or friend

And btw, those who state that the NHS did not improve during Labour’s term of office might tell us how old they are and what NHS services they used during that time.
Those of us with longer memories can make very positive comparisons with how things were and how they vastly improved during that time.

@ richard and jim

I suppose spending 110bn a year counts as destroying the NHS now does it? At no point has anyone said the NHS is going to be destroyed. That is just poor populist hyperbole.

Had labour won the election they would be spending less than the coalition on the NHS. What would you people be saying then? Or would you just be helplessly spinning in the wind.

What you people don’t seem to understand is that it isn’t the tory party keeping you down. Socialism by its very nature is designed to do that. What do you think would happen if the UK ever became properly socialist? My guess is it would go backwars in the world and find itself bankrupt pretty quickly. There are plenty of examples – greece being just the latest. And you socialists would be poorer for it. What would you people do if it wasn’t for all those nasty capitalists paying for the whole social security system. Yet you the whine and say it still isn’t fair.

Richard – you totally missed my point. I said that my private healthcare is much cheaper than the equivalent NHS care, and from experience much better. That suggests that the NHS at the very least is inefficient and should be reformed. At no point did I or the government suggest that healthcare should not be free at the point of use. Isn’t the healthcare bit the important bit, rather than who provides it? Or is the state providing healthcare the most important bit for you.

Jim – I suggest you check how many beds disappeared under labour despite massive NHS spending and PFI. I’d also have a look at the fudging of waiting lists and times done because of the beaurocratic box ticking nature of the labour targets culture. The only thing that mattered were shorter lists, so people effectively got taken off them.

Hospitals haven’t suddenly got loads worse in the last year, yet you say they have. I suppose in your world, under labour they were getting better every year, despite all the many things that went wrong under them, and despite all the new money.

As for cuts – they are hardly politically motivated. Which political party would ever do something that is likely to lose them votes. The UK has to cut spending because we have a massive budget deficit, because Brown decidied he knew better and spent money like water to buy votes. When government spending is increasing far faster than growth you will one day have a massive problem. But head in the sand lefties just don’t seem to realise that.

Oh, and when you say decent people, what you really mean is the people who complain loudly and bitterly when the benefits they receive from the fruits of taxes paid by other peoples hard work gets taken from them to a small extent.

I would call that “envious” or “self centered”.

Toni @ 28

Thanks for that, it is always important to get a feel for what is going on the ground, even if the Tories think we are just envious of them and cannot think for ourselves. Look at Tyler’s comments here and remember that is what he thinks of the people, who defend the NHS, he speaks for the majority of the Tories who want to close the whole thing down. The vermin hate us because we have the temerity to question them and hold them to their own commitments. The lied to us to get into power and we think we are ‘owed something’. Among their culture, telling outright lies constitutes great virtue and when they are expected to stand by promises, they turn like rats.

Tory Candidate and his supporters: ‘We will cut the deficit, not the NHS’.
Patient (after election): ‘Er, our A&E has been downgraded and wards closed, you promised, that…’
Newly elected vermin: ‘You people disgust us, we are rich and you are merely jealous’.
Patient with chronic illness: ‘but you said..’
Vermin: ‘Never mind what we said BEFORE the election, you think just because we said something that you are owed something? If you can afford private health care, then buy, if not, DIE!’

Sorry, Toni, but that is the way it is for us that make up the 99%

@Tyler

My political party is not Labour. Many of my fellows squeal when they hear I am a moderate Eurosceptic too. I take the view that we have the right balance in not being America level Capitalist or Greece level Socialist. We are seeing the destruction of all that supported me to recovery and rehabilitation from an extremely serious illness with a 30% rehabilitation rate. I am not comfortable at all when mental health is given the major cuts while oncology gets the cream. Unfortunately private providers only take the cream of the crop – the easy jobs which certainly do not include serious mental illness. Unfortunately too, the best doctors go where the money is, and hand over the mistakes / problematic cases to their poorly paid (and at this rate, less skilled due to the brain drain to private providers) compatriots in the NHS.

As a health journalist I see many billions going into restructuring due to Lansley’s stupidity rather than front line care. Even the Royal College of Psychiatrists scratch their heads and ponder whether to pay a visit to Mr Lansley over this (with a social worker as required in law). Why? Many billions being spent to achieve broadly the same thing, with the chief difference of buying GP’s votes through their wallets.

Instead of calling the Tories ‘vermin’ or the Nasty Party, perhaps we should change their name to the Barmy Party?

There’s only one point here which needs to be addressed. Does increased spending on healthcare inevitably lead to better results? The answer has to be no, because if true the US system would be the best in the world – it’s certainly the most costly.

There’s a great deal to be debated about the Government’s proposed changes to the NHS but this point, frankly, is a side issue.

@ jim

I won’t bother debating with you till you try and bring some evidence into your argument rather than just shrieking. Honeslty you’re like a little girl crying in the playground.

@ richard shrubb

I would have to disagree for the most part. I personally have a neurological condition which the NHS managed to misdiagnose as a mental health issue for years, feeding me drugs which made me significantly more ill. Once I went private I was properly tested and diagnosed within a few weeks, and my life has been the better for it.

There are a few chains of specialist private mental health type hospitals – the priory chain the most well known. They don’t shy away from difficult cases I can tell you.

Part of the problem with mental health is that a diagnoses isn’t always as secure as pure medical or surgical issuies. I can also see you are concerned about oncology getting more money than mental health, but that is a decision of allocation, not a cut.

You are wrong about the common “easy cases” misconception though. There are indeed some private firms that specialise in routine ops – but they do them cheaper than the NHS. Other hospitals will do anything, no matter how difficult or costly. I would say the problem is more the sheer costs (NHS or otherwise) of some procedures and most people lack private medical cover so believe private medical is somehow elitist in their practices, when really it is only limited because of its EXTRA costs to most people.

And that really is the point. No-one in the tory party has ever suggested getting rid of the NHS. The reality is though it is bloated and inefficient, and we can’t keep increasing it’s funding indefinately. The NHS beaurocracy is not really in touch with the people its meant toserve, and I do think that lansley’s reforms will help this.

But saying the evil tories want to festroy the nhs is pure hyperbole.

@Tyler

Don’t get me wrong – the NHS does need refining. It does NOT need rebuilding. Lansley’s proposals have been proven at the highest level to be a case of huge financial input to very minor efficiencies. Bureaucrats still rule, will still run the joint in their own way and will still bloat the NHS. There will always be people in post who don’t know what their job is for. An intelligent approach to reducing the bloating is far less sexy than reinventing the wheel but would reduce the bloating significantly.

I completely understand the concept of ‘heartless bureaucracy’ – I cover such terrible stories all the time of bean counters preventing effective treatment. Frankly I am hardened to some of the stuff that would make average Joe pig sick. You speak to an editor about a nasty health story and generally they’ll say ‘that isn’t miserable enough to make the papers – we get this all the time’.

I don’t like at all this idea of ideaology afflicting systems of proven efficacy. Tories would cut their mother’s pension to the bone so they can strut in front of right wing editors. I don’t like the idea of a man who is in charge of Welfare believing that disabled people should be sterilised – like you, one of his acolytes.

@ richard shrubb

Eh? When did I (or the coalition govt) say disabled people should be sterilased.

You make a rational argument the ruin it all by reverting to loony left type.

@Tyler

I refer to a senior minister’s privately held beliefs. Again if I could prove it I’d be laughing all the way to the bank in my day job with a ministerial scalp. I can’t believe I’m the only one to hear that one…

Richard Shrub @ 37

To be absolutely honest, given the pool of people the Tories choose their candidates from, the statements made publicly by both front and back benchers and if were being honest, the sentiments I read on websites like this and others, I am not shocked to find that is the views of at least one Minister in the current crop.

I am a pretty vocal opponent of the modern Tories. I have used pretty savage language to describe many of them here. I can assure you that I do not throw terms like ‘vermin’ or ‘lice’ about willy nilly and I would never dream of using the term ‘Nazi’ as a throwaway insult. There may be occasions when I have used abusive terms rashly, but that is never true when I use the term ‘Nazi’. If ever anyone on this website sees me using that term they can be sure that I am using that term after consideration and is not a term I bandy about lightly. I personally get infuriated when people throw the terms associated with Nazi Germany as a general insult, ‘the Health Nazis’, ‘eco fascists’ et al really miss the point.

I honestly believe that it is perfectly acceptable to have different political viewpoints without us descending to mindless abuse. It is perfectly acceptable and understandable to believe in something without that automatically being labelled as fascism or Nazi ideology. Closing down libraries is wrong in my view, but it not ‘fascism’, although Nazis did burn books, there is simply no comparison. The same could be said regarding private medicine in the NHS. I have reservations in that area, but I do not automatically think ‘Nazi’ when the concept is uttered. ‘Wrong’, perhaps in some cases, but it is not the same as ‘fascism’.

However, no matter how you look at it, there area significant group of people who are more or less associated with the Tory Party whose views are not merely ‘wrong’ (in my opinion), but are firmly rooted in Nazi ideology. We, as rational human being should never shy away from pointing this out. We have the lessons of history on which to draw from and we have no excuse to allow these views to go unchallenged. It might not make for a nice atmosphere at dinner parties or the bar, but I believe we have a moral duty to speak out in the strongest terms against such views whenever we encounter them. If the ‘decent’ Tories cannot tackle the fuckwits that attach themselves to their party that does not absolve the rest of us.

Richard, these people are not ‘barmy’ they openly believe that disabled people should be treated as second class humans. I use the term ‘vermin’ because that is how I see such jauniced people.

@ Jim

I used the 1990’s term ‘Nasty Party’ which was extensively used in the media in the last Tory government. That certain skinhead ministers have similar views to the Nazis is by the bye – again, if proven this rumour among senior Labour figures would be the sort of ace that would make the Tories unelectable in 2015.

Though a (local party) member of the junior party in the Coalition I have no problems at all about making the Tories unelectable. It is unfortunate that Labour have turned on us when we are the ones generally fighting the corner of those least able to. We, it seems, are the easy target.

They are vermin. It makes my eyes water with some of the rubbish they come out with – I blogged in Lib Con about how they’re targeting the most vulnerable in work to ‘make businesses more competitive’ – cleansing businesses of the vulnerable to strengthen the strain of British business.

So, go ahead. I think @Tyler was taking pot shots at you because you went into invective rather than keeping to the argument. He used me as reference for my on topic arguments to show your invective. (We argued to a standstill before I too was accused of invective). The more partisan hatred we can muster – passion in politics, sorely lacking in this age – the better. The more berserkers campaigning viscerally against the enemy the better, as that drives the more nonplussed to action. Best of luck Jim – we need you at the front of the movement to weaken the Tory strain!!!

Richard @ 39

To be fair, though there are people in Labour who I would be loathed to piss on if they were on fire. Again there are people on the Labour side with whom I find myself at odds with but I can accept that they mean well. On the other hand, there are some (not as many as the Tories, TBH) that I find repugnant.

Last point as the thread dies a natural death, though Richard. As a Lib Dem, I believe your Party have sold its sole. Don’t get me wrong, BTW, I understand what you were motivated by and I do accept you Party’s rationale for entering a coalition. At the end of the day, though, you have got into bed with some of the more disreputable people in politics and society in general.

When two political Parties form an alliance/coalition/supply and confidence agreement. There needs to be a level of goodwill and an implied acceptance of conventions. The Tories are unable to past their ideology to the point that they get so many things fundamentally wrong. How can you be part of a political coalition when the other side are unable to reconcile their ideology with the immutable laws of physics? These are the same people who believe the entire Global Warming debate is a left wing plot, so how can you take these people’s judgement seriously on any subject where real controversy exists?

@ Jim

“I honestly belive it is pefectly acceptable to have different political viewpoints without resorting to mindless abuse”

Said the man whose first action was to call me a cunt, tory vermin etc. Practice what you preach dear.

@ richard

You *did* go into the invective when you said tories would sterilise disabled people. It’s what is known as slander, let alone libel. If this senior minister’s beliefs are so private, how do you know? Or are you, or your source simply making libelous remarks up? It’s called a smear….

@24 – “No-one in the tory party has ever suggested getting rid of the NHS.”

They are. Let me repeat: Under this bill, nobody is accountable. When the private company drives the NHS ones out of business and then withdraws it’s public services, leaving people with going hundreds of miles for a treatment, or paying them private rates….there’s nothing which can be done.

And that’s just one way. There’s also forcing doctors to directly ration care, and hence have to refer many cases to private care for expensive treatments…

@38 – Nazi? I think that’s too strong. Social Darwinistic? Yes.

@Jim

I don’t disagree when they say that our Dear Leader is a ‘Yellow Tory’. I certainly won’t vote for him in any leadership election, and wasn’t a member when he was elected. I joined this party out of loyalty to friends and a real chance here in Dorset to do serious damage to the Conservatives – having a better chance to shoot Tory here than I would in Labour. I can’t say what I am up to, but I’ve had a few shots on gold lately and enjoy planting the boot in an inappropriate place.

@Tyler I did descend into invective. I know something worth researching. That is why I do not name names. I hear it from a senior activist. I also hear rumours in politics more often than I hear truths. I know our evil Defamation laws better than most having had to pass an exam on ths subject to get my MA, which I paid for with my out of work disability benefits that have since been scrapped by people in Labour hellbent on keeping the poor where they belong in society!!!

Leon Wolfson @ 42

Let me repeat: Under this bill, nobody is accountable.

I really don’t know where you get this nonsense from.

Have you read Clause 1 of the Bill? Yes, the very first one… that places a duty on the Health Sec to secure a comprehensive health service free at the point of use?

And did you also miss the bit that establishes for the first time that the health secretary will be required to report to parliament each year on how the service is performing?

Or the bits giving him power to intervene if commissioners or other new bodies fail?

@44 – From actually reading the bill.

It actively removes the language giving him the requirement to fix non-provision. He CAN do it, but is not obliged in any way to do so.

AND areas of non-provision are no longer measured. Just those of provision. Once a service drops out for any reason? Doesn’t need to be replaced.

@ richard shrubb

Youy are right about one thing – it is the left who want to keep poor people poor and beholden to the state.

In pure game theory terms, tories want everyone to do well, simply because the more people do well and need less state involvement, the more people vote tory. Lefties keep saying that the tories want to keep people down, but it couldn’t be further from the truth, even if for pure self interest in the number of votes they get.

Labour unfortunately have self interest in helping people a tiny bit so they feel grateful to the party and government, but not so much that they don’t need the state to help them in many aspects of their lives.

Put it this way, if everyone was rich and happy in the UK the labour party would barely exist, yet its those on the left that say that it is the tory party wanting to keep them from being rich and happy??

Tyler @ 46

In pure game theory terms, tories want everyone to do well, simply because the more people do well and need less state involvement, the more people vote tory.

That is pure crap and you know it. You don’t ‘need’ more people to vote Tory. You need about 25% of the electorate to vote Tory to keep yourselves in power. The Tories (like New Labour in later years) won huge landslides based on about a quarter of those eligible to vote. That is not actually a complaint, just an observation. During the last time the Tories were in power they abandon complete areas of the Country. The Tories used to poll around half the popular vote in Scotland and have been reduced to a rump of a couple of winnable seats, same as in Wales and much of the North of England, too.

Both you and New Labour concentrate all their efforts on a small group of swing seats that decide the election.

For a party that used to believe in ‘one Nation’ you have a funny way of showing it.

@ Jim: “Both you and New Labour concentrate all their efforts on a small group of swing seats that decide the election.”

It’s even worse than that.

“Public funds totalling £500 million a year are being spent on an army of at least 29,000 professional politicians in the UK, according to new figures.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/feedarticle/8605308

Compare that with the British electorate of about 45 million.

@46 – Of course, it’s all a conspiracy. Geesh.

@Tyler

The politics are not about the right or the left but the centre. If we can win the vote of a grey bureaucrat on a grey income in a grey house in a grey town then so we will win the power. It isn’t about the rich (which Blair suckled from as much as Cameron) nor about the poor (which Blair kicked as hard as Cameron) but making Mr Daily Mail reading Greyman in Greytown happy.

New Labour and the Tories differ little in their outlook. The Daily Mail is the most important newspaper in the UK under whichever party. The poor don’t matter (benefits cheating scum that I have been and the Daily Mail is sure they exist but I can’t be) nor do the rich (unless we get too tax happy and they take their tax status away from us) but utterly and totally Greyman in Greytown.

The NHS is about protecting Greyman’s (possible job) but certainly his access to healthcare (who cares about the clinically psychotic benefits scum) which he could not afford under private health insurance should he get bowel cancer from too much rich food. That is why it is such a concern. The clinically psychotic benefits scum (of which I was once one) will always get treatment in any society for fear we utterly lose touch with reality and start acting on funny ideas that They are out to get us, not utterly neglect us.