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Hollow words?
TONY Blair and his cohorts are in such a state of denial about the National Health Service (NHS) that their condition almost amounts to a psychosis.
While doctors and nurses laid siege to the Commons yesterday (Wednesday) in protest against redundancies enforced against staff at London hospitals, Tony Blair ranted on in Prime Minister’s Question Time that all is well with the NHS.
An unbelievable performance of untarnished hubris where words mean whatever you want them to mean.
Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt pledged the government would never change its “commitment to safeguard NHS values”.
It is difficult to analyse what the word “values” means when one considers how hospitals – including those in Camden – have pruned their nursing staff in an attempt to reduce heavy budgetary deficits. This newspaper is aware, for instance, that after finishing their training programme at the Royal Free Hospital several nurses had to leave the hospital because no posts could be found for them.
In effect, they had been sacked. Is this what is meant by safeguarding “values”? You couldn’t find a more loyal and committed staff than you’ll find in hospitals – that’s the nature of the NHS tragedy.
They are being pulled here and there by politicians and civil servants with one reform after another, many of which have never been truly thought through. Gordon Brown has poured extra millions into the NHS – this cannot be denied. A lot of it has brought about improvements. But, equally, an awful lot has been wasted.
Sam makes a stand
IT’S mea culpa time for the Reverend Sam McBratney. He’s standing for Labour in the Kentish Town by-election – and he sounds as if he means what he says. And you cannot always say that of a politician nowadays.
When he admits that Labour got it wrong with its parking policies (See page 6) there’s a freshness and simplicity about his words that mark him as a man who speaks the truth – and will continue to do so whatever the cost, either to him, or, dare we say, to his party.
He’s absolutely right when he says that people didn’t think parking was being handled fairly under Labour. Equally, he’s right when he says people still don’t think it’s fair. And that’s a warning to the present incumbents at the Town Hall.
In all, there seems a coming together in Revd McBratney of basic humanity and political ideology, the ideology, in its 19th-century Methodist roots, which helped to shape the Old Labour Party.
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