Can Cameron afford Lansley?

Simon

oh please change the record

Suki

Are they back to charging for content on the Mail's site?

It didn't work the first time, so why will it work now?

I know Murdoch definitely wants to it but it is a massive mistake. Young people will not pay for stuff on the net (the FT is a specialist trade site that employers will likely pay subs for) so newspaper sites aren't getting younger readers hooked on columnists.

Weird.

Jeremiah

Can Cameron afford Lansley?

NO

John Page

Cameron should remove him pour encourager les autres.

Martin Cole

The NHS will have to be the sacrifice to fund the tax shortfall and unemployment benefit demands that any new Government will face as we enter the non-phony aspect of the now two year old credit crunch.

The situation is now worse than two years ago as the nation's credit limit has been blown on banks still not in remission and now clearly on the verge of collapse, with a run on sterling as QE expands ever more likely.

The start of a recovery will begin when the British people again realise what Churchill knew, that self-reliance begins with your own personal health.

A self-insurance health scheme with a minimal safety net provided by the state will be the first sign of a possibly sane administration.

TrevorsDen

It is surely pretty certain that most if not all shadows will (or would) inherit their ministries - to the extent that Whitehall was not reorganised.

There was no gaff - the 10% was a mathematical consequence of the Tory policy. The gaff came from Brown who either sought to obfuscate or was badly advised or cannot do maths himself.

All 3 of these are quite possible - but cannot hide the fact that Labours own sums amount to 7% cuts across the board.

Grumpy Old Man

Yes. Landsley has already established himself as a man who will fight for his department. So give him a Treasury job. Whatever he does, he will do 100%. Now find another 20 people like him and form a Cabinet with Balls.

Robc

More to the point - Can Gt. Britain afford the appalling failure that is Brown?
THRICE NO WITH BELLS ON!

Fraser Nelson

Simon, i'm not even past the intro on this record. Suki, I sympathise - newspapers need to make money and giving your content away for free is an odd business model. All this free stuff has to be restricted sometime (but promise we'll keep CoffeeHouse on the right side of a firewall).

Verity

If they won't privatise the NHS, they must at least open it up to competition. People should be able to direct that their NI contributions go to their healthcare provider of choice. The NHS should be just one on the list.

What is more, the parasite sector should have a certain sum weekly of its charity money deducted for healthcare. Perhaps the amount they currently spend on lottery tickets. So the NHS would always have a clientele. But the NHS is a nasty organisation (I'm not saying there are not some sterling people working within it) and enforces "political correctness" and other forms of fascism on people who are too sick or worried to argue.

It's disgraceful and revolting to have almost a whole country full of people depending on the government for their healthcare. Gruesome, in fact.

Philip Walker

When will Lansley get that there are two issues: how much you spend, and how you spend it. We are mis-spending oodles; no further oodles should be forthcoming until the mis-spent oodles have been properly allocated.

Mark M

"What business director would proudly say 'my aim is to ensure there are no reduction in costs?'"

Reminds me of an answer given by a Labour MP to the question 'What has Labour achieved?'. The answer included a statement along the lines of 'we have increased real terms spending every year' as though that was some kind of real achievement. As you say, what business director would list 'we have increased spending' as a key achievement of his time at the helm.

Suki

Oh, here's a Lansley vote winner:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205324/Tory-plan-team-Google-let-patients-read-medical-records-online.html

Is this what the Conservatives plan to offer?

I've just read Fraser's politics column and he says they should not ring fence health and should cut the 50p tax rate and something else totally unradical.

What about controlling the borders?

Is anyone going to talk about that in the run-up to the election? Or are they just going to sell us all to Google?

I'm stuffed if I'll vote for Google rifling through my life.

Fergus Pickering

Verity, you're like those mad bastards in the US who reckon free helth care is the nazis come again. Perhaps you ARE those mad bastards. Why shouldn't health care be free. Come on, explain it to me. Isn't it true that in the US they spend 60% more than they spend in Canada for the same product? Or is that not true? Perhaps it's a nazi lie. Come on, explain it to me. Why is ther NHS a nasty fascist organization? Give me examples of its nasty fascism. I saw a lot of poor old people, including my good self, treated for cataracts a couple of months back. What was fascist about that? I really do want to know. Oh arseholes, I don't really. I think you're nuts, and there's a noce, knock-down argument for you. Perhaps you didn't SAY fascist. But you meant it, didn't you. My wife suggests you are saying that doctors and nurses are bossy in the NHS, whereas in, say, the US, they are polite. Maybe that's it. But since I have no health insurance I wouldn't get to find out, would I? And what's the point of health insurance when everyone, everyone needs the same sort of health care?

Carole G

I am surprise David Cameron has not put Liam Fox who is a Doctor in charge of the NHS. Seems silly to have a Doctor in the Shadow Cabinet and not have him being the minister for Health instead of the minister for War!

Not Quite Hayek

If people want to see the original article, it is cached by Yahoo at the following address:

http://74.6.239.67/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=site%3Adailymail.co.uk+andrew+lansley+untouchable&rd=r1&fr=yfp-t-501&u=broganblog.dailymail.co.uk/2008/02/&w=andrew+lansley+untouchable+untouchables&d=a5vNKBlMS2Um&icp=1&.intl=uk

Viewers will be prompted for a username and password around 10 or so times whilst the page loads in the background, but just keep clicking 'cancel' and it will stop, allowing them to see the text of the article.

Alternatively, the text of the article is as follows:

The Conservatives have gone into overdrive this morning to calm things in the wake of Andrew Lansley's interview in the Times, in which he said "any rational politician" can see that health spending will have to rise substantially in real terms, from the current 9pc of GDP to 11pc. That's an extra £28bn a year.

If you look at the transcript posted by Sam Coates this morning, Mr Lansley is speaking in the context of the Wanless recommendations. He argues rising health spending is inevitable: as a society grows richer, it demands better health care and therefore more spending.

Which is not how some of his colleagues see it. His comments have tested Shadow Cabinet harmony because he makes the consequential point that other areas will have to suffer cuts, but doesn't say which ones. They feel that Mr Lansley is abusing his position as one of the Untouchables - George Osborne is another - who have been guaranteed their jobs by Mr Cameron until the next election and beyond. And to judge by the telephone calls I've had so far, they wonder why the Conservative party is trumpeting calls for yet more cash to be lavished on the NHS on the day we see that the GP contract cost £1.76bn more than expected. "He is validating Labour's waste," is how one influential MP put it to me.

Expect Gordon Brown to ask if Michael Gove will be making a similar pledge for education spending, and if not why not?

UPDATE Mr Lansley has just popped up on the World at One. I'll have to re-read my notes, slowly, because I didn't quite get his gist. But I did hear him say the party has not made any commitments beyond the Government's own spending plans to 2011.

Not Quite Hayek

Oops... Seems it's a slightly different article I found.

Alfred T Mahan

I don't see why you're surprised that Lansley has "gone native". He was a civil servant before going to the CRD.

Leopards, spots, and all that.

Alex

Usual inconclusive waffle from Lansley and the Tories. They'll cut, but not the stuff you like missus, the stuff the other person likes. The stuff you like is well protected, believe me, I'm a Tory politician. Is that ok? Make you feel better? Good! Now go away and stop asking difficult questions.

The really interesting part of the interview was its purported subject: Mr Lansley's idea of having your health records on Google!

Aye well, that'll be them really secure then. Like the internet, the supplier you trust with your most intimate details: you and your Nigerian banker friends. And it'll be free, and problem proof, and instant and all that. And the band played on....

If there's a sillier idea out there on the interweb, it has yet to breach the public consiousness!

If Mr Lansley really believes in freedom of information, why not just give us the right to access the info, now, as it is, with no moderation? Oh, we already have that...so we have to spend unknown resources populating an undefined system with dodgy security with our most sensitive information... why? And for whose benefit? And at what cost?

The flying pigs will be eating pie in the sky the day that works...

If Andrw Lansley really is "untouchable" because of what are supposed to be his "qualities", what does that say about the rest of the Conservative front bench?

If they're not as good as Lansley then they must be as good as useless..

Moraymint

Mrs Moraymint is an NHS doctor; has been for almost 30 years. On the rare occasions we discuss our working lives at home, you would not believe the staggering levels of bureaucracy, inefficiency and waste that appears to be hard-wired into the service.

I would be astonished if, with the right political direction and the right people in charge (bought in to the need for change - or fired rapidly), the NHS could not lose 10% - 20% of its budget and be more effective, efficient and economic than it is today.

The Tories would be stark staring mad to preserve the NHS budget whilst the nation careers towards bankruptcy.

drakes drum

Can the country afford David Cameron?

We are all utterly sick and tired of the incompetent Brown and Co. BUT just what is this Blair Tribute Act, Cameron, offering us?

Is he going to ensure our borders are secure?

Is he going to fight on for forty years in Afghanistan?

Will he support the Americans who want to nuke Iran?

Will he support Israel who want to do the same?

Will he give the British people a say in our continuing, or not, within the EU?

Just what are his plans for:-The armed services.
The NHS. The BBC. Education (err: Grammar Schools and Universities),Terrorism Muslim Fundamentalism. Old aged pensions- does he agree with a state retirement age of 70?.

Is it not rather stupid for people to be praising this man Cameron, when we know so little about him and his actual policies?

Gimmicks, Glib speeches, Corny smiles, Bicycle rides, All action man? yet with the people not being given any idea what a Cameron Government will do!

Are we sleep walking into another five years of empty gestures and glamour politics.

This was once a truly great country with great statesmen and women leading it. Can anyone say, hand on heart, that Cameron is the answer to all our woes?

colin c

The few points Labour are scoring at the moment are registered when they get their tame journos to print "Tory plans" to savagely cut this or that, raise VAT etc.

The Conservatives need to firm up their proposals so that we have a real grasp of how they will tackle the debt crisis. If the outline plan is credible it will cut off this line of attack and make life much more bearable for them as a government as they will be properly mandated.

On the side issue of payment for on-line articles, there are simply too many newspapers and associated websites and too few journalists whose opinions are worth reading. A few newspapers going to the wall combined with their best writers signing up for the survivors (at the expense of their own dross) is long overdue.

Alex

Carole G is "surprise David Cameron has not put Liam Fox who is a Doctor in charge of the NHS".

Yep. Dr Fox will have just the skills needed to make a successful health minister. Picture the scene:

CC: "Minister, there's a £500m overspend in the Cookham Warrington Health Board Area".

Dr F. "Hmmm. I See. Could you unbutton your blouse please?"

CC "What!!??"

Dr F "Not all the way down. That's enough"

CC "Ow. That's cold"

Dr F "Yeesss. Now. Take a deep breath. Riiight. Breath out. In Again. OK. It's nothing serious . Just go home and take an asprin or two. A couple of days in bed with a hot water bottle and you'll be as right as rain...

....Next!"

julianlzb87

"I don't see why you're surprised that Lansley has "gone native". He was a civil servant before going to the CRD.

Leopards, spots, and all that."

When he was President of Exeter Uni.
Students Union he was "Broad Left"... whatever that is supposed to mean.

JONNY

It's incredible to me that someone like Drake's Drum should actually demand that Cameron should expose his full hand of cards nine months before the election. Without benefit of the up-to-date detailed knowledge and secret forecasts only seen by the government in power.
And kept undercover.
Without regard either to sudden shifts in events.
He's playing games isn't he half.
Using any knife he can find to stick into his hated 'One Nation' Cameron.

No you just tell me Drake's Drum how much of detailed plans did Thatcher announce in 1979? Or Blair in 1997?
I'll answer it for you.
Nowt.
And you may not remember but they won.

Ian

One of the marks of a civilised state (indeed, one of the raisons d'etre of a state) is the provision of healthcare to its citizens. Along with roads, it's probably the only thing that no citizen can provide for himself. Proper civil societies, like France and Sweden, recognise this. We do not and, if the distasteful and utterly selfish views of someone like Verity were to hold sway, would see a further diminution of the citizens' quality of life. And this is also why the NHS cannot be run, as so many of your correspondents like to imagine it can, like a business. Vast sums of money have been spent in an ultimately fruitless quest to "commercialise" and create competition in, the NHS. All one can, or should, do is attempt to control costs by administrative and political means. And, no, I don't work for that much-maligned organisation, but have had experience of its kindliness and essential goodness over the years....

Verity

Fergus Pickering, I'm not American, although I lived in the US for a number of years, but there's nothing like a bracing, ignorant rant first thing in the morning to enjoy with one's first cup of tea, so I'll pick up the gauntlet...

Examples of NHS fascism? Well, you have to be careful what you say around them or you won't be treated. You have to toe the politically correct, aka thought fascism, line. They are pursuing a One Worlder agenda, which it is not their business to be pursuing, but they are a tool of their paymaster. (I refer to the grossly overstaffed tranche of administrators here; not the medical personnel themselves.)

You sound like a really vicious old man, but fear not! - you would still be treated in the US were you to fall ill while visiting. Why cannot you people take this in?

At the risk of boring CH-ers with more absorbent minds, I repeat: If you have a trauma, like a heart attack, a stroke or an accident in the US, ambulances BY LAW in EVERY STATE must take you to the nearest medical facility, which must BY LAW admit you without any hint of a question about your ability to pay. And that's whether it's the poshest private facility in the city or a county hospital. The closest facility must admit you without asking about your ability to pay.

Was that clear enough?

Once stabilised, and only then, will they ask if you have insurance or the ability to pay for your treatment. If you do not, you will transferred by ambulance to a county hospital. County hospitals are on around the same level as the NHS. Whichever county hospital you are taken to will treat you without asking about your ability to pay.

Are you following so far?

Only when you are ready to be discharged will they tell you what you owe and ask about your ability to pay. If you are unemployed and have absolutely no resources, then obviously, you can't pay. If you're employed, they will give you a very easy payment schedule. It will not cover the huge costs of treating you, but you will be required to make a contribution by paying a small amount. Otherwise, the bill for county hospitals is picked up by the taxpayer.

Drake's Drum, anyone but the Heir to Blair and his cadre of Heirites. (Honourable exception, William Hague.)

Michael Reid

The tradgedy of the NHS is that no one appears able to look at it rationally.

The State will never run the NHS well. It already employs 1.3m and they are short of resources (?).

Please please let us have the French system. There the State provides insurance and the doctors provide medicine.

No waiting lists, clean hospitals, longer life expectancy, etc -and it costs no more.

drakes drum

Jonny says:- "No you just tell me Drake's Drum how much of detailed plans did Thatcher announce in 1979? Or Blair in 1997?
I'll answer it for you.
Nowt.
And you may not remember but they won".

Strange. Callaghan had a review into policing and police pay "The Lord Edmund Davies Report", in which they recommended a huge increase in pay for the police.

Callaghan wanted to pay in stages. Thatcher promised to pay the full amount as soon as she was elected- which she did!

That was before the general election so your 'NOWT' is very wrong in fact!

Before you write things, make sure you know what you are saying.

Cameron is no Margaret Thatcher. He is a snake charmer!

Verity

Further to my post above, actually, for trauma, some would argue that the county hospitals are better than the private hospitals which mainly admit people on a scheduled basis for treatments that have been thought out by doctors and surgeons. As in operations and treatments of diseases.

I had a friend who worked at one of the busiest county hospitals in Texas and he told me that, for trauma, the county hospitals and their personnel, who seem to live on a constant action-high, are much more experienced, quick-thinking and effective.

My friend, a trauma nurse, eventually got fed-up and got a good job in a hospital in a swanky suburb where the boys play soccer. He stuck it out for around six weeks before giving up on fighting to stay awake while he fixed little boys' twisted knees, and went back to the county hospital, where they all live on adrenalin. Knifings, gunshot wounds, screaming drunken women who've been beaten up by their drunken boyfriends, who subsequently drove them, drunk, to the hospital, drug overdoses, traffic accidents, heart attacks, where the nurses and doctors really do run alongside the trolleys starting treatment ...

Just a little vignette of the much-maligned American healthcare system.

John

Cut welfare payments to illegal asylum seekers that will save billions

Alex

If the Tories had won in 1997 their plans were to "privatise"* great swathes of the public sector, including the NHS.

So, either they have changed and no longer wish to privatise, which means they are no longer Conservatives.

Or they are lying, and hope to lull the public with the spin that they are "nice" Tories and then swoop in a second term.

*definition.... sell off to your mates in the city at knock down prices and who cares about the chaos (see also Rail Privatisation) because us Eton chaps don't use the NHS (or the train if we can help it).

mjklosser

Why is it when I go to my GP in the UK he looks at me and says tiredly "What"
Yet when I go to my private practitioner in Turkey he says:
Hello how can I help you?"
Yet the British GP owning the practice earns over £200,000 per year and comes across as a arrogant bully no doubt being angry at taken away from looking at the latest Bentley model on offer for doing a 37 hour per week.
Get rid of the NHS for the local Doctor service and replace it with a client led service so we the clients can choose our delivery service.
Please!