The bloody tussle for the moral high ground

Alan Johnson and Stephen Dorrell have just conducted an impressively reasoned debate on the NHS on Radio 4. This was all the more impressive given both their parties have boxed themselves into corners on NHS care scandals, from which they will continue to lash out today at the last PMQs of the summer. Whether or not Andy Burnham bears responsibility for the hospital failings detailed yesterday, his circumstances significantly constrained his ability to scrutinise the policies the government announced. Because he is in the extremely uncomfortable position of shadowing the brief he held in government, Burnham spent more time defending his own record than he did anything else. And his anger won’t have discouraged the Tories from carrying out further attacks in the future: he may well be furious because he thinks this has nothing to do with him, but the rage also makes him look shifty. His protestations are helping the Conservatives spread the ‘you can’t trust Labour’ line because he and the party have had to try so hard to defend their reputation that they have unwittingly but necessarily given force to the allegations.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives had managed to brief a report that would reveal horrors on the scale of those found at Stafford Hospital.