Society

Today marks the 31st anniversary of President Jimmy Carter’s famous ‘malaise’ speech. On July 15, 1979, Carter, then running for re-election against Ronald Reagan, ignored the advice of his campaign team and gave Americans a grave warning. The nation, he said, was facing a fundamental “crisis of confidence”. (He didn’t actually use the word malaise.)   “Too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption,” he said. “Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the

Just a quick one: who do you think is the more truly fucking stupid, the legions of thick Geordies who have signed the Facebook campaign claiming that Raoul Moat was a “legend”, or the outgoing chair of Ofsted Zenna Atkins, who said that it was good for schools to have incompetent or useless teachers because it taught kids how to deal with incompetent adults? I’ve written about “Moaty” (© Paul Gascoigne) in the mag this week; suffice to say 18,000 imbeciles have joined the campaign to commemorate His Life and Works, firing off illiterate comments about “the filth” and “the pigs” and the “system”. But then there’s Zenna – who

Quite why people are surprised that Andrew Lansley has stuck to his plans to introduce GP Commissioning is a mystery.  I’m struggling to recall one of his speeches or policy documents in recent years where it wasn’t mentioned. Anyway, let’s be clear, widespread control of commissioning budgets by GPs was where the NHS was headed until Frank Dobson took over in 1997 and unravelled a decade’s worth of market based reforms.  Rebuilding that position has taken another decade of circular re-organisations to fix.  No wonder the NHS is ambivalent about reorganisation.   These proposals are, of course, radical.  But they are needed to address the fundamental flaws in the NHS

In theory, curbing bureaucracy in the NHS should have you reaching for the Champagne. But giving GPs control of £80bn is an enormous risk. GPs know their patients’ needs, so Andrew Lansley’s thinking is that empowering GPs will improve patient care, and therefore patient outcomes. Many GPs will be chomping at the bit to get their hands on budgets; on the other hand, many will not – it takes a certain kind of mind to be thrilled by balance sheets. Also, those that are may fight their corner rather too vigorously, which would merely deepen imbalance in the health service. The success or failure of Lansley’s initiative depends on ensuring