Corbyn did quite well today. He got all frothed-up about the NHS and put some real oratorical venom into his closing attack. It began as an incomprehensible ‘battle of the budgets’ between the Labour leader and Mrs May. They were like a pair of drunken sailors comparing scars. The PM claims to have added a £2 bn premium to the NHS’s requested total of £8 bn. No you haven’t, said Corbyn, you cut it by £4.5 bn. The full tally of reductions, according to him, stands at £22bn. Mrs May upped the stakes and said half a trillion (£0.5 trn) was being spent on health during the lifetime of the parliament.
She accused Labour of concealing their blunders behind a flurry of green papers, Royal Commissions, wafflesome reports and pompously titled quangos. But the Tories have the same strategy. What on earth is the Better Care Commission? Who seriously trusts the Social Care Precept to improve the system? These bodies are linked, in some obscure way, to a new initiative, ‘the sustainability and transformation process’.
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