It is clear now that we have reached a tipping point where it is no longer enough to repeat ‘I love the NHS’ or swear allegiance to Danny Boyle’s Olympic caricature of the health service. So what now? Labour and the Tories are scrapping over who still really, truly loves the health service: the latest round of revelations about the Care Quality Commission have allowed the Conservatives to ask questions about the culture and attitudes of both the health service and of the Labour government that led it. Labour, meanwhile, points out that Andrew Lansley is also alleged to have leaned on a whistleblower, something the former Health Secretary denied yesterday. Andy Burnham’s PPS, Debbie Abrahams, has even suggested that the government simply wants to use the revelations to undermine the NHS itself.
The Conservatives have always endured dark allegations from the Left about what it is that they want to do to the health service, and Jeremy Hunt is making a very good show of demonstrating that all he really wants to do is make it work, rather than bring some evil plot to ruin it to fruition.
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