Who’s writing Andy Burnham’s scripts?

To prolong the success of #welovethenhs, Andy Burnham wrote David Cameron a letter yesterday which was so absurd it read like a Private Eye spoof. And today, Burnham is still trying to keep the pressure on the Tories and missing his target. He writes in the Guardian that Tories intend to turn ‘Britain’s best loved institution into the world’s biggest quango’ – a soundbite worthy of The Thick of it. Burnham’s premise is that Labour is self-evidently the party of the NHS and therefore any Tory proposals are inherently a ‘Bad Thing’: 

The second dividing line is on NHS pay. Andrew Lansley drops heavy hints that the Tories would reintroduce local pay bargaining…The third area concerns national accountability. The Tories have proposed handing over the day-to-day running of the NHS to an independent board.’

The demolition of target culture and a reduction of day-to-day political interference in the NHS, whilst obviously remaining accountable to government, should liberate staff from red-tape and place emphasis on ‘outcomes’, such as long-term cancer survival rates.