And the lies just keep on coming from Boris Johnson’s new government, this time with an announcement from health secretary Matt Hancock. Yes, £39 billion a year for the NHS sounds like an awful lot, if you are the sort of person who is easily impressed with large numbers. If you are more likely to be impressed with facts, I’d like to think you’d be less impressed.
In percentage terms, this represents an increase of 3.4% per annum. This is less than the average of 4% since the NHS was founded in 1948 and substantially lower than the 6% increases under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. In British politics today, lying is the new truth, apparently.
We know that usually when something starts in America, like McDonalds, Black Friday and Trick or Treat, it usually ends up in Britain. And that’s what happened here. Donald Trump ushered in a new era of lying in the United States, by concluding there was no need to tell a little white lie when you could tell a filthy black one. Now our current prime minister Boris Piccaninny Watermelon Letterbox Cake Bumboys Vampires Haircut Wall-Spaffer Spunk-Burster Fuck-Business Fuck-The-Families Get-Off-My-Fucking-Laptop Girly-Swot Big-Girl’s-Blouse Chicken-frit Hulk-Smash Noseringed-Crusties Death-Humbug Technology-Lessons Surrender-Bullshit French-Turds Dog-Whistle Get-Stuffed FactcheckUK@CCHQ 88%-lies Get-Brexit-Done Bung-A-Bob-For-Big-Ben’s-Bongs Johnson and his government has come up with the same wheeze.
When Johnson was lying his way to his EU referendum win in 2016, one of his best efforts was to pretend that Brexit would benefit the NHS by £350 million a year. Having gotten away with it nearly four years ago, he’s done it again in 2020. We are supposed to believe this nonsense and, to no one’s surprise, millions will. And they are often the very people who say that all politicians are liars and cannot be trusted. Except, it seems, Johnson.
In truth, the NHS is not getting a financial boost: it’s being given a small piece of sticking plaster to deal with a massive underspending wound. Things are going to get worse but only more slowly.
Matt Hancock is a liar. Just start from that point of view and everything else will fit in place.
