The science writer and journalist Marcus Chown sums up in a sentence now I feel about this Conservative government:
“The Conservative destruction of our NHS – the most precious thing we have – by deliberate underfunding and privatisation is the worst thing any UK government has done to its people in my lifetime.”
In 2010, the Conservative party, aided and abetted by the useful (or is it useless?) idiots, the Liberal Democrats, came to power. Immediately, they imposed austerity on the country and in 2015, 2017 and 2019, voters kept voting them back in (minus the Dim Lebs). It was probably that not enough voters were convinced by Ed Miliband in 2015 and certainly many were repulsed by the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn winning in 2017 and 2019, that they kept voting the Tories back in. In all honesty, I was repulsed by the thought of Jeremy Corbyn becoming PM, too, but I held my nose and voted Labour anyway, as I always do. What has happened throughout is that Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and now Sunak have managed to hollow out the NHS to little more than an emergency service. So, what can we do?
First and foremost, we need to understand and accept that voting Conservative has consequences and one of them is accepting that they do not believe in the NHS. When they say they believe in a low tax, small state nation, that means no NHS. It cannot possibly mean anything else. The NHS is hugely expensive because it costs a lot of money to keep us well. You can suggest cutting bureaucracy and the like, but that would be be a drop in the ocean in terms of expenditure. Treating cancer patients, for example, costs a fortune and I, for one, am happy to pay my bit so that people can treat people for cancer. That’s because I put human life above profit. That’s just me, I know, and it’s a very old fashioned view, but if you would prefer that people died because they couldn’t afford to pay medical bills – see America, where half a million people go bankrupt every year because they can’t afford their medical bills – then you are no friend of mine, but likely a very good friend of Rishi Sunak.
Talk to anyone who has been to an A&E department lately, tried to get a GP appointment or asked for basic mental health treatment whether they think the NHS is in good hands. If someone tells you it is, they are lying.
We are witnessing the destruction of our NHS in plain sight. They’re slashing spending in many areas and flogging off other stuff to Sunak’s fat cat mates in the private vulture sector. We are closer to the edge than we have ever been.
The NHS literally is the most precious thing we have in our country. More than anything, it means we are still, despite the efforts of Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak, a civilised country. Never forget that when a Tory tells you that they believe in cutting your taxes, what they mean is to reduce your public services. And our best public service is the NHS.
I will never forgive the Tories for what they have done to our NHS. If you value universal healthcare, free at the point of delivery, then neither should you.
