The media is infected with one of their occasional bouts of hysteria.
A likeable young couple will be married on Friday. We all wish them well in the same way that we hope for good fortune for all others in the same situation. But the media concentration on this single event does not match the sentiments of the public.
The Guardian publish the results of a poll tomorrow. Only 37% agree that they are genuinely interested in the wedding, while 46% say they are not. Women are much more likely to be interested than men but only 18% of all people questioned say they are strongly interested in the event.
The blogs and tweeters are more representative of public opinion than the papers. Street parties are a tiny fraction of what they were in 1981 - in spite of subsidies and official imprecations. In my circle of friends and contacts, I have come across nobody whose excitement matches that of the media.
The only fun item I have seen is the T-Mobile film which will be watched by millions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kav0FEhtLug .
NHS safe in their hands?
Can it be all over?
The brash confident Andrew Lansley's NHS reforms were launched with a certainty that they would be enacted.
At the Commons briefing by the King's Fund, I was the only speaker who said that our duty was to do all that we could to frustrate damaging changes. Others agreed but believed that the all powerful Tory-led Coalition were omnipotent. Best to hedge our bets and soften the hard edges of Lansley's revolution.
Today we have news of how badly things are going. The former Conservative mayor of Kensington and Chelsea is leading a rescue strategy for Andrew Lansley’s health reforms. NHS doctor Jonathan Munday told the heads of GP consortia that the political climate against reforms from which they stand to profit “is getting worse by the day”.
Dr. Munday, who lists “freemasonry” and “Conservative politics” as interests chairs the £80million/year Victoria Commissioning Consortium. His memo outlines a strategy to defend NHS restructuring where doctors ”jointly write an open letter to Mr Cameron via the Times, the Telegraph, the Mail and the Today programme supporting the reforms”.
The most enlightening element of the leak is not the text of the letter to David Cameron but a preamble which never mentions patient care once, addressing instead the dynamics between competing “vested interests” in the medical establishment:
He writes;
"I am now getting seriously worried that the political pressure on Lansley is such that the government may abort GP commissioning entirely or, almost worse, may so water it down and constrain it that GP consortia will have the worst of all worlds: a lot of effort, political responsibility for any cuts but no ability to wrest initiatives or make needed reforms."
That sounds like curtains.
Recent tweets
Every few years, generally after a Gen Elec, NHS restructuring comes up - along with schools restructuring and defence forces restructuring. And what happens is that the people at the sharp end are the ones who suffer.
When have we ever hear of Health DEPT restructuring, or Defence DEPT restructuring, etc?
If you were contemplating being PM, Paul (if I may), which God forbid, would you not have in mind the construction of a team to go into the Health Dept and rip out waste? I would, and I am just an ex-manager, who took it upon himself to do just that in a small way. That was in the days of 'Management by Objectives', along with 'Plan, Organise, Lead and Control'.
Does the Health Dept have the right objectives? What is it for? Spell it out! As regards the Education Dept, is the purpose of schools to teach science, maths, english, etc or to promote healthy lifestyles? One may say that it could be both, but think of the cost and think of the time available. Do you teach French or '5 a day'? It cannot be both. And will TEACHING '5 a day' actually achieve anything as regards obesity, or would it not be better to have some PE? I am not romancing - my daughter is a new teacher and I have seen some of the '5 a day' type guff on the internet. Heavens above! We were adding 'apples and pears' (or rather, not adding apples and pears) sixty years ago!
So why don't you tell us how you personally would reform these departments. I am sure that you know what you are doing.
As regards Afghanistan, I think that you are right. As soon as we leave, all the soldiers will immediately repair to their own tribes. That is the nature of the place. It really is hard to call it a 'country' at all. Is it one of these artificially constructed countries, like Iraq?
Posted by: Junican | April 26, 2011 at 01:27 AM
The perils of late evening blogging, Patrick. Now corrected. There is more self-imposed discipline on Tweeter where every word has to count- and not over 140 characters.
Posted by: Paul Flynn | April 25, 2011 at 08:28 AM
"I my circle of friends and contacts, I have come nobody whose excitements matches that of the media."
I understand and agree with the point that i think you are making.
However is this sentence an example of a new Westminster based language that we should all know about?
Posted by: patrick | April 25, 2011 at 07:53 AM