David Green has an excellent, measured but actually highly critical reaction to Cameron's policy announcements in today's Telegraph.
Here is an excerpt:
Mr Cameron was elected without anyone being quite sure what he stood for. Now quite a few of the blanks have been filled in. Yesterday, he ruled out social health insurance. Oliver Letwin, his head of policy, has said he would be "utterly astonished" if education vouchers were accepted, and has called for welfare policy to be based on egalitarian redistribution. It is beginning to look as if the policy commissions will not be open investigations of policy options at all. The "right answers" have already been decided for health, education and social security, which account for about 55 per cent of public spending.On Sunday, Mr Cameron declared the police to be the "last great unreformed public service". They are no such thing. Health and education remain public-sector monopolies, frayed at the edges by talk of consumer choice but firmly under state direction. Allowing for Gordon Brown's renaming of welfare benefits as tax credits, 500,000 more people are dependent on welfare than in 1997, whereas welfare reform in the US cut dependency by half between 1995 and 2000.
The full article is here.
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in NHS
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And there was me thinking that Cameron was playing his cards close to his chest to stop Nulab either attacking his policies or stealing them.
It now appears, a few short weeks later, that those being conned were the 300,000 or so conservative members. The over 60's blue rinse brigade gave us Ian Duncan Smith, Micheal Howard and now Cameron. I bet they're wondering if they'll ever get it right.
If the election was re-run today Davies would win by a landslide.
Posted by: John East at January 5, 2006 05:54 PM
Competely off topic but the excellent NHS Blog Doctor is recommending your book here:
Posted by: Bishop Hill at January 5, 2006 08:50 PM
It now appears, a few short weeks later, that those being conned were the 300,000 or so conservative members.
I totally agree. Everything up until his comments on the NHS, I put down to "talk" and the need to appear to be all nice and soft and loving and friendly. To say that "we believe in the NHS" is ridiculous. The principle: fine, we can live with that, but not the actual institution. Grrrr...
Posted by: Rory at January 5, 2006 11:23 PM
Surely the whole point of voting against labour is the fact that the NHS and the education system remain unchanged. All Labour have done for the last few years is a series of complex and expensive rearrangement of chairs on an ever-growing titanic!
Posted by: Alec Hodgson at January 6, 2006 05:32 PM
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In my comments on 28th December, I suggested that the Government aim of 'equal opportunity' should be replaced by that of 'equal incentive'. This would be an attempt to ensure that work pays - ie that it brings rewards greater than those for not working.
In the same way, 'equal incentive' should apply to the high earners in our society. Having contributed handsomely to the community chest through their high taxes, they should be able to take their state entitlement vouchers to a hospital or school of their choice to top up on the state basic and buy the luxury version their higher wages have bought them. That would be 'equal incentive' wouldn't it?
For a moment, I thought the Conservatives might move in this direction, but it seeems to have been a false dawn.
Posted by: Ruth Sherwin at January 5, 2006 03:29 PM