Dear Andrew Lansley,
As Shadow Health Secretary, you have remained vigilant without making a spectacular impact thus far. Admittedly Alan Johnson hasn’t been making the headlines either, save for the occasional pointless initiative on obesity or smoking. Unfortunately, your front page headline in The Times proclaiming that you will spend an extra £28 billion on the NHS should the Conservatives come to power is not what I wanted to hear.
The UK is going to be flat broke by 2010. The PFI burden, decommissioning of nuclear power stations, the Northern Rock crisis, unfunded public sector pensions - all of these are going to start draining more money from the government over the next decade or so (and no doubt there will be more financial disasters to come). For you to then proclaim that you can find an extra £28 billion is confusing because this can only be achieved by two means: raising taxes, or cutting expenditure elsewhere. Raising taxes would be the most un-Conservative policy imaginable, while cutting expenditure elsewhere would be untenable seeing as most public services are already at breaking point (especially the Armed Forces).
To cut a short story slightly shorter, the NHS already has enough funding but the inefficiency and wastage of a publicly owned monopoly is what causes such poor outcomes. £28 billion will be needed to repair the financial damage that Labour have done, so don’t waste it on an already bloated healthcare system when you should be concentrating on structural reform instead.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
6 responses so far ↓
asquith // February 28, 2008 at 9:23 am
“Raising taxes would be the most un-Conservative policy imaginable”
Not necessarily. The economic situation might call for higher taxes to sort out the public finances. One thinks of Thatcher’s actions in 1981.
In a time of high public debt and a generally poor economy, a balanced budget has got to be achieved. That is why Dave from PR and Gideon Osbourne won’t make a promise to cut taxes immediately.
And then once a balanced budget has been achieved, reform of the public services and tax cuts can be envisaged. But there’s a lot more to fiscal responsibility than low taxes.
I do see your point that we shouldn’t be throwing money at problems, I’m just saying. Even if this Tory policy is scrapped, if they form a government they’ll have to take public finances in hand in some way.
Letters From A Tory // February 28, 2008 at 10:51 am
Even if I go along with that and say that raising taxes is acceptable, if the Government has £28 billion lying around it still shouldn’t be spent on the NHS.
The value for money in our health service is shocking and sinking more money into the bottomless financial pit that is the NHS will not convince voters that the Conservatives have any idea what they are doing. Labour throw money at problems, and we should not follow suit.
asquith // February 28, 2008 at 10:58 am
Yes, I see what you’re saying now. I wasn’t quite clear first time around, hence the repeated edits of my post.
My humble opinion is that if any money is going it should be put towards servicing debt and investing in some form of training programme for the un/under employed, as both those policies will bring financial returns.
Mike Baldwin // February 28, 2008 at 2:43 pm
The NHS can not be made to work however much money is spent. The delivery of health care should be privatised and Medical Saving Accounts along with cheap catastrophic health insurance used to fund patient choice. However the British public will continue to cling to the bloated corpse of the NHS
Letters From A Tory // February 28, 2008 at 3:24 pm
The NHS should certainly be handed over to private healthcare providers , but not sure the Singapore model is the best way forward. I’d much prefer a tax-funded but privately run system.
Typhoo // February 28, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Giving doctors a 60% rise for seeing 40% fewer patients is madness. No wonder you say the UK is going to be flat broke by 2010. I agree with you.
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