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The NHS is to the Tories what immigration is to Labour – a policy area they can’t win. Better to move on

The NHS is to the Tories what immigration is to Labour – a policy area they can’t win. Better to move on

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Can the Tories ever win on the NHS? – The YouGov best party tracker pic.twitter.com/Kim189k5BB — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 24, 2013 Can Labour ever win on immigration? – The YouGov best party tracker pic.twitter.com/grMqb6Esad — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 24, 2013 The best strategy is to steer the debate on to areas of strength A week, as Harold Wilson used to say, is a long in politics and just seven days ago the Tories felt they were on to…

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Corporeal on David Cameron and the NHS

Corporeal on David Cameron and the NHS

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The Three letters of David Cameron When David Cameron won the Conservative party leadership contest he said he could state his priorities in three letters: NHS. More than any other issue, from the Big Society to hugging huskies in hoodies, he’s tried to connect himself to the state of healthcare in this country. While prescribing declaring cuts had to take place in almost every other department he declared he would protect the NHS by ring-fencing its budget. It is a…

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Maybe, just maybe, voters are starting to believe that the NHS is safe in Tory hands

Maybe, just maybe, voters are starting to believe that the NHS is safe in Tory hands

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If the trend in the Ipsos MORI Issues index is correct then the NHS is not as politically potent as it was.See chart twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st… — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) December 20, 2012 Concern about the service drops to lowest level since election Last night the Ipsos-MORI Issues Index for December was published and one of the highlights was the decline in the numbers of those saying that the NHS was an important issue facing the country. The Index operates in a…

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Will the Lords euthanize Lansley’s bill?

Will the Lords euthanize Lansley’s bill?

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Is the government about to lose a major reform? This has not been a good week for the government. The ongoing difficulties of Secretary of State for Defence, Liam Fox, are far from over as the investigation into both his own and his friend Adam Werrity’s conduct continues. This alone will make for a difficult Prime Minister’s Questions. It could be about to get worse. The Conservatives went into the last election with plans to empower local providers of many…

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Will NHS chaos be an election issue for Cameron?

Will NHS chaos be an election issue for Cameron?

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Henry G Manson on the health changes In a speech to the Royal College of Nurses GPs in 2008 David Cameron won applause for his election pledge against “pointless top-down reorganisation that aim for change but just bring chaos.” Yet ‘chaos’ is surely a considerable risk now. The biggest restructuring of the NHS since it was created, contradictions running throughout the revised Health and Social Care Bill alongside £20 billion of efficiency saving targets. Oh and let’s not forget the…

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Obesity: should fatties be taxed rather than fat?

Obesity: should fatties be taxed rather than fat?

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Could a risk-based National Insurance system ever work? Government health drives are always dangerous things politically, as they tend to deliver unpopular information to people who know the truth of it but dislike having to admit their failings to themselves and so blame the messenger. That the message is frequently accompanied by tax increases doesn’t really help either. The reports about obesity published in The Lancet yesterday and widely covered in the media fit very much into that mould, advocating…

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Remember this eight months before polling?

Remember this eight months before polling?

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Is Hannan part of the Tory problems on the NHS? Whatever the details of individual polls it’s hard to argue other than that the Tories have a big perception problem on the NHS. There’s a view that runs deep, a lot of generated by Labour campaigning over the years, that the blues are not fully committed to the concept of public health care. Remember the Daniel Hannan interview on FOX News just eight months before the general election? The interview…

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