If the NHS is safe in Tory hands—words that we shall never let the Prime Minister forget—how come that more than 160 hospitals and 11,000 beds have been 478closed since the Tories came to power? How come that more than 2,000 doctors and 10,000 nurses and midwives are now on the dole? How come that an unprecedented number of senior members of the medical profession—the vast majority of them by no means Socialists—have gone public in the outcry against the cuts? And how come that the chairman of the BMA... issued a public warning only two days ago saying:
The gap between what we can do for patients and what we actually do is steadily widening"?That has been reinforced by the TUC policy statement, "The Growing Gap", issued today, which highlights the £0.5 billion gap between needs and resources in the NHS.
The Tories have never believed in the NHS. Indeed, from the start of their Administration they have gone out of their way to express outright hostility to it. The Prime Minister's antagonism to the NHS is proverbial, while the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a "Weekend World" broadcast at the outset of his chancellorship, explicitly staked out cuts in the NHS, along with education and social security, as his target for cutting public expenditure and holding down sterling M3. So much for the NHS being safe in his hands. It is about as safe as entrusting an alcoholic with a bottle of whisky.
And the punchline is the old cliche - history repeats itself; for the extract is indeed from Hansard - by Michael Meacher on July 5th 1984.
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