As the dust settles on surely the silliest silly season story ever – Dan Hannan on Health, henceforth known as Dangate – the silver lining of that bizarre storm may well be arriving.
President Obama I understand has a motto. Whilst Gordon Brown adopted the rather hollow self-satisfied one of his alma mater – “usque conabor” [I try my utmost] – when he became Prime Minister, Obama’s is more a piece of practical advice: “Never waste a crisis”.
It’s a good rule to follow, for in this week of outrageous headlines and Labour lunacy a strange if stormy planetary alignment occurred in the political solar system that is a very rare occurrence indeed. Healthcare was not only the main issue in political saliency but it was in an international perspective – where the UK performs poorly, especially in comparison to Europe – and, to top it all off, the ruling party was showing a shocking level of complacency, arrogance, and – quite frankly – utter delusion.
Although it is later than I would have advised, the big speech expected will hopefully take advantage of this so called crisis.
Not only is it an opportunity to emphasise the fact the NHS is rightly a priority of the party and how this is a change from the “old”; it is more importantly a chance to cast Labour as the out dated, old fashioned and the [in the anti-reform sense] “forces of conservatism”, with the Conservatives as the modernising, fresh and reformist “progressives” of the show.
After all, we have seen Labour nail their colours firmly to the zero reform flagpole with a “my country, right or wrong” attitude to healthcare policy. Opposition to reform can never be progressive, can it? With statistics such as National Health Service patients being four times more likely to die than Americans in surgery, Cancer survival rates in Britain being among the lowest in Europe, and stories such as ‘Woman gives birth on pavement after being refused ambulance', their healthcare patriotism can be ridiculed.
The cause of Change can be easily made, all we need to do is make it.
And “Change”, as we know, is a very powerful message...
