March 8, 2024 - 7:00am
Attend any gathering of British Right-wingers, either physical or virtual, and it is a pretty safe bet that before very long someone will make some kind of witheringly sarcastic reference to “R NHS”. Conservatives have always been sceptical about the mawkish and unjustified reverence with which our health system is discussed, and this exasperation is reaching fever pitch as the adulation becomes ever more histrionic. This week Jeremy Hunt laid his sacrifice on the altar set up by Nye Bevan in 1948, claiming in his Budget speech that the “NHS is, rightly, the biggest reason most of us are proud to be British”.
Right-wing Twitter had a field day with this, mocking the Chancellor by using AI to create pictures of great scenes from British history with NHS references shoehorned in: the signing of Magna Carta, the defeat of the Armada and the Battle of Trafalgar. Some of these were very funny, and it is always satisfying to see pushback against the current authorised version of British history, in which all was darkness and misery until 1945, when Bevan and Clement Attlee invented hospitals, compassion and tolerance.
The danger in this kind of response is that conservative-minded people end up creating their own simplistic historical myths, which voters and political opponents find unpersuasive. It is true that many elements of the welfare state were in place long before the postwar Labour government, and that many people with limited means were able to access high quality medical treatment through various forms of insurance, charity and informal local arrangements.
But the Labour reformers who created the NHS were responding to real problems and real miseries. The surprise landslide of July 1945, which hustled out of office a government which had just won the hardest war Britain has ever fought, is only really explicable if you understand the huge desire for change and reform among ordinary Britons.
Duelling narratives of national history are fun for Twitter, and they make for entertaining debates. But all the same, a full understanding of the truth about our past requires a kind of synthesis of many different perspectives. Currently prominent debates about imperialism prove this in spades. Those who argue that the British Empire was simply a means for plunder, enrichment and racial oppression are wrong, but that does not mean that patriots must return to the simplistic boosterism of the Ladybird Book of British Achievement.
Mocking Jeremy Hunt for finding so little of which to be proud in his own country’s achievements that he lauds a mediocre health system is one thing; conservatives who want to win must also offer a nuanced and attractive alternative if they are to recapture any significant part of elite opinion.
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SubscribeI am proud of much about the UK. But that feeling is about the country itself, its history and its people. I no longer have any pride in our institutions of governance and state, because they have decayed and corrupted to the point that they are a source of shame. And that includes the NHS.
I don’t think that our political parties, political individuals, or the “elites” (who are they?) to whom the author refers, have anything to tell any of us about being proud about this country. They are the problem rather than the solution.
“…conservatives who want to win must also offer a nuanced and attractive alternative if they are to recapture any significant part of elite opinion…”
Whereas of course, progressives who want to win can offer up any old reality-denying tut like transgenderism as long as it’s kind, inclusive, diverse, and pro-Palastine, and that will be treated as the naked words of old God in a foggy white beard, or better still, the foggy old words of a naked white Marx or Lenin or Lennon in a beard, unless you ask Google Gemini in which case the Marx will be black and the beard a blood-splattered red, although the words will still be foggy and old.
But here’s a thought, how about conservatives, instead of offering ‘a nuanced and attractive alternative’ try and offer conservativism instead?
Actually the best alternative to the flatulent state when it comes to the provision of healthcare, education and social support is mutualism. The greatest tragedy of the Labour movement was the abandonment, prompted by middle class Fabians, of the co-op tradition in favour of big state Stalin worship. We’ve never recovered.
It’s like the Woke elites’ Year Zero. I guess the biggest state institution would have the never ending devotion of big statists.
We need to stop deluding ourselves that the NHS is some sort of world-class organisation. It so obviously is not. I’m sure it has parts which are and staff who are. But the organisation – no way. And lying to ourselves doesn’t make it so and only makes the task of improving it much harder.
We also need to stop lying about how awful the US medical system is. At the top end (and that may well be 50%), it’s much better than the NHS. It’s just less equal. But that’s the US for you (and they way they like it in many ways).
I take no pride in “elite opinion” that rejoices in poor performance and mediocrity.
Jeremy Hunt’s on the fast track to a well deserved P45. Good riddance.
2.6 million (22% of working age people) in the UK are economically inactive. Only a portion of these are mothers with young children. If this implies that something like 15% of the UK workforce cannot work because they are not well, then this also implies that the NHS is in fact doing an absolutely terrible job of keeping the UK populace well. I’m wondering, where’s the hole in my argument?
Many are suffering from “incurable” illnesses. That is, they do not wish them to be treated because that would mean they would no longer be eligible for benefits, and would have to go back to work. This whole system needs tightening up.
This week Jeremy Hunt laid his sacrifice on the altar set up by Nye Bevan in 1948, claiming in his Budget speech that the “NHS is, rightly, the biggest reason most of us are proud to be British”.
Thus revealing that Mr. Hunt has a rather low opinion of what it means to be British.
His opening statement about a certain memorial set the tone. Tone deaf Tories. Oh that applies to the opposition too.
The UK Tory Party is brimful of the Woking Class, Mr Hunt being an archetype.
This is odd to read, as it’s so full of assumptions and inconsistencies.
First, if the majority of people in a society vote for more free stuff, stuff that will be “free” because someone else is forced to provide it to them, does that make this “democratic”? If 51% of people vote that rape should be legal, does that make it right?
Second, there is an assumption that if someone criticizes socialized medicine, it’s up to them to come up with “an alternative” (…”conservatives who want to win must also offer a nuanced and attractive alternative”). Put another way: “If you want to take away our free stuff, you have to come up with a better way of giving us free stuff”.
The idea that “Yay, the government is going to give us all free stuff” was a wonderful historic moment in Britain (or any westernized country – as we are all on this road – I’m in Canada and it’s worse, as private provision of medicine is prohibited) is not only wrong, it’s 180-degrees from the truth. It was one of the first steps on the path that led us to Big Government, Big Taxes, and Big Managerialism.
At the very least conservatives have to win over a much bigger proportion of the voters than they do today. Of course some sort of alternative needs to be offered, if only to shift the Overton window of debate.
Instead, I detect an awful lot of off putting whining going on. No, it ain’t, and life ain’t – fair – a point I thought right wingers usually emphasised!
Great concentrations of wealth attract parasites – and the State is no exception. The British state is being destroyed by the rent-seeking behaviour of the middle class.
When Theresa May somewhat timidly suggested that some small part of the trillions in unearned property wealth that has been lavished on us by successive governments be used to pay for our social care the loudest howls of outrage came from the Guardian.
If that doesn’t tell you everything then you’re not listening.
Any chance you’ve got a link to the article (or few words from title). Bang on comment – but taxing that wealth probably would not be an election winner.
As an abstract point, this is clearly true.
Nonetheless, if it’s the haves telling the have nots that “life just ain’t fair” only a dunce wouldn’t be suspicious.
There must be a name for this kind of fallacious reasoning. Anybody know what it is?
Silly post to be honest.
“British Right-wingers”
Pejorative, contemptuous tone established from the outset of the article. Mr Gooch’s sweeping pen alienates a broad demographic with immediate effect.