In 2009 David Cameron told an enthusiastic nurses' conference there would be no more of "those pointless reorganisations that aim for change but instead bring chaos". Yet within two months of the coalition being formed, Andrew Lansley produced the most radical plan for NHS change since its inception.

Now postcode lotteries mean some are already paying for services that others receive free. Restriction of core treatments such as joint replacements force those who can afford it to take out insurance or pay for operations while those who can't go untreated. Hospital websites are already talking of "self-funding NHS patients" – which should be an oxymoron and would have puzzled Bevan. And hospitals, many in financial trouble because of crippling PFI payments, are looking for paying patients.

The NHS seems destined to become a logo, a brand; and indeed at a time when thousands of frontline clinical jobs are being cut, the NHS jobs website has advertised for a £97k "head of brand". In some places, such as Surrey and Devon, private monopoly is already replacing the monopoly of the publicly provided NHS: charities and social enterprises stand little chance when tendering against companies like Serco and Virgin, with their expertise in winning public-service contracts.

New providers are likely to make profits by changing the working conditions of staff and cutting back on services. Commercial confidentiality means public accountability will become a thing of the past. The new financial arrangements, with their potential conflicts of interest, threaten the relationship of trust between GPs and patients that lies at the heart of primary care. Surveys show the public don't approve of the new ethos, either, and that they don't benefit when competition replaces collaboration and when illness is a commodity to be traded.

Out of this perfect storm of broken promises, cuts, closures and privatisation, Thursday sees the birth of the National Health Action party, led by Richard Taylor – for nine years the independent MP for Kidderminster – and by Clive Peedell, a clinical oncologist. Initially it will be a single-focus party whose aim is to protect the vital, cost effective and popular NHS. We will not challenge MPs who share our aims and who are committed to restoring and protecting the NHS.

Since 2000, governments have pursued a policy for the NHS which the electorate hasn't voted for and doesn't want. This disregard for the public combined with the "shock and awe" tactics of the coalition means there is no alternative but to challenge politicians via the ballot box.

Tony Blair is said to have advised Cameron to press ahead with the "reforms" because, after the passage of the bill, opposition would die away and "it would be as if it was ever thus". The NHA party aims to put the NHS firmly back on the agenda and to give voters the opportunity to have the patient choice they have never been offered – to reject the dismantling of the NHS.
so Mr Hunt and Mr Osborne a Doctor will be heading your way shortly

Tom do you know why Brown sold the Gold and how much money was lost as a result, because from what i can recollect the figure seems to be around £4 Billion it was a gamble that should never have been taken, but given what's happened since the pressure on the $ and the rise of China, Middle East conflicts, could not have been forseen in 2000 20001, but i can't defend it, we were not the only country that made this mistake.
The Banking problems and deregulation, you blame Brown, Thatcher it was who deregulated the Banks, you can blame Brown for not reigning them in ,but all the time shadow Chancellor Osborne was urging Brown to further deregulate. Nobody could have forseen what was coming the collapse of the US sub prime Market Every country in the western hemisphere and beyond were affected, so for me the people to blame are the ones collecting millions in bonuses, the same ones that helped fund Camerons 2010 election campaign, with every passing day Brown looks like a genius compared to Cameron and Osborne. I don't really have to defend Brown as i only voted for him in 2010 and he lost, there is life beyond the Daily Mail you should get out more

Thatcher deregulated the Banks in the late 70s early 80's ,Brown further deregulated to what extent i don't know. He has to take some of the blame, but the real criminals walked away scott free bonuses intact,
And well done your son I bet he don't come on here

Bloody hell...Carolgees is back!

I sell thousands of items each year on the internet,many of these are delivered into Europe.

I really am sh1tting my pants that Farage get's in and takes us out of Europe because everyone is going to stop buying from us as we become the pariah state of Europe.

ABSOLUTE BOBHOLLUX,DRIVEL,LEFT WING,YOGHURT WEARING,TREE HUGGING,UTTER PC SHYTE!!!!

It will make no difference to us whatever.

We were SUPPOSED to be joining a " Common fckin Market " and not being joined at the hip in a perfect lovey harmony.

The European Union is a corrupt bag of sh1t and if Farage can get us out then he's got my vote.

Politics has never bothered me that much until recent times but i'm seriously thinking of joining UKIP in my local area.

I am sick of Cameron,Clegg,Millipede et al and even if it mean's we have to suffer Labour again next time around i want to do enough to make sure that Cameron is hopefully humiliated and hung by his b0ll0cks from the lamppost outside number 10.

No-one is ever able to come up with a real benefit which we gain from membership of the EU which wouldn't accrue from EEA/EFTA membership either.

This nonsense about being governed by fax due to not being part of the institutions which make EEA/EFTA rules is not a reason for staying in the EU (more a reason for reforming EEA/EFTA) and is a spurious one, anyway.

It is not the EU's fault that Blair didn't impose quotas, as a deliberate strategy to:

1. Force multiculti on the country
2. Import a class of voters grateful to him
3. Lower wages

But it is absurd that nation states have to provide access to services on an equal footing to other EU citizens, when the benefits and other social provisions across the EU are so disparate.

The Tories are now banging on about restricting access to benefits to Romanians and Bulgarians. But if they were really as Euro-reform/sceptic as they claim they wouldn't hide the number of immigrants expected to arrive.

They know that we would be rightly revulsed and that the swing to Ukip and clamour to leave would be massive.

The Tories don't want to leave Europe. Cameron is a faux-Eurosceptic.

Your premiss has one fatal flaw: when Cameron was perceived as more right-wing, the Tories were on for a landlside. After he became more wet, he needed the Lib Dems, despite gross mismanagement under 13 Labour years.

Why are the Tories any more inherently reprehensible than Labour? Illegal wars, covered-up immigration into already poor and struggling areas, deliberate abandonment of the white working class because they thought their votes could be taken for granted ("Where else have they got to go?" asked Mandelson), more political corruption than 18 Tory years...Yet, people still see Tories as the nasty party.

Beggars belief.

I'm not saying the Tories ARE more reprehensible than Labour. I'm pointing out that a considerable percentage of the electorate perceive them that way and would vote almost anything just to block the Conservatives, even when the opposition is useless, putting Cameron in a jam where he had no option but to court the LibDems.

They may have been divided over what they did want, but admit it: most people DIDN'T want the Conservatives in 2010.

I don't buy the idea that Cameron was on course for any sort of landslide, however right wing he seemed. He is still feeling the fallout from his own party's horribly divisive years in office.

You remember them surely? The times when hypocrite John Major told us all to go "Back to basics" and lectured the country on decent values whilst knocking off Edwina behind his wife's back. The same bloke who presided over eye-watering 15% mortgage interest rates and Black Wednesday, regferring to his own fellow Tories as "bastards". Admittedly he didn't have the cushy majorities of his predecessor.

Thatcher was a freak of late 20th Century politics (not using the word pejoratively by the way, but in its truest sense) and has a lot to answer for. Her greedy, tunnel visioned devil-take-the-hindmost obsessive right wing dog eat dog mantra and revamped 19th Century laissez-fair politics dressed up as ego-salving "Thatcherism" saddled the Tories (including the many decent ones) with the "nasty party" image they still struggle to shake off even now.

She was allowed such free reign in large part because she was blessed with astonishingly lucky timing (the benefits of North Sea Oil manifested as she took the helm; she was due to mothball Navy ships just as The Falklands affair surfaced and she rode a wave of patriotism/jingoism - depending on your viewpoint - just in time for an election against the most shambolic, UNelectable set of loony left prats in living memory etc etc).

The luckiest, most overrated and obnoxious PM for decades - but even she didn't get everything wrong; she did at least strangle some of the more risible left wing nonsense in its tracks, and hooray for that.

What REALLY beggars belief is the misguided notion that either wing (left OR right) is significantly better or worse than the other.

Show me a Government which has won more than 50% of the vote cast, let alone the vote of 50% of the electorate.

I have provided a link showing the Tories were on for a landslide.

What about Blair saying that Labour would be 'whiter than white' after years of 'Tory sleaze'?

Most of the Tory scandals were personal indiscretion, not political corruption. I much prefer the former. Labour had many of the latter as well as the former. If you want real scandal, ask why the papers from the Cullen inquiry are locked away under the 70 year rule and why Operation Ore was D noticed. As well as Robin Cook, Blunkett, Ron 'Badger' Brown, etc.

I do remember Black Wednesday but I was only 15 at the time and more concerned with trying to screw a girl called Tina who still has the best legs I have ever seen.

I never managed it, by the way.

From what I remember, it was a failure led by willingness to appease the Euro-lovers in the party, combined with a suicidal mission to remain tied to the ERM.

Not as costly as the Treasury mistakes which saw us bankrupt in 2008-9, however. But that was all global. Then so was the highly-leveraged 'success' that preceded it. But they won't admit that.

What it really was, was a fake bubble Labour created by borrowing and encouragement to provide easy credit. Elliott Nelson would have told brown 100 years before that you cannot escape boom and bust; that's the nature of economics. But the arrogant sociopath seems to suffer the same Narcissistic disorder that Blair does.

Then we have the pensions robbery and flogging gold for a pittance.

I find the Tories being called the nasty party to be a lazy, ill-conceived smear. As I said, look at what Labour did. I think the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people - for reasons we still don't know - is a bit more nasty than a commitment to free-market principles.

What is wrong with politics now is that people leave university, do a non-job as an adviser, at a think tank or trade union then become an MP.

They know nothing about life outside their bubble. If you offered me an 27 year old MP who got a first in PPE at Oxford before working for the European Commission and being parachuted into a safe seat or a 60 year old with no 'O' Levels who has spent his life in a normal occupation, I would have the latter every time.

This is why we have people like Chuka Ummuna. I remember when he said that trade unions were wealth creators. They can be called many things, but that is not really one of their functions and the unions pilloried him for judging the worth of them in terms of wealth creation.

What a stupid man if he couldn't see that this would get their backs up.

Lastly, I think your left-right dichotomy is obsolete as all 3 mains parties are social democrats with different policies. This, in itself, is a problem.

Both parties have been guilty of gross hypocrisy when in power which is one reason we believe neither any more. Many voted for the Conservatives this time around only to find that the Tory policies they wanted were swept under the carpet to appease the Lib Dems so no one gets what they want.

So we see people turning to alternatives as they do not know who to turn to. To me, the rise of UKIP is not due to the vast majority having racist tendencies as some leftists would suggest. It's due to an electorate who are angry that no one is listening to these concerns that country's creaking and insufficient infrastructure cannot support yet another fresh wave of Eastern Europeans heading this way who will offer little but still demand social welfare support.

Then we have Labour. Thatcher did get one thing right in that the country needed to take some tough medicine as were bankrupt. No one with a brain would invest in this country in the 70's due to Unions calling the shots. Nothing worked and no one seemed to care.

Then the last Labour tenure once again bought the country to its knees with 10 years of overspending which we will all be paying for until God knows when. So, we get the current crop who promise the earth and then kick all of those who voted for them in the teeth.

Meanwhile the Lib Dems will jump in to bed with any bidder likely to get power - something they will never achieve on their own.

Never before have we so desperately needed a new party in this country that can sieze so much of the middle ground that a disinterest in politicians and their lies has created.

It all goes to show the contempt that these serial career politicians hold the electorate in. Whether it's Cameron denying a string of broken promises such as promising to get tough on the abuse of the Human Rights bill - but at the next election (thought that was in the previous manifesto you promised us Dave) or the odious Ed Balls arrogantly telling us how he would sort the current mess out (Ed, didn't you and Brown sell off the Gold reserves at a good time to sell so you thought - losing the Exchequer 13 Billion on todays rates - or send the spending sky high on welfare rewarding the feckless and habitual wasters as never before?)

I think we must take some of the blame as a society for letting so many pointless self serving individuals across the political spectrum who offer nothing get away with it for so long.

Maybe we get the politicians we deserve?

Alas I reckon you are right. The thing about us Brits is we moan, whine and don't do anything to change the situation.

I think we need at LEAST one new party. I doubt there's ever been so much distance between the politicians and the people since universal suffrage was introduced.

On last week's Question Time one person told the panel that they were dealing in the slimy politicspeak that makes the electorate nauseous. The reactions ranged from looks of amusement to genuine bafflement.

They still aren't grasping it. Which is why, when Farage talks bollocks, as he is apt to do on occasion, people still prefer that because some PPE graduate from Oxford hasn't told him to say it.

Heh!

Could've been written about her.

However, the effect she had on me was this. The unsanitised version.

Try asking the boss of Toyota, BMW ,Tata, Motors, Honda, Mercedes, and the rest if they want out of the EU ,try suggesting it to the CBI, that's why Cameron hasn't offered an in out referendum .Mick i hear your arguement but should we, as it were end up in the 2nd tier of Europe, don't think for a minute these boys wont relocate to Eastern Europe where they can get an Educated workforce for half the price, and fk knows how many kickbacks from governments of said countries, car assembly work for the most part is semi or unskilled Labour some of the supply chain have already relocated to Poland.We have hardly any Manufacturing as it is and it will be reduced further by spitting our dummy out

A good post Stroller i hope you manage to kick the habit and your health gets sorted, got bladdered in Tipton once, we were doing some building work on the slaughterhouse there i was drinking with a load of foundry workers, that's about all i can remember

Step forward Oliver Cromwell Please !!!

No, I am against Burnham being all for an inquiry into 96 deaths but less keen for inquiries into thousands because he won't win votes from it. It isn't difficult to understand.

I am also not against targets. Same old tactic of attributing views that have never been expressed. You can't help yourself. I simply raised that GPs' target as one small example of poor coordination of the NHS by Blair et al. Go back and read it.

As for targets overall, the evidence of the NHS boss into his view of targets when giving evidence today.

You can whine about the Tories but thousands didn't die of neglect on their watch, or due to their policies.

Oh, and you mean the hundreds of hospitals built by PFI and borrowing that we are now struggling to pay back?

Nice one.

Well done mate, the first 2 weeks were a nightmare for me, the craving was bloo#dy awful, in fact the thought of having to go through it all again helped, as i couldn't have faced it again

Many years ago at West Brom there used to be a tight knit little mob from Tipton, seen them at a few places, Derby away comes to mind around the 70s, maybe early 80s

Problem solved

I find it hard not to support the NHS. Problem is like so much other infrastructure in this country, its under resourced and creaking at the seams and like the Police used as a political football.

To overall theme of many of the comments on this board re this thread is no better captured than Camerons statement in the Commons yesterday concerning his defence of the NHS chief;

"At Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons, Mr Cameron insisted Sir David - who was in charge of the Strategic Health Authority covering Mid-Staffordshire at the time of the scandal - had already "frankly and candidly" apologised for failings that contributed to the deaths of hundreds of patients"

Oh..so that's all OK then. He's apologised...despite presiding over a trust that killed the equivalent of 2 jumbo jets full of passengers needlessly despite numerous complaints from the victims families

Our politicians once again show how spineless and out of touch they are preferring to use it as a political bun fight and the buck stops with no one - not even the man at the top who earns over a million pounds a year who many would allege ought to be facing corporate manslaughter charges>