The NHS and the Market

Although not necessarily a fan of Lansley he is obviously right that the objection of the doctors, nurses and midwives to the NHS reforms is about their pay and pensions and not about making the NHS more efficient. If Cameron wanted to demonstrate his belief in open markets and free enterprise he would have announced in his responsible capitalism speech today a truly radical form of the NHS. The NHS is an unwieldy, inefficient, smug, monolith and it would help the economy enormously if the NHS were split up into several competing entities. Each entity would then be given a budget and allowed to choose how it would run itself. No doubt some would choose a socialist model and others a free market one and perhaps others something in between. I have no doubt that the free market ones would be the winners by providing the best care at the cheapest price. The government is never going to follow my suggestion so I hope it will at least stick to its guns, ignore the trade unions and impose its reforms. It is about time they were brought in for the minimal efficiency savings they will produce. In an answer to a question following his speech today Cameron stated that Sir Fred Goodwin's knighthood was up for review. There should be no hesitation in withdrawing the title which was given on a totally false premise. Sir Victor Blank's knighthood should also be withdrawn since he should never have agreed to accommodate Gordon Brown's request that Lloyds buy HBOS. Those at the time who said that the deal should not go through have been vindicated in light of the reports of the unprofessional manner in which the transaction process was carried out and the resultant disaster - it seems there was no real due diligence. There is nothing more crony like than a knighthood given to a "friend" and so the withdrawal of a title for failure on the scale over which Sir Fred and Sir Victor both presided will demonstrate to all the world that Labour type crony capitalism of which we saw so much in the Blair/Brown years has ended. From remarks he made this week Ed Miliband thinks he invented anti crony capitalism. He didn't and indeed he was part of the government that loved it in a way that hasn't been seen in these Isles since before the Second World War.