Cameron rebukes idiot MEP

Posted on 14th August, 2009 by

BBC NEWS | Politics | NHS attack MEP rebuked by Cameron

David Cameron is the leader of the Conservative Party in the UK, and much as I despise that institution and much as I suspect that a conservative government would gradually run the NHS down with internal markets, contracts and cuts here and there (to say nothing of carers who are outside the remit of the NHS itself; conditions for them are already often as bad as in the USA), he obviously realises that he can’t say really stupid things as a parliamentarian because parliament is where votes really matter.

Daniel Hannan, the moron who gave an interview with Fox News a couple of days ago and said that the NHS was a product of a time when the country was at war and under full mobilisation and told Americans that the NHS was incompatible with their values, is a member of the European Parliament, an institution which is even further out of touch with the public in the UK at least than the US federal government is with its own citizens. The turnout speaks for itself: less than 38% of the electorate in his constituency (less than 35% in the UK as a whole). They can afford to have lunatics there, but if an MP had said something so stupid, particularly in the run-up to an election, he would have been removed as a candidate in the next election as happened to Howard Flight in 2005.

Please see Michele Hanson in yesterday’s Guardian who refutes some of the lies advanced in the US media, such as that the NHS refuses treatment to elderly people. She mentions that she has had a thyroid condition for the last 30 years; I have as well, and trips to the hospital were a regular occurrence for me so that they could regulate my medication so that I would grow properly, physically and mentally. Had they not done that, I could have ended up a foot smaller and mentally impaired.

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Disability, Health, Politics, Permalink
  • Thersites

    I THINK YOUR FIRST PARAGRAPH SHOULD READ SOMETHING LIKE THIS:

    David Cameron is the leader of the Conservative Party in the UK, and much as I despise that institution and much as I suspect that a conservative government would gradually run down THE N.H.S. with internal markets, contracts and cuts here and there (to say nothing of carers who are outside the remit of the NHS itself; conditions for them are already often as bad as in the USA), he obviously realises that he can’t say really stupid things as a parliamentarian because parliament is where votes really matter.

    it is foolish of you to call Daniel Hannan “a moron” as a term of general abuse in the same post in which you acknowledge that you could perfectly accurately be called a cretin. i suggest you amend that section accordingly as well. I have no doubt that it is strong personal feelings that inspire your grammatical and medical errors. When you feel strongly about something there is all the more reason to think- and edit- carefully before you post

    Relevant portion emphasised. Delete above paragraphs when correction made.

    In fact, David Cameron, as the father of a seriously disabled child who depended heavily on N.H.S. carers is probably personally sympathetic to the N.H.S. and its principles. Other members of the Conservative Party may well not be.

  • http://www.blogistan.co.uk/blog/ Indigo Jo

    I corrected the error in the first paragraph. The reason for the error in this post wasn’t that I posted it in anger but that I posted it in a rush.

    As for the rest of it, I was actually looking for an opportunity to get the word “cretin” in there, but didn’t find one; it’s a term I don’t use as it offends my mother. It doesn’t offend me much as I don’t identify with it and (with the exception of one occasion at school) it’s not a term that’s been used on me in my earshot. If my condition had remained untreated, I could have ended up as one, but I didn’t.

    As for Cameron and the NHS, the fact is that he is a wealthy man in a safe seat on an MP’s generous salary. There is no reason to suppose that he empathises with poor or just ordinary people who have disabled children any more than a wealthy American with a disability or a child with one (e.g. Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin) would empathise with such people. In any case, people do receive excellent NHS care, but their outside care needs may not be met and, when visible NHS cuts are major vote losers and “social services” (or “the SS”) are unpopular, cuts there are less likely to cost votes. This is what Cameron has no need to talk about when rebutting ignorant attacks on the NHS by the American right and their lunatic fringe supporters in Europe such as Hannan.

    Do a Google search for “Judith Cameron” (I don’t believe she’s any relation to David Cameron) if you want an example. I was recently in contact with a severely disabled American woman who, along with her mother, are in the same boat as Judith Cameron and her brain-damaged daughter were (this woman is not mentally impaired but quadriplegic), i.e. the mother is the sole carer and does everything. To improve that situation, you need to spend money. Will a Tory government led by Cameron do that? Only time will tell.

  • Eudaemonion

    You’re probably right Indigo Jo.

    Cameron and his Conservatives would probably try to introduce some half-hearted ‘market based’ reforms into the NHS in some vain effort to correct the problems inherent in the single-payer model, without actually rocking the established boat too much. Far better that he abolish the monstrosity altogether, removing the yoke of bureaucracy and waste from around the necks of health-care professionals.

    Danial Hannan would prefer the assimilation of the Singaporean health system, which is more than can be said of the ‘Fund (the bottomless pit that is …) the NHS’ crowd.

    I guess flinging the words ‘lunatic’ and ‘fringe’ at people who don’t tow the established line is far easier than actually addressing the substance of Hannan’s position.

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