https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/they-come-prices-and-vices-–-starmer-and-swiftie-spads This looks like indisputable evidence that the Labour government is privatising the NHS. The Starmer, Swiftie, Spads article is also interesting with many ex-Corporate lobbyist spads employed by Labour also getting bribed worshiped.

WES STREETING appointed Baroness Camilla Cavendish, who previously led David Cameron’s Number 10 Policy Unit, onto the board of the Department for Health this month, saying he wanted to have “cross-party” figures of “different political persuasions” to guide the NHS.

He wants to build a “cross-party consensus” to “reform the NHS.” But what is this consensus? In 2007, when Labour’s Gordon Brown was prime minister Cavendish wrote that “the hungry maw of the NHS is swallowing more and more resources, at the expense of virtually everything else.”

Cavendish denounced the NHS as “Britain’s last big state monopoly,” complaining that “its powerful unions view any slowdown in spending growth as a ‘cut.’ And cut is a deadly word in political terms.”

Cavendish said the NHS badly needs more “innovation,” which is only possible “by introducing competition.” Cavendish said New Labour had not gone far enough down this road. She welcomed Tony Blair’s attempts to “introduce competition” by letting private providers carry out some operations, and the introduction of foundation trusts, but claimed: “Ministers are too easily persuaded that the battle is between public and private provision. They are ashamed to endorse the private.”

She was worried Brown did not believe enough in “market-based reform” of the NHS. She said the health service was “a bloated state” and argued “the writing is on the wall: a tax-funded free healthcare system is looking ever less sustainable.”

The NHS was certainly in better state in 2007 than now. However, while the idea it was bloated, overfunded and needed more privatisation might appeal to Streeting, it doesn’t appeal to Labour voters. Cavendish went on to join Cameron’s No 10 operation in 2015, when the Tory PM did indeed stick with more NHS privatisation and less NHS money.

Cavendish is expected by Streeting to sit with former Labour health minister Alan Milburn on the Department of Health board and build up a consensus for NHS reform. Both seem drawn to Cameron’s approach — accepting and accelerating New Labour’s NHS privatisation, while adding Tory spending reductions.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/they-come-prices-and-vices-–-starmer-and-swiftie-spads This looks like indisputable evidence that the Labour government is privatising the NHS.