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#Lansley: a clever, ruthless liar

The lie is that there is a funding crisis threatening the N.H.S. IF his 'reforms' don't go through. The truth is simpler: that there is a funding crisis facing the NHS. Full stop. The government's cuts, the money wasted and given away to fatcats due to ongoing privatisation exercises (including of course PFI) and the lack of any serious efforts to 'green' the N.H.S. (e.g. to place more emphasis (and push more money into) on prevention, and less on mega-hospitals) mean that there is a huge funding hole looming in the N.H.S. over the next few years. Talk to anyone who understands the N.H.S. (such as those who advised the last government on it) as I have done, and they will tell you the same. The funding gap is unprecedentedly large. The wheels will come off, unless more money is injected, or unless management costs and money siphoned off to the private sector is removed, or unless the N.H.S. is 'greened' - or, preferably, all three.
What's clever of course is that, if Lansley gets away with the lie, then he wins either way. Either his ruthless, bold attempt to savage the NHS will be bought into, out of fear that, if he is right, then 'TINA'; or nevertheless the government backs off his 'reforms' under popular pressure, and he resigns, and then in 3 years' time he is 'vindicated', as the wheels come off the NHS, and he can say "I told you so". Maybe he then even gets drafted back in desperation, to go through with his 'reforms'; or maybe he then even makes a bid for the Deputy Leadership or the Leadership of the Tory Party, harnessing the discontent of right-wing true believers...

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