News From The Big Tent

Someone to watch over me

alanjohnsonl.jpg There's a palpable sense here that, given Brown made his keynote speech yesterday, Conference is all over bar the shouting.

Nevertheless, this hasn't stopped Gord making his presence felt. As Johnson delivered his address to Conference this morning, Brown sat stony-faced behind him like a terrifyingly corporeal Banquo's ghost.

Conscious, perhaps, that he would be posted to a Siberian gulag if he buggered it up, Johnson delivered a solid speech on protecting NHS staff from abuse, cracking down on superbugs, more matrons for all (easy, boys) and how the Tories are a bit crap. Whilst it could hardly be said to sparkle, it probably did the job (the job being not to overshadow the Leader).

And with these gags, let's face it, the Comedy Club awaiteth not. 

It would also seem that the "personalisation agenda" continues apace within the health narrative, which seems to demand that the NHS is reformed in order to operate along the same line as amazon.com: "Click here to turn express delivery if you want to get your piles treated by Thursday!"

Quite how this is deliverable is anyone's guess. Jonathan Freedland on the subject:

"Everyone wants a personalised NHS, [the MP] bellowed. "How's he going to do it?" This central question - how? - remains unanswered."

Localism is all very well, but where provision is locally decided you can bet your pension that complaints about "postcode lotteries" will never be further than six months behind the instigation of the scheme, and what the hell's the Secretary of State gonna do about this outrage? And, thusly, the eternal cycle continues.

Still, judging from the heavy stream of people passing the TV screens in the twenty-first century, foregoing the quest for a solution for the NHS in single-minded pursuit of strong coffee, Westmonster reckons Johnson can probably change his mind in six months about this insania without anybody noticing much.

Written by Lloyd Shepherd on 25 Sep 2007 12:42 PM.  
Share this: del.icio.us  digg  Facebook  Newsvine  reddit
More Westmonster on:  , , ,