Let’s hope EDDC’s planners and building control departments are at the top of their game!
Category Archives: Accountability
Links to the property industry? On the planning committee? No problem!
Does the reporter REALLY think this is only a London problem?
Alas not, as we have proved in East Devon:
“RURAL RESIDENTS FACE SOCIAL CARE ‘LOTTERY'”
“The government’s system of funding social care services is unsustainable and unfair for rural communities, the Rural Services Network has warned.
Service providers operating across rural areas face inequitable costs compared to their urban counterparts for both adult and child social care, said the network.
Rural council taxpayers also faced unfair costs, warned the network in response to an inquiry by MPs who are examining the long-term future of adult social care.
RSN chief executive Graham Biggs said: “Social care is a national issue but it is in crisis.
He added: “While continuing to be delivered locally with flexibility for councils to respond to local circumstances and priorities, it should be 100% funded by central government to provide an adequate core service level for all residents nationally – irrespective of where people live.
“Council tax is an unsuitable taxation vehicle for demand responsive services and means rural residents face a postcode lottery when it comes to social care provision.”
Mr Biggs said council tax should only be used to fund social care if a given local authority decided extra money was needed to boost services above a core level locally.
It should not be used to fund the core, national, service, he added.
Mr Biggs said: “It costs substantially more to provide social care in rural areas than it does in larger towns and cities – and there is higher demand for services in rural areas.
“As a statutory duty, services have to be prioritised and other budgets – such as rural transport support, for example – are being cut significantly as a consequence.”
This was because older people make up a higher proportion of the population in rural areas than they do in urban areas, said Mr Biggs.
At the same time, the twin challenge of isolation and distance made it harder and more expensive to deliver services to dispersed rural populations.
Such costs inevitably and unfairly penalised rural councils – and were compounded by issues such as poor economies of scale and poorer external markets for delivery.
Mr Biggs said: “A future formulae to fund social care services must fully reflect the different costs of delivery imposed by both geography and population.”
http://www.rsnonline.org.uk/rural-residents-face-social-care-lottery
“The Times” hates potholes
Three different articles in the newspaper today:
“Thousands of roadworks a year will be shifted on to pavements under government plans to cut congestion and prevent roads from being plagued by potholes, The Times has learnt. …”
“Britain’s roads are worse than those in Chile, Cyprus and Oman despite motorists paying some of the highest taxes in the world. …”
“Potholes are being left untreated for up to a year as councils hide behind red tape to avoid dealing with them and save money. …”
Source: The Times (pay wall)
“Alarm rings over rising nuclear power plant bills”
Our Local Enterprise Partnership has much of OUR money invested in Hinkley C.
“New nuclear power plants are likely to blow their budgets and arrive late unless their designs are completed before construction starts, a report has warned.
Ministers, wary of cost hikes and delays, are wrestling with how to financially support replacements for ageing coal-fired and nuclear plants across the UK.
Hitachi is trying to strike a deal with ministers to build a £10bn-plus plant at Wylfa on Anglesey, where taxpayers are likely to take a stake.
Developers in Europe and America have been wounded by a series of nuclear projects, from Flamanville in France to Vogtle in the US state of Georgia, where costs have soared beyond budget. Plants in the Middle East and Asia have far better records on costs and schedules.
Researchers at Energy Technologies Institute found that most high-cost projects had started construction with incomplete designs, whereas work on low-cost plants had begun only once design and planning had been finalised.
The falling cost of renewable power such as offshore wind and solar has posed more questions about the financial viability of nuclear projects.
The institute’s report on costs in the nuclear industry says new plants could be affordable and help the country move to low-carbon energy, but only with better development and collaboration.
The institute calls for multiple reactors to be constructed at each site to achieve better value for money.
It urges government support for new plants, but only if the developers commit to cost cuts, efficiency and shared best practice. Government support could lower the cost of financing plants, it said, helping to cut the interest bill on a developer’s debts. Also, a new body should be set up to share information about technological innovations and lessons learnt from each project.
The institute is a collaboration between the government and industrial giants including BP, EDF Energy and Rolls-Royce. Its intervention is timely as ministers are demanding that any new nuclear plant must cost less than EDF’s Hinkley Point scheme in Somerset.
The £19.6bn project has been underpinned by a “strike price” that guarantees the state-owned French energy giant a set price of £92.50 for every megawatt hour of electricity for 35 years.
The Somerset plant has soared over budget and is about a decade behind schedule. Its former boss had predicted households would be cooking their 2017 Christmas turkey on Hinkley’s electricity.
The government will soon announce a sector deal for the nuclear industry — one of the programmes designed to boost the country’s key industries, from automotive to life sciences.
The business department said: “This independent report is helpful in looking at cost reduction in the nuclear sector.”
Source: The sunday Times (pay wall)
“Local Elections: Diverse voices are being drowned out by the undemocratic voting system in England and Wales”
” … Across England, local elections are non-proportionate i.e. the diverse way in which people vote is not accurately reflected in the results.
Many council wards elect multiple councillors – but the opportunity this presents to increase the level of proportionality isn’t being taken. Instead, councillors in such wards are generally elected in one of two ways: all-up or by thirds.
In Newham, East London, for example, the council elects all at the same time. There are 20 wards each electing three councillors. When voters there go to the polls, they can vote for up to three candidates. Parties will typically put forward three candidates each and the three candidates with the most votes win.
Electing councillors in this way can be even less proportionate than in single-member wards using the same ‘First Past the Post’ style system, because a ward may have, for instance, two bits that are supportive of one party and one bit that is supportive of another – and the two bits will always overpower the third.
Newham has seen one party (Labour) hold every single seat on the council since 2010, last time winning 60% of the vote. While this is clearly deserving of a majority, it should not be without opposition.
The other way councillors in multi-member wards are elected are in staggered ballots, which will take place in 107 councils this year. Typically, this sees a portion of members up for election, usually in three years out of every four. So a ward will often have councillors elected in different years.
This not only creates disproportionality, but the constant cycle of elections tends to reduce turnout, from a combination of electoral fatigue and because of the reduced power of the ballot box. If a council is say 85% controlled by one party, and a third of seats go up for election, then even if the opposition take every seat that party will still control 52% of seats.
The situation could not be more different North of Hadrian’s Wall, however. Until 2007 Scotland was very familiar with the problems of majoritarian voting in local government. Councils were distant and unaccountable. And there were one-party states with just a handful of opposition councillors, or none at all.
But a change to the Single Transferable Vote (STV) brought proportional representation to Scottish local government.
Overnight every council and ward in Scotland became competitive, forcing a renewal of local democracy.
Scottish local government is now not only more competitive, it is better functioning. In 2003 (before the reform) 52.3% of voters saw their vote elect their chosen candidate. By 2012 (after the reform) 76.7% saw their first preference elected.
Councils have since been governed by coalitions, minorities and parties with absolute control. And turnout in 2017 was strong by local council standards at 46.9% – which compares favourably to the 38.9% in the last locals in London.
There are now moves towards giving Welsh councils the chance to choose to change to the system.
So while the Electoral Reform Society and other civil society groups are rightly campaigning for people to cast their votes on May 3, it is also recognised that change is desperately needed to spread the use of a proportional system across the United Kingdom.
This democratic reform must be extended to England too so that its local government be revitalised in the same way. “
THIS is how you hold a CCG to account!
“The NHS will face calls from leading county councillors to publish a comprehensive plan for public consultation on its controversial proposals for a major shakeup of health services in Lincolnshire.
Concerns have been raised by the county council over the lack of progress on the Lincolnshire Sustainability and Transformation Plan since an initial draft was first published in December 2016.
At the time, the plans outlined a required £205 million investment to improve the facilities at Lincoln County Hospital, Boston Pilgrim Hospital and Grantham Hospital.
The proposals revealed that Grantham A&E could be downgraded to an urgent care centre and maternity services centralised to Lincoln.
Over 500 jobs are also set to be lost by 2021 under the plans.
Lincolnshire County Council unanimously voted against the STP at a Full Council meeting in December 2016, just over one week after the report was first leaked to the press.
County council leader Martin Hill wrote to NHS chiefs in March 2017 adding his criticisms, claiming that “making things better for most people, at the detriment of others, is not good enough”.
Since then, the county council said that there have been delays in publication of the STP plan, with further concerns raised about the lack of answers to the financial struggles of the NHS in Lincolnshire as well as fears about the changes themselves.
United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which covers the three main hospitals in the county, was put in special measures by the Care Quality Commission for performance failures and in financial special measures by NHS Improvement in 2017.
Even this month, ULHT has forecast an end of year deficit of £82.4 million, £5 million more than its deficit control target agreed with NHS Improvement.
In addition to asking the NHS to publish a plan for public consultation “without delay”, Lincolnshire County Council will also call for a review of governance arrangements for the STP to provide clarity over decision-making, accountability, democratic engagement and oversight of the process.
Glen Garrod, Executive Director of Adult Care and Community Wellbeing at Lincolnshire County Council, said in a report to councillors: “The county council has a long and successful track record of working with NHS partners in Lincolnshire. More recently and with the development of the STP programme the nature of the relationship has changed and, given the quality, performance and financial imperatives facing NHS services in Lincolnshire, more profiled.
“Disappointingly little progress has been made to address underlying budget deficits, performance continues to be poor at ULHT and successive inspections by the Care Quality Commission have reported on serious quality issues.
“This has been the picture for a number of years with little sign that ‘the tide has turned’ and these critical issues are getting better.
“Change is likely, indeed necessary and improvements critical if Lincolnshire residents are to receive NHS services that they deserve.”
In response, John Turner, Senior Responsible Officer for the Lincolnshire STP said that Lincolnshire County Council is a key partner for the NHS in the county but refused to be drawn on when it would publish its plans for public consultation.
He said: “We are fully committed to working together with Lincolnshire County Council in the best interests of patients and the people of Lincolnshire. The level of our integrated services between the NHS and Lincolnshire County Council already compares well nationally.
“There is much to be proud of in our local NHS, with our dedicated staff and partners working to provide the best care for our patients. At the same time, it is widely recognised that health and care services in Lincolnshire are very challenged – we struggle to provide consistent care and meet all quality standards, to recruit clinical staff in key areas, and we are currently overspending by £100 million a year.
“In recent months the STP has reported progress in areas such as mental health, GP services, integrated community services and operational efficiencies and improvements have been delivered for patients.
“In addition, the STP is also undertaking an acute services review which is examining what would be the future configuration of acute hospital services for the population of Lincolnshire.
“We look forward to discussing this openly across the county in due course.”
Councillors on the council’s Executive will consider the next steps to take at a meeting in Lincoln on Tuesday, May 1.”
Deliberate government policies … NOT unintended consequences
“… Either the home secretary ignored the inevitable cruelty in chasing her targets – or she was too dumb to ask. True, Border Force staff told me that Rudd had had the wool pulled over her eyes about its state of dereliction. When she first visited Heathrow, managers bussed in apprentice tax-collectors from Newcastle to staff the passport kiosks, with passengers held back in another hall so that she saw no queues.
… Breaking this government’s stone heart has proved impossible over the years. As £30bn and then another £12bn were gouged from the social security budget, the devastating effects on families, on disabled people, on children, had no impact. Instead the government heaped abuse on victims, as Iain Duncan Smith vowed to end the “something-for-nothing culture”. Never admitting most people on benefits are in work, he liked warning them: “This is not an easy life any more, chum. I think you’re a slacker.” He denied his strict targets for knocking people off benefits: but jobcentre staff showed me what were called ”spinning plates” monthly targets, with one telling me: “You park your conscience when you work here.” Staff missing their quota were disciplined. The easiest hits were people with learning disabilities or mental illness, and benefits were stopped for tiny infractions. Did anyone in government break their heart over diabetic ex-soldier David Clapson, who starved to death when his benefits were stopped?
George Osborne relentlessly sneered at households sleeping on with “closed blinds while honest citizens set off to work”. Now his Evening Standard begs for charity for London’s hungry children, impoverished by him: the Institute for Fiscal Studies warns that another 1.2 million children are falling into poverty.
It never broke their hearts to punish families with more than two children, or cut rent support, or evict anyone with a spare room, sending them sometimes hundreds of miles from schools, jobs, friends and family. It didn’t break their hearts to see more than 50,000 Motability cars taken from disabled households. Would it break their hearts to see people with children using food banks?
Tory MPs know all this. I have sat in their surgeries to see how they react to the stream of human suffering they are inflicting. They look sorrowful, and promise to write (useless) letters to ministers. They get pleas for help from people being evicted and frail old people neglected at home for lack of care. They see children’s centres closing, and the soaring numbers of children taken into care because no one caught family problems early. They hear from patients in pain or danger through operations postponed. Maybe they complain about 600,000 lost young people, hanging around neither in education nor employment, with youth services having been abolished.
A “hostile environment” is what the government has deliberately created. Calculated cruelty has been policy, not accident. Writing about all this state-inflicted suffering can feel like banging your head against a brick wall: Guardian readers know it already, while government ministers don’t give a damn. Is Amber Rudd’s “heartbreak” a moment of great collective epiphany? Will a frozen dam of tears suddenly be unleashed? Theresa May’s “burning social injustices” burn brighter than ever, with no sign yet of an outbreak of howling repentance along the government benches.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/26/amber-rudd-heartbroken-windrush
Swire: asking those questions East Devon needs answers to …. no, his other interests
Recent parliamentary questions from Swire:
“Customs and Borders (26 Apr 2018)
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-04-26a.1053.0&s=speaker%3A11265#g1062.2
Hugo Swire: I am listening closely to what the right hon. Lady is saying, but there are already cameras for number plate recognition at all the ports on the UK mainland, recording traffic to and from the island of Ireland.
Customs and Borders (26 Apr 2018)
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-04-26a.1053.0&s=speaker%3A11265#g1077.1
Hugo Swire: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Customs and Borders (26 Apr 2018)
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-04-26a.1053.0&s=speaker%3A11265#g1089.0
Hugo Swire: As we head towards our departure from the European Union in just under a year, I believe that our future trading arrangements are more important than ever. As deputy chairman of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council, I was involved in last week’s Commonwealth business forum, before the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, which was an important event for discussing…”
County council refuses to spend business profits on affordable housing
“Liberal Democrat councillors have criticised Surrey County Council for failing to spend profits from its £298m commercial property portfolio on council services.
In November, the council transferred £3.8m of rental income from the properties into its revolving infrastructure and investment fund.
However, Liberal Democrats complained that the original investment strategy, agreed by the council in July 2013, promised to use income to support the delivery of functions and services.
Cllr Hazel Watson, leader of the Liberal Democrats on Surrey County Council, said: “I am deeply concerned that none of the income derived from the county council’s extensive property investment portfolio so far has been used to support council services.
“This contradicts previous assurances from the Conservative administration that the purpose of their investment strategy was to support the county council’s budget.
“The county council is proposing millions of cuts to services this financial year and it is simply unacceptable for them to use precious resources to purchase more property, when that resource should be used instead to protect services for Surrey residents.”
Responding to the criticism, Tim Oliver, Surrey’s Conservative cabinet member for property and business services, said: “The investment portfolio created under the investment strategy consists of property investments which have been made by the council in order to deliver economic regeneration or to provide for long-term future service use, whilst delivering an investment return.
“These assets provide flexibility in the estate whilst producing a net revenue.”
He said that the total net income delivered to date by the strategy will be used to support spending on council services in the future and was expected to have reached £5.3m by March 2018.”
http://www.room151.co.uk/treasury/lib-dems-slam-use-of-property-profits-at-surrey-cc/
“Staircase tax” WILL apply to business rates despite government promise to drop it
Owl says: so nos small businesses will get their own version of the council house “bedtoom tax” …
“Housing minister Dominic Raab has confirmed a government u-turn on a budget promise to compensate councils for the new “staircase tax” resulting from a 2015 Supreme Court ruling on business rates.
In last year’s budget, chancellor Philip Hammond announced that businesses would be able to claim a rebate on bills based on the way they were calculated before the ruling – backdated to 2010.
However, speaking in the House of Commons this week, Raab said that the government no longer intended to honour this promise.
“I do not think it would be right to compensate local authorities for what would effectively be an inadvertent windfall resulting from a judicial determination,” said Raab. “From the point of view of government policy, that was not something we wanted to see, and we have moved as swiftly and reasonably as we can to correct this.”
The Supreme Court ruling reversed more than 50 years of practice that businesses operating in separate units, or rooms, accessed from a connecting staircase received a single rates bill.
Following the judgement, the Valuation Office Agency has changed its practice to issue separate bills for each floor — with businesses able to claim a rebate back to 2010.
This means that some rates payers previously eligible for small business rates relief have lost some, or all, of their relief.
In addition, rateable value per square metre is sometimes lower for large properties due to landlords offering discounts to fill space.
Raab said that only a small number of businesses — fewer than 1,000 — are affected adversely by the change.
Raab made his announcement on Monday, during a debate on the tax, held during the second reading of the Rating (Property in Common Occupation) and Council Tax (Empty Dwellings) Bill.
Also speaking in the debate, Clive Betts, chairman of the housing, communities and local government select committee, said: “We accept that the legislation takes the position back to what people thought it was before the court decision.
“In the meantime, however, we have had the court decision and local authorities will have done their estimates based on that decision, so the government are effectively changing local authorities’ financial positions from what they thought they would be a few months ago.”
Raab said that local authorities had been informed of the change of direction “as soon as was reasonably possible”.
In a briefing criticising the u-turn, the Local Government Association said: “It is disappointing that the government has reversed their autumn budget decision on the financial implications of this measure, and has indicated that no compensation will be payable to local government.
“We support the housing, communities and local government committee’s recommendation that the government needs to reassure councils that they are not going to be worse off financially because of this legislation, and that the government should bear the associated costs as a result of the reforms.”
http://www.room151.co.uk/funding/government-u-turns-on-staircase-tax/
Swire too busy with Brexit to meet with worried Sidmouth businesses
“A meeting to discuss worries about rising business rates and other issues facing Sidmouth’s high street has been cancelled.
Businessman Steve Clark, of Rendevous, told the Herald that today’s (Thursday) event is called off as Sir Hugo Swire was not able to attend due to his Parliamentary commitments. …
Sir Hugo said he was unable to attend due to discussions on future trading post Brexit. …”
Austerity cuts – what austerity cuts?
EDDC:
Headcount = 526 as at 1st April 2010
Headcount = 598.5 as at 31st March 2018
Doing more with less? Looks like doing less with more!
How very convenient for Jeremy Hunt …
Rental properties can be very cold – but not icy, icy cold!
Rented properties energy rated F or G (properties are rated A = best, G = worst) have been told to bring their properties “up” to at least an E rating. This could cost landlords up to £1,400 per property.
Surely we should be looking for rented properties to be AT LEAST a Grade C!!!
However, of course the unintended (or is it intended?) consequence is that, landlords will raise rents to cover (or even over-cover) the costs involved.
Renters 1 – Landlords 101!
https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/300000-rented-homes-cheaper-bills-12302246
Asset-rich pensioners should fund NHS says its chief
“The head of the NHS has suggested that pensioners’ housing wealth should be used to fund social care as he warned that the equivalent of 36 hospitals were “out of action” because of bed blocking.
Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, said that given pensioners’ “relatively advantaged position” in terms of housing wealth, it was difficult to argue that working-age adults should fund the estimated £1 billion extra per year needed by social care services in increased taxes.
He was appearing in front of an inquiry by several Commons committees on the long-term funding of adult social care. …”
Source: Times, pay wall
“Scrutiny in public sector ‘struggling’ “
“Public sector scrutiny “struggles to keep up” with the “increased complexity of modern government”, according to a think-tank.
The collapse of construction contractor Carillion showed the government’s failure to effectively evaluate the use of private providers in the public sector, the discussion paper released by the Institute for Government yesterday also said.
Five million public sector workers were responsible for delivering services, the IFG noted, but still “there are weaknesses in the UK’s system of accountability, which often struggles to keep up with the realities of modern government both nationally and locally”.
Because government has failed to keep pace with the “increased complexity of modern government”, it has not properly scrutinised public-private partnerships’ value for money, Accountability in modern government added.
The think-tank suggested often in government accountability is replaced by a “pervading culture of blame”.
This culture, the think-tank argued, has been evident in the roll out of Universal Credit – which combines six working-age benefits in one – and more recently in the Windrush immigration cases.
IfG said: “While accountability certainly involves apportioning blame when something goes wrong, it should also foster an environment that lead to improvement.
“This is what the public cares most about- preventing failures recurring, rather than simple retribution.”
Benoit Guerin, a senior researcher at the Institute for Government, said: “Accountability helps people know how the government is doing and where to go when things go wrong.
“A lack of accountability is worrying because it increases the risk of failure and decreases legitimacy of the state in the eyes of the public.”
He said the IFG hoped to start a debate on how accountability in the public sector could be strengthened with the aim of making recommendations for reform.”
https://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2018/04/scrutiny-public-sector-struggling
East Devon Alliance “Time for a Change” public conference 26 May 2018
Venue: Beehive, Honiton
Free places can be booked at:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/east-devons-time-for-a-change-peoples-conference-tickets-45482525458
Attendance needs to be monitored as the hall has a maximum capacity.
DETAILS:
All across East Devon people are worried about their HEALTH, their HOMES and their JOBS. Never has it been more important to involve yourself with local democracy in your district.
YOU CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE.
The EAST DEVON ALLIANCE is trying to help with all of this, an umbrella group of Independent people, who since 2015 have won 7 district council seats and 1 county seat. The EDA is free from the negative influence of national parties who – at East Devon District Council – have acquired the arrogant habits of a Conservative one-party state.
This conference is for YOU.
Speakers will include County Councillors CLAIRE WRIGHT and MARTIN SHAW. In two sessions you will be able to hear and then CONTRIBUTE on:
a) how did we get where we are now?
b) what can we do about it through democracy in our parishes, towns and district.
Please come. We are all volunteers but if we band together now to fight for hospitals, homes and jobs we have a chance to change the face of how where you live is run.
We are making no fixed charge for the event but a donation on the day would be much appreciated to cover the cost of venue hire. Thank you. See you there.”
“Don’t save it for the duchess. All new mothers should be treated like royalty”
Very difficult to do that when local maternity units such as Honiton are closed so many routine births AND emergencies have to travel 20-30 miles plus to Exeter:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/24/duchess-cambridge-new-mothers-royalty
“Why I started a petition against NHS privatisation”
by Jamie Snape:
“Today in Westminster MPs will debate a petition calling on the government to stop the privatisation of NHS services. Now, if I’m entirely honest, the date of a petition debate isn’t something that would normally appear in my calendar, however this particular debate I’m responsible for myself.
Until starting this petition I’d never campaigned on behalf the NHS, nor had I any connection to the plethora of local or national NHS campaign groups. So what drove me to begin the petition in the first place?
Well, it was after I’d encountered for myself the already privatised NHS services in my local area. Following this I was left with a clear understanding of what it means in reality, when our healthcare is provided by a profit-orientated business rather than an organisation focused on patient outcome like the NHS, and indeed what it is we are losing by privatising it.
As a parent, seeing my young children’s well-being affected directly and indirectly by NHS privatisation on more than one occasion, it motivated me to a degree that I might not otherwise have been.
So I began reading more about NHS privatisation, and why people like the late Stephen Hawking were so concerned. I concluded I could perhaps make a little difference myself by using a petition as a vehicle to help voice the concerns that many people have and that I share about creeping NHS privatisation.
This belief panned out, indeed a single post I wrote on Facebook about the petition was shared over 73,000 times, meaning it was very likely to have been read by more than a million people.
There are over 6,500 petitions on the parliament website right now, and it’s fair to say the UK public are petitioned out. Despite that, not too far short of a quarter of a million people took the time to sign this petition, which ultimately resulted in the scheduling of today’s debate in parliament.
NHS privatisation can mean so many things as there are so many aspects to it, so in terms of the debate itself, my hope is simply that I will observe a well-informed one. I hope that all the MPs involved demonstrate a real knowledge of the issues relating to it, such as the scale of current NHS privatisation.
What simply must be covered are the concerns surrounding the introduction of Accountable Care Organisations later this year, and their potential for leaving a back door wide open for a massive new wave of NHS privatisation.
If the debate centres around the small part of NHS privatisation, where a few people get bumped up the waiting list by having a routine operation performed by a private company, then I will of course be disappointed.
The concept of the NHS is erroneously referenced by many now in historic terms, especially when they are arguing in favour of NHS privatisation.
Personally, I see the NHS as something very much of the future, indeed I’m entirely certain that in years to come, a nation will only be considered civilised if it provides comprehensive free healthcare to all of its citizens.”
Source: Times (pay wall)
East Devon Watch 