tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post5823909869541062401..comments2024-02-06T16:17:25.826+00:00Comments on THE GRØNMARK BLOG: Let’s all stop being so sickeningly sentimental about the NHSScott Gronmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15118026157459333174noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-89531633735422321922011-10-16T14:28:32.483+01:002011-10-16T14:28:32.483+01:00The last time I was in the Middlesex in Paddington...The last time I was in the Middlesex in Paddington, the overworked young houseman told me that I was the only Brit he'd treated in two days. He was horrified to see my foot wound was in danger of turning gangrenous, and without a hint of irony asked me why I hadn't come sooner.It was then almost 6pm and I'd been queuing in A&E at 10am!<br />If the NHS insists on treating half the Third World (almost every patient was dressed in a dishdash), then we all suffer.<br />Wednesday, June 22, 2011 - 03:02 PMPRINCE BUSTERnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-86671413509406324022011-10-16T14:28:12.700+01:002011-10-16T14:28:12.700+01:00Spectacular quotation, Sir, thank you for typing i...Spectacular quotation, Sir, thank you for typing it all in.<br />Monday, June 13, 2011 - 05:52 PMDMnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-30088487229203657972011-10-16T14:27:53.551+01:002011-10-16T14:27:53.551+01:00In 1985 the military historian, Correlli Barnet, p...In 1985 the military historian, Correlli Barnet, published a book called "The Audit of War". Here are a few quotes :<br />"While in 1940-1 Winston Churchill and the nation at large were fighting for sheer survival...members of the British cultutal elite had begun to busy themselves with design studies for a "New Jerusalem" to be built in Britain after the war was won...Universal free health care in elegant, modern hospitals and in health centres on the Swedish model would replace grim and run-down Victorian infirmaries and the ragged safety netting of existing free medical services."<br /><br />"Ironically the vision emanated from the same kind of people, indeed in some cases the very same people, whose earlier Utopian vision of a world saved from conflict through disarmement and the League of Nations had done so much to bring about Britain's desperate plight in 1940-1, by persuading British governments in the 1920s unilaterally to disarm, so rendering Britain helpless in the face of aggression in the 1930s.....for New Jerusalemers and pre-war moralising internationalists alike were drawn from the Labour and Liberal parties....what may be collectivelly termed the "enlightened" Establishment."<br /><br />In March 1941 Britain basically ran out of money. Financial reserves were at an end payments currently due to America for war supplies were met through a loan of gold supplied by the Belgian government in exile. Effectivelly, the country was bankrupt. On 11th March the Lend-Lease Act kicked in and Britain was transformed from a bankrupt into an American pensioner. By 1945 $27b in terms of food and raw materials, American industrial and military equipment had flowed into the country. Because Britain was then not therefore required to earn her own living nor wage war within her own means she was able to turn her economy almost entirely over to waging war. Sir William Beveridge [and the country as a whole] misinterpreted this.<br /><br />Lend-Lease ceased abruptly in August 1945. The National Health Service [and the various other parts of Labour's Welfare State] kicked off in 1948 off the back of a further loan of $3.7b from the Americans negotiated by Keynes. The original cost of the NH was put at £53m - it doubled between 1949-50 and 1951-2. In spite of their great wealth the Americans decided they could not afford to provide a free health service for their own country - and still don't in spite of the efforts of various Democratic Presidents. Britain certainly could not afford it in 1948 and frankly it still can't. Tout Court.<br /><br />Final quote and final paragraph from the "Audit of War" - "By the time they took the bunting down from the streets after VE-Day and turned from the war to the future, the British in their dreams and illusions and in their flinching from reality had already written the broad scenario for Britain's postwar descent...the dreams and illusions of 1945 would fade one by one - the Imperial and Commonwealth role, the world-power role, British industrial genius, and, at last, New Jerusalem itself, a dream turned to a dank reality of a segregated, subliterate, unskilled, unhealthy and institutionalized proletariat hanging on the nipple of of state maternalism." This was written 26-years ago. Enter Theodore Dalrymple.<br /><br />I aplogise for the length of this comment.<br />Monday, June 13, 2011 - 11:09 AMSDGnoreply@blogger.com