Transcripts from The Andy Marr Show (tm) do not extend to the paper review at the start of the programme, which for Labour MP Gisela Stuart might come as a relief, as the Vote Leave claim of £350 million a week more for the NHS in the event of a vote to leave the EU was discussed today. Ms Stuart gave every impression that this was still very much on her agenda, once we leave. But she seems to be in a minority of one.
Later this morning on Sky News’ Murnaghan, Dan, Dan The Oratory Man distanced himself from the claim. Hannan, who was also reluctant to take on board the increase in hate crime in the aftermath of the referendum, is on this occasion in step with the rest of the former Vote Leave crowd, because, having claimed they meant it in defiance of critics who said they did not … they are now admitting they did not.
There it was on the side of their red bus: “We send the EU £350 million a week … Let’s fund our NHS instead … Vote Leave … let’s take back control”. Quite apart from the untrue claim as to what we send to the EU (clue: it’s a lot less than £350 million a week), the voter is left in no doubt. They are being offered a binary choice - money that at present goes to the EU to go instead to the NHS. That was the clear and unambiguous offer.
Metro has told disappointed readers “If you voted Leave because you wanted £350million to be sent to the NHS every week, then we have some bad news … The cross-party Vote Leave campaign, which urged the British people to vote to leave the EU, has just dropped its ostentatious pre-referendum pledge of pumping millions of pounds a week into the heath service”. At a time the NHS is desperately short of money.
Why should no-one be surprised at this development? Ms Stuart may feign resistance to the claim from Change Britain, the replacement for Vote Leave that she has joined, that “any savings made as a result of no longer having to pay into the EU budget … should be spent on guaranteeing ‘continued funding for farming, science, universities and poorer regions of the UK’”, but her fellow Brexiteers don’t give a fig about the NHS.
Matthew Elliot, who co-chaired Vote Leave, founded the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance, an anti-NHS Astroturf lobby group pushing “small state” ideology. Hannan went on Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse) to denounce the NHS as a mistake which he urged US citizens not to repeat. Michael “Oiky” Gove is no fan of the NHS; indeed, his self-promoting wife Sarah Vine has made a point of slagging it off.
And what of London’s formerly very occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson? Sadly, Bozza is another who is never there when it comes to sticking up for the NHS. He was only there to jolly up the troops and dispense a few whoppers, which would then be covered up by reminding the voters that he was “a LEG-URND”.
There could be no clearer example of flagrantly lying to get the voters to do the required bidding and then turning round to announce “Fooled You”. If Gisela Stuart still believes she has a better chance than a snowball in Hades of getting all that money for the NHS, she is deluding only herself. We were sold a pack of lies, and now it’s official.
6 comments:
Anybody who thinks spending 350 million a week on NHS alone doesn't understand spending and probably shouldn't be trusted with a vote.
Do we REALLY need to go through all these lies again?
It is perfectly obvious what establishment politicians - tories, New Labour, LibDems, UKIP - are up to: Gradual privatisation of the NHS.
This has been on the cards since that weeny Milburn began the process in earnest in the New Labour years. Or since the appointment of a Yankified privateer to run NHS England. To say nothing of the most recent "stroke of genius" of pushing forward a drugs company lobbyist for leader of the Labour Party.
Health care in this country has been salami-sliced into the hands of profiteering private companies because the perpetrators know very well that if they went to the country on the issue they would be routed. Hence the Bullingdon Pigs Head Boy using phrases like "Our NHS" - this from the party that voted against its founding at every stage. And why bought-and-paid-for mainstream media keep reporting symptoms instead of causes when things go wrong.
So let's have a referendum on the issue and put it to bed once and for all. Get rid of privateering. Expose the drugs companies for the profits-ramping scum they are. Make multinational companies and spiv individuals cough up their fair share of tax. Take PFI back into community ownership with no compensation except in cases of proven need. Purge trusts of place men and women.
Likely?.....No. Not with the present political set up and too many in the House of Scoundrels lining their own pockets and furthering their own miserable careers. And too many gullible apologists for the status quo.
Despite it being a lie, at every opportunity to question anyone representing the UK Parliament they should have to answer when there will be £350m extra a week pumped into the NHS.
The stupid who believed the lie may then eventually realise they have been mugged.
I honestly do think that Gisela Stewart believes what she is saying. Even before the referendum, she was on The Daily Politics show spewing all this nonsense along with various easily disprovable, but inexplicably enduring myths about the EU and what it does. She seems to have that glassy eyed stare of the zealot who has made her own delusional world in which to live and sod the rest of us.
As a Leave voter I argued during the referendum campaign that £350 million per week (£18 billion per year) extra for the NHS could be done by the end of this Parliament.
£6 billion should come from the International Aid budget given that, in future, the focus should be trade not aid. This accords with the new international trade outlook.
The remaining £12 billion will be found by
1. Not paying huge amounts to the EU.
2. £12 billion is 1.5% of the current £772 billion in government expenditure.
So yes the Government could easily find £18 billion by 2020.
What does this mean?
Currently Health expenditure is £145 billion (2016/2017)
by 2020/21 it should be, at least, £163 billion.
As many readers will know governments can find the cash when they really want to!
regards
The Professor.
Removing money from the international aid budget right when we're at the point of having to prove what a powerful country we are would be a stupid thing to do. It's one of the few things we do that makes us look good in other countries eyes, and since we're in the process of stopping one of those other things (how good we are to international students), it should probably be left as is.
Besides, any money we save not spending in to the EU will be spent on covering the damage leaving the EU is going to cause.
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