Blocked Passages

Both the Government and Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition are in fine New Labour form over Twizzler Lansley's anti-NHS bill. Daveybloke has apparently decided to delay its passage until after chocolate eggs and the royal wedding have made everybody feel better about things; a spokesbeing claimed that this was a "natural break" in the legislative process, which presumably explains why the NHS is in such confusion that managers may have to be re-hired fresh off the scrap heap to which the Twizzler and his private-sector string-pullers have only this past week consigned them. Nobody seems to know yet whether the delay is a pause to allow the Liberal Democrats to re-write the bill or, as is claimed by the Twizzler, simply a New Labour tactic to re-write the advertising; but the superb incompetence manifested throughout the whole affair would do credit to any New Labour stalwart from Geoff Hoon to Ruth Kelly.

Not to be outdone, the Upper (formerly Lower) Miliband is to respond with some vintage Blairite finger-wagging about the disgraceful irresponsibility of it all, "a direct consequence of a coalition based on power, convenience and ambition rather than values". This is pure drivel, of course. Daveybloke's Cuddly Coalition is based on exactly the same values which Tony Blair touted with the grinning inquisitorial zeal of a game show host and which Gordon Brown spooned down the nation's throat with the obdurate sanctimony of an embittered maiden aunt. New Labour did what it could to sneak the NHS away, and the strategy worked rather well; it brought us PFI, outsourcing to the charitable sector, short-staffing and all the rest. Daveybloke's Cuddlies intend to kick the remainder to pieces before our eyes, whereupon they will doubtless expect us to tug our forelocks in gratitude; but the difference is hardly an ideological one. The difference is simply that Daveybloke's Cuddly Conservatives are more stupid than Blair and less cowardly than Brown; and that, however many coats Wee Nicky cares to turn, he still has to answer to his own party activists to an extent that Labour's dupes can now only dream about.