LABOUR OPPOSITION TO THE NHS CHANGES - AS PRINCIPLED AS A NEWS OF THE WORLD JOURNALIST

Simon Carr in the Independent is a bit too frothy for my liking but his commentary on the NHS debate yesterday contains one telling paragraph:

'Labour was castigated, though probably not chastised. Oh, the things they did in government. The practice-based commissioning. The private treatment centres. The £67 billion of private money debt. The £12bn private IT system. And the franchising out of a hospital that Lansley is being vilified for. "The only secret Tory plan they find is a Labour plan," he yelled. For all the fury, maybe there is a secret consensus underneath it all.'

I know this is just a light-hearted dig at politicians in general but it nicely encapsulates the double standards of the Labour Party, which introduced GP commissioning and greater competition into the NHS, often at the expense of existing NHS providers. I wonder what Andy Burnham would say to this. You get the feeling he would cheerfully blame the Tories for the Iraq War if he was asked to.