Historically it may come to be recognised as equivalent to the 1948 creation of the NHS, with Ed Miliband the Nye Bevan of our day. He has fought his cause in much the same ruthless way Bevan did. He faces the same ferocious (and politically deranged) opposition from the right, who will have to eat their hats over rejecting renewables. Just as the NHS is a prime reason for pride in Britain, we can expect the same national pride in homegrown energy independence, freeing us from rollercoaster markets and mercurial foreign oil and gas dictators: Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump or ayatollahs.
But the NHS was a shit idea.
We could have been energy independent years ago but for the decisions of Millibrain and Huhne in previous governments.
I’d forgotten Chris Huhne but he certainly needs hanging from a Windmill alongside Milibrain
Wasn’t he responsible for the invention of the CfD? I think he should be flattened inside the Corby trouser press that he claimed on expenses.
How could you possibly have forgotten jailbird Chris Huhne? Oxford graduate, naturally.
The world’s most stupid jailbird. He lied about speeding to avoid a 12th point on his licence and an automatic suspension for 6 months. But he was a government minister for heaven’s sake – with a chauffeured car, and well able to afford a taxi for the few occasions one might be needed.
My theory is that such people* have been chancers all their lives, and have risen well above their level of incompetence because their gambles have (so far) always come off. They fall into the trap of assuming their gambles will continue to come off – never reckoning on the time the toast lands butter side down.
* we’ve all met them, whether senior managers in business or politicians or senior civil servants
I am surprised how often I see convicted perjurer Vicky Pryce on the telly.
And Keith Best has done rather well for himself despite his conviction for fraud over his BT share applications.
It appears that breaking the law is no hurdle to certain people…….
We were energy independent years ago – +/-60% coal, the rest gas and nuclear. The idiocy started under Blair and carried on with the so-called Conservatives, Minibrain is just delivering the coup de grâce.
Coal proved useless as a strategic fuel because whenever the Arabs got difficult the NUM would immediately come out on strike. Combined with the fact that British deep-mined coal was uneconomic, it was all a hopeless idea.
That’s why Thatch closed many mines (though nowhere near as many as Wilson).
But coal is still readily available internationally. We could easily convert Drax back to burning sensible fuel again. The cretinously evil Miliband dynamited a lot of the old coal power stations (e.g. Didcot) to prevent future governments reopening them.
Perhaps that’s where the South Australian Greens got their idea of blowing up the Port Augusta coal burner from.
They naturally import their backup electricity from Victoria these days. Which, when the wind stops, produces the electricity it needs from brown coal.
The NHS was*not* a shit idea, but Nye Bevan changed the original idea into a shit one, a Soviet-style monolith instead of a network local hralth services.
Nationalising health care, and therefore leaving it at the whim of politicians and unions, was definitely a shit idea.
Beveridge’s original idea wasn’t nationalising it
AIUI, the structure recommended by Beveridge involved government control (ie, the government manages and owns hospitals, and hospital doctors work for the public sector), public funding through taxation, and universal, free-at-the-point-of-use healthcare. And that sounds like nationalisation to me…
Mrs T used to carry around a copy of the Beveridge Report to show people how little it could be blamed for the policies of the ’45 socialist government.
Here we are, from Google’s AI.
Thanks. Though did not explicitly outline a fully nationalized, top-down system is doing a lot of work there.
Not really, it’s just a rather evasive lefty way of saying that Beveridge didn’t recommend nationalisation.
And who was running the 2 750+ hospitals and 480 000 beds before Beverage and Bevan? Where did all that come from?
Prior to the 1911 National Insurance Act, 75% of the population – coal miners, railway workers, factory workers, etc, the people we are told wouldn’t be able to afford health insurance, ergo NHS – did in fact have private health insurance. Why did Government “need” to introduce that Act which forced workers to pay a subscription to the Government supposedly to cover health care, when they already had cover under their private insurance? It killed the private health insurance market.
Why? State control. The motives for nationalising health care were exactly the same as those for nationalising coal, railways, iron & steel, etc – to effect a Communist State = control.
And in 1950 Bevan resigned as Labour Health Minister – why? Because the Attlee Government was using the money collected as National Insurance Contributions to fund the re-equipping of the armed forces.
“The only satisfactory approach to the [hospital] problem is for all hospitals intended for the acute sick to pass into the control of local authorities.” William Asbury, 1939.
“The Penny in the Pound scheme … secured the development of one of the most successful contributory hospital schemes in the country”, Records of the Penny in the Pound Scheme, 1949.
“At the close of the Penny in the Pound Scheme in 1948, it had 350,000 contributors [more than 80% of the population].” Records of the Penny in the Pound Scheme, 1949.
The elements of Fascism – Socialism with private ownership, State directed to give the illusion of a free market capitalist economy.
Well yes…. Nazis Bad and all, but before, during, and after a *lot* of politicians saw the advantages of National Socialism. To them…
Communism was a bit ….too much…
But if they ditched the uniforms and did a bit of rebranding…
It *did* work for Germany… quite well even…
Of course…. in true Buggering-Things-Up-style the whole point of national-socialism was to keep Commies *out* , and they proceeded to let them right in…
It already was a “network” of local health services n augmented by a private sector and a large voluntary sector. All those many hospitals named after saints were run by religious orders or organisations for the poor.
Not “augmented by” but “comprising”.
Beveridge wanted to guarantee free health care to all the poor* including the minority not covered by the Friendy Societies.
*The middle classes had the option to join or to continue paying their doctors
Secondly our energy independence, which Polly claims will be Labour’s legacy, was destroyed by the Blair-Brown Labour government (helped by the anti-nuclear lefty agitators).
Am I the only one remembering Bagdad Bob?
Also known as ‘Comical Ali’ from recollection?
This is a true “taking back control” escape from the clutches of febrile oil and gas markets.
Because being reliant on China for windmills and solar panels is true independence comrades!
Polly’s delusions are at no risk of diminishing with age…
We had energy independence when Maggie pumped, baby, pumped.
Crucify them on their windmills.
We are good Christian folk, we don’t crucify people, there are other nasty ways to kill people, but we don’t crucify.
What I like here is the rewriting of history. Reading through the Hansards of that era one is struck by how prescient the Conservatives who opposed the 1945-51 Labour government were. It’s those who, even though almost no other country emulates our health service (let alone other parts of the public sector!!) cast the NHS as ‘the envy of the world’ who I’d say are ‘deranged’ and not just in the political sense of the term.
In the run-up the ’45 election the Liberals and Conservatives had adopted a Beveridge-like policy. Labour opposed the idea until quite close to the election. I think their argument was that ameliorating the condition of The People would only delay The Revolution.
In office it was that desperado Nye Bevan who wanted a centralised “National” (i.e. London-run) health service. The odious Herbert Morrison wanted it to be in the hands of the local authorities. Bevan won.
My late grandfather was a GP pre-WW2, and when the NHS was created hated the concept of State controlled medicine so much he returned to his native Ireland with his family rather than stay and work in it. In the past I used to think that this was a bit of an over-reaction, but frankly the way things have turned out he was definitely 100% correct about what the creation of the NHS meant for the medical profession, and its relationship with its patients. Ironically he was forced to return to the UK in the 60s, his job in Ireland having disappeared, and did end up working as an NHS GP for maybe 10-15 years before retiring. If he hadn’t come back I wouldn’t be here. His practice was him and one other doctor, and between them they provided a 24/7/365 service. I think he remained true to his principles of serving the patient not the State, despite taking the NHS shilling. I’m glad he’s not around to see what has become of the medical ‘profession’ these days.
freeing us from rollercoaster markets
So clever. You avoid occasional high prices by paying ultra high price ALL the time.
I repeat Dearieme’s Hypothesis: the NHS became worshipped because of the fluke that its introduction coincided with the new availability of antibiotics. The latter saved lives: the former was credited with it.
In general, I think a lot of things that government gets credited with are actually the world at the time. Like the decline of trade unions wasn’t Mrs Thatch, it was greater car ownership. So you could go work elsewhere. They were in decline even before she came along.
I think a lot of health improvements were probably a second order effect from the green revolution. Fuller bellies means you solve the next problem. Like, women dying in childbirth. Or kids dying of cancer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20A8pGYcqno
It was a shit implementation. It was supposed to provide funding to the existing network of municipal and friendly provision and build up to cover the gaps, instead they nicked everything and centralised it in Bevan’s pocket. In Sheffield 1/240th of your wages got you coverage by the city council. Now 1/4 of your wages goes gurgling into the NHS.
Prior to the NHS, there were 2 750+ hospitals (nearly all established prior to the 20th Century), 480 000 hospital beds – de facto “National” health service, a mix of voluntary, private, local authority run paid for under the National Insurance Act 1911 – so what exactly did the NHS provide that wasn’t there before? All it did was take into State control the existing resources, just as it did with the railways, coal mining, etc and then destroy what was.
Today there are 1 600 hospitals, 145 000 beds and a waiting list of 7 million – waiting list 1948 was 400 000.
Prpud of that are we?
In around 1947 my mum had her tonsils taken out in her local cottage hospital by her local doctor, who was also a surgeon. As she was a bit scared he carried her into theatre. After she had me, some 25 years later, he visited (post-retirement) to congratulate her wish us the best. His son and grandson were my doctors. They came out when we were sick as children. They worked in the same practices until retirement.
All that care and compassion (and accountability) was ground away by the socialist machine of the NHS.
Thanks for that. I’ve looked for a decent history of healthcare in this country (immediately) prior to the NHS but could not find one. Can you recommend anything?
I once mentioned in a conversation that before the NHS there was a system called “The Panel” that provided some GP services. Nobody else had ever heard of it and all I knew was that I had heard the word a couple of times in childhood.
So I’m with you: a decent history of the pre-NHS would be fascinating.
Google’s AI reports:
The Panel System (1911–1948)
Established by Lloyd George’s National Insurance Act of 1911, the “panel” system provided a form of state-supported health insurance for the working class.
“The Politics and Ideology of Local Authority Health Care in Sheffield 1918-1948”, Timothy James Willis. is the detailed research that I wish I’d had the time to do, and am thankful somebody has done.
Thanks – can’t find it, tho’.
PDF doctoral thesis downloadable as a pdf from The politics and ideology of local authority health care in Sheffield 1918-1948 – Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive
The NHS is the greatest destroyer of Hospitals ever.
So, when we prove renewables are a horrible idea, can we scrap the equally crap NHS? You declare them equal. A = B, and if A sucks, B sucks.