The bill 'with no friends'
The interesting thing about the health "debacle", as Matthew D'Ancona described it on Newsnight last night, is "why now?"
Many cite the fact that the Liberal Democrat conference voted overwhelmingly against the plans three weeks ago. But that hardly spells ruin - nobody has taken much notice of the Lib Dem conference before.
After all, the same Liberal Democrat activists voted against Michael Gove's free schools policy last September, but that hardly imperilled his plans.
Too many people are analysing this problem as a straight Conservative-Liberal Democrat divide, but it is a lot more complicated than that.
Liberal Democrat MPs, in fact, voted en masse for the Health and Social Care Bill at second reading in January. Not one Lib Dem voted against, though two members, John Pugh and Andrew George, abstained.
The fact is there are now huge doubts within both parties, and there has been a simmering nervousness within ministerial ranks ever since last summer.
David Cameron himself ordered Oliver Letwin and Danny Alexander to stress test the legislation last autumn. More recently George Osborne has had serious doubts. But it has taken a while for those doubts to surface, partly because many politicians simply were not familiar with what Health Secretary Andrew Lansley was doing.
One minister happily admitted to me he didn't "understand" the changes.
The forestry U-turn naturally made government strategists look around and ask what else there was which could suddenly bite them.
Government whips did a brilliant job on Monday afternoon disguising the level of scepticism among Conservative backbenchers.
The most powerful Tory critic Sarah Wollaston was absent - as I reported in an earlier entry - while David Ruffley, a right-leaning free-marketeer, voiced far stronger criticism in my package on Newsnight than anything expressed by the 20 or so Tories who asked questions in the chamber.
I'm pretty confident, though, that even without this two month pause Mr Lansley's bill would have got through its remaining stages in the Commons and Lords.
The political fears were more long term. Would it have led to the closure of district general hospitals, causing the "Kidderminster effect", as David Ruffley describes it, which saw a Labour MP lose his seat in 2001 over the loss of a local hospital?
Will Mr Lansley's measures cause a crisis in the NHS around 2013 and 2014, just in time for the next election? Mr Lansley's argument to Cabinet colleagues is that there'll be a crisis in the NHS if he doesn't make these changes.
One senior Downing Street adviser describes this as a bill "with no friends", and that's a dangerous position to be in politically.
Astute reformist politicians, from Abraham Lincoln to Tony Blair, understood the importance of preparing public opinion before making revolutionary changes.
This two-month pause is being presented as a listening exercise, but in reality ministers intend it to be the public and the interest groups who do the listening, as much as them.
And there must be huge doubts whether we will get the kind of "substantial" changes Nick Clegg spoke of yesterday (and on which he seems to be backtracking today).
Another of Mr Cameron's close advisers told me: "This is all about pausing to regroup in order to advance, rather than any kind of retreat. That's the feeling in our party."
On reflection, Oliver Letwin may not have been the best person to carry out such a stress-test of Andrew Lansley's NHS plans. Reports from 2005 suggest that he originally thought Lansley should become Conservative leader.
I'm Michael Crick, and I'm Newsnight's political editor. My guiding rule is that in any story there's usually something the politicians would prefer the world not to know. My job is to find that out. Follow me on
Comment number 1.
At 6th Apr 2011, JunkkMale wrote:One of the useful aspects of finding almost all in the political infirmament, and pretty much all the media remoras overpaid to wallow with them, as incompetent and venal as the next, is that I can crank an equal opportunity eyebrow at the whole sorry shebang.
I just have to accept that, in a democracy, we'll end up with one shambolic collection every so often, so one has to swallow hard and try and identify the least bad.
Currently the boyos in charge are not exactly shining to be sure, across a variety of areas, and I was already less than impressed today with our PM and DPM trying to out self-flagellate to idiotic degrees; Mr. Cameron on historical issues where the UK was no worse than most and no one now has any responsibility for, and Mr. Clegg tying himself in more knots denying human nature and corporate realities in pursuit of a silly ideal that will never exist so long as dynastic ambitions exist in the hearts of parents with hungry kids (ask most of the 91Èȱ¬).
However...
'The interesting thing about the health "debacle", as Matthew D'Ancona described it on Newsnight last night'
Might one possibly hope that so-called 'journalists' will stop hiding behind one degree of separation quotes (and for that matter, popping all sorts in single and double quotes just in case anything can be pinned on the author) from other folk they might agree with, mention, and get away with it... just once. Especially when it is from specially selected 'guests' on their nearest and dearest's own shows. Even more so when propped up by 'support' from un-named sources that could be the cleaner for all we know. A poor basis for a headline that could simply be a personal viewpoint dressed up as 'news'.
It may well be a "debacle". If that's what you feel, say so. And then be prepared to accept the consequences of straying from reporting to opinion to hypebole, and allow history to judge the extent to which it has been applied, or quoted, evenly, or not, depending on personal agenda or corporate indulgence, career-enhancement-wise.
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Comment number 2.
At 6th Apr 2011, barriesingleton wrote:FUNDAMENTAL ERROR?
I read such analyses, as the one above, with mounting incredulity. They are predicated on the notion that Westminster party-politicians are constructive, rational, individuals, dedicated to sound governance on behalf of the people of this country.
But just one interview, of one politician (they all have more in common than separates them) leaves the Grammar School mind in no doubt that they are devious charlatans, with so many hidden agenda, that integrity gets buried. I can not be alone in detecting this - and loathing it.
Might NewsyNighty run a poll to discover the percentage of voters who would ever suggest to their child that they model their behaviour on party politicians? Why do we dupe ourselves, to the advantage of these cipher-ninnies? Why do we, every damned time, GET OURSELVES ANOTHER ONE?
SPOILPARTYGAMES
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Comment number 3.
At 7th Apr 2011, ntp3 wrote:This austerity glossed as reorganisation is largely unnecessary, and while the Coalition is, as the advisor you spoke to above put it, pausing to regroup' on the NHS, it would be nice to think that an Opposition - have you seen one of these recently? - could make a constructive case like this one below from Brad DeLong a few days ago ('Ahem! Bagehot of the EconomistWatch...'):
"The recent runup in the British debt-to-GDP ratio from 37% to 60% of GDP is due to the (necessary) bank bailouts and to the recession. Assuming that after the crisis is over Britain can finance its debt at 3% per year real interest, then after the crisis is over spending will have to be 0.7% of GDP lower or taxes 0.7% of GDP higher than otherwise (or some mix of the two). Between 2001 and 2007 the debt-to-GDP ratio rose at about 1% per year in an era of good times when the debt-to-GDP ratio ought to have been shrinking by at least 1% per year. Before the crisis the Labour Party's policies were out-of-whack by 2% per year. Plus the aging of the population and rising health-care costs will require another 0.8% of adjustment or so by the mid-2010s relative to the mid-2000s. The total required fiscal adjustment relative to the Labour Party's mid-2000s policies is thus about 3.5% of GDP: that is how much taxes have to go up relative to the mid-2000s, or spending down, or some combination. That is what Miliband (and Balls) need to put on offer in their shop window if they try to sell Britain on Labour as the natural party of government."
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