Those who like to look behind the headlines to spot the implicit stories that accompany them are not all conspiracy theorists. Some point out things that follow logically from the initial story.
Today, for example, a massive pre-birthday present is announced for the NHS, at 70 now approaching what some think should be its retirement age. Arguments can rage, but probably won’t, about whether we should be doing a major restructuring, even a privatization, rather than committing ourselves to pouring ever more cash down its insatiable maw. The source of the cash boost is worth noting. It is, the Prime Minister tells us, a “Brexit dividend,” in that at least part of the bung will come from the money we will not longer send to the EU, post Brexit.
So Point One is that those figures in the side of the bus, the £350m extra available for the NHS, the figure ridiculed, exposed, and cast as a complete lie by Boris Johnson, has now been taken on board and vindicated. Yes, there is a Brexit dividend for the NHS, says the Prime Minister, and here it is.
Point Two is no less interesting. The NHS will get the money if, and the implication is only if, we stop sending money to the EU and divert it to the NHS instead. To do that we have to come out. We have to stop paying our annual dues, either as a membership fee, or as a substitute payment to continue enjoying single market access. The PM has nailed her colours to the mast. If we don’t come out, the NHS will not get its extra cash. It is inconceivable that the additional funds announced will not, after all, be delivered, because the EU is to get them instead. This is simply not going to happen. It means we’re coming out. And those still clinging to the floating driftwood hope that we might somehow still stay in, will now have to admit that this can only be done at the expense of the NHS. The PM has committed the country to stop sending the money to Brussels.
It also means that every doctor, every nurse, every health worker from surgeons to lift attendants, now has an interest in joining the Brexit side. No withdrawal equals no NHS cash. It is now in the interest of every NHS worker to lobby for withdrawal, or that birthday present will never come. The extra wages that it will make possible, the additional treatments, the new facilities, all will be sucked into Brussels if the exit deal does not go through.
This is the story behind the story. The PM has committed herself to delivering what the British people voted for. She has done it publicly, and tied the fate of Britain’s beloved NHS to that delivery. We’re coming out.
Takeaways: (1) Britain is leaving the EU because of the absurd results of socialism; (2) instead of being broke, shunned, and lonely, it now seems that Britain will actually be flush with cash, a measurable amount; and (3) Britain will then be duty-bound to use that cash to pursue the same socialist inanity domestically. Fine. Bureaucrats will tend to resist the insult to bureaucracy that drives Brexit. If their covetousness can be used to get them on board, so be it. The argument about the future of the NHS will continue, but it will no longer be necessary to cross… Read more »
I take it back after reading via Thomson/Reuters that Ms. May is not pledging all of the £350m weekly savings from Brexit, but £384m, the difference to be provided by “tax hikes [whose] precise details…would be disclosed in a future government budget.” https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/theresa-may-tax-hikes-national-health-service/2018/06/16/id/866582/ Even that amount will not be enough for medical care on the model of, “All you want, for free.”
This tends to confirm that all the lunacy foisted on Britain by Brussels will henceforth be foisted on Britain by Westminster, perhaps eventually dictating permissible flavors for crisps, again.
Well there’s something for you. It’s been generally accepted, for a while, that there isn’t anyone as deluded as Theresa May. There are so many things wrong with that analysis, one doesn’t know where to start. But it does remind us of one thing. When it comes to explaining why things that have happened, happened, economists are worth listening to. But, when it comes to predicting the future, they’re best ignored
PM panders to liberal fancies by offering magic money to fund the sainted NHS. BBC undermines the initiative immediately. No tory is even allowed to rescue the NHS from its perennial victim status.