Over at The Observer at the weekend, Nick Clegg anticipated this week’s Coalition anniversary with an article setting out some of the Government’s achievements to date, but stressing that the Lib Dems and our Conservative partners are in it for the long haul:
A coalition can only work if it is upfront about the differences between the two parties and explicit about the partnership it is seeking to create. It requires collective decision-making and a high level of candour as two different parties seek to govern together. … our painstakingly negotiated programme for coalition government [is] all about a five-year plan for government based on a clear understanding of our differences and the nature of our collective strength. So we have had a much more radical first 100 days than conventional wisdom predicted, confounding the myth that compromising on policies means you are left with a bland, cautious mush, the common denominator approach.
The achievements to date? Nick ists a few:
… we have set out radical steps to boost patient power and local democratic accountability in the NHS and steps to give more freedom to parents, teachers and communities in our school system, combined with more money for disadvantaged children. We are restoring a plethora of rights to liberty and privacy and have set out an ambitious programme for lasting political reform. And we have held an emergency budget, taking a big first step towards a fairer tax system and setting out plans to eliminate the bulk of Britain’s enormous budget deficit. That is not bad going, by any account.
And Nick concludes:
One hundred days? That’s not the prize. It’s the next five years that count.
You can read his article in full here.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
From Norman settlement to a civic square
Northern Ireland debates the future of its railways in 1957
Church Green video
Thinking of standing for election or re-election next year? Helpful questions to consider
Chloe
Peter Martin
expats
Alison C
David Raw
16 Comments
After of 100 days of this horrific brutal Tory oops Coalition the thankfully unlikley prospect of 5 years sends real shivers down my spine.
“… we have set out radical steps to boost patient power and local democratic accountability in the NHS …”
Apparently this is Newspeak for “we have dropped proposals to put elected representatives on Primary Care Trusts, and instead we are going to abolish them altogether and put GPs in charge of the NHS.” As far as I can see, there is no proposal for the GPs to be accountable to local authorities, except perhaps with regard to public health issues.
Do you honestly think this coalition will last five years? Just how low do you think your percentage needs to go before some in your party stop sitting on their hands?
The more Red Rag and his like rail and rant against the Coalition, the more likely it is to last for five years.
It is interesting that Nick Clegg chooses to highlight as achievements policy areas where the proposals are so contentious and aligned to the political right..
and the alternative is the neo-con Labour party – no thanks! No more arbitrary wars! No more currying favour with the middle classes whilst side-lining the poor. No more destruction of manufacturing. No more Labour this decade.
why is the NHS being singled out for wholesale privatisation??
@Mike – it isn’t. That’s one of the more bizarre Labour allegations (and there’s stiff competition).
@Anthony – Surely that’s because GPs should be accountable to their patients.
I don’t need to wait 5 years to know I won’t vote Lib Dem again as long as Nick Clegg is leader.
Iain Roberts:
How can GPs be accountable to their patients?
Patients don’t elect their GPs, most have no contractual relationship with them, and the BMA would dearly love to give them immunity from suit in tort.
At present, PCTs monitor the performance of GPs and publish the data. Who is now going to monitor GPs’ performance? Not GP consortia, surely? PCTs have the advantage over GP consortia in that they are objective and have the willingness and ability to tell the truth. When the Chief Executive of my local PCT said that “many GPs (in this area) are rubbish”, he said something that no doctor would ever dare say.
The privatisation comes in when the GP consortia have to find someone to do the commissioning for them. Ultimately, the Tories would like to have a situation similar to the United States where those who can afford it have private health insurance, and those who can’t rely on charity or die in the gutter. Didn’t Chris Huhne accuse Nick Clegg of favouring the privatisation of the NHS? Maybe he was on to something.
@Sesenco & Anthony Aloysius St
Have to agree with you both on this one. It seems to me this is one of the many areas where our clash of values has resulted in an oxymoron of a position, where none of either parties concerns are addressed.
Sesenco – Unless I missed something, local authorities don’t elect PCTs nor have a contractual relationship with them. The idea of privatisation is daft, though. The NHS already relies massively buying services from the private sector, whether it’s drugs and equipment or the outsourcing of jobs. A public body buying in private sector services doesn’t suddenly mean its been privatised – or we’d have said the NHS went that way years ago.
The issue is whether the NHS provides good quality care that’s free at the point of delivery and affordable for the public purse.
Since the white paper is still being debated, we obviously don’t know all the answers to that and some of us are getting involved in shaping it.
“Unless I missed something, local authorities don’t elect PCTs nor have a contractual relationship with them.”
Which, of course, is why the coalition agreement provided for democratic representation on PCTs. But that proposal has now been dropped, with the consent of both the coalition partners.
You say GPs “should be” accountable to their patients. But of course they’re not at present, and I don’t see anything in the white paper that would make them so. If there is something I’ve missed, please do feel free to quote it.
Anyhow, I wish someone could explain precisely what in the white paper justifies Nick Clegg in talking about “local democratic accountability in the NHS.” As I understand it, a role for local authorities is proposed regarding public health, but no role for any elected body other than that.
Iain Roberts,
Funding from the NHS purse will go directly through GP’s.
Foundation Trusts will be run as self financing social enterprises along the lines of John Lewis or the Co-op.
The white paper highlights voluntary insurance for social care, district nurses, home help etc.
There will be no limit on the amount of private work foundation trusts will be able to take (the cap to be lifted under the proposals that only exists now because of Labour and LIb Dem objections that Tony Blair’s proposal to lift it was tantamount to privatisation).
The NHS will only remain responsible for epidemics and immunisation programs.
What part of that is not a private arrangement?
GP’s are self-employed or small private businesses. Social enterprises are private businesses. Voluntary insurance is private funding. Funding will remain largely through the public purse but simultaneously Foundation Trusts will no longer be capped on the private work they take. They will be dependent on winning contracts from GP consortia. If they fail to achieve sufficient funds from GP’s they will have to fill the gap with private work. A hospitals continued existence will therefore depend on their availability for private treatment which will take priority over NHS funded work. The incentives for Foundation trusts are to be exactly the same as now govern dental practice where many NHS dentists only perform NHS treatments at unsocial hours when they can not fill their private lists. Following your reasoning it would be a bizarre labour allegation to call dental practice privatised. The reforms of the NHS take the system back to exactly the same organisational structure as existed before nationalisation in 1948, would you describe that, earlier system, as a public system universally available and free at the point of delivery? Or perhaps it might be wise to forget the tribalism and look at the proposals and see why many are very worried indeed for the future of health care in this country.
The free market distributes its resources on the basis of power. Marketising the health system, as in education, incentivises the system to distribute on the basis of the possession of wealth/power, not on the basis of the need.
The people of Fulham are judging you now Cleggy. And boy it ain’t good.
http://www.fulhamchronicle.co.uk/fulham-and-hammersmith-news/local-fulham-and-hammersmith-news/2010/08/18/row-as-clegg-spreads-social-mobility-message-from-threatened-centre-82029-27090673/