So, God love our party but aaarrrggghhh sometimes it drives me crazy.

So, before I rant (I know…not like me at all, right?; LDV Editor: “Er, if you say so Mathew”), let me say that I do indeed love our party. I’ve been a member for fifteen years, I’ve been a Borough and Parish Councillor, am now a regular ‘Lib Dem commentator’ on various national broadcasters; the family that is our party has helped see me through the death of both of my parents and indeed my own near death illness earlier this year (special thanks to my friends and local Lib Dem Councillors in my patch Stuart Bray and Michael Mullaney for all of their support), and so when I’m sometimes critical-even very critical-of the party, it’s precisely because I love it that I want to see it at its best, defending the least, the last, and the lost, standing up against vested interests, overturning the tables of the establishment, defending LGBT+ equality and our hard earned civil liberties.

So you can imagine my immense frustration when I saw reported on Friday: ‘The Lib Dems have called for patients to be sent to private hospitals to ease the impact of resident doctors strikes.’

Have we suddenly become a quasi-Tory party?!

As I quote-tweeted on the day, ‘My party said what?!

Firstly, in my view we should be supporting the striking doctors.

All they want is pay parity after fourteen years of the Tories.

£22.00 an hour shouldn’t be too much to ask for people who are having to make very serious, often life and death, decisions to make not just daily but sometimes more like hourly.

But even if, inexplicably, you/our party doesn’t support the striking resident doctors, we do support the NHS as a whole and it is my very strong view that whenever we use the private sector to ‘plug the gaps’ in the NHS all it does is further undermine the NHS as a properly public service.

We should stand against further use of the private sector…not be actively calling for it (even at a time of strikes).

We should be calling for the NHS to be properly funded…up to the European average for spending on health services and to fund that by mandating the ultra-rich to pay a little bit more by way of taxes to better fund public services and ensure fair pay and better working conditions for those who work in them.

The private sector has its place in our economy and our society…but it’s not in the public sector.

Rant over!

That’s that…for now!

This is my final column until September, as I’m giving it and me a rest in August.

Thanks for reading (and commenting) whether you’ve agreed or disagreed with what I’ve had to say.

I certainly can’t be accused of sitting on the fence on issues.

Whatever you’re doing, enjoy what’s left of the Summer.

I’ll be back, in full voice, in September.

* Mathew Hulbert is a former Councillor, is a regular commentator on TV and Radio, and is Co-Host of the Political Frenemies podcast.