It is one thing to claim to listen to the people and another to continually make U turns in policy because of a chaotic and weak form of Government. The " break" in NHS policy formulation by the hapless Andrew Lansley smacks of disunity, chaos and a major vacuum in leadership at the heart of the coalition. The Tory led Government previously stated that there was no alternative but now the programme of wide scale privatisation of services and devolving budgets to GP's, many of whom do not want to be responsible for finances but to concentrate on what they are trained to do, give medical advice to patients is on hold.
One of the reasons the Tories under David Cameron did not secure a majority at the last General Election, despite an unpopular Labour Government is that the electorate did not trust the Tories on the NHS. How right were the voters.
The Lib Dems in the coalition are running scared. Particularly after the national demonstration on 26th March that saw half a million people march against cuts in the public services and the NHS. The Tories can dismiss the demonstration as misguided but the Lib Dems know only too well that there were thousands of Lib Dem supporters on the demonstration, deeply unhappy at the pace and scale of changes to the NHS. They would be wise to heed the message and back away from privatisation of the NHS.
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