Back in November 2019 I wrote a piece on how the safety net of the British NHS had become a straightjacket (14th Nov ’20). I described how debate on the NHS was restricted to a bidding war on who promises to spend the most on it and who loves it the most. Rational analysis was very much frowned upon and largely ignored.
Well, the Chinese Communist Lurgy has changed all that. The NHS has moved from being bullet proof to verging on a secular faith. The NHS now bestrides the nation like a very expensive but poorly constructed colossus. The NHS’s “frontline workers” are now not just a combination of Florence Nightingale, Mother Theresa and Wonder Woman, they are also at least as heroic as “The Few”, the RAF pilots that held off the Luftwaffe in the summer of 1940. Rational debate is now full on heresy, not just bad form.”The” NHS is now usually refered to as “Our” NHS in the press.
Here’s a montage of public displays of support for the NHS, mostly taken by me while going about my daily life. You could fill a big, big book with similar pictures.
It’s not unusual for people to come out with statements along the lines of “Thank God we’re not in America, at least we have the NHS.” Which shows the power of propaganda over cold, hard facts. As I write this, the UK’s Covid deaths per million stands at 609, the USA at 502. I don’t see how that means we’re doing “better” than the US. TV adverts recruiting for the NHS, extoling its virtues and explaining why we must all be healthier are now common. I’ve added one at the bottom.
NHS workers get exclusive shopping hours at many shops and discounts at many more. Last Wednesday I was in my local pub with three of my mates. Tim’s 20 something daughter came along. She’s fun, not the sharpest tool in the box but a good lass and a young mum. She works for the NHS and wore her uniform in hopes of a discount in the pub. At one point she stated. “The Tories are trying to sell the NHS, Trump wants to buy it.”.
This statement was met by tumbleweed and our four blank middle-aged stares. “Why the **** would he want to do that?” was our joint reply, we went on to explain how the NHS has got bigger under the Conservatives as well as Labour. A little later she was explaining with great glee how she’d been given a 50% discount at Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and had taken a dozen doughnuts to work that morning (she’s a sweet lass, but no waif). I sprayed at least 75p’s worth of excellent beer, when I stopped spluttering and gasping, I asked. “So, let me get this straight…the organisation that’s spending millions of pounds of our own money on adverts telling us to lose weight, is accepting 50% discounts from Krispy…Kreme…Doughnuts?!”.
“Yeah, great innit?” She replied.
Satire is not illegal in 2020 Britain; they’re just making it redundant.
One reply on “The NHS, an update, with added doughnuts.”
Love it! Some of my pals are in London. They are furious with me for my Conservative stances…They won’t speak to me presently. Silence says much.