We were warned!
Where am I?
Surprise, surprise. I'm sat on my sofa, next to a second-hand copy of the ‘Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’, only half way through but interesting read. My son is on my lap, the news is on and I'm drinking a coffee waiting for the start of Prime Minister’s Questions.
Where would I rather be?
Now that's the question. Although I try hard to live in the moment, just recently I can't seem to shake the feeling that the island we live on is slowly sinking into the mud. With Conservatives forever tugging on the chain, ripping out the plug of this country which is our NHS, there is no doubt that, should they succeed, many of us will be left drowning in a sea of debt.
For me, the NHS is without a doubt at the top of the list of pros for reasons to live here. If our National Health Service were to succumb to privatisation the scales would tilt, quite dramatically. It's hard to imagine a world where we would have to pay for care. A real life version of snakes and ladders, where your fate would change at the roll of a dice. Imagine a dystopian world where an ear infection is enough to finish you off for good. Matt Hancock would cut you open with his tiny NHS badge, pull the organs from your dead corpse with his bare hands, only to sell them on the black market in order to cover the costs of his inevitable divorce. Only breaking the ministerial code because he didn't sell them to the US for a higher price or let Priti Patel quality check them first by frying bits of them up and feeding them to the 'illegal immigrants' currently inhabiting her basement, sorry, I mean detention centre.
Of course, if this country was anything like the American system I wouldn't have been able to afford the care I received when giving birth to my son. It should be obvious that the care I received was amazing. I'm still in awe at the midwives, each of them, their sincerity and character left me speechless. It's not just a job, but a skill, a talent, part of which you cannot teach. And the NHS is not just a service, it's a lifeline, the hand under us all, holding us up. Literally keeping us alive. So I'm left dismayed as an amendment to the Health and Care bill to protect the title of Nurse was voted down. While at the same time, the Tories are voting though other amendments, which would allow private companies to sit on NHS boards. I fear its so the Tories and their private health care mates will be able to train up anyone for a few weeks, slap on a badge and call them a nurse. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if they just replaced nurses altogether and instead provided patients with pamphlets on how to take a blood test themselves. Why don’t I just let Priti Patel suck the blood directly from my arm?
I suppose this is all Boris' bright idea for an attempted trade deal with the US. He lied, our NHS is for sale and his party are doing the selling. Jeremy Corbyn did warn us. Remember?
We should all be up in arms, but many are not. This has been a long time coming and many now believe, after years of cuts and austerity, privatisation is the only hope of improving a fractured system. Which is precisely what the Tories want you to believe. Now they can sell you the care you would have previously been entitled to, and are entitled to providing the system is funded by taxation.
Prime Ministers question's is starting, the house is full, this should be a good one, I wonder whether the letter of no confidence will be brought up, let's see. ...
'It just isn't working is it Prime Minister?'
As suspected, the PM is deluded, claiming that the social care cap will actually help working class people as he stood at the dispatch box and waffled on. The only thing I took from that was that we should let babies in the house, in fact we should let babies run the f***ing house. Truth is many MPs feel slightly threatened by the fact the children might do a better job them. Hence why they don't want them there. To be fair though, its probably one of the few places Boris knows for certain none of his children will be...
'It just isn't working is it Prime Minister?'