NHS: It’s not what you say, it’s the way you say it
Has it occurred to anyone else that elections may be won or lost, not on the substance of a party’s policies, but on the way those policies are described to the public?
Putting aside for a moment the fact that David Cameron and the Conservative Party deliberately lied to the British people about their intentions for the National Health Service, were people not persuaded by their constant claims that Labour had increased expensive and unnecessary bureaucracy and ‘red tape’, and a new administration was needed to cut through it all before we choked on it?
Now, after almost five years of Cameron, we’re all a little wiser.
But it seems we still need the proper persuasion – in the right code, if you like.
So take a look at the image above, with Ed Miliband’s lynchpin policy pledges. See where he said, “I will scrap the Health and Social Care Act, which damages and undermines our NHS”?
Is that really enough to get him elected? It might be, but it probably isn’t.
How about if he said this: “Paying private companies to do what the NHS does anyway adds another layer of expensive bureaucracy to the process while pointlessly throwing away your tax money to provide their profit. I will end this.”
Or how about: “David Cameron’s government has added an expensive new bureaucratic layer to the NHS, as the inclusion of private companies means an unnecessary duplication of effort. I will scrap that.”
And perhaps: “The government’s system of Clinical Commissioning Groups overseen by Monitor to ensure that private companies get their choice of NHS contracts is unnecessarily bureaucratic, expensive, and failing the public. I will cut through this red tape.”
In fact, he could just turn Cameron’s words back on him: “Cameron’s new NHS is expensive, bureaucratic, and failing. Because of his policies, it cannot cope with demand that is lower than it was last summer.
“I will end this profligacy and ensure the NHS provides the best service in the world – together with the best value for money in the world.”
That’s what it’s all about, after all.
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sounds good to me. you should email it to mr miliband who i fully suport by the way.
In an era when people don’t listen to political debate, don’t read manifestos and get all their information from newspaper headlines (without reading the story) The likelihood of political success comes solely from a party’s relationship with the media. Once in office the party unmasks itself, does as it pleases and breaks all pledges, promises and vows. By this time the voters are more interested in X Factor again and won’t notice. This is certainly how politicians think and I think it has been largely true. But what if THIS TIME people paid attention, read manifestos and voted accordingly?
It would be welcome.
……and the party of government actually fulfilled those promises, pledges and vows…
It would probably be a first!
It is all a question of how the message reaches the people. Labour intend to go back to basics less leaflets and more face to face on the doorstep and stalls in towns and cities. As for the question of whether Labour if successful will implement the pledges it all depends on the machinations of what should be the servants, civil or otherwise. It all depends on what the establishment will tolerate anybody who has watched Yes Prime Minister knows that there is a lot of truth in it. It also depends on whether Ministers have any skeletons in the cupboard that can be rattled when the bankers bonuses are threatened or when those others with their noses in the trough see their lives of legalised theft threatened.
I just wish we could find a way of widely publishing your comments as I fully agree and endorse those of the above two readers.