Rufus Hound and the NHS

Every now and again I ask myself the question: how can I become a grown-up without forfeiting the radical energies of my youth? And the answer I always come up with? Don't grow up if it means being staid and predictable! Cue another intemperate rant about Posh Dave's antics.

Remember his infamous boast that "The NHS is safe in my hands" and the wonderfully airbrushed poster? 

At the time these 'promises' were made, anyone with a functioning brain, and a knowledge of the Tory hatred for a free NHS for all, predicted that Posh Dave's hands would soon be around the neck of the NHS doing their best to choke it to death. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, the NHS and good quality health care are now on the very brink and USA style big businesses are circling like vultures ready to pick the bones of what is left after the coalition has finished. Here are a few dismal facts:
*  We have lost thousands of nurses and other healthcare experts.
*  We have lost thousands of beds.
*  We have lost hundreds of wards and A and E departments.
*  We have lost hundreds of walk-in centres.
*  We have post code lotteries on whether people will survive cancer because of restricted access certain drugs.
*  NHS Trusts are failing and falling into debt.
*  NHS staff morale is at its lowest point.
*  Waiting lists and times are at their longest in over ten years.
*  Recent press reports reveals that treatment of the elderly and mentally ill is deplorable.

One of the creators of the NHS, Aneurin Bevan, said in 1951:
"The National Health service and the Welfare State have come to be used as interchangeable terms, and in the mouths of some people as terms of reproach. Why this is so it is not difficult to understand, if you view everything from the angle of a strictly individualistic competitive society. A free health service is pure Socialism and as such it is opposed to the hedonism of capitalist society".

He warned us never to leave it in Tory hands and what did we go and do? When it is gone it will be gone forever. And that's not an exageration. However, some people are prepared to do something about it. Take the comedian Rufus Hound who is standing as an MEP for the National Health Action Party. Good on him I say. There's a clip below of Jeremy Hardy and Rufus giving their views on the subject - two more entertainers standing by their principles.