Stephen Dorrell, the former Health Secretary and current Chairman of the Health Select Committee, and Chuka Umanna appeared on the Daily Politics to debate Lansley’s latest reforms. Judging
by this interview, Dorrell’s reservations seem to be of the constitutional rather than institutional variety. And Umanna avoided the question about whether these reforms have their genesis in
the Blair/Milburn era, which suggests that Ed Miliband will denounce yet more of Blair’s record in the quest to detoxify his party’s brand.
Sorry, was this Stephen Dorrell who was talked about as a replacement for Andrew Lansley if his reforms were to fail?
Doesn’t this give him an incentive to make things difficult in a “reasonable” way?
local local
Europe’s health outcomes are better than ours, so it makes sense to move towards their systems as well as their spending levels, doesn’t it?
Tiberius
Now I’ve heard it all, David.
Just what would Miliband’s detoxified Labour party be? Mainstream Conservatism? Militant Trade Unionism? Or simply not Blair or Brown?
He has 259 MP’s. From 1997 to 2005, the Tories had 166. Labour’s job in opposition is nothing like the one the Tories had.
Alex Gallagher
“Dorrell’s reservations seem to be of the constitutional…variety”.
Dorrell is an ex-health minister. He knows what he is talking about.
Doesn’t the fact that he is willing to go public at this sensitive moment with any “reservations”, does that not indicate that he perhaps has other, more substantial reservations, that he may be voicing in private?
