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    Re: Wonderful. Coming to a mainstream media headline near us any day now. nm Archived Message

    Posted by Ian M on April 20, 2020, 10:54 am, in reply to "Wonderful. Coming to a mainstream media headline near us any day now. nm"

    Grinning sociopath J.Hunt interviewed by Matt Frei on C4 news the other day:





    (from 3:45)

    Tries to duck the question of preparedness by the usual 'now is not the time' (ie: let's have an ineffectual inquiry in 5 years' time), declared he had put pressure on Matt Hancock to carry on testing (evidence please), and making positive noises about how the govt is moving back to international 'best practice'. To his credit Frei puts it to him that he was in charge of the NHS for 6 years:

    'in that time were you not responsible for running down our stocks of ventilators [...] and not getting the quota of ICU beds per 100,000 of the population to levels of Italy or Spain or indeed Germany? That was on your watch!'

    Hunt responds with:

    'I don't believe so, but we need to look at everything that I did, everything that health secretaries prior to me, governments prior to my government did, because this has been such a huge thing for our country. We need to get to the bottom of any mistakes that were made without fear or favour. I did believe that the NHS needed more capacity and more money when I was health secretary, and that was why I fought very hard for the 20 billion pound increase in the NHS budget, but it takes seven years to train a doctor, it takes three years to train a nurse, so it's going to take time for those things to feed through.'

    What a slippery bastard! Still trying to blame Labour, inverting the truth that he systematically de-funded the NHS* and using the cynical formula of 'mistakes were made' (which Frei uses the same language in his first question: 'ask some fundamental questions about mistakes that may have been made') - NO, they weren't mistakes, it was a deliberate, underhanded strategy and it has been at least since the 'privatisation by stealth' kick-started by Thatcher in the 80s.

    People aren't buying it at least. Here are the first 12 comments under the C4 tweet of the interview:

    Moon Dogs
    @fansofoutlyre
    Replying to @Channel4News
    Ah yes, we remember it well

    [+3 other images]
    ·
    #ShareMe4All
    @ShareMe4All
    Apr 17
    Replying to @Channel4News
    Let's not forget the endless cock-ups Jeremy hunt made whilst he held office, including not following up the findings from the 2016 pandemic exercise.

    Helen
    @Helen08104147
    Apr 17
    Even worse, his successors buried the Operation Cygnus outcomes. I haven’t seen the doc but I think it might make a very useful checklist for government self-evaluation (public evaluation) of the handling of COVID-19

    Frog face
    @froggleston
    Apr 17
    Replying to @Channel4News
    What noise does a conscience make?

    L3
    @Lorraineatherto
    Apr 18
    Scratchy noise, like a rat? Good existential question.

    magnuspc Rose
    @magnuspc
    Apr 17
    Replying to @Channel4News
    Gearing up to sell everything off? Underfunding?

    Gary Powell
    @Gary_Powell123
    Apr 17
    Replying to @Channel4News
    Yeah, run down the NHS paving the way for it to be asset-stripped.

    Ian Keeling
    @IanKeeling8·
    Apr 17
    Replying to @Channel4News
    We were looking at and telling you to stop doing it, all the time you were doing it.

    Harrica
    @Harrica_
    Apr 17
    Replying to @Channel4News
    Two political parties entrenched in ideology and neither asking the basic question: what is the best way to fund healthcare

    The public are equally entrenched in their views

    We need an independant set of experts with cross party support to work it out

    Politics needs to grow up

    Cody J Willis
    @cheesepiesausa1
    Apr 17
    Replying to @Channel4News
    We haven't forgotten Jeremy. You were cruel and useless too.

    Bill Carson
    @Usman_IG1
    Apr 17
    Replying to @Channel4News
    It’s all very simple. Just think back as to why you did what you did to the NHS.

    wires missing
    @MissingWires
    Apr 17
    Replying to @Channel4News
    Destroyed the nhs?     - https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1251240011363520513

    Always feel unclean after seeing him speak..
    I

    -----

    * - on the £20bn claim see this damning evaluation of Hunt's record, recently posted to the board: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/ournhs/what-did-jeremy-hunt-do-to-the-nhs-and-how-has-he-got-away-with-it/

    'And what of Hunt’s defining claim in the leadership campaign – that he’s “the person who secured a historic funding boost for the NHS” just before leaving office in July 2018? While Hunt claims the deal is “one of the single biggest increases in funding for a public service in our history”, numerous experts have pointed out that most NHS increases are generally “the biggest yet” (due to inflation), that this increase (at most, 3.4% a year) doesn’t match the level of actual health inflation and higher need, and hasn’t made up for the shortfall in funding in preceding years. In the words of the National Audit Office, the latest funding boost is “inadequate” and leaves the NHS “unsustainable”. Also worrying, it turns out (in the Long Term Plan) that Hunt’s deal is conditional on the NHS achieving significant savings through the use of technology (something many experts are dubious about), reducing face-to-face appointments by one third, and also on there being no additional pressures from the social care sector (that’s currently collapsing). And this 3.4% doesn’t apply to capital expenditure, staff training and pay, or public health budgets – all of which remain up in the air until the forthcoming spending review. Theresa May promised the “Brexit dividend” would fund the increases. Quite how that’s going to pan out, is anyone’s guess. As a Nuffield Trust health expert put it, “the NHS would be wise to hang onto the receipt for this particular birthday present." '

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