In the recent kaleidoscope of chaos that was Mrs May’s latest Cabinet reshuffle, Jeremy Hunt reportedly convinced the Prime Minister to retain him by using a phrase that inadvertently exposed just how disastrous he has been as Health Secretary.
It has been widely reported that Jeremy Hunt managed to convince the Prime Minister that he should keep his job overseeing Department for Health by telling her that “a captain does not abandon his ship“.
The statement is extremely revealing, and deeply worrying, for a number of reasons.
It shows that beyond the propaganda, and beyond the bad #memes and incessant whinnying justifications that despite literal death as a result of the NHS winter crisis everything is just fine, deep down the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care knows full well that he is presiding over absolute ruin.
In convincing Mrs May to retain him as Health Secretary, the Hunt alluded to his role being that of the plight of the embattled captain aboard a sinking ship, standing helpless and impotent and watching it descend after he did all he could to smash it into every iceberg on the way to privatisation.
Hunt did not win May’s conviction by offering a vision of the NHS’s future. Instead, he won her over by assuring her that he would stand stoic in the face of the very destruction he himself has inflicted onto the greatest public asset this country has ever produced.
Incredibly, Mr Hunt was also awarded for his despicable ineptitude as Health Secretary by also being given the responsibility for destroying overseeing social care.
Hunt’s use of language confirms that he knows he is presiding over a sinking ship, and that he seeks to continue to do so until it finally disappears beyond the surface.
It’s no surprise really, because no matter how hard Hunt tries, no member of the general public can possibly attempt to deny the stone cold facts:
- Millions of patients suffering the longest ever waits for casualty care, beds, cancer treatment and operations.
- NHS spending slowed to just 1.1%; the lowest since the ’50s.
- Around 700 patients spend more than 4 hours waiting in A & E.
- More than 60,000 people wait longer than 12 hours for a bed once they have been seen.
- The lowest number of beds per capita in Europe.
Many would argue that Jeremy Hunt has been a catastrophic failure. But this presumption ignores the fact that failure is exactly what the Tories want for Britain’s most treasured institution. Because behind everything, the Tories secretly hate the NHS for one reason and one reason alone:
The NHS, for all the underfunding the Tories can get away with throwing at it, and for all the undermining and under-paying of our heroic doctors, nurses and medical support staff, is absolute proof that socialism really can and does work.
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