Constantly Furious

What a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Thousands of tweets, hundreds of blogs, facebook groups, one of the top stories on the 'Today' program.

Do we love the NHS? Or more accurately, do #welovethenhs ?

Do the public love the NHS? Of course we don't love it. How can you love any absolutely massive, necessarily faceless bureaucracy? Does anybody 'love' the Indian Railway company? No? Well, they're one of only two organizations larger than the NHS. The other one is the Chinese Army. Do you 'love' them? Thought not.

And anyway, what's to love? Unless its just that blind, misplaced love that sometimes affects people: "I know 'e drinks, and comes home late, and sees other women, and knocks me about, but I still love 'im". Perhaps its the same with the NHS: "I know its a huge, wasteful beauracracy, and a massive sink for taxpayers money, and people still die on piss-soaked trolleys in corridors, but I still love it".

And do all those politicians love the NHS? Nah. Get real.

What politicians love is political opportunity. And this is a huge opportunity for Labour - the best they've had for months. By associating themselves closely with the NHS (after all, they invented it), and by cynically pushing the line that the evil Tories 'hate' it, Labour can create a lovely big dividing line between the two parties, and campaign endlessly on it over the coming months. No wonder they leapt on it with such alacrity.

And, even though Parliament's on holiday, no problem: it can all be done on the Internet, by their shiny new online campaigning groups. Labour have belatedly woken up to the possibilities of the web, after years of not "getting it". Now they have tens of 'resting' students and young activists, pounding Twitter, Facebook and Blogger from dawn to dusk, pausing every few minutes for a free Coca Cola and an update on today's 'message'.

For every deluded 'real' individual twittering that they loved the NHS ("because they give me medicine for FREE #welovethenhs"), there were 10 Labour sockpuppets, useful idiots like 'BevaniteEllie', tweeting soundbites "evil Tories , sack Dan Hannan #welovethenhs".

Wake up! This is barely about the NHS - its about cynical political opportunism.

And before you start with all the "..me nan wouldn't be with us..", "..they cured me mam's bunions.." bollocks, hang on a minute.

CF's second child was delivered in an NHS hospital, premature, ghastly complications, emergency cesarean section, blood, ambulances, the works. CF is extraordinarily, eternally grateful to the doctors, nurses, surgeons et al who literally saved his daughter's (and possibly saved his wife's) life.

But in spite of that, CF still doesn't 'love' the NHS. CF is not so dewy eyed as to think that all of this happened just because an oddly named Welsh bloke had a 'good idea' back in the 40's. The outcome could well have been very similar elsewhere. It's highly likely that private doctors, or French doctors, or even American doctors, and probably Japanese doctors, would have done exactly the same.

If CF 'loves' anything, he loves the idea that some people are prepared to dedicate their lives to saving and curing others. That's worth respecting, and being grateful for.

#weHateCynicalPoliticalOpportunism


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