Since the tuition fees debacle, the one policy area that has been giving Liberal Democrats in the Coalition Government most grief has been the whole area of Health Service reforms. Andrew Lansley, the Conservative Secretary of State, unveiled a set of radical proposals which were not in the Coalition agreement and which sent alarm bells ringing among LibDems, not least members of the Social Liberal Forum, who led a successful revolt at the Party’s 2011 spring conference. That then strengthened the hand of LibDem MPs and even Ministers to force a significant rethink, especially of those concepts which seemed to imply a degree of competitive tendering in the free market which opponents were able to portray as privatisation by the back door. Anyway, the Bill in its revised form is much less scary, according to the man who ought to know: the LibDem junior Health Minister, Paul Burstow, who was guest speaker at a lasagne and poilitics event at Orpington Liberal Club this evening. Paul stressed that the new policies the Government wishes to bring in will help integrate health and social services, will end the Cinderella status of mental health (which is a cause Nick Clegg has been promoting personally) and addresses the elephant in the room, i.e. how to fund future long-term care for an increasingly geriatric population. Paul accepted the point made by one party member this evening that the British Medical Association has opposed many of the proposed reforms, but he rightly countered that the BMA has a record of opposing change, including the original establishment of the NHS. LibDems have reason to be proud of what the Party has achieved in government, he said — a refrain that is increasingly being heard from LibDem Ministers, but it is worth repeating, especially when it is backed up by the evidence shown by comparing what was in the LibDem 2010 Manifesto and how much of that is now government policy.
Jonathan Fryer 