Editorials
Labour's health policy
Marks a retreat from ideologyThe NHS presents the Labour party, as the next government in waiting, with a particularly difficult political challenge. On the one hand, the party's apocalyptic prophecies about the consequences of the changes in 1991 have been betrayed by events: the NHS has not disintegrated, nor has it been privatised. On the other hand, the party's commitment to financial austerity, should it be returned to office, inhibits it from buying support by making any promises about more generous funding. In the circumstances, the Labour party's manifesto on health, Renewing the NHS,1 is a remarkably skilful document. It signals a retreat from dogmatism and an acceptance of the need for a pragmatic policy under a smokescreen of ideological rhetoric.
The rhetoric is designed to reassure the party faithful. The manifesto evokes a mythical past when everything was splendid in the NHS. It describes a demonised present in
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
This Article
- Full text
- Respond to this article
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when responses are posted
- Alert me when a correction is posted
Services
- Email this article to a friend
- Find similar articles in BMJ
- Find similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Related Content
Bookmark with
What's new
Latest blogs
Services
Tools
Online poll
Resources
Rapid responses for this article
There are no rapid responses for this article.Most read
Print issues
