What the Torys think:
Philip Blond, “Cameron’s Crank” (Jonathan Raban, London Review of Books) on the Moral haze last night:
19.50 “There is a distinction between the state as facilitator and the state as provider, and I think the state as provider really is now a bankrupt model”
25.48 “Redistribution on the basis of income has failed, what I’m arguing for is distribution, the ‘asset effect’. It was our idea, the ownership state, that argued for the mass mutualisation of public services, that is continuing apace, that will give people a stake, low paid workers, often women a stake in a business enterprise that is mutual that they’ve never had before, it is exactly my idea and the ideas of those associated with us that will actually transform the lives of the poor, whereas ‘Statism’, redistribution along the lines of income has failed that’s why we offer radical transformation, and that’s why you should support it”
There you have it. The NHS is no longer to provide healthcare, instead it will commission care from private providers aka social enterprises. The old NHS staff will presumably no longer have a stake in the new NHS (unless they’re commissioners) but will have a (probably low paid or voluntary, part time) position with a private provider.
A Better NHS 