67% -all you need to know
A full two thirds or 67% of Tory members, the ones voting to elect the next PM, think that the NHS has enough money but that it is just spent badly.
Why they think this hasn’t been solved by 12 years of Tory government is something they might want to ask themselves, but it is the perfect illustration of why the election campaign is working out as it is.
The two remaining candidates are trying to win the votes of people who have no idea about what is really happening.
They have swallowed 40 years of right wing propaganda and believe that: there is always plenty of money for the government but that is wasted, that immigrants make NHS waiting lists longer and force up house prices, that those on benefits are lazy, human rights are a conspiracy of the left to retain power, universities are corrupting the minds of the young and that Brexit is a triumph.
It would be nice if a Tory candidate was willing to tell them the truth but they are riding this tiger and cannot get off.
The big test will not come during this election but in the winter. When the poor and elderly start dying, will the PM stick with the plan and insist that a few tax cuts are the answer? Will the PM say that the NHS is not overwhelmed but badly run and does not need any more money? That the poor are wasting their benefits on iphones not heating?
Neither candidate seems to have grasped the scale of the crisis that is about to hit this country. Even if they don’t care about people or really believe this tripe, every single one of their economic plans will have been shredded by this time next year. Purely out of self interest they need to act now.
But does either of them have the strength to make the dramatic interventions that are necessary immediately, to u-turn the second the election is won?
I very much doubt it, ignorance, ambition, indifference and ideology are winning.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.