We don't need a debate to hear how David Cameron has ruined the NHS

There is a lot of debate about whether the Party leaders should have a televised debate. I think this is a completely pointless exercise. We've had five years of the Coalition. David Cameron has a track record to be judged by. Mr Cameron and his colleagues have been making hay about how well the economy is doing and how many new jobs have been created. The sad truth is that it is onlly this month, nearly five years after Cameron took the helm, that the economy has recovered to a point where we are as wealthy as we were in 2008 when the global economic meltdown happened. It is also a fact that the man in charge of business is Vince Cable, not a Tory at all but a Lib Dem. So we have to conclude that in the area where Cameron is claiming his governments greatest success, he is not even in charge. Cable is an economist and is widely recognised as being one of the most capable members of the government. This is born out by the fact that neither the Tories or Labour attack Cable in the way they attack Clegg. Any attempts by these parties to bully Cable inevitably end in a very bloody nose for the bully boys. But Camerons proposition is that the most successful cabinet member should be turfed out on his ear and replaced by a Tory lackey of Cameron.

The sad truth is that the most important thing the govt do is to run the NHS and this doesn't have Mr Cable in charge. This has had a succession of useless Tory lackeys, who are not up to the job. The latest one Jeremy Hunt has been in charge since 2012. How is the NHS doing under his watch. Now regular readers of this blog know that we normally run a joke on Friday, but at 1.20 this morning I got this email from a regular reader of the blog

Thanks to the negligence of Barnet General Hospital I have an incurable cancerous disease the left overs of a carcinoid tumour.

Periodically I have massive debilitating carcinoid attacks and have to inject myself, or if the attack is particularly bad a member of my family has to inject me.

At 10am yesterday morning March 5th , I say yesterday morning because it is now 1-15 am on the 6th. I had a severe carcinoid attack and my wife called the specialist nurses of the Nets team at the Royal a Free Hampstead, who qualified the actions we had taken were correct, but also suggested I take at least one more injection. They asked that we call them later to let them know how things were going which my wife did, but as my symptoms appeared particularly severe and I had minor surgery three weeks ago. They were concerned I might have a bad infection related to my recent surgery, and advised us to ring our GP to get a home visit as a matter of urgency.

My wife called the surgery at 4 pm yesterday March 5th, it is now 1-20 am on March 6th, and I am still waiting for the so called out of hours emergency Dr to arrive, 9hours and 20 minutes since my wife called our GP surgery.

Yet Mathew Offord  the joke of an excuse for an MP of Hendon, insists there are no problems to deal with in our Local NHS, it is now 9 hours and 25 minutes and still no Dr, my wife has gone to bed exhausted, and although I am feeling really ill and have had no sleep for two days, I have to sign off and await the Dr.

How on earth can ignore this? How on earth can anyone with any humanity say that this is a right and proper sitution? There is no need for any debate on this issue. The NHS is falling apart if a man with cancer cannot get the treatment he needs. We read of the barbarity of ISIS, but what we are hearing of here is far more brutal. A man in excruciating pain for 9 hours with no treatment and no help.

That is the sad truth of David Camerons reign. Anyone who reads this blog (look at yesterdays entry) know that we are not friends of the local Labour party. We do however have to look at the bigger picture. In the London Borough of Barnet we have two marginal seats. These are Mike Freer in Finchley and Golders Green and Matthew Offord in Hendon. The sad truth is that the only way we will see the NHS sorted out is to send these two extremely poor MP's packing and replace them with someone who cares about the NHS.

The Conservatives do a grand job looking after their millionaire supporters, top bankers and businessmen. The sad truth though is that any one of us could be writing that letter above. I have cancer and I am ony too aware of the Sword of Damoclese over my head. That my friends is the truth. And tomorrow it could be you, your wife, your son, your mum, your granny, your mistress or your favourite auntie. Unless you vote to fix the problem in May, this will only get far far worse. You don't need a debate to figure that out.

Sorry there is no joke today. I am sure you understand though.

Why the Tories should sack Cameron and appoint Boris ASAP

Regular readers of this blog will be shocked at what I have to say or wonder if it is some sort of bizarre joke. As it's not Friday, I can assure you it isn't. I take no pleasure in writing this, but sometimes you have to face reality and speak the truth. The UK is faced with a massive economic crisis. It is 100% clear that David Cameron and George Osborne have not got a clue how to address it. That would be bad enough, but they seem to be hell bent on a set of policies which will drive the UK into a steeper decline.

Every Conservative I've spoken to recently has acknowledged three facts

1) Cameron isn't up to the job
2) Osborne hasn't got a clue what he's doing
3) The undynamic duo haven't got a clue what to do next

Cameron and Osborne have a mantra that there is "no plan b". Well there damn well should be, because plan A clearly isn't working. What is even more bizarre is the fact that there are a whole raft of highly unpopular policies which run counter to Tory mainstream thinking and are alienating huge swathes of Tories in their heartlands. To name but a few

* HS2 Rail link
* Heathrow Expansion
* Police cuts

They cannot blame these policy disasters on the Lib Dems. In fact, there are no policy disasters that they can realistically blame on the Lib Dems at the moment. Many Tories mumble that if there wasn't a coalition things would be better, but they can't name a single economic policy of the government that they can blame th Lib Dems for. They hate the Lib Dems for the fact that they are pro European, but even the most die hard Tories doubt that the policies towards the EU would be any different if Cameron had a majority.

Even more worrying is the fact that Cameron and his cronies seem to have no connection with ordinary families. This first became apparent when he failed to win a majority in 2010. Gordon Brown was as popular as the Pox, but Cameron couldn't even get a majority, despite Brown and Bust. The reason was clear, he was Tony Blair without the brains. Whatever one may think of Blair, he instinctively read the electorate correctly, that is why he won three terms. Labourites hated Blair for his lack of ideology and Tories hated him for spanking them three times. The electorate loved him. That was why he won. These days it is hard to find anyone with a good word for Blair, but when he was Prime Minister, we knew who was in charge and we knew that he had credibility. Blair made monumental cock ups, the greatest of which was his support (a la dodgy dossier) for the Iraq war, but he was a proper prime minister who won elections. I was not a Blairite, but like millions of others, I voted for him three times, because he was clever enough to ensure that he seemed like the least worst option.

Which brings us back to Cameron. The Tories have to ask themselves "Is Cameron likely to be the people's choice as least worst option?" Well he wasn't when Labour were lead by Gordon Brown in the middle of a massive economic crisis. Given that Cameron and Osborne have created an economic crisis of their own, they convince no one. Labour have a rather unconvincing leader of their own in Ed Milliband, but even he seems to have the measure of Cameron. Given the likely devastation of the cuts still to bite, there is likely to be an even more gloomy outlook when the 2015 election kicks off.

Which brings us to what any sane Tory would be doing. Cameron had an open goal in 2010 and he blew it. Who is a credible alternative? As far as any Tory I've spoken to is concerned, there is only one. Boris Johnson has been running London for 4 years. Much to the surprise of left wing commentators (like me) he hasn't made a complete cock up of the job. He managed to oversee a triumphant Olympics and despite the woes of the Tories nationally, got re elected comfortably.

He knows that the policies of HS2, Heathrow and Police cuts are plain bonkers and he believes in economic stimulus via large infrastructure projects. During his time as Mayor, he has come to see the value of a bit of joined up thinking, which is why he is lobbying for control of commuter rail routes. He has seen the dangers of overzealous outsourcing at the Olympics with G4S and has even done his bit to boost the UK's manufacturing sector with the Boris bus. Many people have derided the Boris bus as a vanity project, but it has created jobs and is far more environmentally friendly than any other similar vehicle on the road. Had it been a Labour devised project, the Tories would have lambasted it from start to finish, but Boris gets away with such largess.Any visit to the Conservative Home blog will confirm this.

The man question for us is whether Boris would make a better Prime Minister than Cameron. He has two main qualities which would help him enormously. Firstly, he's clever than Cameron. Whilst Cameron seems perpetually mired in dithering, Boris seems able to see a path and then follow it. Whilst many of us don't agree with his decisions, he sees them through. The second quality is that he's far lazier than Cameron. This may seem like a perverse attribute to label a quality, but as a Prime Minister it surely is. Workaholics end up like Gordon Brown, mired in detail and unable to delegate. Boris doesn't do detail, he gives people a job to do and lets them get on with it. He is quite prepared to use whatever tools he has at his disposal to reach an end, whilst making sure he isn't associated with unpopular decisions. A classic example of this was his appointment of Brian Coleman at the LFEPA. Boris didn't want to be associated with clobbering the fire service, so he stuck a loudmouth Tory bogeyman in charge. Colemans obnoxious personality was so overbearing that Boris took no flack at all for the massive attacks on this highly popular service. For a while, I couldn't understand how Boris tolerated Coleman, until I realised just how useful he really was.

Of course Boris isn't an MP and any process to replace Cameron would be extremely high risk, for all concerned. Realistically, even if a bunch of Tory plotters hatched a plot tomorrow, it would probably be 18 months before they could install their man. Just in time for the 2015 election. I suspect that there are moves afoot and they want to get the worst of the cuts out of the way and let Boris come in when there is a perceived upturn around Spring 2014. I think this plan is a bad one. Cameron and Osborne are clearly inept and I suspect that by 2014 things will be even worse. Another suggestion is that if Boris took over, the Lib Dems may pull the plug on the coalition. I personally doubt this. If they did they would alienate right leaning Lib Dems. Having permanently scared off left leaning Lib Dems, they would be well and truly finished. It is clear that Lib Dems have only one place to go and that is onwards on the current path.

I suspect that Boris would have most of them for breakfast. I suspect he would actually work with Vince Cable quite well. Cable is clever and useful to him. Cable knows that Boris gives him an opportunity, because if Cameron goesm Clegg won't be far behind. A Johnson and Cable team would draw up a list of infrastructure projects that both would back and put the differences on the back burner for a year until after the election.

Now you may wonder why I am backing such an unholy alliance? I am not. I think it would be a complete disaster for the UK. Unfortunately with Cameron, Osborne and Clegg, we don't have a disaster, we have a complete catastrophe. Labour has spent two years refusing to face up to a horrible truth. If they could dislodge the Lib Dems from the Tories and form a government, they could conceivably prevent both disaster and catastrophe. Could they prevent a Boris led Tory party? I am convinced that only a nasty accident could stop that. I just think that it would be far easier to stop the Boris bandwagon from a position of having rescued the economy than with him installed as incumbent PM on a rising economy. This blog, written in the week of the Labour Conference, isn't aimed at Tories (though I suspect more than a few will agree). It is aimed at the Labour party. If they don't wake up to the horrible reality which is about to unravel, Boris will do to them what he did to Ken Livingstone in May this year.

If you are in a car accelerating towards the edge of a cliff, you can do one of two things. You can change direction or you can cover your eyes and pretend it isn't going to happen. Both Tory and Labour parties are currently in this position. Sadly, whilst they are driving the car, we are all the passengers.

The very best Matthew Offord Soup waiter jokes

Earlier in the week, MP for Hendon Matthew Offord explained on Twitter how the Prime Minister mistook him for  a soup waiter in the House of Commons restaurant. We commissioned a team of the Barnet Eye's finest joke writers to come up with a few other possible conversations :-

To William Hague.
Q: Can we give Peace a chance?
A: No, I had the peas yesterday, I'll have minestrone

To Theresa May
Q: I can give you super sex.
A: I'll have the soup please, I don't sleep with the servants

To Vince Cable
Q: Are you still considering the nuclear option
A: No, the bread and soup option will do fine

To the member for South Norfolk
Q: Hello Bacon
A: No, I'll have the Tomato soup today

We'd suggest that if he really wants to make a career of this waiter business, he nicks his old mate Mike Freer MP's catchphrase "I know nothing". It propelled a certain waiter from Barcelona to international superstardom.

(Please note the above conversations are purely inventions of the Barnet Eye jokes department, and have been specifically written to help cheer up our local MP as he recovers from his eye operation).

Death by poison

When I started writing this blog, I made a decision to avoid national issues unless they were unavoidable. The issue of who Nick Clegg goes to bed with is unavoidable. I personally hope Nick Clegg does a full deal with the Conservative Party. PR, reform of the tax system, reform of education, Vince Cable as Chancellor and Nick Clegg as foreign secretary. Now this will all take two years. I would also like to see it be a part of the deal that Parliament will run for a fixed term of two years and David Cameron will under no circumstances call an election before or after two years.

This may surprise anyone who knows my political views, but there are good reasons for this.Most importantly, the economy is F*****D. From what I've seen only Vince Cable has the authority and intellect as chancellor to sort t out. I trust Vince Cable not to indulge in ill thought out slash and burn Tory economics. A Lib/Lab/everyone else deal will just have too many vested interests and the Nationalists will ensure a carve up which will bankrupt us all. London will foot the bill for scotland, wales and Northern Ireland to be spared the knife. However much I hate the Tories, that is not fair and will kill the UK. Why Clegg as foreign secretary. Quite simply because the Lib Dems have called the big issues better than the other parties, most notably Iraq. It will keep him out of the way and let Cameron actually be Prime Minister. Having said that I think two years is quite enough of such an arrangement. If they are all working to a fixed timetable, they won't be tempted to pick petty squabbles and call a crunch election the first time the polls look appealing.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't a prospect I like. The thought that I spent five months campaigning for this kills me, but the Lib Dems have lost their political virginity and they now have a very nasty STD. Ultimately though, if this deal is done, there is one massive benefit. In their desperation to grab power by any means, the Tories will have taken poison. Any change to the voting system will make it harder for them to have an outright majority. This will make the possibility of a hard right Thatcherite Conservative Government a virtual impossibility. A centre right Coalition is a price worth paying of that. As to the performance of this Government. If Vince Cable saves the economy, we all win and the Lib Dems will get credit from the electorate. If he fails, then Cameron is Prime Minister and will be rightly punished.

One thing no one has mentioned at all. What happened the last time we had a Conservative Prime Minister in Coalition with Liberal cabinet colleagues? They saved the country. What happened next - a Labour Landslide victory. To quote Karl Marx "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce".

Disturbing vision of the future

As regular readers of the blog will know, in September I quit the Labour party and joined the Lib Dems. I thought I'd better find out a bit more about the party, so I took myself up to Birmingham to the Party conference. I've never been to any party conference before, so it was a new experience. Now I'm not going to bore you silly with my musings on the experience, but I will tell you something rather important. On Saturday, I suddenly had a terrible vision of the future. Since then I've been filled with a real sense of dread. Why, you may ask? Well I was sitting in the conference hall listening to Lib Dem Shadow Chancellor, Vince Cable. As I listened to his analysis of what needed doing, I was suddenly struck by the horrors. I hadn't really given much thought to the economic situation in the country. Sure, I know there are problems, but this was the very first time I'd heard them spelled out in detail in terms I understood.

Now everyone knows that Cable is probably the only politician who's had a good credit crunch, but having listened to his speech, I understood why. Due to the timing of the election, the two main parties and their lackies in the press are selling us a big porkie. Unless you've sat and listened to a speech such as Vince Cables, you probably don't realise. You know how in cartoons, dogs run off the edge of a cliff and don't realise. Their legs keep going, then they stop, look around and drop like a stone. With regards to the economy, the British public are like the doggie with the legs still running, but with fresh air below us.

Whoever gets in, I suspect that shortly after the election, we'll get an emergency "austerity" budget. The big question is who will be setting it. The odds are on George Osborne. Sadly Mr Osborne has shown no evidence whatsoever that he actually has what it takes to do the job. Every time he's been asked to make a judgement call, he's got it wrong. As to Alisdair Darling? It is fair to say that he's not done a terrible job  with a very poor hand. The trouble is that he's weak and is likely to be replaced if he pushes for sensible measures, not to Gordon Browns liking. As Brown got us into the mess with his management of the economy, can we have any real confidence that the reforms necessary to fix the economy will be made? I doubt it. The only person who anyone really thinks knows what needs to be done, the only person who has called it right all the way down the line is Vince Cable.Whether you are a Tory, Labour or a Monster raving looney, if you've followed what's happened in the credit crunch, if you are honest, you will know that Vince Cable is the guy who's called it right. My disturbing vision of the future? Osborne or Darling announcing their austerity budget on May 7th (or shortly thereafter), whilst Vince Cable gives a withering analysis of why it's going to sink the economy.  I doubt anything I write in this blog will change this awful fact.

The End of Political Tribalism?

I had a fascinating conversation with a friend at the weekend. He's what I'd describe as a Blue/Green. He's a Natural Tory and an Environmentalist. Over a cup of tea, he explained to me how excited he was to finally get the opportunity to get rid of "Gordon Brown's awful Government". He was most pleased that Cameron certainly seems to be committed to Green issues in a way that no other Tory leader has been. As he's always voted Tory, this didn't surprise me. I then asked, mischeiviously I thought, what about the Council elections? He replied "Well I read your blog. I couldn't possibly vote for Freer or Coleman." He explained that the regeneration schemes will destroy the face of Barnet and they must be stopped at all costs. So I asked "Who will you vote for?" He lives in Barnet and replied "The Lib Dems of course. On a local level they are the only party with any credibility at all". I wasn't that surprised about this. Many local Tories have told me they'll be abandoning Freer's mob, many as a direct result of the Sheltered Warden changes. This is a poisonous policy and I think that the chickens are coming home to roost. The conversation progressed "What about Boris?". He rolled his eyes and said "If he stands, it has to be Ken Livingstone". Now this was a shock (believe me, there are many reasons that this was a shock). I enquired "Boris is useless, completely clueless, he's an embarrassment to London and Great Britain, we can't possibly afford to have him in for the Olympics. Livingstone is the only one who could beat him, at least he has some credibility. Anyone else will be a wasted vote". I had to ask "Euro elections?". He replied "UKIP of course, the rest of them go native when they step off the Eurostar".

I suspect that many people could follow this pattern of voting. I'd certainly not vote for Cameron or UKIP, but I must confess that his comments have given me food for thought. One thing he said certainly struck me as being true "Tribalism should be confined to the Football terraces. We seem to think that changing party is like shifting from being a Gooner to being a Spurs fan, it's not, it's called making a sensible grown up decision". He then said "You yourself said that Cameron should make Vince Cable Chancellor and Frank Field in charge of benefit reform" (I didn't actually say that). He went on to say "If you ask me, that would be the strongest team he could have, but tribalism completely precludes that. How can that possibly be in anyone's interest?".

I asked him who should be the leader of Barnet Council. He jokingly replied "I'd like to see you in charge with Don't Call me Dave as your deputy and the bloke who does Colemansgottogo.blogspot.com as Mayor, at least then Council Tax would go down and that awful newsletter would be vaguely readable". Sadly, the bloggers of Barnet are not a political party, so that's one choice that you won't have on the ballot form. I do suspect that at the next Council Elections, many people will be following our advice and voting for the candidates most likely to reverse such inhuman policies as cutting Sheltered Housing Wardens.