New liars

I like to think that over the last 9 years I have become fairly immune to New Labour's continual spin and their constant lying. But every now and again one of the mindless automatons currently posing as a government minister makes a statement of such unbelievable inanity that my morning coffee ends up being sprayed out of my nose. This morning it was Patricia Hewitt.

NHS 'enjoying best year' - Hewitt

Despite huge job losses and mounting financial problems, the NHS is enjoying "its best year ever" according to Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt.

The service faces a financial deficit of up to £800m and some 7,000 job losses have already been confirmed.

Mrs Hewitt said: "We have just come through one of the coldest winters for decades and we haven't had any of the winter bed crises."

The Conservatives say the service's problems are down to mismanagement.

Mrs Hewitt said the NHS had "saved more lives than ever before" this year. (This actually sounds like a spin of "We have killed fewer people this year than last" which is progress I suppose.)

This bold statement doesn't seem to tally with the headlines I recall from the last couple of weeks so I put "NHS" into the BBC News search engine and found...

Nurse cuts 'hit 50% of hospitals'

NHS cash 'wasted by PFI delays'

Overseas NHS doctors 'betrayed'

NHS 'wasting over £500m on drugs' (That's almost as much as Keith Richards)

Pledge to end NHS elderly abuse (Abuse of the elderly has been acceptable up to now?)

Blair rejects NHS 'chaos' claims

MPs consider probe into NHS cuts (Anal probe for Bliar?)

Papers condemn Blair's NHS record

Patients 'fight to find dentists'

Children's hospitals in cash plea

Auditor's warning on NHS finances

NHS to pay £100,000 after death

Call for review of NHS IT upgrade

NHS job cuts 'set to quadruple'

'No money' for 1,200 NHS patients

Hospital trust to shed 200 jobs

Debt-hit NHS trust axes 720 jobs

Charges for NHS fraud allegations

Hospital trust latest to axe jobs

Two years left 'to save free NHS'

Hundreds of health jobs to be cut

Hospital trust to lose 160 jobs

New trust caters for 1.4m people

Hospital faces £8m cash shortfall

Hospital 'failed cancer patients'

Where do the government get their balls from? Do they really think that if they repeat the same crap over and over again without hesitation or deviation (four legs good, two legs better) people will believe them? Are they trying to convince themselves? I know that there are no headlines in good news and that every minute of every day people are having their lives saved by the wonderful people who work in the NHS, but there are clearly problems. Glib statements like "best year ever" do nothing to reassure me that anyone in the government really has a clue as to what is going on or more importantly, how to fix it.

Why am I surprised though? New Labour also tell us that there is no civil war in Iraq, that nuclear power is a great idea and that the moon is made out of green cheese. OK, I made the last one up but you get my point right? The government and reality are not friends. They don’t even have a passing acquaintance.

This really matters. I don’t suffer from nationalism at all, I was born here, I live here for now, but I have never understood what it means to be ‘British’. However, if there is one thing I am proud of, one thing which we should all be proud of it is the NHS. Healthcare for everyone, regardless of race, colour, creed or income, free at the point of delivery. Citizens of richer countries than ours can only dream of such a thing. The party which created the NHS now seems determined to kill it through PFI, targets and needless meddling. It breaks my heart.