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Echoes of NHS crisis threaten Cameron's re-branding mission
Paul Waugh, Deputy Political Editor18 Aug 2009
After the collateral damage inflicted by Dan Hannan's criticism of the NHS, the last thing David Cameron needs right now is another row that questions his commitment to public services.
Bromley Council's radical policy threatens to undermine all the hard work Cameron has put into re-branding his party.
Although many Tory MPs derided Tony Blair's repeated emphasis on "schoolnhospitals", Cameron became convinced that the party's only route back to power lay in convincing the voters he believed in, and used, the NHS and state schools. In 2005 he saw Labour ruthlessly exploit the controversial "patient's passport" and "pupil passport" policies which involved using state cash to help people go private and vowed never to be on the wrong side of that argument again.
Bromley will win praise from many Tories who instinctively believe in freedom of choice and selection as the best route to excellence and to social mobility.
Yet the council's proposal is itself another kind of Dan Hannan headache. Although the Tory MEP's views on the NHS are alien to Cameron, his call for a massive devolution of power to the local level has been adopted eagerly by the Tory leader.
Will Cameron allow a thousand flowers to bloom or will he now apply the weedkiller to Bromley's ideas?
