This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/17/jeremy-hunt-ids-churchill-failure
The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 1 | Version 2 |
|---|---|
| Jeremy Hunt and IDS should take heed of Churchill: failure is not fatal | Jeremy Hunt and IDS should take heed of Churchill: failure is not fatal |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| I really wish this government would stop mincing about. It's obvious every toddler should be ordered to learn a bit of Beck, especially the chorus: "Soy un perdedor. I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?" Any child unable to learn this by rote is not going to do well. They have been deprived culturally and doubtless fed horsemeat nuggets, and surely it is better to face these issues earlier rather than later. Waiting simply means longer lives of skivery until they suffer "an unnecessary death" at the hands of the NHS. | I really wish this government would stop mincing about. It's obvious every toddler should be ordered to learn a bit of Beck, especially the chorus: "Soy un perdedor. I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?" Any child unable to learn this by rote is not going to do well. They have been deprived culturally and doubtless fed horsemeat nuggets, and surely it is better to face these issues earlier rather than later. Waiting simply means longer lives of skivery until they suffer "an unnecessary death" at the hands of the NHS. |
| The NHS is certainly not the answer to our ills. Are you mad? Just as plain cigarette packaging and more expensive booze is not. You can't regulate the market! So as long as profit is king, then the population will enjoy junk food and all kinds of new drugs, while an elite keeps trim, sober and utterly disconnected from reality. | The NHS is certainly not the answer to our ills. Are you mad? Just as plain cigarette packaging and more expensive booze is not. You can't regulate the market! So as long as profit is king, then the population will enjoy junk food and all kinds of new drugs, while an elite keeps trim, sober and utterly disconnected from reality. |
| This is the only way I can explain the latest ratcheting up of rhetoric by Tories who want to win the public's hearts and minds on the NHS. First they emphasise how bad it is so they can take credit for its repair. Everything is Labour's fault, says an agitated Jeremy Hunt, minister for defending the indefensible. | This is the only way I can explain the latest ratcheting up of rhetoric by Tories who want to win the public's hearts and minds on the NHS. First they emphasise how bad it is so they can take credit for its repair. Everything is Labour's fault, says an agitated Jeremy Hunt, minister for defending the indefensible. |
| Much of the Labour response is to romanticise the service rather than admit to its failings. Oh yes, they fixed my hurty knee and were nice to my granny. This is not good enough and I speak as someone whose life and those of two of her children were saved by the NHS. There is wonderful stuff. Lately, I have seen cancer care that is phenomenal but I have also begged for a bowl of cornflakes for an elderly patient who could not eat, seen the dumping of trays of food in front of people with dementia and scrubbed out a bath so a woman in labour could use it. | |
| We do not protect the NHS by refusing to see its failures. Likewise with the education system. | We do not protect the NHS by refusing to see its failures. Likewise with the education system. |
| Not all children are equal at five and some schools need more help, but Clegg's idea for testing already over-tested children is daft beyond belief. I am all for early intervention and developmental checks on infants. What is not fine is to classify failure at five and again at 11 and pretend this helps disadvantaged kids. | Not all children are equal at five and some schools need more help, but Clegg's idea for testing already over-tested children is daft beyond belief. I am all for early intervention and developmental checks on infants. What is not fine is to classify failure at five and again at 11 and pretend this helps disadvantaged kids. |
| Actually this is all about failure, and the political refusal to admit it. The life-sucking "motivational" management jargon of business and politics has infiltrated everyday life. The Apprentice is full of charisma-free zones mouthing rubbish such as: "Failure is not an option". | Actually this is all about failure, and the political refusal to admit it. The life-sucking "motivational" management jargon of business and politics has infiltrated everyday life. The Apprentice is full of charisma-free zones mouthing rubbish such as: "Failure is not an option". |
| Failure is always an option. Refusal to admit and learn from it is the weakness, and such weakness is projected on those who cannot fight back. | Failure is always an option. Refusal to admit and learn from it is the weakness, and such weakness is projected on those who cannot fight back. |
| Churchill used to say failure was not fatal: what takes courage is to continue. Right now, though, our politicians blame others for their weakness. The likes of Iain Duncan Smith need no evidence. Those who cannot find work where work does not exist, those who become pregnant too young, those demented bed-blockers, those slack nurses, those lazy teachers, those unruly five-year-olds – all must be called to account. | Churchill used to say failure was not fatal: what takes courage is to continue. Right now, though, our politicians blame others for their weakness. The likes of Iain Duncan Smith need no evidence. Those who cannot find work where work does not exist, those who become pregnant too young, those demented bed-blockers, those slack nurses, those lazy teachers, those unruly five-year-olds – all must be called to account. |
| Hospitals must be taken into special measures, even though the author of the review of high death rates, Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, categorically said it is "clinically meaningless and academically reckless to use such statistical measures to quantify actual numbers of avoidable deaths", this is what Hunt did, a man rivalled only in charm by Andrew Lansley. | Hospitals must be taken into special measures, even though the author of the review of high death rates, Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, categorically said it is "clinically meaningless and academically reckless to use such statistical measures to quantify actual numbers of avoidable deaths", this is what Hunt did, a man rivalled only in charm by Andrew Lansley. |
| Switch sides to Clegg again, wanting more "measurements" earlier in the name of helping underachieving kids. Failure, you see, cannot be blamed on poverty or incessant meddling. Clegg chirrups with incredible naivety, given Sats, league tables and Ofsted inspections and the already quantified 20% of children with special needs, that this is not "a sort of name-and-shame table". No, it just seeks to compare how kids are doing. | Switch sides to Clegg again, wanting more "measurements" earlier in the name of helping underachieving kids. Failure, you see, cannot be blamed on poverty or incessant meddling. Clegg chirrups with incredible naivety, given Sats, league tables and Ofsted inspections and the already quantified 20% of children with special needs, that this is not "a sort of name-and-shame table". No, it just seeks to compare how kids are doing. |
| Again, the language of care is used to undermine a key institution. What is striking now is how violently they will trample on them via the doublethink that by "efficiency savings" they will make improvements. Things will get better by having money withdrawn from them. And the reshaping of this system means that first it has to be condemned as a failure absolutely. | Again, the language of care is used to undermine a key institution. What is striking now is how violently they will trample on them via the doublethink that by "efficiency savings" they will make improvements. Things will get better by having money withdrawn from them. And the reshaping of this system means that first it has to be condemned as a failure absolutely. |
| So a pick-and-mix of on-the-hoof educational ideas are thrown in, often from far more equal countries than ours. The NHS, which of course has melded private and public provision for many years, must be seen as not fit for purpose so that more contracts can be tendered. Don't mention PFI, infections caused by private cleaning firms or the IT screwups. | So a pick-and-mix of on-the-hoof educational ideas are thrown in, often from far more equal countries than ours. The NHS, which of course has melded private and public provision for many years, must be seen as not fit for purpose so that more contracts can be tendered. Don't mention PFI, infections caused by private cleaning firms or the IT screwups. |
| Denial and projection is the very stuff of politics but the vandalising of the social, the civic, the public, is now in full flow. Hence the baring of Hunt's sharp little incisors. To remove public affection we move from a language of haves and have-nots and into the one of opportunity and choice. And failure. Did someone die of cancer as they did not battle enough? Can that child not read properly? Is that person sleeping rough a skiver? These are life's losers. | Denial and projection is the very stuff of politics but the vandalising of the social, the civic, the public, is now in full flow. Hence the baring of Hunt's sharp little incisors. To remove public affection we move from a language of haves and have-nots and into the one of opportunity and choice. And failure. Did someone die of cancer as they did not battle enough? Can that child not read properly? Is that person sleeping rough a skiver? These are life's losers. |
| But pity? No. That was capped in the name of efficiency. | But pity? No. That was capped in the name of efficiency. |