Cameron should scrap NHS bill and drop Lansley, says influential Tory blog.
Prime Minister David Cameron has been urged to replace Andrew Lansley and drop large chunks of the health bill by the Conservative party's most widely read and influential website.
Tim Montgomerie, the editor of ConservativeHome, said in a post published on Friday that Lansley, the health secretary, had failed to win public support for the legislation and that, if the Tories did not back down, every problem with the NHS over the next three years would be blamed on the bill.
The ConservativeHome intervention is particularly damaging to Cameron because Montgomerie says he was encouraged to speak out by three Conservative cabinet minsters who believe that pressing ahead with the bill would be folly.
ConservativeHome is not officially linked to the Conservative party. But it is read by thousands of activists, whose views it broadly represents, and, although it does criticise government policy, it is generally supportive and not given to gratuitous attacks on the party leadership.
Lansley faced fresh embarrassment on Friday when a report by the right-of-centre thinktank Reform said the government's entire reform of public services was being undermined by the Department of Health's management of NHS changes.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/10/cameron-scrap-nhs-bill-lansley?intcmp=239
OP: Its hard not to see Lansley as a dead man walking politically. And if the NHS can make dead men walk they're even better than I thought they were! This bill has been a fiasco from the beginning and will likely cost the Tories the next election if it goes through.
Tim Montgomerie, the editor of ConservativeHome, said in a post published on Friday that Lansley, the health secretary, had failed to win public support for the legislation and that, if the Tories did not back down, every problem with the NHS over the next three years would be blamed on the bill.
The ConservativeHome intervention is particularly damaging to Cameron because Montgomerie says he was encouraged to speak out by three Conservative cabinet minsters who believe that pressing ahead with the bill would be folly.
ConservativeHome is not officially linked to the Conservative party. But it is read by thousands of activists, whose views it broadly represents, and, although it does criticise government policy, it is generally supportive and not given to gratuitous attacks on the party leadership.
Lansley faced fresh embarrassment on Friday when a report by the right-of-centre thinktank Reform said the government's entire reform of public services was being undermined by the Department of Health's management of NHS changes.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/10/cameron-scrap-nhs-bill-lansley?intcmp=239
OP: Its hard not to see Lansley as a dead man walking politically. And if the NHS can make dead men walk they're even better than I thought they were! This bill has been a fiasco from the beginning and will likely cost the Tories the next election if it goes through.