Health Policy InsightEditor's blog Monday 4 April 2011: "I knew I was right!" Andrew Lansley in the House
The good people from Hansard will have the text online soon, but for now, some thoughts from myself and also via acquaintances and friends on Twitter. (Come say hello to @HPIAndyCowper if you're on there)
1. There is zero desire on Mr Lansley's part to change course.
2. Mr Lansley is a Manichaean in his view of the world. He is absolutely right, and therefore his opponents are absolutely wrong. It's a black-and-white world.
3. Line Of The Day Award goes to Labour MP Graeme Morris: "Andrew Lansley is a broken arrow - he doesn't work and he can't be fired". Honourable mention in dispatches to Labour shadow health secretary John Healey - "it takes a special talent to unite opposition from both Norman Tebbit and MC NxtGen".
4. Our Saviour And Liberator talked about a "statutory right to be consulted". Seems a bit like a statutory right to wear trousers. But then, he also said, "I may disagree with people but I don't dismiss them". Umm, see 2 above.
5. OSAL is really determined not to publish the legal advice he has commissioned on the applicability of EU competition law that would result from the Bill.
6. The Conservative front bench get what's happening, and fear contagion. Sir George Young could not physically have sat much further away from OSAL without becoming a Lib Dem.
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