Use this rag as bog roll

The same old rag that brought us Polly Toynbee, has now rolled another clone off their production line and she is called Jo Revill. I found it hard to spot the difference between Toynbee's praise of Blair's NHS legacy in the BMJ and Revill's similar piece in the Observer.

The same luvvie style of prose flows and the same dishonest techniques are used; one is the technique of catching the reader with one 'hook' truth initially, then slipping in numerous unsubstantiated untruths posing as fact in an effort to 'reel' the gullible reader in.

Both of these luvvies used the initial 'hook' of saying the NHS was better than it was, this is undeniably true. However both then built on this by saying that the NHS was 'more efficient' than ever before, and that any improvements were as a direct result of the government's reforms agenda. The ever decreasing productivity of the NHS under Labour seems to contradict Revill's claims about efficiency. The truth is then spun as their agenda dictates.

How amazingly similar is Revill's line of 'This skewing of perceptions means that the current political debate over the NHS is completely unreal.' to Toynbee's argument that all unrest is simply down to the scaremongering in the right wing press. Surely there is another rather more obvious explanation here, and I think it is rather more likely that the perceptions of Toynbee and Revill are completely detached from reality; or are these luvvies right? But this would then make a majority of the public and the NHS staff deluded fools, no?

The argument of the public's twisted perception is continued, one wonders whether Revill was tempted to draw a great comparison to the Iraq war a la Toynbee? Maybe the failings in Iraq are all down to cynical scaremongering too? Iraq is really on the mend isn't it Polly, after all you insinuated that Blair's great legacy would include a 'bedded down' Iraq. One wonders what you had in mind, does 'bedded down' relate to the whole country resembling a pile of gunpowder and rubble?

All the improving statistics are trotted out, while the negative ones are buried. I didn't see Revill mention the rising maternal mortality rate in the Uk to almost the highest in the developed world? The use of the holy grail of scientific evidence that is patient satisfaction surveys is really scraping the barrel. One wonders why the scientific literature which points out how dangerous this government's target based strategy can be is never mentioned. The waste of billions of pounds on ideological reform is ignored, have Toynbee and Revill heard of PFI schemes and the NHS IT scheme? It is amusing that the topic of medical training is also markedly absent from our favourite ladies' musings, there are rather too many gaping holes in their analyses to name them all.

The decision of whose story has more truth to it is up to you. Do you believe our luvvies Toynbee and Revill who would have you believe that government reform is wonderful, the public and NHS staff are deluded idiots and it is only leftie journalists who write in ivory towers who have a grip on objective reality? Or is the truth nearer mine, I would have you believe that the NHS has indeed improved but this has been largely despite the government's wasteful reform agenda, if the government had spent the money more wisely then we would have a significantly better service. The choice is yours, I shall leave you with one of Revill's clever 'reeling' untruths that she used as her conclusion. It is strange how she has jumped from the NHS being a bit better to it being in 'rude health' over the course of her article:

'The truth is that despite all its faults, the NHS is in rude health. No intelligent debate on its future can take place without the transformation being acknowledged.'

I'm just very sorry that my debate is not intellgient enough for Ms Revill.