We all know, do we not, that every politician who is not a Labour politician is taking bribes from Big Business. Labour politicians, on the other hand, toil selflessly out of pure love of humanity. Why did they make such a total balls-up last time then, and why are so many of them in prison?

Fergus, just because we don't like this government, doesn't mean we love Labour. Its a rubbish way of arguing to bring labour into every criticism of the current government.

@Fergus Pickering

We all know that all politicians of every hue are taking bribes. The bribes in this instance (or funding as it is officially known) are very likely to have a causal correlation on the outcome of a policy decision. Why? Becasue a private health care provider funded the Lib Dems. The Lib Dems helped to push through a bill that was less popular with the public than the Iraq war. It's not much of a leap to see a correlation. It's not much more of a leap to see it as a causal correlation. There is plenty you can argue about the failures of Labour- those made in their 13 years in power don't stack up against the practically daily blunders of the coalition in their less than two years in power-one thing stands out for Labour above anything else-they demonstrably improved the NHS.

Nothing to do with funding from Private Health Care organisations then? People can dodge around it all they like but the reason it has gone through is because private interests want it. In a true democracy the outcry against it would have seen it stopped in its tracks.

Let's get this straight, in the course of a week the coalition managed to pave the way for the destruction of the NHS and deliver one of the most ill conceived and received budgets in the history of the country? All of this despite warnings from experts in both the fields of economics and health care who told them that to follow the course they have plotted was folly. Anyone would be forgiven for thinking that they were self interested feudal paternalist who want to destroy democracy and return the masses to serfdom. Seriously, this government should come with a warning: This government could seriously damage your democracy.

The article describes all this in terms of it being a Tory-Lib Dem issue, a piece of narrow politics, and of who would replace whom. Yet the damage has been done to the NHS and that is what concerns people in the mass, not who's up, who's down.

The Lib Dems could have stopped this bill but didn't. The Tories and Downing Street advisers mentioned, could have stopped this bill but didn't. And there have been far too many comments along the way about these ones or those ones supposedly being disturbed or appalled at the developing shambles: not enough to distance themselves from it, though, and to have voted against. Getting the bill passed while wanting to encourage the belief that the passers of it weren't really involved. It passed because of cowardice and connivance. However, they'll rue the day they thought they could get away with it, and the campaign against it is just passing into its next stage.

What a load of fucking nonsense, if Clegg had any balls he would have told Cameron to drop the bill and if Cameron had tried to get more concessions out of them in return, he would take the lib dems out of the coalition all together.

Be clear about the real reason they've backed the bill, they're getting funding from private health firms, it's that simple. They've sold a lot of people down the river for party funding.

There is a movement afoot by many veteran patients of the NHS to cut out the middle-man, the GP.
Recently, some have noted a distinct reluctance by their GPs against sending to hospital for investigation/ treatment.
Some have recounted as evidence past experience when GPs referred them to hospital for various services without delaying tactics - such as 'See how you feel next week/month'.
Of course there are 'horror' stories but relying on a GPs' chairside manner when there are numerous medical aid machines and devices available at hospital besides teams of experts to run them seems daft.
Open more Polyclinics - yes! But the medical practice is a thoroughly antiquated system.
GPs are in most case nothing but a 'post office' or referral point. It's the potential delay in referring patients to hospital to receive timely and effective treatment that worries us.

Oh Our Aching Backs

Clegg is a little arse licking shite who has no standing at all.

What do you expect from such a fucking useless individual?

lib dems are as right wing as the tory shit they 're supposedly tempering