E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

The news that the Coalition is scrapping NHS Direct is shocking, and bad news for anyone who gets sick.  Last year, when ill, I called NHS Direct, and was able to speak to first a nurse, and then eventually, as I needed to, a doctor.  The service was courteous and informed.  Now we will be directed to people with 60 hours of medical training instead.  In the week that the Camerons enjoyed excellent NHS service in Cornwall, such a blow seems low and mean.  And many lives will be lost, as misdiagnosed persons are left untreated or misguided - misdirected from the care they deserve.

The new Coalition government in Britain is a Thatcherite project by another name, as can now be seen - with its main goal to make the State wither away - the total opposite of the Marxist aim of having Capitalism dissolve.  As such, it is a purely market-driven (and ideological) construct, no matter how liberal or fair it claims to be.  There is something thrilling and caustic, being in the hands of such clearly driven engineers.  But also dangerous.  Many people will be hurt by this, and some corporations not enough.  To attempt to replace government spending with export as a large chunk of the economy in three years is wildly ambitious.  Canada did it in the 90s.  And turned sharply right ever after.  33 years after The Sex Pistols (as poet  Tony Lewis-Jones has reminded me) we all have something to shout about again.

The new Con-Lib cabinet is off to a disappointing start - where are the women?  This is not a diverse group of ministers - four women, and only one "ethnic minority" member.  At the start of the "new politics" we have been promised, it might have been good to see a more balanced and nuanced and representative group.