Editor's blog Monday 9 May 2011: Cul-de-sac Opposition Day debate

A disappointing Opposition Day Motion NHS debate, despite a few good contributions.


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Click here for details of 'You say substantive and I say substantial', Issue 7 of subscription-based Health Policy Intelligence.

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The pluses for the Conservative Party were a speech in combative, back-to-the-wall style from Secretary Of State For The Time Being Andrew Lansley; more elegant lèse_majesté from Stephen Dorrell; and Sarah Woolaston's splendid Whip-worrying non-partisanship (sadly scuppering any chance of future open primaries with killer lines "I fear Monitor will become an impassable barrier to co-operation between professions" and "where the NHS performs among the very best, competition has not delivered the results, but rather a relentless focus on patients").

The pluses for Labour were a much better performance on interventions by John Healey; a sobering speech from Dan Jarvis; and a controlled and witty closing speech from Emily Thornberry.

The pluses for the Lib Dems were not very easy to spot. John Pugh did pretty good work.

There was a 3% swing of the votes (today was 231-284), which saw seven more with the Opposition and 21 less with the Coalition.

Labour's tactics have not changed: blame Lib Dems and associate the reforms personally with PM Cameron and his "broken promises".

Most Confused Speech Award went to Frank Dobson.

Beatles Reference Of The Day Award to Valerie Vaz for reciting, "You say yes, I say no, you say why, I say I don't know" from 'Hello, Goodbye'.

Crap Line Of The Day went to Andrew Lansley: "what happens in the NHS every day isn't about what's in the Health And Social Care Bill". Oh yes it will be, sunshine. Second worst line also in Our Saviour And Liberator's reply to Ben Bradshaw's question about what happens where no consortia and no PCTs - L's line to effect of 'don't ask politicians to decide' (not verbatim).

And Graeme Morriss had a good rumour (even if it may be one he's made up) about DH considering stopping funding the public opinion surveys on NHS satisfaction from next year. It wouldn't be a huge surprise if true, though: as we exclusively revealed back in March, they have form when it comes to stopping funding crucial surveys.

The Hansard transcript is online now.