There is apparently a consensus around Westminster circles that Nigel Farage is ‘the Country Club bore’, a slightly red-faced jovial, charismatic man who doesn’t particularly mind speaking shit.
While such people appear pleasant, often their messages are not entirely trivial. The same criticism has been made of ‘Bungling Bojo’ i.e. Boris Johnson, that behind the buffoonery there is quite an incisive mind who politically astute. The Left, which has been accused previously of lacking a sense of humour by notorious funnyman Jeremy Clarkson, appears not to have its own ‘nice buffoon’. Maybe it’s because buffoons are supposed to have posh accents and smile a lot – though Tony Blair did have a posh accent, and smile a lot.
UKIP policies simply don’t add up. I have previously thought that UKIP could equally appeal to the left, in that Labour also has a proud history of wishing to leave Europe. The recent accusation that ‘UKIP means “racists for posh people” has been violently criticised by UKIP who cite that the last thing that they are are racist (either even having members from ethnic minorities themselves, or having members who are married to people from abroad.) They don’t have a single MP, and yet they are given a huge amount of air time. People often joke on Twitter that tonight it is ‘Nigel Farage Nigel Farage Nigel Farage Nigel Farage Nigel Farage #BBCQT”.
Emulating the secret of Nigel Farage is, though, difficult if you’re a “single issue party”. Nigel Farage is very different to Caroline Lucas, or Natalie Bennett. One suspects you would never get Nigel Farage voting against the section 75 NHS regulations, even though one also suspects that Farage wouldn’t know what these regulations are even if his life depended on them. However, Nigel Farage has been an effective ‘Trojan horse’ for getting his immigration issues a lot of air time. The National Health Action Party would probably love to have the media dominance which has been secured by UKIP, but the last thing the National Health Action Party needs at this time their own equivalent of a ‘Country Club Bore’.
However, the National Health Action Party, I feel, should think carefully about what sort of impression they wish to create. There is a huge amount of goodwill and affection to the NHS from traditional voters of all parties, and Dr Clive Peedell and Dr Richard Taylor could not do much worse than to present themselves as a modern day Alec Douglas-Home. The patrician view of the NHS consultant, who spends most of his time on the golf course (which is of course completely untrue), would go down like a lead balloon with the electorate.
Also, it has a very serious dialogue to have with the electorate, on the future of the NHS, who “owns it”, who it “works for”, and who is deciding policy for it. The enactment of the Health and Social Care Act (2012) was one of the most disastrous steps to increase the democratic deficit ever to take place in England, when it became clear that this current Government is much more interested in having behind-closed-doors conversations with private healthcare providers than members of the medical Royal Colleges or the BMA, for example. Sure, the the National Health Action Party needs to represent faithfully the views of all healthcare professionals including nurses, as well as Doctors, but it also needs to represent ordinary members of the general public. Dressing up in theatre scrubs or donning a medical stethoscope, akin to a low-budget RAG project, may not be the best way to project a serious image, but the election in Eastleigh was a real eye-opener in how the media could completely ignore NHS issues.
Whilst it is tempting to spend a lot of time and energy in wondering why the BBC have steadfastly refused to cover the NHS reforms, to be frank the discussion of the NHS’ journey of late has been scant and pathetic for a very long time. Members of the public are generally aware of the private finance initiative, but seem generally unaware of the major advances in this initiative during Major’s short stay in government. Likewise, people are generally unaware of the impact of NHS Foundation Trusts, what ‘efficiency savings’ are, or what the failure regimes of NHS hospitals means. The social media can do so much, and it is incredibly disheartening to hear Liberal Democrats whining in the House of Lords about how much ‘misinformation’ has emerged from the social media.
The basic issue is that the social media is the only mechanism many people have for discussing the NHS at all, and neutering this device is in nobody’s interest apart from powerful corporates. While the National Health Action Party may not have its equivalent of the “Country Club bore”, I am sure that they are putting maximum effort into thinking which seats they wish to target, what their core message is, what they feel the basic understanding of voters on issues to do with the NHS might be, how they’re going to get their message across, and what they feel their ideal outcome is. I think they should drag themselves away from the philosophy of the ‘focus group’ made popular by New Labour, but lead on what they think is right. This could include populist issues, of massive public policy concern, such as patient safety, which no traditional party has had a moral licence to pursue.
