Image: Liz Kendall in 2015. Lauren Hurley/PA Images, all rights reserved.
Today, Tory MP Nick Boles, Lib Dem former health minister Norman Lamb and former Blairite health minister Liz Kendall joined forces to promote the idea of a dedicated ‘health and social care tax’, through National Insurance, to replace current NHS funding. Boles grandly proclaimed it “A new Beveridge moment”.
The main lesson to be drawn from their interview broadcast on this morning’s BBC Radio Four Today programme, is that it doesn’t take much to excite the media about anything that could be portrayed as - if not the birth pangs, perhaps at least the twinkle in an eye - of a ‘new centrist party’ run by ‘grown-ups’. A rehash of an old, bad idea that’s been doing the rounds in right-wing circles for years? That will do just fine.
