Image: The PM and Chancellor at the Royal Free Hospital in June, where May pledged £20bn extra to the NHS. Credit: Stefan Rousseau/PA Images, all rights reserved.
At the Conservative party conference in Birmingham last week Theresa May danced onto the stage and declared that austerity was over. This was just the latest sign of a growing agreement in British politics that public services are under strain and need an injection of cash.
An area of particular cross-party consensus is that the NHS should have more money. A vast majority of the public agree, and the government has promised an extra £20 billion a year by 2023. Both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have said that at least some of this will come from “fair and balanced” tax rises, to be announced at the Budget at the end of this month.
