Liz Truss considered cutting cancer care on the NHS in a desperate bid to find savings to pay for the tax cuts in her botched “mini budget”, according to a new book about her time in office.
The book, Truss at 10: How Not to Be Prime Minister by the renowned political biographer Anthony Seldon, is a 330-page long, largely excoriating account of Truss’s 45 days in Downing Street.
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The book reports that, as Truss’s mini budget unravelled around her, her policy director Jamie Hope and economic adviser Shabbir Merali huddled in Downing Street and discussed how the cuts she was contemplating could not be delivered. The book says:
“At that point, they were joined by fellow special adviser Alex Boyd, who was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts.
“We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS,” they told him.
“Is she being serious?” Boyd asked. “She’s lost the plot,” they replied. “She’s shouting at everyone – at us and officials that we’ve ‘got to find the money!’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back, ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it.’”
Yeah I know that’s why I’m saying that we need some sort of protection. Which as I said would help the Tories as well because they’re their own worst enemies.
This is a fact that most of the back benches know to be true. There is a reason why they had the candidate selection process so drawn out, and it’s so that they wouldn’t end up with only reactionary idiots on the ballot.
It would be cool.
But i think the harm would outweigh any real advantage.
Just think about UK hostory over the last 400 years of our parliment.
We have created lots of laws with full public support. That at the time would have passed any test of democratic support you like to come up with.
That nowadays seem utterly unforgivable.
The need for our society to grow morrally is part of why we have the parliment we do.
The US intentionally created there 3 house system to slow down major changes in moral ideals. And even that seems to cause more pain then good.
One good example.
It delayed the emd of slavery. Even more then the UK or most of the western world.
And lets face it. Even with no limitations on our parliment. It takes time to end evils.
The risk can be summed as. Winning support for an emotional possition is easier then ending it when talking about large communities.