A message to Labour: fight for the NHS. Fight Brexit

The prospective damage to the health service from leaving the EU is severe. How can the party of Attlee contemplate it?

Many years ago, I was outside the studio of the BBC's Today programme waiting my turn to be interviewed about the latest sterling crisis. Alongside me were two gentlemen of a certain age who were keeping themselves to themselves and looked as though they would not hurt a fly. When my turn came, I said to the studio assistant: "As a matter of interest, who were those two gentlemen outside?" "Oh, them? They are the Militant Tendency."

For younger readers, the Militant Tendency were an extreme leftwing group who came very close to capturing the Labour party. Not all of them were as harmless-looking as those two, and it is to the eternal credit of Neil Kinnock and Roy Hattersley that they fought them off.

Continue reading...