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Frangipani essential oil is made using one of the rarest of plants.
It is derived from Plumeria alba shrub, which costs $1500 per ounce. The flower for the oil only comes from the Comoros Islands in France.
It’s a favourite of expensive perfume makers and blenders of exclusive massage oils, due to its…
‘… exotic notes while still being a sweet floral.’
Put it on yer Xmas list.
Yesterday, there was more than a whiff of Frangipani about Labour’s press release (1,500 words!) boasting about achieving their manifesto pledge…
‘… to deliver over two million more elective care appointments, hit early with over 100,000 more treatments, tests and scans for patients each week.’
Massaging the facts doesn’t quite do it. There’s more…
‘…Waiting list falls by almost 160,000 since government took office.’
...claiming responsibility for that is like saying, on the drive to work this morning, all the red lights were green because there is a Labour government.
Confusing coincidence with crafting, calculating and configuring policy is nothing more than curation of the actualité. A fine example of retrospective genius.
Let’s have a closer look at our great leader’s strategic opportunism.
Have there been more appointments and what-not, since he descended from the heavens in a cloud of golden light?
Yes. Yes… but...
... comparing July to December '23 with '24 is management by serendipity. The earlier period was beset by junior doctor strikes which wrecked rotas and backed up waiting lists.
It is true that Labour can take the credit for ending the strikes…
... if buying-off strikers can be deemed credit worthy. Putting up the wages bill means most of the extra money Labour has found for the NHS has been eaten up by addition costs in staffing.
It’s a two year deal and I predict now… the BMA will want more in the third year.
Given a clear run, unencumbered by industrial action, which the NHS is powerless to resolve as pay and conditions are a national matter, reserved for the DH+ to handle…
... the sharp-end of care can do really well.
The NHS was on the way to treating over 7% more patients than the previous winter, well before Labour arrived.
So much for a broken NHS.
Eighty nine diagnostic hubs were doubled to 180 under funding and an initiative bequeathed to his successors by Tory health secretary, Steve Barclay. I think I’m right in saying more hubs are yet to materialise under Labour?
So much for a broken NHS.
Demand is up but the NHS is holding the lists pretty much flat, despite an horrendous winter period that started in the Autumn and is continuing into Spring.
So much for a broken NHS.
There has been a strong recovery for three and a half years after covid despite industrial action, the confusion of seven health secretaries and inflation.
So much for a broken NHS.
Waiting lists have been cut by 160,000, as a result of more activity, evidenced by an overtime bill that was soaring long before Labour arrived.
So much for a broken NHS.
NHS' recovery has had nothing to do with Labour, but...
... it is true they’ve provided some more money.
Partly for a strike settlement that was little more than capitulation and a bonkers increase in national insurance costs.
The NHS has made good use of the remainder and could not have done so if it was… well… broken.
Politics is a dirty game and no place for the innocent. Management by strategic opportunism defines it.
The NHS will recover. All it needs is sensible funding, a period of calm and it will find its feet. The evidence is in the numbers.
The NHS does not need ambitious politicians with post-rationalisation policies claiming success with policies that were not theirs and money that is a myth, and anyway…
… it’s bad politics.
Bigging things up, telling porkies and massaging events is tempting but getting caught-out, like this, erodes trust.
If HMG are dabbling in ‘retrospective-sense-making’ in the NHS, what’s happening in defence, schools, prisons and all the other parts of government where we are less informed.
The world is facing a new order, difficult choices and new alignments. We have to be able to trust government.
Eroding trust is a foolish game.
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