Clegg gets muscular

Clegg has gone for it on the NHS Bill in his speech today (full text here).

I don't mean the blood-curdling passage about "dog-eat-dog competition". That sounds fierce but in fact he doesn't actually claim that the Bill would cause such a phenomenon.

The more significant bits are him slowing everything down. He criticises "arbitrary deadlines" and talks of phasing in the introduction of choice. "We're going to tread carefully," he says.

The most significant move of all is not actually in the speech but came out of the Q&A afterwards. He said the Bill would have to go back into the committee stage, which implies many weeks of delays, to get the detail right. 

My understanding is that Andrew Lansley signed off the speech beforehand but was not expecting this little hand grenade. 

Taken together, the Clegg words do not attack the principles of the Bill (he explicitly backs chouice where it will help patients) but are a flat rejection of the way Lansley has rushed everything out.  I suspect that David Cameron, who also approved the speech, would agree with a lot of it. Certainly, there are many around No 10 who think the NHS Bill is so fraught with political risk that they would be glad to see it long-grassed.

Over to you, Health Secretary

Joe Murphy