I THINK every day we should give thanks to generations back to the early 20th century who pioneered and gave us the world’s first national health system.

The social reform work of the liberal movement, Lloyd George government 1910s and 20s, the historic Beveridge social insurance report 1942, and finally Atlee Labour government Health Minister Aneurin Bevan launching the NHS in 1948.

We have a National Health Service thanks to the work of liberal and labour movements. And where are we now?

Twelve years of Toryism underfunding, undermining and down-right destroying our NHS.

Shocking waiting times running into months and years. Get an appointment with a doctor in a few days you are doing well. And of course we have lost near all NHS dentists.

We, our country, built it up. The Tories sell it off.

The model for the Tories the US private insurance system in a country where vast numbers cannot afford to buy health care.

Get your mega-page health insurance forms wrong, lose your job, run into debt, have serious illness not in ‘terms and conditions’, you are on your own.

Classic case here in the UK this autumn – over two years brilliant management by Dorset NHS to deliver Covid vaccinations. Could not be more highly praised.

And where are we now? From this autumn all outsourced to private pharmacies, now massively overloaded.

Greatest credit to the 20th century liberal and labour movements – the days when the currency was caring. We take care of one another.

All now destroyed by new age Tory monetarism.

Viva the super wealthy. Lets hear it for mega corporate profiteering.

Tory ‘crumbs trickling down’ economics says it all doesn’t it?

JEFF WILLIAMS

Jubilee Road, Poole