Guido Fawkes today drew attention to two responses by Conservative MPs to the legal opinion published by 38 Degrees about the Health and Social Care Bill – one by Stephen Phillips, and another by Guy Opperman.
But the Department of Health has also published its own response – no doubt written by the lawyers working on the Bill. It covers only the changes the Bill makes to the Secretary of State’s functions – in particular the repeal of his duty to provide a comprehensive health service – not the EU law points I wrote about last week. I may get a chance to comment on it later – but in the meantime, here it is.
Hello Carl
This one is an interesting melange of politics and law, and also in heavy-handed lobbying / internal Westminster politics / PR / political perception vs reality.
GF is attacking 38 degrees’ credibility, but would attack them generally for being leftish.
I’m sympathetic on this one to people going for 38 degrees, as their modus operandi is anti-democratic – email bombing of elected representatives, and they have plenty of form for it; even Points of Order in Parliament.
But 38 degrees have succeeded in the past – they helped kill in the Forestry Proposals with a series of scare stories (some of which have been partly true) before the proposals had even come before Parliament to be worked through.
The most depressing thing is probably that push-button politics infantilises voters.
PS Which plugin do you use for your comments and Twitter ID?