The publication of last week’s draft mandate for the National Commissioning Board by the Secretary of State demonstrates once again the awkwardness with which he sets about explaining anything about the overall politics of his reforms. So much is old news. But the statement also shows how consistently partisan he is in his approach to working with (and mainly without) the main opposition party.
That the Secretary of State is a policy wonk with no appreciation of how to make things work through politics is an established fact. This provides one of the universal explanations for the car crash of his NHS reforms. For those that didn’t know it has become clear that, if you want to reform something as important to the public as the NHS, you need to be very good at working politically with the public.
