This is going to be a big subject over the next few years. The change in demographics,  as a lot of people retire and become elderly,  is going to have a big impact on social services and the NHS.

The NHS needs cuts, that is clear. It needs changes to the way it works as the demand for services for the elderly increases, let alone the financial problems of paying for the wide range of new drugs becoming available!

Gordon Brown is trying to pretend that the NHS will not have cuts in services.  He is trying to get a political advantage over the Conservatives, who have a more realistic approach to the bankrupt, debt-ridden economy of the United Kingdom.

It would seem, in my view, that Brown thinks that the people who normally vote Labour are too stupid to know what is happening to the economy. I have even heard someone blaming Thatcher for the bankrupt state of the UK economy!!!

So Gordon Brown seem to expects that saying ‘the Conservatives will cut the NHS, we will not make cuts in the NHS’ is actually going to be believed by enough people to get him back into power!

So why has Gordon Brown invited consultants to come up with proposals for how savings could be made in the NHS? Or does he not equate the word ‘savings’ with the word ‘cuts’ (after all they are spelt differently!)

These consultants, and others it appears, were given terms of reference so they knew what they were supposed to do. This means that their proposals to cut 10% from the NHS workforce over the next 10 years would have met their terms of reference and that is what the Brown wanted them to do!

If Brown is that surprised by their report then they have not done their job properly and should be fired without receiving payment!

Gordon Brown is saying that the Conservatives are the ‘party of cuts’ and implies that New Labour are not.  But the truth is  that New Labour policies have brought the UK to it’s financial knees and even Brown cannot keep the NHS safe from significant cuts that will affect us all!