The Tory strategy to undermine the NHS?

Jeremy Hunt’s attacks on the NHS this week has already been lambasted by Jamie Reed as a bunch of smears, but Professor Tim Bale tweeted earlier this week asking “Am I the only one reminded today of Liam Fox’s secretly-taped 2002 NHS plan?”.

So I went through the archives and dug out the Mirror’s report of that secretly taped Liam Fox speech. Here’s the relevant section of the paper’s coverage from 12th April 2002:

Spelling out the strategy to undermine the NHS, he told the doctors: “The first is to persuade the public the NHS is not working …presently the press does that for us.” 

Then the party had to convince people the service wouldn’t work and couldn’t work. 

Thirdly, themes had to be introduced into the debate of how to fund reform and improvements. 

The final stage would be details for the manifesto, “ultimately the most difficult phase”.

Sound familiar to anyone?