Submitted by Simon Hedges, Jul 7, 2007 14:46

The NHS is the nearest thing to a religion that the British now have. For half a century the British have convinced themselves that the NHS is the envy of the world.

Not so much. But we think it sure is better than a laissez faire system that allows people to be uninsured. People in the UK are quite at liberty to use private healthcare if they wish.

A cult of health security from cradle to crave! Sign me up!! (oh, they already did). In fact, my company provides me with private health care but I've never bothered to use it.

Wrong. Politicians can barely prevent themselves reforming the the NHS. What you actually mean is that no politician dares to abolish the NHS or to cut its funding. And one of the main criticisms of the NHS is that it's run by managers, not by doctors.

She didn't quail before Doctors and Nurses. She quailed (though I'm not sure I saw any actual quailing, but I get the point) before the people's democratic will. Oh we are SUCH a bad country.

Yes he did. Of course, the gold is less than doctors get in the USA in a private healthcare system. But these doctors and nurses seem to want to keep the NHS even though they are paid less than their US counterparts in average.

You're behind the times, old thing. The amount of training places for Doctors and Nurses has increased significantly. The big problems occurred in the late 90s and early 2000s when Labour massively increased the number of doctors and nurses, but as it takes 7 years to train a doctor, there was a major shortfall, and so supplies were sourced from elsewhere. This year, for the first time, there are more doctors coming out of training college than the NHS can employ.

And yes - some of them are Islamists. Is this because it's the NHS? Or because we allow people from overseas to get jobs as doctors and nurses here? Is you really saying that in a private healthcare system, these people would not come to the UK?

Yes he will. It kind of makes me proud to be British.

And can I say that if you spend time at a flying school in the USA, you are more likely to fly a plane into a skyscraper. This proves that US flying schools are a Bad Thing, and Must Be Stopped. And did you know that these people spent time living in HOUSING. What does that say about housing, eh?

This is true. Generally, there has been a view that people working in the medical profession are less likely to be terrorists because, hey, doctors and nurses and, hey, educated. We learn. We have learned.

It's not a denial - it's a change of language. Given that the term "islamist" apparently pisses off law abiding British Muslims mightily, and that the term "War on Terror" has always sounded rather silly (in the same class as "War on Want" and "War on Waste"), there's no point in carrying on using it. As for the "one or two Quakers", well, we've had more than one or two Protestants and more than one or two Catholics who've been terrorists in the not-too-distant past.

Good Lord! I'm shocked. This must be the first time someone's been put in the House of Lords because they failed to get elected to the Commons. Oh, wait, no, it's been going on for centuries and is a common and accepted practice.

Good Lord! How shocking to think that she should be in such an outcast group as about 40% of Brits.

I'll take your word for it. It's certainly not Conservative Party policy, but not an incredibly weird view to hold. There was an opinion that Hamas should be elected to force it to deal realistically with the Israeli govt. Well, that didn't work, but it wasn't the loopiest view. She also, by the way, is Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party, has worked for women's right and against forced marriage in Pakistan, and is pictured on her website wearing a red poppy in commemoration of the British and Commonwealth war dead.

Which ones? Several anti-terror laws have been voted down by Parliament. The Conservative Party has voted against some en masse.

Is she? Is she saying that weeding out terrorism is bad thing? Or is she saying that lecturing the Muslim community is a dengerous thing because it may be counter productive?

No. It's not. Al-Qaeda claims it's a holy war, but I tend not to buy into Al-Qaeda publicity.

Probably because most Brits tend to think of it as a joke term that is associated with George W Bush. Whatever one thinks of Mr Bush, you surely know he's not a popular or respected guy generally in the UK, and Gordon Brown doesn't want to appear to be too closely associated with him. Also, the term is somewhat amusing (it gets compared with "War on Waste" "War on Want").

This article seems to be about two things: the NHS and the Government Political Correctness. As regards the former, we need to be sure that we don't assume that because some is a doctor that they are a good person; as regards the latter - well, as far as I'm concerned, whatever works works. If that means tailoring language so as not to offend or annoy the Muslim people of the UK, then I'm certainly happy to go down that route.

But would a US NHS foster terrorism? Of course not. The idea is laughable.

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