I went to the Fabian Annual Conference on Saturday and had a very stimulating and enjoyable day. It turned out to be much more exciting than I had expected, two plenary session questions and a brush with TV stardom...
Opening keynote was Alan Millburn setting out the position for Labour for the coming election. Then a good session on the global role for Britain and Europe, plus a session on local government, which was informative, if very focused on the role of the local council, rather than the activities of it.
Highlight of the day had to be twofold, asking Alan Millburn why choice is a necessity for modern Britain. I asked him a question in the opening keynote, "Why do we need choice, does this mean the choice between a poor school and a good school, a poor hospital and a good hospital, can we not have a good level of basic provision for everyone?" I felt he dodged the question by saying that the rich have had choice for decades and it was time for the poor to have this choice, but I think they'd rather know that the local hospital or primary was up to scratch. I then got voxpopped by Channel 4, but it wasn't broadcast. Questions about choice were a theme of the conference, as noted in this Guardian article on schools.
Then I managed to get a question pulled out the of hat in the final plenary on what would happen to Europe if Britain or France voted no to the constitution. This got good replies from David Aaronovitch, Ed Balls and Sunder Katwala, plus the question was featured in this Observer article, paraphrasing the response from Ed Balls.
Lots more coverage linked to from the Fabian site.
fabian annual conference 2005
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I think the whole choice issue is a very complex one. Different labour MPs seem to use it to mean very different things. Some use it as an argument to simply copy the private sector, leading to competition between hospitals, rather like the disastrous 'internal market' experiment tried by the Tories in the 80s. If the aim of NHS reform is universally high standards and the dissemination of best practice, how is this helped by having hospitals competing openly with one another for resources.
But other MPs (for example Estelle Morris, who I heard in a later session on Saturday), seems to see that choice only has value (a) once improvements in the NHS have been implemented across the board and (b) only if they are about REAL choices which allow people to get services better tailored to their particular needs, rather than the false 'choice' between poor and half-decent services.