I'm willing to accept that or at least not disagree with you. Maybe it's just the chronic lack of funding in the health service making it feel like privatisation has been accelerating under the Conservatives but maybe not. Maybe privatisation has simply been continuing at the same pace as it was under New Labour but the decline in funding is making it more noticeable.

My general view of things right now (and this isn't a neutral point of view at all, no doubt about it) is that there are two parties right now who have very different approaches to the NHS.

On the one hand you have the Tories saying things like 'there is no magic money tree' and who in practice have dramatically reduced funding for the NHS and continued its privatisation.

On the other hand you have a very labour party whose leadership at least are explicitly opposed to privatisation of the NHS and whose campaign was fought on the basis of higher taxation for the rich in order to pay for higher levels of funding for the NHS and other public services.

My suspicion is that the Conservative Party's ideology doesn't really align very well with the concept of an NHS and that if privatisation wasn't so unpopular with the electorate they'd have sold the entire operation off ages ago.

I'm more than happy to admit that's an extremely partisan point of view though but that's how I see things.