Rob Delaney hails NHS as ‘pinnacle of human achievement’ as he backs Labour


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Catastrophe star Rob Delaney has hailed the NHS as “the pinnacle of human achievement” in a video supporting Labour ahead of the general eelection.

In a clip shared by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Twitter, the American actor and writer says he is “crazy” about the NHS.

He also commented on Boris Johnson’s “disastrous Brexit deal”, suggesting the “NHS as we know it will be gone” if the Conservatives win the December 12 election.

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Delaney says:

I think one way that I could be useful to British voters is they could imagine me as a ghost of Christmas future, as someone who has experienced a private healthcare system in the United States, but who has also experienced the wonderful NHS here, which even in its underfunded state is still so vastly superior.

You don’t want what I grew up with.

Seventeen years ago I was in a car accident, and I got badly hurt and I had to have some surgeries. Under the American private healthcare system my insurance company, when I started to generate big bills because I had been in a car accident, they just dropped me, and I became responsible for tens of thousands of dollars in bills.

And that was terrifying at the age of 25.

He tells of the “extraordinary care” his son Henry received when he was diagnosed with a brain tumour before he died in January last year.

Delaney goes on to warn the NHS “is going to be on the table” if “we leave the EU under the terms of Boris Johnson’s disastrous Brexit deal”, adding:

Donald Trump is going to give it to Donald Trump Jr and Eric and Ivanka and they’re going to divvy it up and sell it to private pharmaceutical companies, and the NHS as we know it will be gone.

The TV star, who has previously endorsed Labour, continues:

That’s a massive reason I support Labour and I support Labour enthusiastically and proudly.

I don’t view it as a choice between Tories and Labour, I mean the real choice in this election, the two sides, are the billionaires, the millionaires who work for billionaires and the newspaper owners, like what, four of them?

That’s one side, and the other side is the rest of us, the people who use the NHS and depend on it, the disabled kid whose parents aren’t wealthy and depends on social care, that’s who this election is about.

Johnson was grilled on the NHS during the BBC’s Question Time on Friday, where he defended the investment in the service and said getting Brexit done is key to this. He also failed to address why the party has not met its pledges on recruiting GPs.

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    1. Rob Delaney expresses noble sentiments which are welcome. Being an actor does not per se imply inability to express cogent views on a broad range of topics.

      However, a matter of general concern is how opinions from so-called ‘celebrities’, as particularly evinced in the USA, are used to manipulate discourse on various topics. Tribalism is arising with regard to factions ‘following’ famous names. An unhealthily, for democracy, large proportion of the population delegates mentation to vacuous individuals they happen to admire for their entertainment value. The marketing industry is well aware of this regarding ‘celebrity’ endorsement for goods and services.

      By its nature, representative democracy based on universal franchise can boil down to ‘debate’ centred upon crude simplifications, and sometimes lies, promulgated by charismatic figures. Capacity for independent thought and analysis is sparsely distributed among the population at large.

      Educational reforms initiated by Labour after the 1945 general election offered promise of enabling all children to fulfil their individual educational potentials. Unfortunately, it was (Old) Labour that dismantled a key element: grammar schools selecting on basis of ability. These were producing a cadre of individuals able to compete with the private school educated self-styled elite.

      The erstwhile Soviet Union, a variant on socialism, recognised need to foster exceptional talent through various kinds of special educational provision relating to intellectual and artistic skills.

      (Old) Labour chose a path based on lowest common denominator. Thereby not only were the 20%, or so, of high ability denied stimulation but also the remainder were excluded from consideration for developing their aptitudes as far as possible. Mixed ability teaching and inclusion of ‘special needs’ relating to intellectual impairment in classes has denied children across the spectrum of ability the particular educational measures to which they were best suited.

      Perhaps our society is now reaping the consequences of enforced dumbing down in the name of spurious social equality: adults of differing abilities, motivations, accomplishments, and interests naturally assort themselves into social groupings regardless of being placed as children into the company of those they would rather not know. Socialism lapsed into demand for conformity rather than aspiration toward betterment (secular spirituality).

      Our present day political landscape is even more of a pseudo-democracy than that alluded to be Quintin Hogg when he publicly referred to ‘an elective dictatorship’ in 1976. Perhaps, now more than ever before, electoral success depends upon shepherds diligently assembling flocks of people behaving in ovine manner and distracted from exercising their residual sentience.

      Of course, this, as it always has, plays into the hands of the UK’s long standing version of ‘the deep state’. Politicians are chess pieces moved at behest of their masters. Now we are at a tipping point. On one side is promise, but no guarantee, of restoring ‘society’ rejected by Mrs Thatcher. On the other lies irreversible enthralment by neo-liberal doctrine with Ayn Rand’s paean to ‘selfishness’ the core text.

      —–

      Released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 international license (sic).

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