Politics or: How I Learnt to Stop Caring and Just Bloody Well Get On With Things...

Despite the long title, this is going to be another collection of ramblings spun around a topical starting point- Scott Brown. This one is a fairly serious one too, because it's hard to be funny about Republicans winning things. Ok, I warned you. I imagine most of you will have gleaned my political stance from my choice of publications, but if by some miracle you haven't, it will doubtless become clear during this post.

Obama's in a bit of a pickle now, what with the election of Scott Brown, who had a cheeky pop at the Healthcare Reform Bill, robbing the Democrats of a filibuster-proof majority. Did the Kennedy's die in vain, so that a dangerous, truck driving Republican Cosmo centrefold could scupper the only sensible piece of American legislation in the last 10 years? Seriously, people might knock the NHS for waiting lists etc. but every Briton should be proud to live in a nation where such an amazing piece of reform is possible and moreover Americans should see that the Healthcare Reform Bill is much more than an excuse to tax some of the Republican elite, it's a way of making sure that every average blue-collar family lingering on the poverty line have access to free, comprehensive and universal healthcare. A hugely admirable, nay, noble crusade.

The seeds of welfare politics were sown by the Liberal Government in the early 1900s, spurred on by doubts over national efficiency to produce a remarkable manifesto of social reform policies, including most importantly of all the National Insurance Act. These weren't vote catching policies, it was true innovative social upheaval by one of the most revolutionary governments in British history and set a precendent for state intervention into healthcare, later capitalised upon by Atlee's post-war Labour Government. The Second World War created the context for change and the NHS was hot on its heels allowing this revolutionary act to be brought in and although concessions were made, it still put an end to private or panel and allowed access at the point of need within the system. A system that, to this day, ensures that everyone is entitled to treatment regardless of social or economic standing.

So why exactly are the Americans dead set against it? I wish I could tell you but now, thanks to Browns devastating election it would seem as though Obama, suffering some of the lowest approval ratings in American history, will have to rethink the bill. It's typical, isn't it- you try and do something to help your country and they turn round and knee you in the rattlers. If he is somehow forced to withdraw the bill, the problem is that when the next global 'pandemic' occurs it won't be the Republican fat cats that suffer, it'll be honest workers struggling to get by who fall victim to medical bills and treatment costs and that just isn't fair. But then life's a shithouse anyway (right kids?) so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

My remedy? Get Bruce Springsteen to record another Born in the USA-style album about the travails of an ordinary blue-collar man, with a finale about him dying because he can't afford to go to hospital.

Right, that's the serious politics out of the way, I'll be funny again tomorrow, I promise.