Ed Vaizey

I’ve come across three stories this week involving the NHS all of which, in my view, point to problems familiar and unfamiliar.

I went to visit a constituent who has terminal cancer.  He wanted to see me to tell me how he felt he had been let down.  He was utterly diginified, and given his position, as objective as he could be.  He admitted the NHS probably could not have saved him, but certainly the way the system worked ensured it.  He has bowel cancer.  It took him some time to be referred to a consultant.  When he was, he was put down for an endoscopy - with a two month wait.  As his condition worsened, his frequent visits to A&E in pain and bleeding were dismissed with pain killers - because he was on the wait list for an endoscopy.  When he suggested he go private, he was told it would put him to the back of the queue for treatment.

There is a real failure in the NHS, which is diagnostics.  It is the cinderella of health care - huge delays for scans, blood test results, x-rays and the like.  There needs to be some serious thinking to ensure that people can get diagnosed early.

My second snapshot - my friend Marcus snapped a tendon in his arm playing rugby.  He was operated on and promptly caught MRSA.  Four operations later, he has lost a lot of his bicep in his left arm.  When he was diagnosed and suggested he be put in an isolation room, he was told there was no point.

My third snapshot.  The man in the bed next to Marcus came from  the Phillipinnes.  He flew into Britain a fortnight ago.  he “collapsed” in an Oxford car park and was admitted to hospital for an operation.  He discharged himself on Sunday and flew home - without paying his bill.  The nurses told Marcus it happens all the time.  Shouldn’t we at least take their passports? 

I was lucky enough to be present last week at the selection evening for the new Conservative candidate for Hammersmith.  It was a superb evening, and I think shows how much the Conservative party has changed and how high morale is.

More than 300 people turned up.  I was there to support my friend Anthony Frieze, who I have known for twenty years.  But he was up against stiff competiton.  Helen Grant, an articulate lawyer running a busy Legal Aid practice in Croydon which she set up herself, went first.  She was probably the most hesitant of all the candidates.  Then came Kedra Goodall.  Recalling Kedra’s performance makes me smile still at my own superficiality.  I disliked her when I saw her (the rush to judgement!), but then rapidly had to change my mind when she started speaking.  She was witty and charming, though she should watch her tendecy to ham it up.  She is one of six children from a gypsy background, has adopted her sister’s daughter and is studying for the Bar.  Anthony spoke third, and certainly gave the best overall “political” perfomance, particularly in his hilarious denunciation of Red Ken’s loony transport policies.  All three will certainly be adopted somewhere soon.

The winner, of course, was Shaun Bailey, who I hadn’t seen in action before.  He stole the show.  Every time he spoke he drew loud applause or laughter.  I realised afterwards that virtually everything he said - no, make that everything - had been devoid of “politician speak”.  I think Shaun will not only refresh the Conservatives, but politics in general.   I don’t think there is any one like him in mainstream politics, and it has been a long time coming.  

As this was an Open Primary, the Labour party turned up.  They tried to spoil the evening with sour questioning.  But I think they will have left the hall much more depressed than when they came in.

I have written about the Budget HERE.  Gordon will look good for 24 hours.  And then everyone will have read the small print (again…).

Having crowed about the Government’s u-turn on film tax, it seems I spoke too soon.  It is complicated, but the problem goes something like this.  The Government abolished “sideways loss relief”, which allows partnerships to off-set losses in one part of a business against profits in another, thus saving tax.  The abolition applies to non-active partnerships, so excludes organisations like law firms.

The u-turn on film simply protected film tax relief, which knocks about 20% off the cost of a film.  It did not protect non-active partnerships which invest in film, which is how production companies get the other 80 per cent they need.  Now the film industry has realised that this reform will have a huge impact on film financing in the UK.

In yesterday’s Evening Standard, it is reported that the remake of St Trinian’s lost £2 million in investment overnight.  The film’s producer, who last week attended a film summit at DCMS designed to show how good the Government is, described the reform as “a massive kick in the nuts” (excuse his French).  He goes on “Suddenly, our budget was 30 per cent down two weeks from shooting…I think the Government believes in film, but they’ve chanegd the laws three times in four years.  You try to run a business where they change the rules as frequently and arbitrarily.  They’ve got a right to root out abuses but to come in like thieves in the night makes it impossible”.

A leading film investor has written to the Chancellor and to George Osborne to say that the announcement will have a “serious and negative impact on the UK film industry…all future UK investment in the film industry is now at risk”.

This problem is a useful metaphor for this Government.  Yes it may believe in something but No, it is too incompetent to put a proper policy in place.  And ultimately, whose fault is it?  Gordon Brown.

I put up  my post on the latest Government mess-up on British films at 3.47pm today. At 4pm, the Government announced a u-turn, and it is now exempting films from the new rules.  Actually, I think it had something to do with the excellent lobbying by Fiona Clarke-Hackston, the formidable director of the British Screen Advisory Council, as well as other senior figures in the industry.  If it wasn’t so serious, it could be funny, and worthy of the best Ealing comedy.  But it shows yet again how little this Government pays attention to the detail.  Although a problem has been averted, it did cause real concern in the industry for a few days, and has certainly tarnished the investment climate for British films.

Yesterday I posted on Blair’s speech on the arts.  It was full of stuff about how fantastic the creative industries are and their contribution to the economy.  Sadly, just before Blair made his speech, the Chancellor pushed through complex tax changes to partnerships which will have a very negative impact on films and other creative industries.

If you think I’m exaggerating, read an interview with Patrick McKenna in today’s Evening Standard.  McKenna runs Ingenious Media, one of the country’s most successful media companies:

“”It’s the biggest change in fiscal policy I’ve ever witnessed”… The overall loser [McKenna] says will be Britain, which will see fewer films being made.”It’s bound to affect the riskier businesses - but the creative industries are always represented as one of the top priorities of this Government.  I just don’t get it.”  The day we meet we meet he was due at an event celebrating 10 years of creativity under Tony Blair [Blair’s arts speech].  He shakes his head.  You can’t make it up.  “Creative industries are growing at the ratio of 6.6 per annum against GDP of 2.2%…It’s one of the few areas of distinctiveness the UK has and they go and do this.”"

Tony Blair gave a speech today on the arts.  It was appalling.  First, his usual graceless approach means that, if you read the speech, everything good happened after 1997.  Not a single mention is made of the impact of the Lottery, despite it being delivered at Tate Modern (Lottery money) and despite almost every reference to every new arts institution being one to a Lottery funded build.  Perhaps this is because Blair has taken £1.2 billion out of the Lottery that was meant for the arts.

Secondly, the speech reads like one prepared from briefing.  There is not feel for the arts, no passion, just a series of staccato references and passages.  At one point, the real Blair refers to “art, more than any programmes of Government”.  Enough said.

Thirdly, it is disappointing in its vision.  All Blair can say about the future is that the cuts won’t be as bad as people think, and there’s the Cultural Olympiad to look forward to.  Well, all the money for that will pay for the opening and closing displays and nothing more.

Appalling, appalling, appalling. 

As I write this, the news has come in that a Royal Marine has been killed in Helmand province in Afghanistan, at the start of a NATO offensive operation.  The bulletins give the news just one line, but tonight for me it is particularly resonant, as I have just returned from a week end with the Royal Marines in Afghanistan.

I almost certainly did not meet the young man who has been killed, but I certainly did meet his colleagues.  It is difficult to say anything that is not a platitude, but you can rest assured that the Royal Marines represent some of the finest soldiers to be found anywhere in the world, doing a very difficult job with professionalism and enthusiasm.

Forty-eight hours is not much time, but I learned a huge amount.  First, the people I met, in Khandahar, Camp Bastion and Lashnah Gah, believe that they have made significant headway in the last few months.  One special forces officer I met was incredibly enthusiastic about what has been achieved.  However, almost every one was unanimous that one policy could undo all that good work - poppy eradication.  As one senior officer said, “If you want to turn Afghanistan into Iraq, that is the policy that will do it”.   They are not against the policy in principle, just not now.  Afghanistan is a counter-insurgency operation, and it will be won with hearts and minds.  It will be lost if we set about systematically trying to destroy the one source of cash for the indigineous population.  In any event, even with our best efforts, we will destroy less than ten per cent of the crop.

The other issue that comes out in a week end like this is equipment.  It is a mixed picture, extremely difficult to form an objective view on.  Every single complaint I heard was contradicted later on.  That wasn’t a soldier being contradicted by an officer, either.  It was soldiers contradicting each other.  Every fighting man has a view on what works best, so it’s not a surprise that there are a huge range of opinions.  There is also some good stuff out there.  The Apache has proved highly effective, for example.  What is clear and what is a scandal, is the lack of defensive equipment available to the Hercules, particularly the foam protecting the petrol tanks, which the Americans fit as standard and which we don’t have on planes we bought just a few years ago.  That is something that could and should be remedied, along with the need for more air capacity to move troops around.

It was a huge privilege to spend time with the Royal MArines, as well as the Estonians and the Dutch, who are out there with us, fighting with the Americans.  Afghanistan need not be the quagmire it was for the Russians, and for the British in earlier times.  This fight is being waged with shrewd intelligence and realistic aims and there is every chance of a good outcome.

I had a musical afternoon in Birmingham, thanks to my friend Charles Barwell, who arranged for me to visit the Elmhurst School for Dance and then the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.  Elmhurst is the only purpose built ballet school in the country, and it’s remarkable.  It moved, after eighty years, from Camberley to Birmingham to link up with the Birmingham Royal Ballet.  It was great fun, the children and teenagers are remarkable, completely focused, disciplined and dedicated.  An organisation to be proud of.

The CBSO is doing well also.  Run by Stephen Maddock, who is, annoyingly, a year younger than me, and even more annoyingly has been doing this very important job since he was 30, the CBSO does a huge amount of local education work (NOT “outreach” which is a word that must and should be banned), as well as, of course, first class music.   We had supper with Elspeth Dutch, at 26 one of the best horn players in the country and a visitng professor at the Conservatoire, and the double bass player Julian Atkinson.  Musicians are horribly badly paid in this country, about half of what their counterparts in Germany and the USA get.  It was all finished off with a concert including Elgar’s Cello Concerto, with the soloist Alisa Weilerstein (she’s only 24!), which, by coincidence, had been in the opening night repertoire of the CBSO in 1920.

I spent yesterday morning in Walsall (recently turned blue) in the company of Councillor Eddie Hughes, one of the stars of the Conservative Party in my opinion.  We visited the Forest Arts Centre and the New Art Gallery.  The Forest Arts Centre continued my education about the role these important institutions play.  Compared to the Roundhouse and Stratford Circus, it is the poor relation - it is housed in an old school, it’s quite rough and ready (no gleaming glass atrium) but it has excellent facilities and is widely used.  When I was there, there were kids singing and playing.  It is also nationally respected for its pioneering work on special needs and it has one of only three only Indonesian something or others - an amazing musical instrument - in use in the country.  As usual, as well, it’s there pretty much because of the vision of one man, Mike Parrott, a completely inspiring person to meet, and pretty much evangelical about the Centre.  All of this is done on a shoe string, no Lottery money, no Arts Council money, no business support, and they can’t even formally open until they get the electricity upgraded.  But despite all the obstacles, making a massive contribution to the economy.

The New Art gallery is at the other end of the spectrum - a gleaming new build, by the Anglo-Canadian duo Caruso and St John it is helping to regenerate Walsall’s town centre.  It houses the exquisite Garman Ryan collection, painitings and sculptures given to Walsall by Kathleen Garman and Sally Ryan.  Garman was Jacob Epstein’s lover and their daughter married Lucian Freud, her elder sister had an affair with Vita Sackville-West, her brother had an affair with Peggy Guggenheim, her neice married Laurie Lee - all this from a local GP’s family!  The Gallery also has very good contemporary exhibitions (Paula Rego and others on at the moment), and Jo Digger, the excellent and long-standing keeper, updates the Garman Ryan collection with appropriate contemporary pieces.

There are some comic elements.  The Gallery looks over the canal, specially extended to create a beautiful vista.  Unfortunately, someone parked their new BMW in it last week.  But the best bit is the lifts.  The automatic lift announcer (”Ground Floor - Reception”) is in fact Noddy Holder, who comes from Walsall and was asked - and agreed - to record the lift announcements, which he did perfectly straight.  Not a lot of people know that, even in Walsall.