Gordon Brown Makes Pledge On Global Health INEQUALITIES, After CUTTING English Health Finance (But NOT Scottish And Welsh)

Hypocrite extraordinaire - Gordon Brown slashed the English NHS budget, but left the Scots and Welsh services untouched. Now he utters pious words about "global health inequalities".
What about England?
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Today's post links to the same Financial Times article as yesterday's.

It's necessary. Having ensured that Scots and Welsh lives are valued more highly than English lives, Gordon Brown has the unmitigated gall to make a statement on global health inequalities:

The Prime Minister said there could "no worse time" to put ambitions on hold for dealing with health inequalities and helping the poor.

Speaking at a central London conference organised by Health Secretary Alan Johnson, Mr Brown said some people would argue that the current period of global financial turbulence should mean ambitious plans are postponed.

"I believe there can be no worse time than this to turn back," he said.

"We will now successfully address the global problems we face only if we work together for global solutions."

He said that "president-elect Barack Obama is determined to play his part in addressing health inequalities around the world".

Mr Brown told delegates they were united in their belief that every child, man and woman, no matter what their birth or background, "should have the best chance of a healthy life".

But many countries lack the determination to address the world's problems on health, he said.

And this from a man who has created a system of health apartheid in the UK - where every man, woman and child in England is a second class citizen:

Gordon Brown quietly slashed by a third this year’s hospital building and equipment budget in one of his last acts as chancellor.

Prompted by the tightness of the public finances, the new prime minister, who has placed the NHS as his “immediate priority”, cut the capital budget of the English NHS for 2007-08 from £6.2bn to £4.2bn. The move could delay the government’s hospital building and reconfiguration programme in England.

However, Mr Brown avoided equivalent cuts to the Scottish and Welsh NHS budgets even though the funding formula for the UK nations suggests they should have shared the pain. That decision leaves him open to criticism that he favoured patients in his home country.

Does Gordon Brown think we have forgotten? Does he think that those of us in England who are struggling to pay prescriptions free to millionaires in Wales have forgotten? Does he think those of us dying in England for want of life prolonging medications available on the NHS in Scotland have forgotten?

Think again, Gordon Brown.