Gordon Brown: what a ... words fail

The man is unbelievable. Which politician (or party) would invoke political history of 60 years ago to attempt to build political support today? Gordoom, that's who, in a letter to his supporters thanking them for their protective twittering over the future of the NHS.

"I have been profoundly moved by the enormous groundswell of support for the NHS in the last few days. A genuinely National Health Service – introduced by a Labour government in the teeth of opposition from the Conservatives and the medical establishment – is one of our nation’s finest achievements."

No political historian, me, but I do know that the NHS was based on the report commissioned by Winston Churchill produced by Sir William Beveridge. I also know that Churchill was one of the great social reformers and no opponent of the inception of the NHS. Furthermore, I know that Labour were elected with a landslide in 1945, so there is no possible way that the NHS could have been introduced in the "teeth of opposition from the Conservatives" as they had very few teeth remaining at that point.

Therefore Gordon is acting over the past as he acts concerning the present. Mendaciously.